Our girl. Manny had to smile at that.
“Everyone here knows Senator Olivia Hunter is running for reelection. Well, it just so happens that the New York Public Library is featuring a collection of love letters written by her great-grandparents. The exhibit is entitled ‘Love and Tolerance,’ and I have Rebecca Sinclair, the curator, here with me to tell us all about it. Welcome to New York Now, Rebecca.”
“Thank you. Glad to be here.” Rebecca smiled, but Manny could see the battle with her nerves in the crease of her brow.
“I understand Olivia Hunter’s son, Kyle, has come with you this morning.”
Rebecca’s face flushed bright red. “Um, yes.”
“Tell us something that we don’t know about New York’s most eligible bachelor.”
Rebecca flashed her a look of real surprise.
The host smiled wryly in return. “Come on, there must be something.”
“Well…he tutors underprivileged students for the SATs in his spare time. They’re great kids…but I’d like to talk about the exhibit.”
“Yes, before we get to that, I want to ask what everyone is dying to know. Have you scored New York’s Bachelor of the Month?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is he in the habit of having ménage à trois relationships?”
Rebecca’s voice jumped an octave. “What?”
“New York Now has the exclusive on sexting messages sent just last night between Kyle Hunter, you, and his Marine gunner copilot, Manny Tescadero.”
Rebecca’s face went from red to white. Kyle jumped out of his seat first, only because Manny was paralyzed with anger. They both made it to the edge of the broadcast set before security could stop them.
* * *
Rebecca’s head was spinning. The studio lights, suddenly scorching hot on her face, blinded her of almost everything but the host’s bright red lips. It was hard to hear, hard to breathe, hard to stay upright in her chair.
“It’s clear Kyle Hunter doesn’t share his mother’s conservative family values. Can you tell us how far back Kyle’s relationship with his copilot goes?”
Rebecca heard shouting and then felt Manny’s hand take hers in a granite hold. “Come on, we’re getting you out of here.” Then she was moving quickly offstage and down the same hall from which she’d come. Kyle led the way.
Manny cradled her under his arm as studio workers gawked and whispered. The television monitors at each doorway now displayed a picture of Rebecca in her new corset top, lips locked with Manny, and the caption read: Kyle Hunter, son of Senator Olivia Hunter, in love triangle with ex-Marine copilot.
The humiliation was like a wave of black tar weighing down her muscles, dragging her under into a mess there was no escaping. Rebecca thought she might be sick.
“She’ll ride with me,” Manny barked once they were out in the cloud-filtered morning sun. The city rush hour roared around them, oblivious and unaffected.
“Fine. We’ll head back to your place. It’s closer.”
Rebecca put her sunglasses on, thinking a paper bag would be even more useful. “This is really bad.”
Manny couldn’t hide the worry on his face, though he tried. His eyes betrayed his words. “Nobody cares about what’s going on in our bedroom.”
Rebecca nodded. “What is Olivia going to say?”
They stopped at a red light and Manny’s phone rang. He answered it on speaker.
“Manny, I can’t reach Kyle. Is he with you?”
“No, Olivia. I’m with Rebecca.”
“Just tell me it isn’t true. Tell me we have plausible deniability.”
Manny locked his jaw. “With all respect, I’m not about to discuss this with you or anyone else.”
Olivia went silent. Only Holly’s low rumble filled the car interior—that and the sound of Manny’s grinding teeth.
“When you see Kyle, tell him to call me immediately.”
“Sure.” Manny disconnected.
Rebecca didn’t know exactly when the tears had gathered in her eyes, but the Veritage building was blurry by the time they reached its adjacent garage. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Why? You did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong.”
“Where did they get that picture of us?”
“I texted that picture to Kyle last night. Whoever has his phone must have given it to the press.”
“For what reason?”
“To embarrass Olivia, I guess. Or because some asshole might think it’s fun to play with Kyle’s life? I don’t know.”
