Flirting With Scandal

by Chanel Cleeton

  I wanted it all.

  The pressure began to build, his tongue increasing its pace, his teeth grazing my flesh, and suddenly I shattered, my head lolling back and hitting the desk, my hips lifting against him, riding the wave of the best orgasm I’d ever had until I saw sparks. He kept his mouth on me while my body shuddered and quaked until I had nothing left.

  For a minute I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, struggling to get my breathing under control. I sat slowly, my body sore from being draped over his desk, my skin unbelievably sensitive. It was the kind of orgasm that left your body feeling electric, as if any touch would set you off.

  “What was that?” I asked, my voice breathless, my body utterly wrung out.

  He stared at me, and then slowly his lips curved, transforming his whole face. It was a naughty, private smile, one I couldn’t help but think he’d only shared with me.

  “The beginning.”

  Chapter Nine

  Washington has been remarkably scandal-free these days. Not for much longer . . .

  —Capital Confessions blog

  Jackie

  The next morning I woke to the memory of Will’s mouth on me, of those magic lips. I was turned on, and craving more, and wondering how my life had gotten so complicated.

  I dressed quickly, throwing my hair in a messy bun and putting the barest amount of makeup on. I’d planned on working from home for most of the day, but after last night I had one stop to make first.

  I took the Metro to the Capital Confessions offices, not bothering to wait for an invite to enter before I barged into the editor’s office.

  “Who do you have feeding you information on William Clayton?”

  My editor, Sean, stared up from his desk, an annoyed expression on his face. “Hi Jackie. How are you? Are you here to turn in your post that’s three fucking days late?”

  I grimaced. Shit. With everything going on these past few days, I’d completely forgotten. “I don’t have anything.”

  “This is D.C. Are you seriously telling me you couldn’t get any dirt for me? A sex scandal? Fraud? Misuse of government resources? Nothing? What have you been doing these past few days?”

  Will Clayton.

  “I don’t know, Sean. My internship at Price has kept me busy. And now I’m working on the Clayton campaign, and someone’s leaking information about him. I need to know who it is.”

  Sean’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  Because I liked Will more than I should and the last thing I wanted was for him to get raked across the coals on Capital Confessions. And the second to last thing I wanted was for him to realize I was their best blogger. My secret life had the potential to colossally fuck up my personal and professional life.

  “Because it’s messy having someone in his camp when I’m there. I can’t afford to screw up my position at Price, and I could if they start getting suspicious about where the leak is coming from.”

  Sean groaned. “He’s twenty-six, rich, and he looks like an underwear model. You know he has a piece on the side or some skeletons in his closet. No way I’m missing the chance to dig deeper on this one. Not even for you, gorgeous.”

  My heart nearly stopped. He did have a piece on the side—he had me.

  “Who’s your source?”

  “Come on. You know better than that. Do I ask you to reveal your sources? You know the rules.”

  “Fine. Then give me the Clayton campaign.”

  “I thought the whole point was that you wanted nothing to do with it.”

  The whole point was that I didn’t want to be any part of a smear campaign against Will, no matter how peripherally. If he ever found out about me working for Capital Confessions, he was going to be seriously pissed. At least this way I could control the flow of information.

  Up until this point nothing really bad had been written about him. The seriously fine comment was a pain in the ass, but in the grand scheme of life it could be so much worse. Like screwing-the-illegitimate-daughter-of-one-of-the-country’s-most-esteemed-senators worse. Damage control became a necessity.

  “I don’t need your source mucking it up. If you want in on the Clayton campaign, then I’m your connection. Take it or leave it.”

  I’d been working at Capital Confessions since my senior year of high school. Back then it had been nothing—me, Sean, and a few other freelancers. At first he’d been skeptical about hiring an eighteen-year-old girl, but I’d convinced him he had nothing to lose. A week later the stories started coming in, and he never looked back.

  It wasn’t my dream job. At eighteen it had been a chance to make some money when my mother forgot to pay the rent, or broke up with whatever “boyfriend” was paying for our current apartment. And then it became my ticket to help pay for college.

  The blog expanded, and we started taking private projects on the side, digging up dirt on campaigns. Everything I did was anonymous. My pen name kept my two lives from blurring and kept me from incurring the wrath of some of D.C.’s biggest power players. The money was great, and it wasn’t like I was hooking or anything, just exposing people’s sins. But I didn’t ever want Will to know about any of this. I doubted someone like him would understand the things someone like me did to survive.

  “Fine. But get me something good. And turn in your fucking post.”

  I nodded, heading for the door. Sean was cranky and irritable on his best days, and I’d just gotten what I wanted. No point in poking the beast.

  Will

  “Are we going to talk about it?”

  I looked up from my lunch, wishing I didn’t feel like I was about to get a scolding in the principal’s office. Mitch and I were at the Blue Duck, allegedly talking campaign strategy. I was beginning to think I was here for a completely different reason.

  “Talk about what?”

  Mitch shot me his no-nonsense look. “Have you had sex with her yet?”

