The Price of Scandal (Bluewater Billionaires)

by Lucy Score

abhor anyone who can’t be bothered to be real. If you’re an asshole, be brave enough to be an asshole.”

“Do you still steal?” A smile flickered across his face. “Only when absolutely necessary,” he said, slipping a hand into his suit jacket. Oh, God. “Is that my father’s…” “Wallet. Yes. It seems he left it behind. Pity.”

“Why did you carry my purse this morning?” I glanced down at her as she slid her sunglasses on. “In addition to being perfectly secure in my manhood—should you need an emergency tampon run, I’m your man—I was making sure the world knows who’s the boss.”

Jane smirked in the driver seat and then tapped the

brakes hard when an elderly man with a walker sauntered into the street from between two parked cars. “You don’t have much time left! Stay on the sidewalk,” Jane yelled through the open window.

The woman was a manipulative liar, and I was already half in love with her.

When you are vulnerable and authentic, people automatically gravitate toward you. They are reprogrammed to like you because you aren’t wearing a mask.

You aren’t hiding from them. You’re brave enough to be real in a world full of people too terrified to be themselves.”

“You, Emily Stanton, are one-of-a-kind. It would be a damn shame if you waste one more second of pretending to be something you’re not to make someone else more comfortable. Be yourself in all situations. Wear your red lipstick into the lab. Address your board in kickboxing gear. Take a day off. Cut your damn hair when you feel like it. You’re in charge. And you’re going to win.”

It wasn’t flowers or a love note but diarrheal medicine that made my heart do a slow, inevitable flip-flop in my chest.

“You can buy yourself all the baby-fist-sized diamond pendants in the world, love. I’m wooing you by showing I have your every need covered,”

Rock bottom was nothing but a foundation. And I would rebuild. But this time, it would be the life that I wanted.