Go away, Tay.
Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
“So, tell me more about what you do,” she said. “Billie pulled up some information on you, but I’d rather hear your story from you.”
“Hmm... I’m not sure where to start,” he said. “My job is kind of boring.”
She glanced around the plane and remembered his cars and home. “But it pays well. It’s nice to know that money can be made by other means than just being Insta-famous.”
“Well, when I was in college... Let’s just say that I didn’t handle being on my own that well. Even though I got straight A’s, I drank and partied way too much. I definitely enjoyed those years but when I was a junior and applied for paid internships, no one would even call me back for an interview. I asked one of the HR hiring managers about it and she said I looked good on paper, but the internet told a different story.
“That was a huge wake-up call and I knew that I needed to clean up my online presence. Some of my frat brothers were in the same boat so I wrote some code and created an algorithm that would go in and clean it up. It took a long time, my entire junior year, but once I had it and deployed it, I started getting interviews. I started to sell my services to my frat brothers. Once word got out, I had a lot of customers.”
“I could have used you a few years ago,” she said with a laugh. “Instead I’ve just embraced my more scandalous photos and videos and made them my brand.”
“That works, too, but sometimes things happen that can really have a negative impact. So I went from helping college kids to helping companies and public figures. I’ve made a few tweaks along the way to keep up with the technology,” he said.
“And it pays well,” she said.
“Yeah, it does. Protecting their public image is priceless for some people and businesses. And I provide a service that no one else can,” he said. “I did it for Mauricio after the photo ofthe two of us came out. But Hadley, of course, had already seen it. I monitor all of my family’s mentions but it’s a soft surveillance. So I just get an alert. I haven’t had to use hard surveillance since my brother-in-law, Jose, passed away.”
She liked when he talked about his business; she could see his passion for the work he did, and how much he liked it. “Who was Jose and why did you have to monitor him so closely?”
“He was the famous Formula 1 driver Jose Ruiz... Anyway, he wasn’t faithful to my sister and there were always lots of photos of him partying with other women. I did it to keep that information private. No one needed to know that he wasn’t the perfect husband that he had pretended to be,” Alec said. Alec had built his business around a proprietary code that he used to search the internet for any references to Jose and then replaced the salacious stories with a cleaned up reference that focused on his career and not the affairs.
She nodded. He was a protector, she thought. That was another plus if he was going to raise their baby. Add that to the fact that he had a big, incredibly nice family—if her afternoon with them was any indication—a good job and an understanding of the power of reputation.
Now if she could only keep focused on his sterling qualities. But there wasn’t anything that could pry the image of his naked chest from her mind. In fact, going back to bed with him, no matter how wrong, was all she could think about.
Talkingabout work was leveling him out and taking the edge off his desire for Scarlet. It was still there but not as intense as it had been when they’d first boarded the jet. He felt a bit more in control of himself. It had been a long time since he’d discussed the origins of his company with anyone.
In fact, he’d forgotten how out of control he’d been those first two years of college. He had pretty much decided that he’d say yes to everything. It had been fun but he’d been so irresponsible. It was only in his junior year that he’d started to become the man he was today. Someone who understood that following every impulse led to destruction.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting Scarlet. He’d like to say he was a twenty-first-century man who could have a conversation with a woman and get to know her without thinking about sex, but he couldn’t deny the primal instinct that she brought out in him.
His mom had raised him right and he had a sister so he knew how to treat women. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t times like this when all he wanted to do was say to hell with being polite and see if she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
“What about you? You said your brand embraced scandal, but I’m not that familiar with your story,” he admitted. “Is scandal part of your business plan?” His plan was to keep talking. Then maybe he could get through the flight without making a move on her. If her earlier retreat had sent any signals, it was that she wasn’t ready for anything more between them.
“I’m not surprised you don’t know my brand. Basically, I have a lifestyle company that is all about embracing your inner... Well, Billie saysbitchbut we don’t market it that way. It’s called Get-It-Girl. It’s just about not apologizing for being yourself. So I have makeup that is very flattering but might also be too bright for some people. But if that’s what you like, then you can wear the red lippie and the glitter eye shadow. I also have two clothing lines—one’s ‘naughty’ and the other’s ‘nice.’ It recognizes that everyone is a little bit of both,” she said.
“I love that. I think that Penny exemplifies thatsplit every time I see her. To be honest, Benito does, too. It’s funny that as children we can embrace these different sides while we learn the limits of how to behave.” Penny wasn’t strictly his niece but he and his brothers all treated her as if she were. Extended family was the same as family as far as the Velasquezes were concerned.
“That’s true. My brand gives you a place to say it’s okay to be you,” she said. “I have the reality show as well where I just live my social media life and cameras follow me around. I try to show both the partying side and the business side, how you can do what you love and still make a living,” she said.
He’d written her off as a party girl heiress when he’d first researched her but he saw now that she was much more than that. “How did you start out?”
He suspected that a lot of this had to stem from her relationship with her father. She’d said he wasn’t a good parent to her growing up, and the articles he’d found on the web seemed to support that, even though he knew that the truth was always more complicated than news reports or social media posts.
“I had a really bad screwup when I was eighteen. A sex tape I made went viral and my sister, Tara, said, ‘That’s it. You’re branded with a scarlet letter now.’ My response was that my name is Scarlet so maybe it was inevitable and I should embrace it,” she said, turning to face him and drawing her legs up on the seat. “Tay said to go for it and I did. I thought if I’m a bad girl in the media, then I could perform in character and control it in a way, even profit from it. You sort of always have to meet that expectation or they go looking for stuff that you don’t want to get out.”
“I wish I’d met your sister,” he said. “She sounds like she was pretty savvy.”
“She was, but she was also an idiot. She liked guys that were really bad for her and she never could stay straight.”
He reached over to squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s like you were saying. Everyone is complicated.”
“They are. Did you feel that way about your brother-in-law?” she asked. “Everyone is always trying not to speak ill of the dead, but you didn’t sugarcoat it with him.”