“I should go,” I say softly, my voice filled with all kinds of regret. Regret for kissing him, for liking it. Regret for agreeing to live with him when I should have been strong and said no. Regret for not joining a convent the minute he landed back in New York, because one thing is clear. Jacob Chancellor is going to destroy me, and I’m helpless to stop it.
“Me too,” he says, and I can’t help but wish tomorrow comes slower than it will. I guess it’s time to pay the piper, and his name is Jacob. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I repeat with a twinkle in my eye. I have to be strong. I have to make him end this ridiculous charade before I can get too comfortable in his home and his life, before he has a chance to break my heart. He smiles boldly in return, and I have no idea what’s going through his head right now.
I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
“Could Popular New York Attorney Be the One to Stick?”
Chapter 6
Lady of the manor
No. Absolutely not.
“I’LL DO MY BEST,” I replied as I pushed up from the booth.
“Good,” Jacob said just as I was reaching for my bag. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“What’s that?” I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t help it; he is so frustrating. I feel like the sexy senator with the dimples talked circles around me all night and I somehow managed to agree to everything he wanted. What the hell? It’s like I’m stuck in his sexual pull. Every single time he flashes me those dimples I got stupid.
“Just a little practice,” he said cryptically.
“Practice?” I snapped. I was losing my patience. I clearly needed to get out of that restaurant and soon. “What practice?”
“This.” And then he wrapped me up tight in his arms and crushed his mouth to mine.
I melted into him like Frosty the Snowman in July, and my lips opened under his. And when he licked into my mouth, I just lost it. I let out a moan worthy of a porn star, which is nothing like me. Usually, I am reserved and private no matter what, but with Jacob, it’s like I become a completely different person. And I don’t like it at all.
But that’s a lie. My body burned hot and I pushed closer to Jake. I needed him. I needed him to touch me, to put the fire out so I could go back to my normal quiet self.
And all the while, as he held me in his arms, the promise of more whispered across my mind, but we both know that would be impossible, and even if it weren’t impossible, it’s certainly dangerous to my heart.
We were lost in the moment like a Shania Twain song, and then one of his Secret Service agents whispered, “Senator, you have eyes on you.” And it’s like a bucket of cold water was thrown on us.
How could I have been so stupid? Not once, but twice I let myself fall into a compromising situation with Jacob Chancellor, New York’s most eligible bachelor. And I am grand prize idiot of the year.
I HAVE TO SHAKE my head like an Etch A Sketch to clear the images that keep skipping through my brain, but after last night, I am helpless to stop them. Now, all I can think about is how I want a certain senator to kiss me. Again. Actually, I guess I should start calling him Jake like everyone else if I’m going to be his faux live-in lover. But a secret part of me deep down inside whispers I don’t want to be like everyone else.
“And I like that you call me Jacob,” he whispered when he thought I wasn’t listening. I have to steel my heart against falling for his charm, because now I’ve talked to him and really heard what he had to say. Now that I’ve kissed him and liked it, I could really fall for Jacob Jefferson Chancellor, United States Senator and really get my heart broken if I’m not careful.
My doorbell dings, breaking me from my thoughts. It’s Carter, my assistant. I called him early this morning and told him I needed help packing to move. He laughed out loud in his haughty way until he realized I’m not kidding. I, of course, had to find a way to explain to my second in command that I was moving in with the presidential candidate of the year. And I had to do it all without telling him the entire thing was a sham because I’m being blackmailed. Somehow, I sidestepped answering when he asked me about Chancellor’s… umm… “credentials,” and I was tight-lipped when he asked me about our whirlwind romance.
“This is not in my job description,” he says when I open the door.
“But you love me, so you’ve come anyway,” I say on a smile. I’m happy to have a friend with me for this move, even if I can’t tell him why I’m moving. Carter knows I’m nervous, but he thinks it’s just serious relationship jitters, not “I’m being blackmailed into pretending I’m in a serious relationship with a man running for President of the United States.” Jesus H, that’s a lot to take on.
“I do,” he replies with a frown. “Although I’m not sure how much, since you held out on me. I thought you hated Senator Chancellor.”
“You know what they say about love and war and politics?” I laugh. I’m trying to change the subject, but my efforts seem to fall flat. If I can avoid the truth, I’m not really lying, right?
“That the buttoned-up politician is a tiger in the bedroom?” Carter snarks, making me blush. “Because I need to know if the tabloids are true.”
Of course he would ask that, and I can’t freaking tell him the truth, because with all of my frustration over the pictures and Jacob and this stupid fake engagement to a man I want desperately but can never ever have is boiling up to the surface. I want to shout “How should I freaking know?” but I can’t, because then he would know the truth is I barely know the man and couldn’t possibly be marrying him.
“Carter—” I start, but he doesn’t let me finish whatever it was I was going to say, which is probably great, because I had no idea how I was going to stop him.
“Please tell me he has a big penis, please tell me he has a big penis, please tell me he has a big penis…” my less than noble assistant pleads while holding his hands in prayer pose in front of him.
