Scandal Exposed (The Lust List: Kaidan Stone #4) (8 page)

There’s already a group of people here, including Kaidan’s father and Serena.

I freeze up as I see her diamond necklace, nestled between two silicon breasts. Where it belongs.

Kaidan squeezes my hand to snap me out of it, and then I’m back in the game.

Calvin greets us both warmly, as if he doesn’t hate me and think I’m a total fuck-up. Serena smiles and continues chattering with some of the other women.

“Hayley, Kaidan,” Calvin says, gesturing to a couple at his side. “This is a major investor in Stone Records. Asher Hale. And this is his girlfriend, Blair.”

He introduces some more of his business partners, but I’m looking at Asher and Blair.

Blair looks like a barely legal model, but Asher looks only a few years older than that. Like a trust fund baby. The fate of the company… their main investor… lies with a guy my own age. I see now why they held this event at the hottest club.

I smile and nod at everyone, and they launch into animated conversation.

I cast a glance around the venue, at the churn of bodies below me, seeking Peyton. I finally find her, way at the edge of the crowd, her date nowhere to be seen.

My skin prickles when I realize she’s pushing against a closed door. The Stone family guards are placed strategically around the room, but none of them are paying any attention to Peyton’s activity. She looks back and around like she’s guilty of something. Then she shoves against the door one more time, and it flies opens. She stumbles through to the other side, and the door swings shut behind her.

My intuition screams at me to follow her. Kaidan raises a brow as I make to leave, and I just smile and shake my almost empty glass at him.

“Another drink?” he asks lightly, laying a hand on my arm.

Everyone stops talking. They’re all looking at us.

I meet Kaidan’s gold-brown eyes, and I can’t resist. I want one more kiss. Just one. And he won’t stop me—not here in front of everyone.

I lean toward him and press my lips to his with no warning. I savor every second, savor his warmth. At first he doesn’t respond, and I’m afraid he won’t kiss back, but then he does. I run a hand along his chest, and heat flows through me at how right this feels.

He pulls away before I’m ready for it to end, and it
hurts
. I want more. It was a fairly chaste kiss, not a make-out session, but the way it felt… A little flicker of hope comes to life within me at the look in his eyes now. He’s conflicted. Does he feel it, too?

I need to find Peyton. “I’ll be right back.” I wave at everyone, and then I’m off.

I leave my empty glass at the bar and walk as fast as I can to the spot where Peyton disappeared. That girl is trouble, and she’s out to destroy Kaidan. That much is clear. What could she be up to?

When I make it across the club and push open the door Peyton disappeared behind, I find myself in a concrete corridor. The service entrance.

In the middle of the corridor, Peyton MacKenzie is awkwardly balancing on a pile of stacked empty boxes. She’s holding a rolled up flyer to the ceiling, right next to a sprinkler… and something else.

I see the wisp of smoke first, then the flame, as the paper ignites.

“Peyton!” I yell her name, and when I do, her green eyes go big, and she teeters on her makeshift ladder.

She struggles to regain her balance, but she fails and tumbles to the ground. It all happens in slow motion. The paper she’s holding bends backward and touches the flowy sleeves she’s wearing.

They ignite.

Peyton screams, trying to put it out, and I snap into action. There’s a fire extinguisher a few yards down the hall. I race for it and pull it down. Her sleeve is still on fire as I turn the extinguisher on her arm and shoot a stream of foam at her. It coats her arm, her hair, and her entire dress, leaving a filmy residue all over her and her charred sleeve.

We stare at each other, both of us in shock. I’m still aiming the extinguisher as if she might spontaneously ignite again. “Your arm.”

“It’s fine.” Her voice slurs, badly, as she gets to her feet. “Get that thing away from me!”

I lower the extinguisher to the floor. “You were trying to set off the sprinkler system.”

A nasty smile spreads on her face, but then she winces and glances at her very red arm. It really doesn’t look good. “So what?” she snaps. “You know, you both ruined my life.”

I take a step away from her. She’s super drunk, and maybe on some other drugs, too. Her eyes are bloodshot, and she’s wavering on her feet.

“Kaidan’s guards can get someone to look at that burn.”

“No!” She lunges for me with her good arm, and I sidestep her.

She slams into the wall behind me and sinks down on the floor.

“Peyton…”

She looks up at me. “What does he
see
in you?” Her voice cracks. “You’re nobody. You have no talent. You tried to do
porn,
and
they
didn’t even want you. I worked my ass off to get to where I am. And now it’s gone. All gone. Because of you.”

I shake my head. “I’m not
nobody
, Peyton,” I say calmly. “And you know
nothing
about my life. Before you judge me and my life, maybe you should look at yourself.” I turn to go get the guards, but she lets out a loud cry.

I whirl back to face her. She’s holding her arm, and examining the burn. I can see now it’s actually mild, but it has to hurt.

“
Werewolf Chronicles
killed off my character,” she sobs. “And it’s all your fault. Yours and Kaidan’s.” Tears start to stream down her face.

I’m surprised but not shocked by this revelation. And try as I might, I can’t find any satisfaction in seeing her fall this low. Even though I know she took pleasure in seeing me at my lowest.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, and I try to mean it. “But we didn’t do this to you. You did this to yourself.”

Then I jog back out the door to grab the first Stone guard I see. I bring him into the corridor, and he calls in some more guards to help out.

Charles shows up next. “What happened?”

“She was…” I look at her, crumpled on the floor, mascara running down her cheeks. “She was trying to smoke in here and caught her sleeve on fire. I extinguished it.”

Charles raises his brows at me in disbelief, but I just shrug. “She’s drunk.”

He nods, and they help her up. They start to lead her back into the club, where everyone will see her like this, being escorted out the front door. And take pictures no doubt. She’ll be all over the tabloids.