  I choked on my sandwich. “Jesus. Are we seriously having this conversation?”

  “I told you from the beginning. I’m your campaign manager, priest, fucking wife. I have to know everything.”

  “You don’t have to know that. I’m not talking about my sex life.”

  “It’s going to affect the campaign.”

  I knew it might. I’d figured that out somewhere between making out with her in the break room and going down on her on my desk. I just . . . didn’t care? Didn’t care enough? I was hooked and I didn’t see a chance of me walking away.

  “I won’t let it.”

  Mitch shook his head, a snort escaping. “Please. Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds? Do you have any idea how many candidates I’ve watched fuck up their chances because they couldn’t keep their pants zipped?”

  “I can keep my pants zipped.” There was a line, and he was getting close to crossing it. “You worry about the campaign, I’ll worry about my personal life.”

  “Your personal life is the campaign. When you started running for office, every single thing about you became fair game. That includes the women in your life. You knew this.”

  I did. And when I’d originally started running for office, it hadn’t seemed like a problem. But then I’d never lost control over a woman before, either. And after last night, my control hung by a thread.

  “She knows how it is. She’s not stupid. Hell, she’s probably a million times better at this than I am. She’s not some girl who’s going to go running to the tabloids. I trust her.”

  I hated the D.C. machine, and as much as I knew she was part of it, Jackie was loyal. She had too much class and integrity to kiss and tell.

  Mitch closed his eyes. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re too good to be true, or my worst fucking nightmare. Is this what it’s like growing up as a Clayton? You never had to get your hands dirty, never had to live in the muck, so somehow you just naively think the best of people? Did your grandfather teach you nothing?”

  “I’m not my grandfather. Not even close.”

 
“No shit,” he muttered, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  I was definitely a masochist—first Jackie, now Mitch. But honestly, I kind of respected them more for giving me a hard time. My whole life I’d been surrounded by people who’d sucked up to me, wanting to be part of the Clayton power machine. It actually felt good to have someone be honest with me.

  “You don’t like her.”

  “See that’s where you’re wrong. I like her a lot. She’s smart and she has some of the best fucking instincts I’ve ever seen. She works hard and I think she has a real future in this town. But she’s not going to get ahead by screwing a candidate, and in the long run this shit is going to hurt her as much as it will hurt you.”

  “We’re being discreet.”

  “Please. You looked at each other and I knew.”

  Yeah, I had to work on that.

  “I’m not walking away from her.”

  “She has a past.”

  “Everyone has a past.”

  “Hers is career-ending. She has skeletons in her closet. Big ones. Ones you want nothing to do with.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  He chuckled. “You forget. I keep everyone’s secrets.”

  “Then keep hers. She’s got shit in her past, fine. We’ll deal with it. I’m not walking away from her. We’ll keep things quiet, but my private life is mine. Understood? I’m not discussing it again.”

  The thing about being a nice guy was that once you were, people always expected you to be nice. They didn’t seem to realize that “nice guy” wasn’t synonymous with pushover. I wasn’t afraid to go after what I wanted, or to do what I needed to in order to keep it.

  Mitch shot me a look of disbelief. “Fine.”

  I took a sip of my drink. “While we’re on the subject, I want you to be in charge of reporting to Price; from here on out you’re her boss and you’re responsible for her. I don’t want to cloud things more than they already are.”

  “Too fucking late for that,” he muttered.

  “Mitch.” There was a warning in my tone.

  “Yeah I got it.”

  At least that was one problem down.

  • • •

  I left lunch, heading back to the office in a cab. Mitch’s words kept playing in my mind. So Jackie had secrets. Everyone had secrets. Hers made her interesting, and mysterious, and just made me want to know more. I felt like I’d been living my life in black and white, and I’d just discovered life in Technicolor.

  I pulled out my phone, scrolling through my contacts for Jackie’s number. Last night had been mind-blowing, but if I didn’t get inside of her soon I was going to come undone.

  I texted her.

  Are you coming to the benefit tonight?

  Tonight was an annual charity black-tie event at the St. Regis. Mitch thought it would be good for PR, and I knew he and some of the senior staffers were planning on going.

  A minute later my phone buzzed.

  I’ll be there.

  My face broke out into a grin. I couldn’t wait to see her dressed up, and I couldn’t wait to undress her later. My fingers typed out the text—

  Come home with me after.

  I’d never been particularly impulsive. Always played it somewhat safe. And now I wanted her, and safe had flown out the window along with self-control and reason. I waited for her response, minutes passing as I stared at the phone clutched in my hand. And then my phone beeped, and I looked down at the screen, my heart pounding in my chest—

  Okay.

  Chapter Ten

  Tonight’s gala at the St. Regis brought out the usual mix of power players and the women who love them. One couple looked particularly cozy . . .

  —Capital Confessions blog

  Jackie

  It took me an hour to get ready. Okay, technically two.