“You are ridiculous.” I roll my eyes. “Come in here and help me or I’ll make you load Chevy into her crate.”
“No, you will not, devil woman!” he practically shouts. “I want to keep all my fingers.”
“Oh come on, you big baby,” I say on an eye roll as I walk away from him and head back into my apartment. “She’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad? Not that bad?” he parrots, clearly working himself up. “She’s not that bad? Last time we tried to give her flea medicine, she bit through my thumb!” I wince as he yells.
“Okay, that was… not great,” I say, kind of agreeing with him. “But she was scared.”
“She was scared. You know who was scared?” He scoffs. “Me! When she peed on me.”
I let out a resigned sigh. There is no talking to Carter when he’s like this. I can only agree with him and hope to move on.
“You’re right,” I agree. “She’s terrible. Why don’t you pack my shoes instead?”
“Yippee!” He claps and jumps up and down while he cheers, effectively spilling the beans that this was his plan the entire time.
“But no trying them on,” I add, giving him my side-eye. “Your feet are wider than mine and you’ll stretch them out.”
“Boo! Hiss!” he shouts, sounding so much like one of my pouting felines in a snit. “You’re no fun at all.”
He’s right, and I can’t say no to him. He’s like the baby brother I never had, so I agree to that too. “Oh fine. Try them all on. Have a blast.”
“Yay!”
“Just pack what I need. I don’t want to be hauling all my stuff over there,” I say before I realize my mistake.
“You don’t want all of your stuff there?” he asks. Suddenly, all of Carter’s good mood is gone. He tips his head to the side as he studies me.
“I just mean, I need to take this all in baby steps,” I try to explain. I force myself to look scared out of my gourd, which is not hard, considering I freaking am scared out of my gourd, just not for the reasons Carter thinks I a
m. “It’s all happening so fast.”
“It is, honey,” he says to me and I watch the hardness of his handsome features melt into a tender expression. He’s so fiercely protective of all those he loves. He’s so beautiful inside and out it’s not hard to see why his husband snapped him up so fast. “How are you doing with everything?”
“Okay, I think.”
“No one would fault you if you didn’t move in with him…” he trails off, and we both know that’s not true. The press would eat Jake alive if I didn’t move in. And if I don’t scratch his back, he sure as hell won’t scratch mine.
“I think we both know that’s not true,” I reply. “He’s really not a bad man.” I can’t believe those words came out sounding almost normal. And if you buy that, Carter, I have some ocean-front property in Nevada for you…
He shoots me a you-must-have-taken-a-blow-to-the-head look. “He’s not a bad guy? We’ve been avoiding any dealings with him for the last two years.”
“I know that,” I snap. “Maybe I was fighting my feelings for him.”
Lord knows I was fighting something. It was my wayward lady bits who would happily hop in the sack for a night with Jake’s trouser snake, but his cock clearly leads him down dark paths and would only lead to the complete and total obliteration of my heart when he eventually pulverizes it by being caught with someone else in his bed—as he always does.
“I kind of always wondered.”
He did?
“You did?” I ask him, because I don’t even think I like Jacob, but love him? I don’t know about that. Clearly, I have entered some gap in the space-time continuum.
“Yeah,” Carter answers. “It’s in the way he looks at you. You can just tell his feelings run deeper than surface level and always have.”
Yeah, okay. I barely keep from rolling my eyes and saying those words out loud. They were bad enough in my head.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“Well, let’s pack this bitch up!” Carter cheers playfully as he holds up a tape gun in his hand like he’s an old west gunslinger, making me laugh. He always brightens my mood. He’s one of those people who is just good to be around.
I fold a few more boxes to pack some of my favorite books, like Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and The Complete Works of the Brownings. Things my mom always read to me. My grandmother’s original copy of Gone with the Wind. And I top the box with my favorite throw blanket I love to sit wrapped up in while I read.
“Maybe you should go pack a suitcase or two of clothes you’ll need over the next few days, and we’ll stash those with the cat stuff until we can get a moving truck here,” Carter suggests.
“That’s a good idea. I’ll go do that now,” I say before turning to leave the room. I stop in my tracks and turn back to him, wrapping my arms around him tight.
“What’s this for?”
“I just love you, okay?”
“Okay, honey,” he says softly before releasing me.
“I really would be lost without you,” I tell him before I turn to leave the living room again just as the doorbell rings. “Now who could that be?”
“Expecting anyone else?” he asks, suddenly on alert.
“No.”
“Well the cat is out of the bag on you and the high-profile senator,” he explains. “It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was here to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.”
I let out a sigh, already hating the direction my life has taken. “I can handle it.”
“I’m sure you can,” Carter says. “But just in case you can’t, I’m here too.”
As he pushes past me toward the front door, I see the muscles in his broad back flex and play under his white T-shirt. Carter is over six feet tall, and while he’s as sweet as a teddy bear, he strikes a formidable pose.
“Well, all right then.”
“Hello,” he says as he pulls open the front door.
“I’m here for Ms. Sanders,” someone says from behind the wall that is Carter.
