chapter 5

Billionheiress’s public humiliation! Drug arrest!

Daughter of Miami cruise line executive Byron Stanton arrested for drugs!

Flawless CEO released without charges in drug bust The secret drug-fueled life of party girl Emily Stanton

Wake up, jailbird.” The chipper voice cheerfully intruded on the thirty minutes of sleep I’d managed to snag after the worst night of my life. And I’d once

dropped a vial of leptospirosis on the lab floor.

I pried a crusty eye open and peered over the luxurious softness of my bed linens.

“What are you doing here?” I rasped at the three shadowy figures hovering over my bed.

I never should have given them my alarm codes.

“Emergency circle the wagons,” the tallest shadow said, arms crossed.

“Yeah. Now, get your adorable ass out of bed so we can make it all better,” the middle one chirped, slapping me on the butt. Luna was outrageously cheerful all hours of the day.

I groaned, sitting up, noting it was still dark outside.

“Get dressed, my little vagillionaire,” the third one said, throwing workout clothes at me.

“You want to work out now, Daisy? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Daisy didn’t willingly spend time in the gym unless it was to flirt with a hot personal trainer.

“Lights on.”

My bedroom lights came on dimly.

“Damn it, Cam,” I complained. “I deserve at least another hour of wallowing.”

My phone signaled from the lovely hammered copper nightstand. I didn’t have the energy to pick it up and immerse myself in the shitstorm that was most certainly brewing.

“Get up and meet us in the gym,” Luna said. They left the room, a united front of badassery.

I stared at the clothes in my lap. I was exhausted, humiliated, and not just a little worried. I was a fucking basket case. One misstep. I’d just endangered the future of my company, the security of my employees, with one horrifically bad decision. And I wasn’t ready to see just how bad the fallout was.

“Move it, Ems!” Daisy called.

Leaving my phone where it was, I dressed quickly and dragged my hair into a limp ponytail as I trudged across the lawn to the gym. I was the kind of person who focused better and worked harder after a grueling workout. When we’d built the enclave, when we’d envisioned Bluewater, I’d taken great joy in designing a property that suited me and my needs down to the ground.

My friends had a looser, more interpretive relationship with exercise.

But they supported me with weekly workouts slash bitch sessions.

And there they were. My people.

In the ocean-front, state-of-the-art gym that I started my day in every morning, a peppy pop song thumped through the sound system.

Cameron Whitbury—aerospace entrepreneur, luxury shoe whore, and long-legged auburn-haired beauty—was looking fierce and squatting with free weights. Her ass was official perfection, at least according to Indulgence Magazine’s Best Butts in Business poll last year. The magazine had neglected to mention Cam’s Fortune 500 rocket-building empire.

Luna da Rosa—the wildly popular Instagram brand, lifestyle guru, and makeup industry conqueror—was fresh and lovely as always in organic cotton yoga shorts and a knotted tank. She flowed through a sun salutation, stretchier than any human body had the right to be. With long sable hair, she was fairy princess beautiful and heartbreakingly sweet, which led most people to incorrectly assume she was an airhead.

Daisy Carter-Kincaid was the kind of socialite my mother had warned me about my entire life. When she wasn’t experimenting with extensions or

dying her hair silver to stir up the gossip rags, she was working her ass off to run her family’s significant real estate holdings. The Carter-Kincaids owned a very large portion of Miami, Manhattan, and Atlanta. She was currently pedaling on the elliptical in last night’s club VIP section dress and heels. There was a Bloody Mary in her water bottle holder.

Wordlessly, Cam pointed at the treadmill, and I obliged, stepping onto the deck and punching buttons until the belt whirred to life beneath my feet.

I cranked the speed and let myself go.

My privilege had kept my ass from touching the bench in a holding cell last night. My head in-house counsel, Jenny, was already at the station raising hell by the time I’d been hauled out of the back of the patrol car. Unfortunately, when I’d been released a scant forty-five minutes later, every man, woman, and child with a recording device had descended on the station to witness my walk of shame.

Shitstorm didn’t even begin to apply to the magnitude of bad at this point. The scrutiny required for a company to be allowed to stage an IPO was brutally rigorous, and that was without the CEO embroiled in a drug arrest. Not that I’d been arrested. I’d been questioned, in the presence of my terrifying attorney, and released without charges.