  Black-tie events were iffy for me. On one hand, they were usually great sources for gossip, and I did owe Sean a story. On the other hand, black-tie events raised the chances of me running into my father. Not that I was even sure it mattered. The most fucked-up thing was that I didn’t even know if he knew who I was. We’d never spoken, and I wondered if he would have recognized me if I stood in front of him, although I did bear an uncanny resemblance to my mother—and, most unfairly, to him.

  I was nothing to him, but no matter how much it pissed me off, I refused to let him win. Refused to slink into the shadows or avoid going to events out of the fear that I would run into him. But I couldn’t help the fact that I was really, really nervous.

  His connection to Will was another problem I hadn’t addressed.

  As an established, well-respected U.S. senator, my father frequently took up-and-coming political candidates under his wing. He was known for grooming the party’s next generation, and Will definitely fit the bill. But I couldn’t help but wonder just how deep the connection between them ran. Was Will a family friend? Did he know my sisters?

  For a brief moment I thought about telling him the truth, that I was Senator Reynolds’s illegitimate daughter. Not just illegitimate—completely unacknowledged, a nobody in my father’s world. A dirty little secret.

  My parents didn’t have some star-crossed, epic romance. He slept with my mother because she was hot; she slept with him because he was rich and powerful. It was seedy and tacky, and for a guy like Will who oozed class and came from the right family, I was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. He looked at me like I was special; I didn’t want to see that look die out of his eyes when he realized I wasn’t.

  I was freaking out by the time I arrived at the St. Regis.

  The St. Regis was elegant, the kind of place that made you feel like royalty right when you walked through the doors. I’d been there before—with my mother mostly—and I couldn’t help always feeling just a bit out of place.

  I had an uneasy relationship with money. I’d grown up around it enough to be able to slide into these situations. I knew how to dress, what to say, how to act. But underneath it all I knew that’s all it was, an act. I played a role, pretending I was more than I was, pretending I fit somewhere I so clearly didn’t. Guys like Will were born into money, and I was always on the outside looking in.

  For the most part I didn’t care. At least I shouldn’t care. But it was another reminder of how different my life would have been if I hadn’t been illegitimate, if my father had claimed me.

  I was backroom deals and wading in muck and scandal. Will was shiny and elegant, the poster child for a new political dynasty. We couldn’t have been more ill suited if we tried.

  Will

  She was late.

  I stared at the entrance again, trying to ignore the guy droning on in my ear. He was the lieutenant governor of some state in the Midwest, so I probably should have been paying more attention, but yeah, not happening. I’d been here for an hour and I was already eager to leave.

  I wasn’t crazy about events like these. I hated making small talk, the feigned interest about each other’s lives, hated the fake smiles and the gossip, and all the things that came with playing the game. I was bored, and tired, and my bow tie choked me, and all I wanted was her.

  A woman to my right smiled at me. “You simply have to meet my niece Cornelia. Just graduated from Stanford Law. She’ll be moving to Georgetown and joining a firm there. I’m sure she’d love to spend time with some young people her own age.”

  The other thing I hated about these events? Every fucking person had a niece, or a friend, or a daughter they tried to set me up with. It was like my marital status offended everyone in the room. As if a single politician was blasphemy, and they all wanted to personally rectify it. For what felt like the millionth time that night, I wished I could have brought Jackie as my date. At least she would have made the evening fun.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get a drink—” My voice broke as I saw her and my heart fucking stopped.

  She wore black. The dress covered more of Jackie’s body than it
exposed, but it fit her in a way that showed every single curve. It was conservative, and yet it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. Almost as if to atone for the dress’s severity, her hair was a tumble of blonde curls that called to mind images of her draped over my desk, her hair a delicious mess that made it look like she’d just been thoroughly fucked. Her skin was fresh, her full lips bare, and unlike the women covered in diamonds, Jackie wore no jewelry. She was still easily the most beautiful woman in the room.

  She turned to the side, searching for something, and I caught sight of her bare skin exposed by a deep oval at the back of her dress—a stark contrast to the conservative front. She turned again and our gazes caught across the ballroom. She flushed, and then a smile spread across her mouth, a smile that lit up the room.

  And just like that I was excusing myself from the group, my feet carrying me toward her.

  Jackie

  The man knew how to work a room.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he approached me. I’d seen men in tuxedos, at benefits, in James Bond movies, and yet nothing prepared me for the sight of Will in one. Maybe it was the stark contrast of the black and white, but everything about him just seemed more. His shoulders appeared broader; he looked taller, older, infinitely more male.

  He stopped in front of me, a glass of champagne in hand, a heartbreaking smile on his face.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  My cheeks flamed. “That’s not being discreet,” I chided, my voice low.

  “I don’t care.”

  A flutter built in my stomach and moved its way up to my heart. “You should care. You’re trying to get elected. We’re all trying to get you elected. You shouldn’t be reckless.”

  “Come outside with me.”

  I wanted to go anywhere with him, but something about seeing him like this made me incredibly shy. He felt completely out of reach, and I couldn’t help but worry that I was just another version of my mother, good enough to screw around with, but not enough for anything more.