London was quiet on the way back to her townhouse. Derek watched her from the corner of his eye. She was such a mystery to him, bouncing from charming and graceful one moment to quiet and insular the next. His fingers itched to touch her, his chest ached to find out what was going on behind her beautiful eyes.
“I didn’t hit anyone,” he joked finally, hoping to lighten the mood.
She gave him a small smile. “You behaved perfectly. Thank you.”
“As did you,” he responded. “The president couldn’t stop complimenting you.”
“She’s compelling. I can see how she became our first woman president. Are she and the Ambassador close?”
“They’ve always gotten along, but they seem to be spending more time together lately. I think it’s all the work on this treaty.”
She nodded and the conversation faded once more.
But Derek hadn’t gotten where he was by giving up easily.
“Is something bothering you?” he asked as they reached her block and he started looking for a parking space.
“Why would you think that?” she asked dully.
“You’re very quiet and it seemed that you and Kamal were having a serious discussion when I walked up. Was he speaking to you in Arabic?”
“Yes,” she answered as he pulled into a space across the street from her dark red front door.
He nodded, not sure what to make of it all.
“Did he say something to upset you? If so I’ll speak with him about it. He can be a little overprotective, he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s been my wingman for so long it’s become second nature to him.”
She shook her head, but something about it didn’t ring true to him. “No, no, he was just…it was nothing. I enjoyed hearing Arabic again. My mother used to speak it to me along with Persian. It’s been a long time.”
She looked out the window away from him and he felt the distance between them grow. He hated it.
She opened the door and he hurried to reach her side of the car before she could cross the street without him. He kept a hand at the small of her back as they went up the walk to her front door.
She took her keys out of her handbag then turned to him. He was crowding her, he knew it, but he didn’t want to leave her this way. He’d already promised not to kiss her, but he didn’t like whatever this was between them. Loathed the thought of her sad and alone in her house, while he was alone and frustrated in his own miles away.
“Thank you for the chance to see the White House,” she said softly.
“Thank you for going with me,” he answered, mesmerized by her lips in the soft lights from the street. He leaned closer, and heard her breath hitch.
“Derek,” she warned.
He planted a hand against the door next to her head, leaning in casually and taking a deep breath of her spicy scent. “Yes?” His voice was gravelly and deep with want.
She shook her head slightly, her eyes pinned somewhere in the vicinity of his chin. “You promised,” she almost pleaded.
“I promised no kissing.” He rubbed his nose along her neck and she gasped softly.
Her hands flattened against his chest, but instead of repelling him they cupped him, her fingertips softly pressing into his flesh, searing him at every point of contact.
He took a strand of her thick hair between his fingers, stroking it gently. “I never promised to give up. You should know I’m not the type to do that.”
She sighed, midway between exasperation and desire. He couldn’t help but smile at the sound.
“Why would you want me? There’s no future. I’ll have to go back to work sooner or later, and everyone in the world now knows what I do. I’m about as far from girlfriend material as it gets. Maybe it’s the conquest? You just want a one-night stand to see if it’s different with a hooker?”
His heart skipped a beat and he moved incrementally closer, aligning their bodies from hip to shoulder. He felt her breasts give against him, her hands trapped between their bodies molding to his pecs through the thin shirt of his tuxedo.
“You know that’s not it.”
“I can’t imagine what other reason you could have,” she gritted out, her entire body stiffening as she tilted her head down, refusing to look him in the eyes.
“I want to know you,” he answered, as if it were that simple when he knew it was anything but. “You’re beautiful, smart, mysterious, and you fascinate me. I want to see the woman behind the perfect date.”
Unable to control himself he planted a series of tiny kisses along her satiny cheek. She released a sigh, fragile and full of pain.
“You won’t like what you find,” she whispered sadly.
Anger jolted him out of his lust-induced coma. He pushed away, taking her chin in between his thumb and forefinger so she was forced to look at him. “Don’t. Underestimate me,” he snapped. “I make my own decisions about the people in my life, and I don’t base them on superficial crap like conventional morals. I didn’t get where I am by being a bad judge of character.”
“And what have you judged about me?” She twisted her head, forcing him to release her. His fingers twitched from the need to touch her, but fear and anger, and something that might have been longing flashed in her eyes and he dropped his hand, resigned to the distance—for now.
“You’re strong, and you may not abide by society’s code, but you’ve got your own code and you adhere to it religiously.”
“You’re right,” she answered. “And a big part of that code is not doing harm to others when I can help it. I will do harm to you, Derek. I will. The sooner you realize that the better. I’ll admit it, when you suggested this farce I wouldn’t have predicted that I’d like you so much. But even knowing that now, it doesn’t change anything. My code says I have to keep this from being more than pretend. It’s for your good as much or more than for mine.”
He turned away from her, gazing out over the street softly lit by the antique-looking lamps. Hands on hips he took a cleansing breath, tamping down the frustration that knotted in his gut. Derek Ambrose didn’t get told ‘no’ often, in business or in life. He was surprised by how much it pissed him off. Or maybe it was just that it hurt and he didn’t want to feel that. Didn’t want to think that any man with cash could have her—but he, standing before her with his regard, his respect, and his sincerity, would be turned away. It was insulting, confusing, and yes, if he were being honest, painful. And ultimately, it was more than enough to make him walk away. For tonight at least.
