Page 4 of The Price of Scandal

“You look lovely,” I said, taking in her glowing cheeks and freshly styled hair.

We were both blonde. Both tall. But my mother made it her life’s work to cling to every shred of youth or, as she saw it, value. In some ways, I imagined my mother had subliminally planted the idea for Flawless in me at a young age. It certainly hadn’t been my childhood dream to develop a wrinkle reducer—at five, I’d spent an entire weekend trying to develop robot bandages. Yet here I was, the queen of high-end skincare. Wrinkle reducers had led to wrinkle prevention products, skin tone correctors, and moisturizers.

Women now had an entire line of weaponry in their fight against the aging process, most likely thanks to my mother’s early influence.

I never put quite as much effort into my appearance as Mom would have liked, and she never put quite as much effort into pretending to be interested in my work as I would have liked. It was the perfect balance of vague disappointments.

Mom patted her hair in satisfaction. “Oh, I’m just my usual mess. The salon had their work cut out for them this morning,” she said breezily.

Venice “We Have a Responsibility” Markham-Stanton had never been a mess in her life.

“I’ve been thinking about doing something different with my hair,” I mused, skimming the menu and regretting it instantly.

“Emily! Don’t youdaredo something vulgar like cutting it all off. Or, God forbid, getting those trashy extensions like that Daisy friend of yours. She looks like an exotic dancer.”

Daisy, the compulsive rebel, would appreciate my mother’s horror.

We ordered our usual. Kale salads with broiled chicken breasts. Had I been here with friends, I’d have gone for the fish or perhaps even a small filet. But this way, I didn’t have to endure Mom’s pointed comments about diet and waist size. We Stanton women had to maintain our appearances.

That tenet did not extend to the male members of the family. My father’s waist had been expanding steadily in recent years into a comfortable, rotund gut. And my brother’s playboy tan was reaching George Hamilton shades. But male Stanton value was calculated by bank balances, not waist size or skin tone.

It was easy to forget that my mother had grown up without money. She wore wealth so well. Her father, my grandfather, had abandoned his wife and two children to marry a tire heiress. When they’d died in a car accident, my twenty-two-year-old mother had inherited a respectable fortune and invested it in remaking herself. By twenty-four she’d straightened her teeth, lost the flat Midwestern accent, and caught the eye of a wealthy Chicago entrepreneur. She’d lived up to her end of the prenup and pocketed nearly two million dollars when they divorced civilly five years later. She married my father six days after her divorce was final.

“Tell me all about your life,” she insisted, pretty blue eyes sparkling as if we were girlfriends.

Knowing full well she meant who was I seeing and when would I be marrying them over a tasteful ten-karat diamond ring, I answered passive-aggressively. “Work is ramping up. We have a new product line launching in the third quarter, and the predictions for the IPO are robust. It’s shaping up to be a banner year.”

“Ugh,” she said with an elegant eye roll. “I mean, who are you seeing? I haven’t heard a thing about you in the gossip columns in weeks.”

It didn’t matter to my mother that I had more money than the entire rest of the family combined. In her eyes, a woman wasn’t secure until she’d scrawled her signature on a favorable prenup.

I glanced around the restaurant, sedate by Miami standards. White linens and potted palms. Forty-dollar hamburgers. This could have been any over-priced bistro in New York or Chicago, which was probably why my mother liked it.

There were a few subtle glances in our direction. I wasn’t famous by Hollywood standards—thank God. But I was one of the city’s resident female billionaires. It came with an elevated level of attention.

“You could text me instead of stalking me through the columns,” I reminded her.

“I need to stay on top of the family’s image.”

“Speaking of image, how is Trey?” I asked, pushing another one of my mother’s buttons.

“Oh! Your brother won’t be satisfied until he’s ruined this family,” Mom scoffed dramatically. To underline her point, she waved the waiter over and ordered her second vodka tonic. Always two and only two. Enough to take the edge off but not quite enough to get sloppy.

Stantons didn’t tolerate sloppiness.

Unless it was generated by my brother.

“Did you see his last post on Instagram?” she said, lowering her voice as if divulging state secrets.

“I did not,” I said, spearing a piece of flavorless chicken.Twenty more minutes and I could head back to the office. I still might have time to check in with Esther at the lab.

“Sixtopless women,” she hissed.

Byron Stanton III, or Trey as he was known by his fifteen million Instagram followers, was a charming, shiftless, trust fund baby content to do nothing but soak up the sun on yachts and party his life away. He’d spent his trust fund distributions twice now and was living on my parents’ generosity… and occasionally mine.

I loved him. I did. In the way that all sisters loved brothers they didn’t understand.

I pinched the bridge of my nose.