Rook (Political Royalty Book 2) (2 page)

Somewhere along the way, he’d lost Travis, Abby, and his other shadows. It was just the two of them in her office, and they still weren’t alone enough to have the conversation they needed to have. Once she started talking, she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t yell. Hell, if she bothered to actually let herself feel anything, she’d end up screaming in rage at him. Not something she could risk with an office full of volunteers just outside the door.

“We can’t talk about it here.” She stood, grabbing her coat from the hook by the door. “Come on; we’ve got to go to the hotel anyway. We can talk in the car.”

“I want to talk here,” he said, reaching for her.

It was just his hand on her arm, but his touch burned her like a brand. She whirled around to face him, and some of what she felt must have shown in her eyes. He flinched as if she’d hit him.

“Do not ever touch me again.” She separated each word, pitching her voice low to keep from shrieking at him.

The truth mattered a lot less than putting some distance between them. She wanted the pregnant woman to be the one telling the lies, but regardless of how that played out, it didn’t change the underlying issue. She’d jeopardized everything for a good fuck. That was unacceptable.

She watched his jaw clench and knew he was fighting his own battle, but that didn’t mean she had to give a damn. She walked through the door, leading the way across the office, making small talk and encouraging comments along her path to the elevators so she didn’t have to think about the man following behind her. When the door slid closed on them, she saw him open his mouth to speak.

“Wait,” she said, her voice like ice in the small space.

She started across the parking garage to her car but he stopped at his.

“Get in and tell me where we’re going.” He stood beside the open passenger door, clearly not intending to follow her.

She could fight him, but what would be the point?

“The Ashton but we need to talk first. I want an iron-tight plan before I put you in the same room with this woman,” she said, climbing into the passenger seat. The car smelled like him and her stomach tightened in a mixture of longing and pain. Four hours ago, there was nothing she wanted more than to be alone with him, to be close enough to breathe in the spicy scent of his expensive aftershave. Now she didn’t know how she’d survive it.

He nodded, slipping the car into gear and backing out of the space. By unspoken agreement, neither of them said a word until he pulled into a nondescript parking garage. He punched in a code and the bar raised, allowing them access to the underground space.

“Where are we?”

“Someplace we can talk without being overheard. My father keeps a place in this building,” he said, his jaw clenched tight. “I never thought I’d need it.”

“Your father lives three blocks from here. Why does he need another place in the city?” The rest of what she’d been saying drifted off as she realized the implication. Of course the intractable governor with a seemingly insatiable taste for his secretaries would have a love shack somewhere.
Although shack was hardly an apt description
, she thought, glancing at the handful of other luxury cars in the wider than normal parking spaces.

She didn’t wait for him to help her out of the car, and they rode the elevator in silence. She’d put so much energy into freezing him out to protect herself, by the time the doors opened on the ninth floor she half expected to see frost on his suit. He didn’t bother trying the hand on the small of her back thing to guide her down the hall to a nondescript door. He had to know by now that she would have simply stepped out of his touch. She waited until he let them into the small apartment, and her heartbeat kicked up a notch as the door closed behind them.

They were finally alone—more alone than they’d ever been before because unlike in the hotel, they didn’t have to worry about being seen. She had no doubt she could scream and even throw things at him and no one would report them. Running a hand through his dark hair, the senator walked to the window and spent a moment looking down on the city stretched out below them. If she squinted, she could just see the edge of the blocky white governor’s mansion. Imagining the senior Walker bringing his dewy-faced secretaries here turned her stomach. Knowing she’d let herself become just like them twisted like a knife.

“Now,” he said, his dark eyes pinning her in place. “Can you please explain to me who showed up claiming to be the mother of my child and why you were in such a hurry to believe her?”

There was no way in hell she’d let him turn this around and somehow make it her fault. His tone did nothing but cement her anger.

“A very pregnant Ms. Hicks cornered Justin in the office this morning. She claims you knocked her up and have been ignoring her.”

“Of course I ignored her. I have no idea who she is. And I didn’t get her pregnant.”

“You seem awfully certain,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “You don’t have to know someone’s name to fuck them. Wait.” She held up her hand in front of her. “Let me guess. You did not have sexual relations with that woman, right?”

“Right.” His expression shifted to something harder, something colder. If she cared what he thought anymore, having him look at her like that would hurt. Good thing she didn’t care. “I didn’t have sex with her or anyone else.”

She rolled her eyes like a sullen teenager.

“Present company excluded. Obviously,” he said.

“You need to stop lying to me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.” The anger made her shake—not a comfortable feeling but infinitely better than the pain of betrayal she’d been feeling.

“And you need to stop assuming that you know things you don’t.” He clenched his jaw so tight the words came out clipped. She waited for him to make the denial she knew would follow. “I haven’t given you any reason to doubt me, and I didn’t have sex with Ms. Hicks or whoever she is, let alone father her child.”

Her phone buzzed and she glanced down to see another text from Justin. Ignoring the lying politician in front of her, she turned her back on him and thumbed open the link. Justin must have come to exactly the same idea she had when she asked him for the photo.
Never underestimate the reach of Facebook’s facial recognition software.

