Read Scandal (Tainted #1) for Free Online Page A

worked, but not in the way she hoped.
    Her skin flushed and her hands itched to trace the muscles beneath his light blue polo.
    Collins turned at the door and winked at her, lighting up a libido she’d long thought extinct. ‘I’ll be in touch, Blondie.’
    What had she done?
    Alicia closed the door to her flat a little after seven. She was exhausted, right down to her bones. Not to mention shell-shocked. Her worst nightmares couldn’t even compare to what had happened today. All because she’d been determined to score the almighty Sebastian Collins as a client.
    She laughed once, but it wasn’t because she found this situation funny. Quite the opposite.
    As she trailed through her home, leaving the lights off to ease the buzzing in her head, her phone beeped, reminding her she had close to twenty missed calls from her father. She couldn’t bear to face the lecture she’d get. His middle child, the disappointing one, trailing his precious family name through the mud.
    Again.
    She threw her handbag down on the coffee table and headed straight for the wine rack.
    This was like the incident in high school, but made public. And if she wanted to keep her job, it would be even more public than the first soul-crushing ‘spectacle’. No, she couldn’t face anything right now except a huge glass of red.
    After the first went down too quickly, Alicia poured herself another. She felt a bit braver, even pulled out her phone to see there were three voicemail messages. No texts, but her father didn’t have a mobile. He preferred to call from his country manor, like some Lord of the Realm. Not a man who’d inherited a fortune and a title from his ancestors.
    Ancestors who had brought him up to be the cold aristocrat he was today.
    Her phone started ringing. A number she didn’t recognise flashed across the screen. Alicia prayed it was Daria or Sylvia so she could have them test out their father’s mood before she returned his calls. But they’d call from their phones, and both were at opposite ends of the world at the moment.
    Stop being a wimp.
    Taking a deep breath, she answered.
    ‘Evening, Blondie. Do you miss me yet?’
    Her hand tightened on her phone until the plastic creaked.
    ‘Haven’t you annoyed me enough for one day?’ she asked.
    His laugh shuddered through the speaker, but she was too mad to let the rough sound affect her. There was no reason for Collins kissing her yesterday, and she had no defence for not stopping it. Well, she’d learned her lesson. Really bad things come from being associated with him. With her job on the line, she didn’t have much choice other than to go along with his plan. But that didn’t mean privately.
    ‘I thought you’d be nicer after I saved you from a spanking.’
    Her face flamed and the tingles drove through her, shooting straight to between her thighs. Gulping down half the glass didn’t help, but it gave her time to remember who she was. Or more importantly, the kind of person she refused to be again. ‘What do you want, Collins?’
    ‘Straight to business. Do you ever take ten minutes for fun?’
    She could hear the mocking in his tone, could imagine the slow smirk and twinkle in his eyes that said he was laughing at her. Irritation fizzled under her skin, raising her temperature again but for a better reason. A reason she could accept.
    Then again, she had to hope he did a one-eighty fast, and that the press bought into his turnaround. Otherwise she was stuck in Hades on earth with a man who was going to be the end of her.
    ‘Mixing business and pleasure is a bad idea.’ Even she cringed at her haughty tone – it was too much like her mother’s. Picking up her glass, she drained it. The wine curled around her stomach, sending a warm glow throughout her body.
    Collins laughed again and her skin broke out in goosebumps. She refilled the glass.
    ‘Maybe you’re right, but business is always more fun when you mix it up a little.’
    Was he flirting with her?