Chapter One
Leo
“Leopold Christopher Vaughn, we have a problem, and it involves your face on the front page of the newspaper.”
I turned to find my father, Damir Vaughn, stalking into my office with a scowl that meant I was in some type of shit or another.
“Good morning to you too. I take it there’s some kind of problem.”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.” His Belarusian accent was thicker than usual, revealing his agitated state. “You’re thirty-two years old. I would expect better from a teenager.”
I thought back to last night. I’d had drinks with my cousin and a few friends at a local bar near my penthouse, and then I’d gone home to spend the night reviewing contracts for a long-term flight deal I’d negotiated for Vaughn Transportation.
And then there was the incident with the hot blonde, who turned out to be trouble. My gut said it had to do with her. But it was better to pretend I had no idea what Pops was talking about, just in case he was upset about something else.
“Want to tell me exactly what I did?”
He threw a paper on the desk. “This is only one of them.”
I stared at the headline of a popular national gossip rag.
“CEO Caught Leaving Bar with the Wife of a Prominent Director.”
Well, fuck. This was not what I wanted to see.
There was a picture of Olivia Ridder Whitaker kissing my cheek as she stood on tiptoes. Her hand was pressed against my chest in a gesture that looked more intimate than it actually had been.
I should have known when the leggy blonde with the gorgeous face and large breasts all but threw herself at me that she was trouble. It had been two weeks since I’d last gotten laid, and I’d been open to what was offered.
I wouldn’t call myself a man-whore or anything, but when one worked sixty- to seventy-hour weeks, sex was a great stress reliever.
I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s not what it seems.”
That sounded lame even to me. But what was I supposed to say? Hey, Pops, I didn’t sleep with her. I picked her up at a bar when I was trolling with my buddies. Yeah, we made out, but when I learned she was married, I told her I don’t sleep with married women. She was okay with it and we parted ways.
Even I wouldn’t cross that line. And especially not with the wife of a man I respected and had done business with.
Had.
There was no way the hot-tempered director-producer Darius Whitaker was ever going to use Vaughn Transportation to cart his high-profile actors across the country again.
It wouldn’t matter that nothing happened beyond the kiss. No one would believe the truth when the gossip rags made more money by making it look like we were having an ongoing affair.
This was really not what I wanted to deal with on a Monday morning.
Pops set his hand on my desk and leaned forward. “Leo, you expect me to believe a married woman kissing you was innocent? Dammit, boy, we talked about this. Your antics are causing us problems. At this point, Jacob is looking better and better.”
My father had been threatening to leave Vaughn Transportation to my cousin, Jacob, for the last year.
Jacob was my aunt Nadia’s son. He wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, we were pretty close.
Hell, his ass had been in the bar with me last night when all the shit went down. Maybe if he hadn’t gone home with the bartender he regularly hooked up with, I wouldn’t have gotten in this mess.
Regardless of how I felt about Jacob, he made a better lawyer at Vaughn & Partners than CEO at Vaughn Transportation. Instead of bringing in business, he’d spend most of his days reading and analyzing every contract and company policy, or fighting with someone about the legal aspects of things.
“What problems?”
“I’ve spent the better half of this morning assuring our clients we still have a moral compass and that your behavior was a lapse in judgment.”
“Which clients?”
Pops took a seat in the large armchair I had placed just for him that overlooked the Manhattan skyline and then answered, “Carter, Johnson, and Richards.”
Well, fuck. They were our most conservative clients—one was a pastor of a megachurch and the other two were up-and-coming politicians and businessmen. Each of their contracts were in the eight figures, and any company they associated with would reflect on their standing in the court of public opinion.
If they pulled their business, the board would lose their shit and definitely insist Jacob take over.
“Want me to call them?”
“You’ve done plenty already.”
I frowned. “My personal life shouldn’t be their concern in the first place.”
“It wouldn’t if you didn’t have it splashed across the headlines of every news and gossip outlet.” Pops shook his head. “You’re lucky your mother isn’t here. A married woman, of all things. She’d hand you your ass on a silver platter.”
I winced. I was in major shit when I went home this weekend for our monthly family dinner.
My Achilles heel was my mother. Tatiana Vaughn was a saint in my eyes, though she had the temper of the devil. My ass had been the recipient of it more than my share as a child who tended to get into trouble. She loved her family with every ounce of her being and never shied away from showing it with hugs or a paddle. She called it old-school Belarusian mothering.
I hated disappointing her, something I seemed to do more often than not.
“I didn’t sleep with her, Pops. I stopped it when I learned she was married.”
God, to think the shit I would’ve been in if Olivia hadn’t passingly mentioned getting revenge on her husband for putting the needs of his business before her and her aspirations.
Pops remained quiet for a moment and then said, “Well, at least there’s that.”
I released an internal sigh. Pops believed me.
“Our business depends on our reputation. Right now, boy, yours is down the gutter. Every week there’s something. We’ve worked too hard to get where we’re at to let your antics ruin everything.”
I wasn’t going to ruin anything. I’d turned my father’s modestly successful chauffeur service into a billion-dollar enterprise.
“This is all because of some judgmental pricks?”
“Don’t take that tone with me. I don’t care how much money you bring in. I will not have our name sullied. You better get your act in gear, or I’m going to the board.”
I clenched my teeth. “Jacob doesn’t want the job. And Sonia’s company is doing too well for her to give it up to run this one.”
My twenty-five-year-old baby sister was a techie to the max. Give her a computer and a secure line and she’d find a way to hack the Pentagon without anyone knowing. She and a few of her college friends had started a cybersecurities firm with a small investment from me, and within two years, she’d doubled my money and returned it. The last thing she’d want to do was cater to the various jet-setters of the world.
“We all know Jacob will do what’s needed; he understands responsibility.”
I almost rolled my eyes. Jacob and I were cut from the same cloth. The only difference was he kept his exploits out of the media. His over-the-top private persona gave him more tail than anyone I knew.