A Facebook profile showing Ms. Hicks clinging to the back of a big guy wearing a too-small T-shirt with the silhouette duck on it filled the screen. The caption read “Me, Bandy, and our boy. Happy, happy, happy.” Haven could just make out the outline of Ms. Hicks’s slightly less pregnant belly. It might cast doubt on the pregnant woman’s story but none of it was conclusive and by the time the baby was born and the paternity test came back, it would be too late to save the senator’s candidacy. Even if she’d started to believe him, that didn’t mean she could convince the voters. Against a candidate like Collins, even a disproved scandal would be enough to color the whole campaign and the press wouldn’t have to scratch hard to dig up the governor’s indiscretions. Add to that the visual of a round as a beach ball pregnant belly splitting the screen with the senator for the next month and a half, and they were screwed. Their only hope was killing the story before it ever got out.

“What is it?” he asked and she ignored him, not ready to throw him a lifeline yet.

“You seem awfully sure of yourself.” She’d seen it dozens of times before and it always caught her off guard. Politicians seemed to think the normal rules didn’t apply to them until they got caught and needed someone to dig their sorry asses out of trouble. The senator was no different.

“I am sure of myself. I’m not the baby’s father and I can say that definitively because I haven’t had sex with anyone but my wife since we got married.” He took a step closer to her, and she sensed him mere inches from her back. She didn’t know what would happen if he touched her. She couldn’t risk it. Her head hated him, but even after everything that happened, her body still wanted him.

“What about us?”

“What about us?” he asked, closing the distance between them. “This doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

“We had an affair,” she said, deliberately phrasing it as past tense. “You fucked me while you were married. Why should I believe anything you say?”

She felt him jerk at her words as if he’d been hit and then his hands were on her hips, gripping her tight enough to leave bruises. He pulled her back against the length of his body and bent his head so his lips brushed her ear.

“I didn’t fuck you. I worshiped you.” His breath burned hot against the shell of her ear and her traitorous body sprang to life, her nipples pebbling as her back arched, pressing her butt against his groin.

The whole thing pissed her off. Like she was nothing more than a cat in heat.

Don’t use your head, Haven. Just wait for the man who lied to you to press his cock against your ass and lose your mind because you want him more than you want yourself. Stupid
.

“How can I prove that I didn’t do this?”

“A paternity test would be a start,” she said, grabbing her sarcasm and pulling out of his grasp before she lost what was left of her sanity.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Haven. I can’t get anyone pregnant. Sandra wanted to keep trying for a son, someone to carry on the Walker name,” he said, sounding bitter. “I knew there wasn’t anything left between us, and I didn’t want to make it worse by bringing more children into the ice castle where we lived. After Sarah was born, I had a vasectomy.”

S
HEP WAS TORN BETWEEN WANTING to convince Haven that he’d told her the truth and anger at how quickly she assumed he’d lied.

Of course, she assumed he lied. He was a politician whose father kept a separate apartment for his extra-marital affairs. And he’d cheated on his wife with her.
What was the saying? If he cheated with you, why are you surprised when he cheats on you?
He understood it, but that didn’t stop him from hating it. He hated that something that had been so important to him didn’t carry the same weight for her.

She hadn’t let him touch her again, despite the fact that he could tell she still wanted him. He wanted
her
so much he ached with it. The sex was part of it. He could lose himself in her body, but he also needed the comfort he’d found in being close to her. He liked himself better when he was with her, or at least he had until about an hour ago.

They’d ridden in silence to the Ashton. Justin had his supposed mistress cloistered away in one of the rooms and the ride had given him plenty of time to wonder what they were going to do about it. It wouldn’t matter that he hadn’t had sex with the woman, let alone fathered her child. If the press got a hold of the story, the truth would be incidental. He could release his medical records and there would still be people who wouldn’t believe him or would want to think the worst. He thought Haven might be starting to believe him, but that would be cold consolation if this turned into a scandal and torpedoed his campaign. It was her career too.

“They’re on twelve,” she said, when they’d made it to the privacy of the empty elevator.

He pushed the button and then turned to face her.

“I believe you,” she said before he could open his mouth to try to convince her. “And I’m sorry I assumed you were lying, but it doesn’t change anything. Not really.” She held her hand up and the unshed tears shining in her eyes wrecked him. “This thing between us—whatever it is—it’s going nowhere. And neither of us can afford the damage we could do to each other.”

He stepped closer, intending to pull her into his arms and convince her she was wrong. The door opened behind him and he took a quick step back, proving her point. The hallway was empty, but he hadn’t known that. He’d only been thinking about her and what he wanted, not what they needed to do to keep the wheels from falling off a campaign that had finally begun to pick up speed.

“Let me handle this,” she said as she knocked on the door to room twelve fifteen.

A surprisingly optimistic looking Justin opened the door. Haven didn’t wait to be let in; she strode across the room to the very pregnant woman, sprawled across the couch. Haven reached for the remote and turned off the television, ignoring the other woman’s protests.

“Hello, Brandy,” she said, holding up her phone for the other woman to see. Whatever was on the screen made her face go pale, and she struggled to sit up. “Why don’t you tell me who paid you to lie about the senator?”

“No one. I told you the truth,” she said, but it was a feeble protest, and she didn’t bother to meet Shep’s gaze.

They had her.
Whatever Haven dug up had changed the game. They just had to play things out to the inevitable end.

“Lying is going to make this much more difficult than it needs to be.” Haven rocked back on her heels, laser-focused on the other woman.

“I’m not lying. He’s the father of my baby.” Keeping one hand on her swollen belly, she jabbed a finger at Shep. It was the first time she’d looked directly at him, and he watched her for a moment, trying to puzzle out if he’d ever met her before. If he had, he didn’t remember.