Peyton MacKenzie Loses Everything, Including Her Dignity

She deserves it, doesn’t she? She humiliated me and got Kaidan arrested. But… I can’t do it to her. Because I know how it feels.

“Charles…” I say quickly. “Take her out the service door. And can one of you take her to the hospital to get that burn looked at?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Charles says.

Peyton looks at me, surprised, but then she hangs her head. She looks like she’s actually
ashamed
.

“Thank you,” she whispers to me as Charles leads her past.

I let out a breath as they exit through the service door, and then the door connected to the club opens, and Kaidan is there.

He looks at the fire extinguisher, the pile of boxes. “What happened? Charles called me.”

I lean against the wall, all my adrenaline gone. I feel like all I’ve been doing in my life lately is running around trying to put out fires. Literally, this time. “Peyton was trying to ruin the night. I stopped her and sent her away. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine now. You can go back to the event.”

Kaidan steps in front of me, and his eyes are filled with concern. He rubs a hand down my arm. “But are
you
okay?”

He
does
care. My eyes burn as I meet his. “Not really.”

I can see he knows I’m not talking about Peyton’s stunt anymore.

“You kissed me?” he asks it like a question, searching my face.

“I wanted to kiss you one last time.” My voice is small, and I sound so tired.

His eyes soften, and he leans close and presses his lips to mine again. But this time he leads the kiss. He teases his tongue along the seam of my lips, and once the shock wears off, I open my mouth to kiss him more deeply. Heat radiates from my lips to my core and settles there.

This kiss is tender, drawn out. My entire body is tingling when he pulls away slightly.

His eyes are dark, and he runs a soft hand along my cheek. “I was wrong. I can’t be without you.”

“I’m so sorry I lied to you, I—”

Kaidan presses a finger to my lips to stop me. “I forgive you. I lied too—I kept things from you. If we’d both been honest, we could have helped each other. Sending you into that warehouse with those drug dealers… that was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. I hate myself for letting you do it. I shouldn’t have.
I’m
the one who should be sorry. For being so hard-headed.”

My heart is thumping wildly in my chest as happiness floods me at his words. “It all worked out. It had to be me.”

He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure I deserve you, Hayley. I haven’t always treated you right.”

I twine my hands around his neck to make him look at me. “Can we leave the past in the past? Do you think we can try one more time… to start over?”

His eyes soften. “As long as we can trust each other this time.”

“I think we can now.”

He kisses me softly again in response, then takes my hand. “Then let’s get out of here.”

“But Stone Records… the P.R.…”

He gives me a smirk, and I see real happiness on his face. “You’re more important than all of that. I’m done putting work first.”

Joy surges through me as he pulls me down the hallway and out the service entrance. Peyton’s gone, and we’re alone as he makes a quick phone call. In a few minutes, a limo pulls up to take us away.

Kaidan talks to the driver and makes another call before he slides into the limo beside me. Then we snuggle. My head’s on his chest, listening to the solid thump of his heart. He runs his fingers along my palm and kisses the top of my head. This feels so right, so real. But it also feels like a dream. The happiness I’ve felt with him before has been so fleeting.

Now all the secrets are out. Could we really have a chance at this kind of love for real?

“Where are we going?” I finally ask.

“You’ll see.”

I enjoy the feeling of being close to him again, and we spend the rest of the ride like that.

When we stop and get out of the limo, I can smell the sea air and hear the lap of the waves against sand. We’re at a private dock lit all the way down with a string of electric lanterns. As Kaidan leads me down it, I take in the massive yacht, the only boat here.

“No one will bother us,” he says.

He leads me up the ramp to board the ship. I glimpse the letters emblazoned along the side of it—
The Paragon
.

The captain greets us as we pass by him, and then we’re inside. Kaidan takes me down a winding staircase to a lounge in the heart of the boat. It’s got plenty of comfortable seating and a piano in one corner, a bar at the other.

I’ve been on yachts before, but this feels different somehow. I can imagine myself spending a lot of time here… with Kaidan.

“What would you like to drink? Something fruity or rum on the rocks?”

I laugh. “Something fruity.”

He gets to work making me a pineapple and coconut rum alongside his usual. After he brings me the drink, he sets his own down on the table beside me.

“I have something for you.”

I perk up, curious, as he goes behind the bar again. He emerges with a wrapped package. I’m totally stumped as to what the large rectangle could be as I unwrap the simple, elegant paper.

It’s a sketchbook. And a polished wooden case. Kaidan’s given me an art set full of the highest quality pencils and inks.

My mouth drops. This has to be the most meaningful gift anyone’s ever given me. “Wow. Thank you. This… this is amazing.” I pull out some of the pencils, admiring them. “But… how? I told you about this the night…”

His satisfied expression fades as he sinks down beside me. He suddenly looks a little shy, even embarrassed. “After I read the will at the law office… I changed my mind. I decided none of it mattered. I wanted to try again. I’d planned to bring you here and tell you all of that, but then…”

“Serena’s diamond was missing,” I murmur.

He nods and places his hand on the back of my neck gently and rubs it. “But that’s in the past. I’m glad you like the gift. I went into this little art store on the beach, and the lady there
assured
me this was the best paper and the best set.”

“You went by yourself?” I think about the gifts before, delivered by Charles and the stylist.

He pushes a loose strand of hair off my face. “I did. I wanted to do it right this time.”

“Thank you for this. And for giving us another chance.” I set the gifts aside and give him another kiss.

The kiss heats things up between us immediately, and that familiar longing for him is back with a vengeance. But he breaks away too soon.

His eyes are shining in the dim light of the cabin. “I’ll be right back.”