Cause For Scandal (Dynasties: The Elliotts #3)(10)
Author: Anna DePalo

It hadn’t seemed like much of a hardship to wait. She’d known that if she kept to her five-year plan, she would be married by twenty-six. And, she’d reasoned, if pop star Jessica Simpson could resist the delectable Nick Lachey until their wedding night, she could certainly resist John.

Then, last night, she’d fallen into bed with Zeke after knowing him mere hours. Even more damning, she hadn’t thought about John. Not once. Not until this morning.

She was whatever they called the female version of a cad. A fiend. Slime. She was only surprised that she hadn’t grown scales and recoiled with horror when she’d faced the mirror this morning.

She sighed.

Whenever something had bothered her in the past, she’d always turned to Scarlet. This morning, she’d snuck back into the townhouse when it was still dark and had slept in, mumbling, when Scarlet had checked on her before leaving for work, that she wasn’t feeling well.

She’d intended to keep last night to herself, to bring it to her grave, if possible, or at least to avoid disclosing the facts as long as possible. But since her brain waves were on automatic pilot straight to Zeke, she figured she couldn’t hold out against a teary confession to Scarlet much longer.

She got up. In fact, another two minutes was about as long as she could hold out.

When she got to the Charisma offices on the floor below, she walked toward Scarlet’s cubicle until she heard her sister’s voice coming from a nearby meeting room.

Bad timing, she thought. Scarlet was obviously in the middle of a conversation with someone else.

When she reached the open doorway to the meeting room, she saw her sister standing behind a conference table laden with photos and magazine clippings.

Scarlet’s eyes widened as they connected with hers. Her sister made a quick, seemingly surreptitious, shooing motion with one hand.

Before she could digest the meaning, however, she took a step forward, and the man standing in front of the conference table turned around.

Her eyes collided with the impossibly blue, impossibly angry gaze of Zeke Woodlow.

Four

Z eke stared at the woman in the doorway. His eyes told him what his gut had already figured out: The woman behind the conference table was not the woman with whom he’d had a torrid night of mind-blowing sex. The woman in front of him was.

It all made sense now. Identical twins. Of course.

When he’d stepped into the conference room minutes before, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he’d tracked down the wrong person, despite her resemblance to the woman of last night. He just hadn’t experienced that same kick-in-the-gut feeling of awareness…of being attuned to her.

But just what kind of game had these two been playing with him? The small part of his mind not given over to simmering anger took note of the fact that the woman he’d spent the night with was dressed much more like he’d imagined her. He hadn’t been wrong last night when he’d thought that her clothes didn’t suit her. She really was all cashmere and pearls.

His gaze raked her from head to foot before his eyes narrowed on the diamond ring on her finger.

Hell. She was engaged? What other surprises did she have in store for him?

Because she continued to stare at him, frozen in place, he glanced back at the woman behind the table, who’d done a good job of holding him off and attempting to cover for her sister. “Scarlet Elliott, right?” he sneered, before swinging back to the woman whom he’d last seen sprawled na**d across his sheets. “And you’re her identical twin…?”

“Summer,” she supplied in a barely audible tone.

“Well, Summer,” he said with false pleasantness, “there’s no need to look horrified. I have to ask, though, how often have you and Scarlet played this identity-switching game? I’m finding it hard to believe I’m your first victim.”

“How did you find me?” she blurted.

“Now, that’s a good question, isn’t it?” he asked in the same pleasant tone. He held out a copy of the New York Post, folded and turned to Page Six. “Let’s just say I got some unexpected help.”

She took the newspaper from him and scanned it, her eyes widening.

“Yeah. Exactly.” He glanced at Scarlet, then back at Summer. “Your sister tried to cover for you, but she’s not that good an actress.”

Scarlet bristled. “Look, Zeke, insult me all you want, but I resent having you take cheap shots at my sister. You may think, just because you’re the current it-boy of the music world, that you can come in here and start flinging accusations, but I can have you thrown out so fast it’ll make that rock-star hair of yours look more than artfully disheveled.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Well, well, a debutante who doesn’t bother with the kid-glove treatment. I guess that was your spandex-and-cleavage outfit that Summer was wearing last night?”

Summer took a step forward. “Stop it, both of you.” She turned to him. “We need to talk.”

“Yeah, we’re in agreement on that at least. You owe me some answers.”

“Not here, though,” she said quickly. “There’s another conference room upstairs, near my desk, that’s rarely used. We can talk there privately.”

As he turned to follow Summer out of the office, Scarlet threw him a warning look that blared: Watch it. I can still have you thrown out of here on your ear.

He gave her a parting grin that was full of insouciance.

As he followed Summer down the brightly patterned hall to the elevator bank, he noted that, if anything, she looked even sexier this morning than she had last night.

She was dressed in kitten heels, pearls and a twin sweater set. The retro look was demure, yet alluring. While last night’s outfit had been like a green flag at a professional car race, this was more stop than go, and sexier as a result.

Realizing the direction that his mind was heading in, he put the brakes on his thoughts. Annoyed, he reflected that, while he had every reason to be mad as hell at her, he was still attracted to her.

When they got to the floor above, he noticed the decorating scheme changed from turquoise blue and edgy to red with lots of glass and chrome. He figured they were in the offices of another magazine in the EPH publishing empire.

As if reading his mind, she turned and said over her shoulder, “This floor houses The Buzz.”

“Let me guess,” he said dryly. “You work for The Buzz.” He reined in his temper once again at the thought that he’d been taken in by some reporter’s scheme to get access. Marty would have a fit.