A Very Exclusive Engagement

by Andrea Laurence

  “Hey,” he said softly, resisting an urge to reach out and touch her.

  “I’m really doing fine,” she told him, lips compressed, jaw tight, her knuckles straining where she held the door.

  He nodded as he moved inside, easing the door from her hands to close it behind himself. He looked meaningfully at the spiral staircase.

  “Five minutes,” she repeated.

  “I can finish a soft drink in less than five minutes.”

  She shook her head in disgust but headed up the stairs anyway. Max followed, resisting once again the urge to reach out and touch. There was a time, a very short time in the scheme of things, when he’d felt free to do that.

  “Cola or beer?” she asked, coming to the top of the stairs and padding across the smooth floor to the kitchen area.

  “Beer,” Max decided, shrugging out of his tux jacket and releasing his bow tie.

  He moved to the furniture grouping of two low, hunter-green leather couches, a pair of matching armchairs and low tables with lamps, all tastefully accented by a rust, gold and brown patterned rug. Her view of the city was expansive. The night had turned clear, with a new blanket of snow freshening up the buildings and the trees, reflecting the lights in the park across the street.

  Cara returned with a can of beer for him and a cola for her. She handed the can to Max and then curled into one of the armchairs, popping the top on her own drink.

  “Four minutes,” she warned him.

  He opened his beer and eased onto the corner of a couch. He pulled off his wristwatch and set it on the coffee table, faceup where he could see it.

  He caught her slight, involuntary smile at the gesture.

  “You okay?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him one more time.

  “Did you know?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I was counting on being able to read your expression when you told me to back off.”

  She lifted her brows. “And did you?”

  “You’re as inscrutable as ever.”

  “Thank you. It helps in my business.” She took a sip.

  He followed suit. Then he set the can down on a coaster. “You know I’ll have to go after the story.”

  “I know you will.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you. And I respect the hell out of this president. But a secret daughter?”

  “We don’t know for sure she’s his daughter.”

  Max stilled. He was surprised Cara had offered even that much insight. “We will soon enough.”

  She nodded.

  “Have you talked to Ariella?” He knew the two women were friends. Cara had casually introduced Max to Ariella at a fundraising event right before the election.

  Cara set her cola down on a table beside her. “Do you honestly think that would be in anyone’s best interest?”

  “That’s neither a yes nor a no.”

  Cara’s expression remained completely neutral.

  “You’re very good,” he allowed.

  She sat forward. “I know you have to go after this, Max. But can you at least be fair about it? Can you please take into account all the facts before you help ramp up the public hysteria?”

  Max leaned forward, bringing them close enough that he could feel her faint breath, inhale the coconut scent of her shampoo, close enough that it was hard to keep from kissing her.

  “I always take all the facts into account.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He reached for her hand.

  But at his faintest touch, she snapped it away. “This is going to get ugly.”

  He knew that was an understatement. The press, not to mention the opposition, smelled blood in the water, and they were already circling. “Are you going back to work tonight?”

  “Lynn’s taking the night shift. I’ll go in early tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s going to be a long haul,” Max noted, wishing there was something he could do to help her. But he had a very different job from Cara, a job that was certain to be at odds with hers.

  “Yes, it is.” She sounded tired already.

  “I’ll be fair, Cara.”

  “Thank you.” There was a wistful note to her voice. For a moment, her blue eyes went soft and her expression became less guarded.

  He reached for her hand again, this time squeezing before she had a chance to pull away.

  She glanced at their joined hands. Her voice turned to a strained whisper. “You know all the reasons.”

  “I disagree with them.”

  “I can’t date you, Max.”

  “I can’t stop wanting you, Cara.”

  She lifted her long lashes, and her crystal-blue eyes looked directly into his. “Try, Max. Summon up some of your famous fortitude and try.”

  He couldn’t help but smile at that. “I’m not here for inside information. I was genuinely concerned about you.”

  “As I said—”

  “You’re fine. I get it.”

  That was her story, and she was sticking to it.

  Her skin was creamy and smooth, her lips dark, soft and slightly parted. He imagined their feel, her taste, her scent, and instinct took over. He tipped his head, leaning in.

  But she pulled abruptly away, turning and dipping her head before he could kiss her. “Your five minutes are up.”

  He heaved a sigh, giving up, letting her small hand slip from between his fingers. “Yeah. I guess they are.”

  *

  Max had left his watch behind in Cara’s apartment. She had no way to know if he’d done it on purpose. It was a Rolex—platinum, with baguette-cut emeralds on the face. She couldn’t even imagine the price. Being a popular television personality definitely had its perks.

  When she’d gone to bed, Cara had set the watch on the table beside her. She’d used its alarm as a backup, since she’d had to get up at three-thirty.

  Then she’d put it in her purse before heading for her West Wing office at the White House. If Max called about it, she’d drop it off for him on her way home. She had no intention of letting him use it as an excuse to come back to her apartment again.

  She flashed her ID tag through the scanner in the White House lobby, and passed through security in the predawn hours. A cleaner was vacuuming, while deliverymen made their way along the main hall. It was quiet out front, but closer to the press office, the activity level increased. Movers were lugging furniture and boxes into the newly appointed offices. She passed several people on her way to her small office.

