Page 73 of The Price of Scandal

I jumped in the shower and did the fastest wash of hair and body in human history.

Toweling off, I realized I still didn’t know what I was wearing.

Back to the kitchen I went. “Dress?” I asked expectantly.

Derek had joined the girls for snacks and what looked like a nice white wine. “In the garment bag on your bed,” he said.

I snatched his glass of wine from his hand, cursed his perfectly tailored tux, and hauled ass back to my bedroom.

I shimmied into the dress, forgetting both bra and underwear. Neither would be good for the lines of the dress anyway. It wasn’t one that I’d had in my closet. I would have recognized it. This was a sleek, black, off-the-shoulder gown that clung very nicely to my breasts.

“You decent, boss?” Jane called.

I had wet hair, a bare face, and an unzipped dress. “Enough.”

She appeared in the bathroom doorway. “Bad news. Hair can’t make it. They got stuck in traffic downtown and got rear-ended by—get this—a $250,000 Bentley.”

“Shit.” My hair hung, damp and limp in my face. My mother was going to murder me. “Okay, it’s fine. I’ll just do some kind of bun thing,” I decided.

Maybe a chignon or a simple knot.

“Find me some big jewelry that will take attention away from my hair,” I instructed her, turning my hair dryer on full blast.

“Derek’s already on it,” she yelled over the sound.

I rolled my eyes. I was beginning to think the man had a fetish about pawing through my closet.

Derek poked his head into the bathroom, holding up sapphire drop earrings to his own lobes. “Yes?”

“You’re ridiculous. Yes.”

My phone buzzed. It was a text from my mother.

Mom: We’re leaving now. You’d better be on your way!

“Agh!”

He grinned and stepped inside. He dropped the earrings on the vanity and zipped my dress. “You know I’m not going to think about anything but you being commando under that dress all night,” he teased.

“Derek, unless you’re a secret hairstylist, I need you to get the hell out of my bathroom right now,” I screeched over the hum of the hairdryer.

“It would seem that once again, I’m exactly what you need.” He plucked the dryer out of my hand and grabbed a brush from the drawer.

“Chair me, Jane,” he called.

Jane appeared a moment later with one of the turquoise ottomans from my bedroom, a slab of cheese hanging out of her mouth.

“Cheese and cracker the boss, Jane,” Derek said, pushing me down on the stool and going to work on my hair.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered as he deftly dried and volumized and smoothed.

“Product?” he asked, switching the dryer off.

I pointed to the slim closet next to the sink. While he rummaged, I put on the earrings.

“Lovely,” he announced.

Jane returned with a plate of cheese and crackers and a tall glass of water.