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“Okay,” he said, dumping the grounds into the filter on the coffee maker. “Okay, well, we’ll fix it, then.”
“Oh, we’ll just ‘fix it,’ will we? With a photo like that?”
“I’ve had worse, believe m—”
“And all the people who saw us at the ball? Your own parents thought we were there together.”
“Oh, no. No, no. That I remember clearly. They thought the idea of us being together was ridiculous.”
She stood now, coming to lean on the breakfast bar. “But they considered it. That’s my point. We looked like we were there together. We danced like we were a couple. And then out in the alley, we . . .”
“Did couple things?” He raised a brow.
“Yes. Which are now on display for the world to see.” She spoke matter-of-factly, but she turned her face away, clearly blushing. It was kind of adorable.
“So people think we’re a couple, and we don’t want them to. We’ll just tell them it isn’t true.”
“If we deny it, it will just feed the rumor mill.”
“Fine, then I’ll just go out and pick up a biker chick or something and make sure I get photographed with her. You go back to your wholesome boy toy, and this whole nonstory will be forgotten.”
“Absolutely not.”
Ryder fought the urge to sigh. Okay, he may have sighed a little. But not nearly as big as he wanted to. “No?” he asked as patiently as he could, considering he’d just woken up, and Vic was talking in circles about things he really didn’t care about.
“No.” She strode around the breakfast bar, her heels clicking on the kitchen tile, and nudged him to the side. “If we announce there’s nothing going on, it’ll look like we had some kind of tawdry fling and are trying to cover it up.” She briskly ran water into the carafe and finished making the coffee he’d abandoned as she spoke. “And if you try to deflect by being seen with another woman, I’ll be the fling you threw over for ‘some biker chick or something.’ And you being who you are and me being who I am . . . well, there’d be a huge scandal, and the last thing we need is a scandal.”
He blinked at her. “I don’t really mind a scandal so much.”
She spun to look at him, leaning her back against the counter. “Well, I do. Please, Ryder. I’ve had a hell of a year. I’m trying to turn that around. This is about my career. I’m trying to build respect. Credibility. Make a path for myself, in my own right, where I can really make a difference. I don’t need to be one of your conquests.”
She had a point.
And she had had a hell of a year. And what she didn’t say was that she also didn’t need to be the woman tossed aside by two Prince men in one year.
Even without trying, Ryder had seen more than his share of articles about poor Vicky Ashby and how she’d shrunk from society. While Noah was portrayed—as ever—as the golden boy, this time with a new girlfriend on his arm. There was probably little that could have been done to avoid that kind of spin. Vic was, after all, the less famous half of the Noah/Vic duo. The media was bound to gush over his happiness, which left her in the role of the lonely ex.
Ryder was used to negative press. Hell, he thrived on it. But he knew there was no way Vic had been enjoying it. And he didn’t like the idea of him adding to that.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay. I get it. You don’t want more attention.”
“Exactly. And it’s not just me. Your parents would—”
Nope. Not going there.
“I don’t care about my parents.”
“Well, I do. They still sign my paychecks, not to mention controlling the funds the foundation operates on. And aside from all that, they’ve always been kind to me.”
Too bad they hadn’t afforded the same affection to their actual offspring, he thought bitterly. But then Vicky added, “Especially since my mom died.”
Muscle tension he hadn’t noticed he’d been building melted away, and he slumped against the counter. He didn’t want to talk about his parents. He didn’t want to think about his parents. And when he did, he was most definitely not inclined to think generously toward them. But even from his by then comfortable distance from his family, he had seen what had happened when Vic lost her mother sophomore year of college. She had been devastated, and his parents—his mom, in particular, who had been Carmen Ashby’s best friend—had all but adopted her.
He looked up into her eyes. She stared back at him, hard and determined but with a soft sort of pleading just visible underneath the surface. It couldn’t hurt to hear her out, right?
“Okay. Fine. Let me hear the plan.”
Chapter Seven