Kyle blew into the apartment as Rebecca was taking off her new shoes. “Are you OK? I could kill that reporter.”
“Your phone, Kyle,” Rebecca said with a long sigh. “We think someone found your phone and gave it to Channel Five.”
Kyle sat down next to her. “I knew it. When I get my hands on whoever is behind this…”
Manny handed his cell phone to Kyle. “Call Olivia. She’s freaking out.”
He took it. “Right. I’ll be in the bedroom.”
Rebecca looked at her watch. “I’m supposed to be at the library in an hour.”
“I have a flight this afternoon too,” Manny said. He slipped his fingers into her hair, massaging her scalp and managing to ease some of the tension from her body. “But I’ll call out sick or something if you want me to.”
“No, what good would it do to hide in here?” She smiled up at him, though her lips felt tight.
Kyle returned, looking like the world had ended. “They’re talking about investigating her for misuse of congressional influence.”
Rebecca cocked her head. “Come again?”
“She pulled strings to get us assigned together. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal except it now looks like she set up her son to serve next to his boyfriend; at least that’s how her opponent is spinning it.”
“Fuck,” Manny groaned.
“I…” Kyle swallowed hard and pressed his lips together, looking down at the floor. “I have to go.”
Manny jumped up from the futon. “No, not again.” He tugged on Kyle’s shirt. “Look at me, Kyle.”
Rebecca watched Kyle shake his head. “It’ll blow over. But right now, I can’t be here.”
“You’re walking out on me again, asshole. Mommy gives you marching orders and you fall right in line, don’t you?”
“You think I want this? You think I want to live my life under her approval, making sure I don’t do anything to embarrass her?” He raked his hand through his hair.
“What about you, golden boy? Wouldn’t want to do anything else to damage your image?”
“Manny, that’s enough,” Rebecca warned.
Kyle sounded frustrated. “Don’t make this into something it isn’t, Manny. We just need to lay low for a while.”
Manny stepped aside, thrusting his hand toward the door. “Go then. No one’s stopping you.”
“I’m heading to pick up a new phone. I’ll call you later.”
Manny nodded, but it looked as sarcastic as he sounded. “Yeah, sure you will.”
Rebecca watched Kyle leave, and then she watched Manny’s jaw muscles turn to granite. In the space of an hour, everything had gone to hell and she had no idea how to fix any of it.
* * *
By the time Rebecca got to the library, Craig was waiting in her cubicle. A heavy sigh escaped her lips before she could stop it. “Hi Craig, what can I do for you?”
Rebecca dropped her bag onto her desk. She wrestled her hair into a high ponytail as she always did before getting to work, and boy did she have work to do. The exhibit opened in a few days and she still needed to finalize the lighting, credit the historical photographs she’d added, and get a quote from both the Cardinal’s office and the rabbi at Beth Shalom. Oh, and she should invite them to the—
“Rebecca, do you know who called me this morning?”
“Hmmm? Who?”
“Olivia Hunter. Well, not Senator Hunter herself, but her office.”
Rebecca froze. “What did they say?”
“They want me to finish the work on the exhibit. In fact the exact words were, ‘Keep Rebecca Sinclair as far away from the Senator’s exhibit as possible.’”
Rebecca looked up at the ceiling, thinking that gravity might then work in her favor and keep those goddamn tears from falling. “Did they say why?”
“Listen, I’m not one for gossip. I don’t really care what you have going on with her son. But it’s all over the Internet.” He touched her shoulder. “Why don’t you put in for some of that vacation time you never take?”
“Craig, this is my project. It was supposed to save my job, not make me give it up.”
“What can I tell you? They’re her letters, her money funding the exhibit, her rules.”
“Fine.” She snatched up her bag. “That’s just freaking fine!” She whipped past Craig and marched along the string of identical cubicles toward the stairs. “I don’t need a vacation because I quit!”