But that’s not what the headlines would say.

My friends gave me an entire treadmill mile of silence to collect my thoughts before they started in on me.

“Okay. Tell us what happened last night,” Cam said, racking her weights and lining up for walking lunges. She’d earned that ass the old-fashioned way.

I took a swig of water from the bottle Luna handed over and lowered the speed. I didn’t trust many people. But these women had earned their way into that tight inner circle.

“It was a tit for tat,” I began. “Merritt’s father is some big deal hotelier in Vegas. His son is launching some underwear line. The Van Winston publicist reached out to Flawless. I need to stay in the public’s eye leading up to the IPO.”

“You’re already running a national ad campaign, and Flawless is being featured in every business and economic publication known to humanity,” Daisy pointed out.

“But I’m the face,” I said, repeating Lita’s words. “We’re looking to move a billion dollars in stock. A couple of yawn-inducing corporate

history profiles aren’t going to do that. Anything I can do to stay at the forefront of the public’s mind will benefit the IPO. Well, almost anything.”

I punched Stop on the treadmill and put my head in my hands. “I don’t even know how badly I’ve fucked up, guys. I haven’t even been able to make myself look at my phone.” It had signaled texts, calls, and emails until I’d put it on vibrate and hidden it under a pillow for most of the night.

“Okay, let’s stop with the self-pity,” Luna insisted briskly. “Focus on the positive. It wasn’t your giant bag of coke—”

“And X,” Daisy added helpfully.

“Seriously?” Merritt Van Winston was a dumbass of the highest honor. “Just a little baggie,” Daisy said as if that made it better. “At least it

wasn’t meth. There’s no way to class that shit up.” Luna shot her a will you shut up look.

“Thanks, Pollyanna,” Cam snorted.

“Anyway,” Luna said pointedly. “The drugs weren’t yours. You kept it together for the cameras. Your attorney already put out a statement doing damage control about the ‘misunderstanding.’ Everyone is doing all the right things.”

“What are the blogs saying?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

“Let’s focus on what your next steps are,” Cam said evasively as she turned around to lunge back across the gym.

That meant it was bad. Really, really bad.

“Better or worse than Zoey Grace’s leaked three-way sex tape?” My friends exchanged a glance.

The spark of hope that had been trying to ignite in my chest sputtered out. And my bowels went icy.

“Oh, God.” I buried my face in a sweat towel.

“Look,” Daisy said, wielding her Bloody Mary at me. “Here’s the thing. You’ve never fucked up before. You’ve been squeaky clean. The public hates that. They hate you for being rich and beautiful and smart. And they want you to have to pay the price for being perfect.”

Ouch.

“So because I’ve worked my ass off since college, because I built a company and literally changed the face of women’s skincare, I deserve this?” I was shouting.

Luna took a deep, cleansing breath for me. She was probably doing a mental meditation to change my vibe.

“You should be pissed,” Cam said. “But just because it’s unfair and horrible doesn’t mean it’s not happening. You have to deal with it.”

“And you’re overlooking the platinum lining here,” Daisy pointed out, shaking the ice in her now empty glass. “What’s the one thing the world loves more than a downward spiral?”

I paused my internal rant for a beat. “A comeback,” I breathed.

Luna nodded. “A flawed, vulnerable, real, badass entrepreneur is way more interesting than a perfect rich girl.”

“I’m not supposed to be interesting,” I said, thinking of how many nerve pills my mother had probably downed since last night.

“There’s a lot of things we’re not supposed to be,” Cam said. “Doesn’t mean that we can’t.”

“This can all be salvaged,” Luna said soothingly. “We’re here for you.

Whatever you need.”

“Hell yeah,” Cam said, holding up her water bottle in a mock toast.

“Let’s start now,” Daisy said, pulling her phone out of her considerable cleavage.

“We’re not selfie-ing this,” I argued.

“If your company was collapsing on itself and you had a serious drug problem, would you be up at sunrise working out with your beautiful, successful friends?” Daisy asked with a wicked grin.

“Point taken.”

“Okay, ladies. Comeback on three.” “One. Two. Three.”

“Comeback!”