The Face of Scandal Read Online Free Page A

streamed all over her placemat and Ward’s plate. “Oh, crap…” In the flurry of activity that ensued to mop up the spill before it dripped to the hardwood boards beneath the table, she flashed Sadie a glare. Stop it.
    “I’ll get the paper towels,” Ward sighed, pushing his chair back with a screech of wood on wood.
    “I’ll help.” Hazel rose with him, heart sinking like a stone when she registered the dark twist to his features. “I’m so sorry. I swear I haven’t told her anything.” The circumstances in which Dylan and Ward had become Dylan-and-Ward were not, she’d understood early on in her relationship with them, up for public debate. She could keep that secret as Ward had kept hers. It was the least she owed him. “Ward—”
    “It’s fine,” he said, in a voice that made it sound like the exact opposite.
    Hazel caught his arm. “Look, just hang in there an hour more. Please? Then I’ll drive her home and we can pretend none of this ever happened. She means well,” Hazel added, as though that tiny detail might sweeten the bitter pill.
    Protective didn’t begin to cover Ward’s complicated feelings for Dylan. Whether or not they were returned—and Hazel had her suspicions, but she didn’t want to rock this particular boat—it still hit too close to home to have Sadie pry.
    “I told you,” Ward insisted, “I’m fine.” The smile he plastered onto his wide mouth was more sharkish than friendly.
    Hazel smothered a groan and trudged back to the table.
    Sadie pointed an accusing finger as soon as their eyes met. “You didn’t tell me Dylan spoke Mandarin.”
    “I know a little Mandarin,” Dylan corrected, cheeks dimpling as he grinned at the woman beside him. “I took classes and listened to a few tapes. That hardly means—”
    Undaunted, Sadie launched into a stream of fluent Mandarin that left both Hazel and Ward trading confused glances as they dealt with the spill. Dylan, for his part, burst out laughing.
    “Okay, I got that part. Um…” He twisted in his chair as he gathered his thoughts, resting a hand on the back of Sadie’s seat.
    The reply he formulated in Mandarin was more halting than Sadie’s, but no less incomprehensible.
    “Anyone else get the feeling they’re being discussed in foreign ?” Ward quipped, casually helping himself to a wedge of artichoke from Dylan’s plate.
    Hazel smirked. “So sayeth the Green Card holder.”
    She couldn’t tell if they were making light of something that had them both worried or if she was the only one fretting while Ward, always confident in himself and Dylan’s devotion, tried to reclaim the spotlight.
    It didn’t work.
    Over the next minutes, it quickly became apparent that Dylan and Sadie had found something of a kindred spirit in one another and though they occasionally tried to translate for their audience, there was no disguising the connection that flowed between them as they maneuvered around the sharp consonants and lilting vowels. Sadie claimed Dylan spoke very well, a charge he brushed off with a wave of his hand. She also claimed he had a northern accent.
    “I take it you’ll be the one she invites to mahjong night next time,” Ward mused, swirling the wine in his glass during a lull in their excited chatter.
    Sadie seized onto this like a bulldog with a stick. “Oh, yes! You should definitely come. It’ll be good practice.”
    “Okay, sure.”
    The smile Dylan shot her way was blinding and true, and Hazel felt as though a fist squeezed around her heart at the sight. She tried to shake off the sensation, but it clung fast, fangs sunk deep into that pulsing muscle.
    This was everything she’d ever feared—Sadie and Dylan, together at last.
     
    * * * *
     
    Hazel eased off the brakes once the Volvo had slid to a full stop. They were double-parked, not a single spot available on the curb up or down the street. Clucking her tongue, she considered the options available. Leave the car where it was and risk