And…now what? Rebecca fumed as the city buzzed around her. She was a single ant in the biggest of all anthills yet she suddenly felt like a spotlight followed her everywhere she went. Of course everyone in Manhattan couldn’t possibly know or give a crap about “Two Marines and a Library Lady” but that wasn’t much consolation. They were a constant topic of the political pontiffs. Serious news was a lot less interesting than a good juicy scandal.
Wild thoughts crossed her mind. Should she change her name? Surely any library worth its reputation wouldn’t look twice at her resume. But then there was that pesky detail of her face being plastered on every news channel. Was there a club for outed political harlots? Maybe a career in handbags was the next logical move.
Rebecca wished she could close her eyes tight and count to ten, then open them to find this whole circus had been a dream. Until a few weeks ago she’d been alone in the city, minding her business, keeping to herself for the most part. Sure it got lonely sometimes. She’d even considered getting a cat. Right then, she’d have done anything to be that anonymous small-town girl in the city that never sleeps. Her life couldn’t have been more of mess if she’d purposely tried to screw it up.
But what about the fire Manny had ignited in her and the way Kyle just fanned the flames between all of them? She’d let them distract her, let them make her do things she’d never have done in a million years. Rebecca studied the sidewalk as she moved along the avenue. Everyone knows what happens when you play with fire.
She walked right past Petite Fours, not able to risk familiar faces awkwardly pretending they hadn’t seen her plastered half-naked on page six of the newspaper. How utterly mortifying that would be! She headed straight for her car, and pointed it west, not stopping until she was nearing the Cleveland city limits.
Rebecca pulled into a gas station just as the sun was starting to set. The red glow of her dashboard clock flickered, as it tended to do when the car idled. A few minutes past six. The Sinclair family would be sitting down to dinner.
Rebecca sighed and pulled her phone from her purse. “Hi Mom. I’m coming home.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kyle watched Thomas pacing back and forth. Olivia’s campaign manager was speaking quietly into his phone. “Yes, I understand. No, no need to apologize. By next week I’m certain the news cycle will change and everyone will be finished making up scandalous gossip.”
Thomas stopped at the long stretch of windows overlooking the Hudson River in Kyle’s apartment. He balanced his phone in the crook of his neck while he worked his iPad. “We’ll speak again on Monday, see what the polls say.”
Olivia sat on the couch, smoking. It was something Kyle hadn’t seen her do in ten years, though he suspected she hadn’t ever kicked the habit entirely.
She blew out a long, thin stream of smoke. “Your sister will be here with your father any minute. Then we’ll have a family meeting.”
“What’s the purpose of dragging them all the way down from the lake?” Kyle asked.
“We all need to get on the same page. We’re in damage-control mode from here on out and I don’t want anyone sending the wrong message.”
Kyle took another swig of vodka. If she could smoke, then he could drink. “I already told you, Mother, I won’t lie about my relationship with Manny, or Rebecca.”
She pinned him with a steely, blue-eyed stare and for once he didn’t crumble before it.
The door opened. Gavin placed the key back in his pocket as Sam sauntered in. “Well, at least I’m not the one in trouble for a change,” she said on a light-hearted chuckle.
Kyle frowned. “You know Dad, just because your name is on the deed to this place, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t knock.”
Gavin loosened his tie. “Don’t get surly with me. I’d much rather be finishing my book in front of the fire.” He paused. “But like it or not, I’m here with my muck boots on, to help clean up the mess.”
Kyle was almost thirty. He’d flown missions into the most hellish of places, killed for his country, and witnessed his own die in her name, and still his parents could manage to make him feel fucking twelve years old.
Olivia began in the business-like tone Kyle recognized as her war-room voice. “Thomas just got finished with the party chairman. The library exhibit should be good PR, but he’s going to cancel the town hall I had planned for the day after in Rochester. I can’t risk a rogue question about this debacle. Kyle, that fundraiser with the New York Law Association should be postponed for a few weeks, too.”
“No.”