He took a step down her porch stairs before turning to look back at her. “No worries,” he said stiffly. “I’ll leave your code intact. I’ll also get to the bottom of this leak quickly so you can get back to your life.”
As he strode away he didn’t glance back, but he never heard her door open, and he knew she watched him as he drove off down the street.
Unable to relax after being rejected—yet again—Derek drove around aimlessly for a time, stopped in at his office, and finally went to the twenty-four hour newsstand near the Capitol, to grab the earliest edition of the national papers. Often he’d work so late that by the time he left to go home it was after four a.m. and the papers were just being distributed. He hoped maybe one of the photos of he and London at the White House might have made the society page, adding to the credibility of their fabricated relationship. Tonight, or this morning as the case was, he arrived right as the delivery truck pulled up.
“Hey, Mr. Ambrose,” the newsstand owner, Orlando, quipped as he grabbed a stack of papers tied in twine from the Post delivery driver.
“Orlando. Looks like I’m right on time,” Derek answered, reaching over to snag the next stack that the driver handed out of the truck.
Orlando gave the driver a wave as the man slammed the back truck doors shut and hopped into the driver’s seat before he roared off down the street.
“You do seem to have a nose for when these papers arrive,” Orlando said. He gestured for Derek to set the st
ack of papers down on the small counter that ran along the front edge of the newsstand, then he placed his stack on top of those.
Derek took out his wallet and pulled a twenty-dollar bill from it. “And I can always count on you to have them when I need them,” he said. “They say no news is good news, but in my experience your news is the good news.”
Orlando chuckled as he clipped the string on the stack and peeled the top paper off. He handed it to Derek. “Just the Post, or you want all the big ones?”
“Let’s go for broke,” Derek answered as he handed Orlando the cash. ”Give me one of each.”
The sky was shifting from inky to gray as he slid into his car, and Derek sat for a moment looking at the still, quiet street, lights shining from upstairs windows where people in apartments were just waking to start their days. He loved the city. Watching it at times like these, when it was in that moment between the gritty, splashy nighttime and the bustling, mechanical daytime, was his favorite view of D.C. He’d been here for over a decade and still never got tired of the energy that hummed through the city twenty-four hours a day. Washington was the jewel that he wanted to possess more than anything. Melville in the White House was his way to grab that jewel.
He set the papers down on the passenger seat and moved to buckle his seat belt. As he did, his eyes grazed the headline of the Post.
Road to White House Paved with Sex and Lies: New Information Says D.C. Prostitute Was Having Sex with Senator Jason Melville.
Chapter 7
Derek held his bleeding hand against his chest, and leaned back against the tile wall of his office bathroom. He gripped his wrist tightly, hoping to stem the flow of blood from his knuckles and the meaty pad of his palm. Next to him the gaping hole in the plasterboard mocked the substantial pain that throbbed with every heartbeat.
“Here,” his secretary said from the doorway as she held out a damp rag. “Wash up and then I’ll get you something to eat and drink. Mr. Roberts is waiting for you.”
“All right,” he rasped, looking down at his wrinkled, bloodstained shirt and wondering if he should risk changing it yet or if he might find another way to bleed in the next few minutes.
As if she could read his mind, Renee said softly, “You’ll be okay once you get cleaned up. I pulled out one of your spare shirts and a new tie. They’re hanging on the doorknob of the closet.”
She left quietly then, shutting the door behind her, and Derek stared at the tile wall for a few moments, his breath coming in slow rasps as the morning’s headlines flashed through his mind yet again. Naturally he’d been furious when he saw the story break, but as five a.m. turned to six, and then to eight, as the leadership of the party continued to call him, demanding to know how he’d let this happen, and as Melville became increasingly despondent and began asking for Derek to draft a resignation speech, his initial anger turned to panic.
Derek Ambrose was a dedicated, tireless, cutthroat worker who had earned every good thing in his career, but he had also never been challenged like this. He’d had his politics questioned, his methods, his decisions, but he’d never had his personal credibility questioned. He’d never had anyone doubt his word. Today they were, and for the first time in his life, Derek didn’t know what to do next.
A soft knock sounded on the door. “You coming out?” Teague’s voice rumbled through the solid wood.
Derek cleared his throat. “Yeah. Be right there.” He hoisted himself off the wall, feeling his stomach lurch as he did. After getting it under control, he rinsed the washcloth, rewrapped it around his hand, and opened the door to face the music.
“Yeah,” Teague said from his perch on the leather sofa in Derek’s office, nose wrinkled in disgust. “You’re definitely going to want that clean shirt Renee put out for you.”
“Sorry,” Derek muttered as he walked to the closet door and began unbuttoning his wrinkled, stained blue dress shirt. After he’d replaced it with the clean gray version, he flopped down in the armchair that matched the sofa.
“Do you think you broke it?” Teague asked with deceptive casualness.
“I doubt it.”
