Scandal Never Sleeps Read Free

along. Ogilvie didn’t challenge them. Lightning from the heavens didn’t strike them.
    “Guys, it can’t be that easy,” Gabe said as they emerged into the sunlight. They were suddenly surrounded by classmates pointing at them and chattering about the scandal.
    “Dude, did you really screw that blonde?” one asked.
    “I can’t believe you got into a bar,” another stated.
    Zack put a hand on Gabe’s arm as the rest started receiving high fives for sticking it to the man—and the chick—though Gabe was sure they meant two different things. “It is that easy. Let it go. You bent a few rules but didn’t do any real harm, man. It’s going to be okay. Ogilvie needs to understand there are no gentlemen here.”
    “That’s not true. Bond was a gentleman and allowed the lady to come first.” Maddox snorted. “I think I should get T-shirts made, plaster ‘Perfect Gentlemen of Creighton’ across our chests. The old curmudgeon would love that . . .”
    Gabe prayed the stupid moniker didn’t stick. “I’m still going to kill you, Mad.”
    Mad put an arm around him. “Promises,promises.”

ONE

    New York City
    Present day
    G abe stared at the urn and wondered what had gone so wrong. One minute, life had been something resembling normal. Well, normally fucked up. The next minute, he was standing in a church full of somber shock and lilies with at least seven hundred people at his back, waiting for the proper reaction to hit him. “You son of a bitch. How could you leave like this, Mad?”
    He kept his voice low, given the fact that most tabloids would love to run a story about Maddox Crawford’s best friend cursing his very name before he was laid to eternal rest.
    Damn, but Mad would have hated the idea of eternal rest, of peace. The fucking bastard had never rested. He’d always been scheming up a new plan and forever instigating chaos.
    He’d also left behind problems Gabe didn’t even want to think about. But he would have to in about six months, when his sister had her baby.
    He stared at that ridiculously expensive urn and thought about smashing it in rage. It would serve Mad right to be vacuumed up by a handheld sweeper.
    He turned away and caught a glimpse of his sister. Sara sat in the well-polished pews of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. She was discreetly in the middle, not wanting to call attention to herself. Wearing a black Prada sheath, with her tawny hair in a neat bun, she looked like she belonged amid the marble finery of the Upper East Side church because she did. Sara was Manhattan born and bred. Unlike her older brother, she’d never been shipped off to boarding school. Even in the face of grief, she comported herself like a lady.
    Her eyes might be red, but she stared straight ahead, her shoulders back and her head held high. And she was carrying Maddox Crawford’s baby. That fucking asswipe hadn’t kept his promises—any of them.
    I’ll watch after her, Gabe. You don’t have to worry. I love her. It’s stupid but for the first time in my life, I’m in love. You’re my best friend in the world. I know I’ve been a jerk in the past, but I’ve always taken care of you. Now I’ll take care of her, too.
    He’d been a dumbass to let Sara date Mad. It should have been a no-brainer that the asshole would seduce and dump her. Mad hadn’t been as faithful to Sara as he had been to his MO. Christ, everything about their relationship had been utterly predictable—except Mad’s die-in-a-plane-crash routine, but the rest of it . . . Fuck, he could have written that book.
    “Hey, I think they’re ready to start the service,” a quiet voice said from behind him.
    Gabe turned. There stood Roman Calder in his customary three-piece suit, which Gabe knew he purchased from a London tailor twice a year. He made the voyage from DC to the UK under the auspices of diplomacy, but it was really about those suits. And now that Roman was here, Gabe wanted to know one thing. “Is he