He thinks I’m going to manage his Instagram account. “Actually, we have more pressing matters at hand. We need to prepare a statement, tell our side of the story. Pepper Spice already has a media tour—” I stop when he waves a hand in my face.
“Boring. You’re hot, but you talk like my father’s friends.”
“That’s who hired her,” Evans said. “They’re concerned that when the board next convenes, the vote won’t be in your favor.”
Theo shrugs.
I frown. “You’re going to lose your seat on the board of a billion-dollar company and you’re not even going to—”
“I need to get to the pool,” Theo interrupts. “Got some friends waiting for me.” He looks me up and down, and once again I feel that force field pulling me forward, clouding my mind, making me want to take off my clothes and make poor choices. “You’re welcome to join me… if you wear a bikini.” With a wink, he strides off.
I whirl on my heel to face Evans. “Show me the sex tape. Then I’ll go down to the pool. Mr. Kensington and I are going to have a little chat.”
Evans leads me down the mansion’s wide halls, past giant paintings of landscapes and shipwrecks and Bacchus leading a party of nymphs and satyrs out to have a drunken orgy in a pasture. There’s also a few statues, including a pink marble representation of Venus De Milo.
“Who decorated this place?” I ask.
“The late Mr. Kensington hired a collector who chose these pieces.”
I tiptoe past the naked form. “Theodore Kensington’s father was Turkish, right? An immigrant?” I had to dig for that information. Mr. Kensington the elder didn’t want his immigrant status well known.
“Immigrant turned billionaire tycoon,” Evans confirms. “Who fell in love with a princess.”
“Kensington doesn’t sound very Turkish.”
“He changed his last name when he received his citizenship.”
“Like Donald Trump’s grandfather, changing the family name from Drumpf to something more marketable.”
“Exactly.” I don’t miss Evans’ dry tone as he turns into a small dark room. Empty coffee cups litter the desk under the many mounted screens. A pair of security guards nod as Evans introduces me.
“So you’re the fixer,” one says. “You gonna fix him?” The guard points to the screen where Theo stretches and poses on a diving board in front of an audience of bikini clad woman. One is already topless. The second security guard has the camera zoomed in on her.
“I’ll do my best,” I say as Evans hands me a laptop. He guides me to a private corner and gives me headphones. I pull off my suit jacket and press play. Theo’s muscled chest and bikini wearing babes cavort on the big screen as I focus on the similar shadowy figures on small screen on my lap. I feel like I’ve got my own private peepshow.
Business as usual.
I don’t know how I ended up the world expert on fixing sex scandals, but after five consecutive cases—three sports stars accused of sexual harassment, one philandering senator, and one startup CEO who dropped trou at a wild party a week before his company went public—I have a reputation. Vesper Smith makes the bad boys good again. That headline was on HuffPost last month.
Yes, I read my own press.
I have to say, of all the sex tapes I’ve seen, Theo Kensington’s is the best. He’s got a beautiful, muscled back that flexes with his buttocks in time with his thrusts. His jaw clenches and his eyes bore into the mirror over the bed. It’s almost as if he’s looking at me.
Then he pulls out and I get a good look at him. All ten inches.
The tape ends. I watch it again, feeling each thrust deep in my womb.
“So what do we do?” Evans asks when the grunting and squealing on screen has stopped for the second time.
I blow out my breath, and hope no one notices my nipples are hard under my blouse.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Evans says.
“It’s bad, but not impossible. We need to give the media a new story: ‘The Playboy Prince reformed.’” I hold up my hands and sketch air quotes. “He sowed his wild oats but he’s ready to move on. Boys will be boys, the whole bit. It’s sexist, but the media buys it. A year of him acting like a monk, doing charity work, and most importantly, staying out of the scandal papers will do wonders for him. He’ll need to keep his shirt on.” I straighten my glasses and look up at Evans. He’s got his arms folded across his beefy chest, and looks skeptical. “It’ll work. I know what I’m doing.”
“I know,” Evans said. “That’s why we hired you.”
“Okay, so we start scheduling events. First a public apology. Then some donations to charity, a few popups at society dinners.” I nod. It all unfolds in my head: Theo suave and clean, the tattoos hidden safely away under a suit. I know this playbook—redeeming the bad boy. I got this.
“Sounds great,” Evans says. “It’s just what he needs. But it’s not going to work.”
“What’s the problem?”
“We don’t have a year.”
“Hmmm,” I tap a pen against my lips. “We can work with a shorter timeline.”
“We have a week.”
“A week!”
“That’s when he goes before the board. That’s when they decide. And that’s not all.” He hesitates. “There’s the matter of the queen. Rumor is, she’s finally asking about her grandson, and she’s not liking what she hears.”
“The queen? As in, the queen of Sweden.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t even know Sweden still had a queen.”
“Their Parliament holds all the power, much like in England. But the queen is still an important figure. And her daughter was Mr. Kensington’s mother.”
“Estranged daughter,” I correct. On this, at least, I’ve done my homework. “She left home at twenty, went to university in New York and dropped out. Fell in love with an up and coming businessman. From what I understand, Mr. Kensington only had five hotels back then.”
Evans nods.
“The princess gets pregnant, they marry, the queen finds out and cuts her off,” I tick off the rest of the story.
“Only to regret it when her daughter dies of complications in childbirth.”
“Leaving an infant son and a mogul with a broken heart.” I shake my head. “That has to hurt.”
Evans scoffs. “If it did, the queen didn’t show it. She hasn’t even met her grandson.”
“I didn’t mean her. I meant Theo—Mr. Kensington the younger.” I fall back slowly in my chair. Only child, now orphaned, shunned by his royal family. Kept from his rightful… throne? Did they still have thrones? “All right. I can work with this.” Mentally I flip through my contacts. I can do this. Pull favors. Plan photo ops. “I can do a week.”
“There’s still a problem,” Evans says. “He won’t do it.”
My head is still spinning from thinking about turning a tattooed, filthy-rich bad boy into a suave socialite with the innocence of a choirboy overnight. “Won’t do what?”