“And who might you be?” he asks, sounding more than a little intimidating.
“My name is Logan, and I’m a staffer for Senator Chancellor,” he explains. “I have urgent business with Ms. Sanders. May I please come inside?”
“If you’re not who you say you are, I’m going to beat the shit out of you,” Carter explains.
“I understand.”
Carter seems to assess the situation before stepping to the side and letting a terrified-looking blond man who’s all of about twenty years old. My guess is he’s not even a staffer; he’s a college intern. And if it turns out he’s an intern for any news agency, reputable or otherwise, he’s as good as dead.
The young man—Logan, he called himself—adjusts his tie as if it’s strangling him. He’s of a slim, swimmer’s build and looks as if he borrowed his dad’s suit. He’s actually kind of adorable in a boy next door kind of a way. And he keeps eyeing me and Carter as if he’s about to shit his pants.
“So, what do you do for Senator Chancellor’s office?” I ask him with a gentle smile on my face. I guess I’m the good cop to Carter’s bad cop today. That’s a fun switch.
“Errands. I’m an intern,” he explains.
“And where are you studying?”
“NYU,” he answers.
“My alma mater.”
“I know,” he says with a sudden smile that lights up his whole face. “You’re a legend in the Law Department there.”
“Really?” Carter asks, warming to the idea of good gossip. “I always figured Clark Kent here was damn near perfect. Tell me she almost got expelled for partying or was the princess of the panty raids and everyone tried to break into her dorm room.”
“Oh yes!” Logan rallies to his cause. “Did you know she staged sixty-seven protests her senior year alone?”
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?” Carter drolls. “That was incredibly anti-climactic.”
I clear my throat to stop this walk down memory lane. “And then Senator sent you to me because…?”
“Oh yes! I’m sorry,” Logan rambles before holding out an unmarked package to me. It’s just a manila envelope; there are stacks of them in every office in the country. It shouldn’t scare me. But the last one I received changed my entire world, and not for the better. I shake my head to clear my thoughts before pushing a less than natural smile back onto my face and reaching for the envelope.
“Thank you.”
“Senator Chancellor said to tell you that he had to work late and to make yourself at home. Here are your keys to the brownstone, and he said to tell you that he included the security code in a personal note inside,” Logan happily explains while I grow increasingly angry, and my smile turns more and more brittle. It’s becoming harder to hold on to. It wouldn’t surprise me if steam was shooting out of my ears as we speak. After he insisted I move in with him—today—he won’t even be there? “Here is my card as well, should you need anything else.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, taking the card from his outstretched hand.
“I’ll see that Ms. Sanders has everything else she might need for the day,” Carter explains as he pulls his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and slips one of his own business cards from it before handing it to Logan. “I’m the Executive Assistant to Ms. Sanders. Should you need anything from her in the future, please reach out to me beforehand.”
“Of course,” Logan says, looking more than a little starstruck. I think we might be in dangerous territory of poaching him from the senator, and I don’t feel guilty about it at all. “Thank you.”
Carter sees him out while I dump the contents of the large envelope onto the top of the kitchen table. My apartment is so small I’m really only a few feet away from them. I could hear every single word of their exchange if my ears weren’t currently ringing. A set of keys hits the top of my battered, wooden table with a clang, and a handwritten note flutters down on top of them. I don’t want to pick it up. I don’t want to loo
k at it. I know that when I do, it’s only going to add to my mounting frustration. And yet, like the idiot I have become around Jacob Chancellor, that’s exactly what I do.
I don’t know what I expected to find when I picked up the heavy linen notecard stamped with his seal and New York office info at the top. I am willing to bet they have the exact same stationary in his office in D.C. as well. But it’s the elegant yet masculine scroll across its surface that has me smoothing my thumb over the words that threaten to shove me over the cliff into a murderous rage.
Grace,
I have meetings all afternoon. Here are your set of keys to the brownstone. Your personal security code is 5652. Make sure to set the alarm for HOME when you are in residence and AWAY when you leave. Make yourself at home. And be ready for me tonight.
—Jake
In the immortal words of Cher from Clueless, “As if.”
I cannot believe that asshole had the audacity to tell me to “be ready for him tonight.” As if I am going to give him my body at the first available opportunity. And he’s not even going to be there to help me settle in his palatial den of iniquity! It’ll be a cold fucking day in hell before that asshole gets to win me as his prize. I’ll die fighting before I give myself to someone so cold and callous.
Carter walks up beside me, completely unaware of my inner turmoil after he quietly closes and locks the front door behind Logan. He takes in the keys and the note.
“Bad-ass,” he says. “Let’s pack up the killer pussies and crash the senator’s old money pad.”
Carter’s enthusiasm makes me laugh. “Anything for you, Carter.”
“Maybe he has crazy expensive alcohol we can snatch and drink like delinquent teenagers while he’s at work.” He waggles his eyebrows at me.
“That sounds like an excellent idea.”
“Great!” He claps his hands before he issues his orders to organize my chaos. “Change of plans. I’ll pack your suitcases and you pack up the killer kitties.”
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