  “Morning, Cara.” Her boss, Lynn, fell into step with her.

  Cara unbuttoned her coat and unwrapped her plaid scarf from around her neck as they walked. “Did you get a chance to talk to the president?”

  Lynn shook her head, shifting a file folder to her opposite hand. “The Secret Service was with him for an hour. Then Barry went in for a while. And after that, he went back to the residence.”

  “Is it true?”

  One of the communications assistants appeared to take Cara’s scarf and purse. Cara shrugged out of her coat and added it to the pile in the woman’s arms.

  “We don’t know,” said Lynn, pushing open her office door.

  Cara followed her inside. “Barry didn’t ask him?”

  Chief of Staff Barry Westmore knew the president better than anyone.

  As press secretary, Lynn’s office was the largest in the communications section. It housed a wide oak desk, a long credenza, a cream-colored couch and three television screens mounted along one wall playing news shows from three different continents. In English, German and Russian, reporters were speculating on the president’s personal life.

  Lynn plopped down in her high-backed leather chair, twisting her large, topaz ring around and around the finger of her right hand. Lights from the garden broke the darkness outside the window before her. “Even if it’s true, the president wasn’t
aware that he had a daughter.”

  “That’s good.” From a communications perspective, deniability was key in this situation.

  Lynn didn’t look as relieved as Cara felt. “There’s more than one possible woman.”

  Cara’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Barry and I did the math,” said Lynn. “Accounting for possible variations in gestation period. Since the baby might have been premature, there are three possible mothers.”

  “Three?” Despite the gravity of the situation, Cara found herself fighting a smile. “Go, Mr. President.”

  Lynn frowned at her impertinence. “It was senior year in high school. The man was a football star.”

  “Sorry,” Cara quickly put in, lowering herself into one of the guest chairs opposite the desk.

  Her boss waved away the apology. “He’s refusing to give us the names.”

  “He has to give us the names.”

  “First, he wants to know if Ariella is his daughter. If and only if she is his daughter, then we can look at the ex-girlfriends.”

  “The press will find them first,” Cara warned, her mind flitting to Max. The networks and newspapers would pull out all the stops to find Ariella’s mother. They wouldn’t wait on a DNA test. This was the story of the century.

  “Yes, they will,” Lynn agreed. “But the president is unwilling to ruin innocent lives.”

  In Cara’s opinion, the women’s lives were already ruined. Anyone who’d had the misfortune to sleep with President Morrow in high school would be fair game. It wouldn’t even matter whether the lovemaking squared up with Ariella’s birth date; they’d still be hunted down and hounded with questions.

  Lynn twisted her ring again. “It’s always that thing that you don’t see coming. And it’s always sex. Next time, remind me to back a nerdy candidate. Maybe president of the chess club or something.”

  “These days, nerds are hot,” Cara pointed out.

  “That’s because we expect them to grow up rich.”

  “That’s why I hang out at the local internet café looking for dates.”

  Lynn grinned, putting a little life into her exhausted expression. “I should have married a nerd in high school.”

  “Instead of a smoking-hot navy captain?”

  Lynn gave a selfconscious shrug, but her eyes took on a secretive glow. “It was spring break. And he rocked those dress whites.”

  “You didn’t even look twice at the nerds,” Cara accused.

  “The hormones want what the hormones want.”

  Cara’s brain conjured up a picture of Max, but she quickly shook it away. “Have you spoken to Ariella?”

  “Nobody can find her.”

  “Can’t blame her for that.” If it had been Cara, she’d have crossed the Canadian border by now.

  “Think you can find her?” Lynn asked.

  Cara would love nothing better than to find Ariella and make sure she was okay. But she wasn’t going to abandon Lynn to go on a wild-goose chase. “You need me here.”

  “We can live without you.”

  “Just what every woman wants to hear. You’re going to have to give a statement to the press today. And you need me to write it. You need to get some sleep.”

  Cara wished she’d had more than three hours’ sleep herself. She knew she had to pay more attention to things like eating and sleeping now that she was pregnant. But time for sleep and time to prepare nutritious meals were pretty hard to come by while working for the president. Especially during this crisis.

  “I will get some sleep,” Lynn agreed. “Barry’s working on a statement, and we’ll put the press off until the afternoon. Do you think you’d be able to find Ariella?”

  Cara got to her feet. She had to believe her womb was a safe place for the first few weeks of gestation no matter what chaos was going on outside it. She reassured herself that many women wouldn’t even know they were pregnant this early.

  “I can try,” she told her boss.

  “Then go. Get out of here.”

  Cara headed for her own office, quickly retrieving her coat and purse. If she could find Ariella, at the very least they could offer her Secret Service protection. She wrapped the scarf around her neck before heading out into the snow.

  If the story was true, Ariella would need protection for the rest of her life, and that would only be the start of the chaos. Merely being a member of the White House staff had sent Cara’s personal life into a tailspin. She couldn’t imagine what Ariella was going through.

  ISBN: 9781460312223

  A VERY EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT

  Copyright © 2013 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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