It Started with a Scandal

Part 1

Dear Readers,

 Thank you so much for showing an interest in It Started with a Scandal. I’m currently getting this book ready for publication and will be adding instalments as I edit – hopefully weekly and in time for the weekend.

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Chapter One

Counting the number of seconds she was late as she burst through the doors of Maine PR was not helping with her stress levels. With a bundle of today’s newspapers in one hand and half a latte in the other, Alicia Simpson ran through the corridors ignoring the oh-shit-you’re-in trouble look the receptionist, Sarah, pinned her with.

Late she was. Six hundred seconds late to be exact, and that was the last thing she needed on a day she was pitching to the biggest profiled client she’d ever been given a shot at.

As she burst into the board room panting, her colleague Kenny was shaking hands with the man she’d spent the better part of the week researching. The man who’d made the front news – again – which was why she was holding a stack of newspapers and her jacket was stained with her coffee.

One glance at Mr Maine’s murderous expression had her fighting the urge to scamper out of the boardroom. Her stomach was a flutter of nerves and her heart rate exuberated like she’d just had a shot of adrenaline injected straight into it.

Pulling herself together, she threw a quick smile at Collins, dumped the papers on the table and whipped off her jacket. She only hoped she didn’t have sweat marks, but what was worse? Pit stains or a frothy white/brown mark down the front of her grey coat.

‘I stopped to pick up the news. Mr Collins, you’re on the front page of them all.’ She didn’t glance his way, only stared down Maine until he nodded to acknowledge she was late for a reason.

‘Shit,’ said a voice that sent a shiver down her spine.

She turned in time to see him flip over the daily rags and catch a glimpse of his headshot on the front of each – but it wasn’t this story that threatened to make cleaning up his rep harder than stuffing Hitler’s skeleton’s into a closet that caught her attention.

It was the man himself. He was tall, more built than he looked on television and his dark, curly hair had grown out, hovering above wide shoulders.

The ground seemed to sway, like she was on her father’s yacht on a windy day, or a rib tickler. Alicia clasped the edge of the table for support. But this was just the stress of being late and a week of sleepless nights putting together her pitch. She needed to get over it quick if she wanted to convince Collins she was the right woman for the job. No wilting wall flower would stand a chance with a project like this.

Neither would an Earl’s hapless daughter who had always been outshone by her sisters. This pitch was step one of leaving that shadow of herself behind. And she’d get the bad-boy tennis player to sign with Maine if it was the last thing she did.