“I’d like to get someone to drop by and take a look at it anyway. You’ll never forgive yourself if you let it heal wrong and you can’t box at Spar anymore.”
Derek nodded, conceding. “Did you guys draw straws?” he asked, leaning back his head and closing his eyes as the throbbing pain subsided to a dull, but persistent, ache.
“No, I volunteered,” Teague answered. He took a sip of coffee and set the cup down before relaxing back into the plush leather cushions, one ankle cocked on the opposite knee. “It was either Jeff or I. Kamal is so pissed that the press has gotten more information in spite of all our efforts to bury it, he can’t think straight, and Scott’s scared of you, to be honest.”
Derek propped one eye open and huffed out a breath of disbelief. “Bullshit. Scott’s more likely scared to be seen coming into my office. The party might exile him if he gets caught.”
“In all fairness, the President Pro Temp has drawn a one-mile radius around your office building on a map in his conference room and forbidden anyone on staff from entering the circle of doom.”
Derek chuckled softly, grateful that even in the midst of all of this Teague could make him laugh.
“I’ve already filed injunctions against the Post and WNN,” Teague continued. “It won’t stop them in the longer run, but it’ll get us access to exactly what information they have and where they got it. They’ll also have to refrain from disseminating anything more until they’ve sent their guys to the courthouse and had a sit-down with the judge.”
Derek cleared his throat. “Thank you. What does that buy us—a day or two?”
“That’s about right. I asked for Judge Hopkins. He’s on vacation this week, so if we get on his docket it won’t be until Monday. That gives us two weekdays plus the weekend. That’s best case scenario.”
Renee walked into the room then, her high heels sinking silently into the plush carpeting. She set a tray down on the end table next to Derek, and poured a cup of tea from the pot before handing it to him.
“Make sure he drinks this,” she told Teague. “Stress can make you dehydrated.”
Teague nodded and gave her a small salute.
She placed a comforting hand on Derek’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze before drifting back out of the room. Derek sighed and leaned his head back again, inhaling the steam from the tea. He appreciated the warmth, as everything inside of him had gone cold three hours ago, and remained frozen since.
Teague stood and walked to the built-in bar that ran along one wall of the office. He grabbed a bottle of scotch and returned, pouring a generous portion into Derek’s teacup.
“Renee’s very motherly,” he said as he set the bottle down on the coffee table. “But she doesn’t know shit about getting through a crisis of this magnitude.”
Derek smiled wryly and tipped his cup at his friend before taking a big swallow of heat and alcohol. It landed in his stomach and burned for a moment before settling into the glow he was hoping for.
“Now,” Teague said as he produced an iPhone from his pocket and began typing rapidly with his thumbs. “You’ve had your half hour to wallow—or self-destruct as the case may be. It’s time to get to work. You’ll obviously need to cut your losses and let Melville drop out, but if you want, we can continue to say the stories about her and Melville aren’t true. I can start the paperwork for a suit of defamation of character. Both you and Melville could go that route. It’d probably never get resolved, but it would cast some doubt and maybe clean him up a touch. The other way to go is to let him sink for the prostitution, you say you lied to protect him, and I’ll get you a publishing contract for a tell-all book. I can negotiate something pretty lucrative with that publisher that did the unauthorized biography on President Hampton last year. They love political stuff.”
Derek felt his throat closing up at the words, ‘drop out’ an
d ‘tell-all’.
“Jesus,” he managed to choke out. “Isn’t there an option three?”
If Derek didn’t know any better he’d have sworn Teague smiled at that, but the expression was gone in a flash.
“Ok. What’s option three?” His friend gave him a thoughtful look, waiting patiently.
Derek didn’t know the answer. What he had known since six fifteen that morning was that not only did he not want to give up on the campaign, he didn’t want to give up London. The moment Melville dropped out of the race all pretenses for spending time with her would be eliminated. Melville would go on, Derek would go on, and London would go on—separately—but to what? Would she go back to work? Undoubtedly she would be in high demand, now a world-famous D.C. escort. The very idea made him queasy, and even though she’d rejected him the night before, he wasn’t ready to give up. And he sure as hell wasn’t ready to give her the opening to go back to prostitution.
He needed more time—more time to think of options, more time to think of ways to spin it all, more time to figure out what his feelings for London might be, and if she could ever possibly return them. Derek Ambrose didn’t quit. Ever. It wasn’t in his nature, and he had no idea how to do it now. He’d set out to put a man in the White House, and then, unwittingly, he’d also determined to save a beautiful woman. He wasn’t ready to give up on either goal, no matter how stacked against him the odds appeared to be.
“I don’t know what option three is, but if I can get some time I’ll figure it out.”
Teague watched him thoughtfully. “So the question is, how do we buy you time?”
Derek nodded.
“As I said, the injunction gets you a couple of days.” He looked thoughtful for a few moments. “If we file the defamation suit immediately, but don’t put out any statements, it implies that we’re saying the articles are false, yet you haven’t actually said so. People will demand a statement from the campaign, but I suspect that we can get by for another two or three days with the speculation and theories that the suit puts into motion.”
The Kingmaker (Powerplay #1) Page 9