Perfectly Inappropriate

Noah’s voice was smooth. “Olivia has asked you nicely to leave.”

“Both of you, stop it,” Olivia interjected quickly. “Cameron, go home. Noah, go inside.”

Again, they both ignored her.

“I know all about you,” Cameron sneered, puffing out his chest. “You don’t deserve her.”

Noah scoffed, his posture relaxed but hinting at coiled rage. “And you think you do?”

Cameron’s face burned a deep shade of red, and the venom in his voice when he turned to Olivia took her breath away. “Haven’t you seen his track record with women? Is that what you want for yourself? You’ll forever be known as the latest whore he threw away.”

Olivia wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. All she knew was Noah’s fingers wrapping around her arm and pushing her behind him; then she blinked in horror at the men brawling in front of her.

This was bad. Oh, so bad.

Then again, there was something far worse. That was the woman standing across the street, taping the fight on her cellphone.

* * *

—

In the en suite bathroom, Noah leaned closer to the sink and touched his right eye, feeling the tenderness there. A small cut on his lip and another directly under that eye was the only visual evidence that Cameron had gotten a good couple of shots in. Without a doubt, he would have a black eye tomorrow. Regardless, Noah took some satisfaction in knowing Cameron’s face looked worse. He quickly pulled off his ripped T-shirt with the dribbles of blood on it that did not belong to him and tossed it into the garbage. After which, he entered his bedroom and took another one out of the dresser drawer.

When he moved toward the door, he heard the flurry of people who had descended on his penthouse the second the video had been uploaded to YouTube and the media got ahold of it. He sighed as he reached the living room. His television screen was tuned to the news, and four people were on the telephone doing damage control. But his dismay was not directed at his team handling this mess. He worried for Olivia who stood at the window staring out at the city below with her arms crossed.

“How bad is it looking?” his assistant asked as he held the phone to his ear.

Noah strode by Alice, his communications director, as she said into the phone, “No, Senator Grant will not be making a statement at this time.” She gave him a look full of pity that told him the press had been all over this in a matter of an hour. In three hours, this story would explode.

Noah was not well acquainted personally with the other two people in his living room, but he knew they were from an agency that was known for its “fixers” who excelled at handling scandals and such. Oddly, in all this, he found himself less concerned about himself and more concerned about Olivia. A very new concept

for him.

Fraught with tension, he stepped in next to her and shoved his hands into his pockets, staring down at the bustling city. When she didn’t speak, he offered, “This is a pretty big dose of reality.”

“Just a little,” she said softly.

He glanced at her then. Her mouth was pinched tight. Her spine bowed. “We need to talk.” He placed his hand on her lower back, guiding her to the bedroom. She easily went, obviously wanting to be far away from the others. Once inside the bedroom, he shut the door and moved closer. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She cringed. “I hate that my life caused this to happen.”

“No, Olivia,” he told her adamantly. “Cameron caused this to happen. None of this had anything to do with you.”

She gave him a blank look. “I brought Cameron into your life.”

His gut churned at her wet eyes. “We’ll get this handled, Olivia. Yes, I’ll need to make a statement at some point. But the people out in the living room are paid to ensure this goes away neatly.”

“And that’s what you want, right, to make everything neatly go away?” She inhaled a deep breath then stepped away from him, coldness sneaking into the air between them. “I know you want to avoid the question. And have been doing that every time it comes up, but what happens after this goes away neatly? Do I go away neatly?”

“That is not what I want.” He ached to close the distance but felt rooted to the spot. “We continue doing what we’ve been doing.”

“I’m not sure we can,” she told him softly, the distance between them feeling icy cold now. “We’ve been living in this fantasy space where everything is amazing and perfect. But then I keep coming back to that same thought. Is it real?”

His jaw clenched. “I told you before, I’m real. This is real.”

She studied him for a moment then slowly shook her head. “But ask yourself, Noah: Could we honestly work in the real world?”

His mouth parted to say yes, but he knew the challenges. Those obstacles were why he had not made a promise he knew he could not keep. “Olivia, my team will handle this. They’ll get it buried and we’ll move on.”