“Sorry honey, but I’ve got to bench you.”
“I mean no, we are not doing the sweep-it-under-the-rug thing. I’m not doing it with you.”
Olivia shot him a confounded look.
“Mom, I didn’t want my love life plastered over the airways any more than you did. But contrary to what anyone else thinks, it isn’t some kind of depraved indulgence. Not that I feel like I need to explain myself.” He stood up, placed his drink on the bookcase and raked his sleeve up to his elbow. “Do you see this?” Kyle thrust his arm out in front of him, brandishing the letters USMC stacked one atop the other from just below his elbow to the inside of his wrist. Beneath his wrist, his fingers curled into a fist. “It means I would have died for him. What we’ve been through together…what we made it through…” He shook his head. “No, I won’t lie about my feelings for Manny.”
“What feelings? You’re friends, nothing more.”
“We are much more.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I love him, and I won’t lie about it.”
Thomas approached him from the side. “You wouldn’t have to lie. We just need to keep you out of the public eye for a while—keep the questions at bay. The woman, Rebecca, maybe she can help us change the subject from you and Manny. We say that the picture was a playful taunt, that she recruited your friend Manny to make you jealous with that picture of them kissing. New York’s most eligible bachelor is hard to pin down, right?”
Kyle only scowled at him. The words coming out of Thomas’s mouth were so far from right.
Olivia stamped out her cigarette on the makeshift ashtray she’d fashioned from a saucer. “That is good, Thomas. Yes, Rebecca wanted to make him jealous and it worked. Kyle went over to that apartment to tell her how he felt about her. We can spin this into something nearly palatable and put this fire out before it does any more damage.”
Thomas nodded. “It will be easy, Kyle. You just need to look like you’re madly in love with Rebecca until the election. We can even tie in the library exhibit to your story. I know we said that she needed to leave the project, but the star-crossed-lovers angle is an excellent fit.”
Kyle scratched the back of his head, where a mother of a migraine had staked its claim. “And after the election? Then what?”
Olivia shrugged. “Then you can do what you want.”
“What if I want to be with Manny?”
Thomas answered.
“We don’t want to risk a probe into the coincidental pairing of two childhood friends in the United States Marine Corps. I mean it screams favoritism. After a few weeks, people are going to care a lot less about any of this. Besides, you’ll have all the time in the world to explain how you discovered you were gay after the election.”
Kyle scoffed at the insinuation, turning to his mother. The sour taste in his mouth curled around his words. “I thought you liked the idea of a gay son, Mom. Pretty sure you thought it would get you a whole new breed of rainbow supporters.”
Olivia cocked her head to the side. “You cannot be serious. Gay is one thing. Carrying on with your best friend and another woman is something else entirely. Last I checked, there wasn’t much of an orgy constituency of likely voters.”
Gavin stepped in front of Olivia, tamping her down with his left hand as he extended his right one toward Kyle, ever the peacemaker, even if he accepted the role with reticence. “Son, the election is less than two months away. We’ve all made sacrifices. This is the final push. I don’t know exactly what the hell is going on with you and Manny—”
“And Rebecca,” Sam added promptly, being oh-so-helpful from her front-row seat in the leather club chair. Kyle shot her daggers with his eyes, but she just grinned, no less entertained.
Gavin continued. “You can work with us on this, can’t you?”
“Please honey, we’re so close to the end,” Olivia said. She got up and stood next to Gavin, holding her arms out to Kyle. “What do you say?”
Kyle grimaced. “After the election I can do what I want?”
“We’ll be in a much better position to help the country accept the truth,” Thomas answered.
Kyle set free a long, ragged sigh. “All right…just until the election, I’ll only see Rebecca. After that I’m free to do what I want.”
“As free as any of us are,” Gavin murmured.
Sam sidled up to Kyle as he went to gaze out of the window. “Soooo…the three of you, huh?”
“Save it, Sam. I’m not in the mood.”
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