Page 24 of The Price of Scandal

I rolled my eyes.Since when did legit mean a naked meet and greet after breaking and entering?

My board had saddled me with a criminal to keep me from being labeled as one.

I shot a glance at Derek and his “heavenly” profile. Damn it. Okay. I could admit that he was attractive. Handsome even. He had those slight hollows under his cheekbones that made him look pensive and angular. His jaw was sharp and lightly shadowed in stubble like he was too careless to worry about shaving regularly. Behind his sunglasses I knew were heavily lashed eyes bluer than Biscayne Bay. The scar under his eye was acceptable. The dimple… not revolting.

He wore a tailored suit sans tie, and his skin had the dusky bronze hue of a year-round Miami resident. Fine. He wasn’t hideous. But that didn’t mean he was good at his job. Or that I required his services.

Daisy: Tell him I said hi.

She added a winky kissy face.

I would do no such thing. I wasn’t going to let this Derek Price any further into my life than he’d already bulldozed his way in.

We hit the causeway, leaving my palm-treed haven behind us. Immediately, a rusty minivan cut across three lanes of traffic and slammed on its brakes in front of us. I braced my hand on the dash and squeaked out a warning.

Jane usually responded by shoving her middle finger salute through the open sunroof. But Derek was cooler. He merely cut the wheel to the left and accelerated around the—was that child even old enough to be driving?

“Everyone behind the wheel in Miami is an animal,” he observed cheerfully.

As if jumping to prove his point, a pickup truck that hadn’t passed inspection in at least a decade bounced off the concrete divider and continued to skim it for a hundred yards before jerking back over into traffic.

“We should have taken the helicopter,” Jane said.

“If we took the helicopter, we wouldn’t be able to go through a drive-thru,” Derek said.

She perked up in the back seat. “Carbs ’n Coffee?”

It was a local doughnut chain with speedy drive-thrus and pastries with specialty flavors like Coconut Chia and Chocolate Lemon Drop. My stomach growled on command. When was the last time I’d had a donut? Mom had made that snide comment about “expanding bottom lines” on Christmas Eve. I hadn’t had a simple carbohydrate since.

It was sad that giving up sugar was easier than defying my own mother.

I said nothing as Derek neatly squeezed between a Lamborghini and a station wagon and took the exit into downtown Miami.

“Bless you,” Jane breathed as he pulled into Carbs ’n Coffee and lowered his window.

“What’ll it be, ladies?” he said with a dazzling grin.

Iwasdazzled. But only because I was hungry.

Jane rattled off a tooth-rotting order, which Derek relayed to the crackling speaker.

When had I last been through a drive-thru?I had a chef three days a week at home, and healthy deliveries filled in the gaps.

“I’ll have the spinach egg white wrap,” I said, even as my stomach begged for something sweeter. I was in the midst of the worst scandal of my life. I didn’t deserve delicious. “And coffee, black.”

“We’ll also have two black coffees, two cinnamon sugar vanilla donuts, and—” He shot me a look that reeked of disappointment. “A spinach egg white wrap.”

We pulled forward, and the drive-thru attendant pushed a tray of coffees and white baker bags at Derek. The scent. That glorious warm, yeasty, sugar scent filled me with a sharp pang of regret.

I needed to get a hold of myself when a bag of donuts made me start regretting my life choices.

Derek doled out the coffees and tossed Jane her bag.

“Here,” he said.

He had a donut wrapped neatly in a napkin.

“No, I ordered the wrap,” I insisted.Was he hard of hearing?