Dirty Scandal

by Amelia Wilde

  “Or maybe you’re both tired as fuck.” Everest tilts her head to the side, playing devil’s advocate. “Maybe weddings are exhausting to begin with, and this one was a thousand times more exhausting. Maybe he didn’t mean what he said.”

  “I meant what I said.” It’s awful, that kernel at the bottom of everything—the moral compass that drove me straight through law school and to this chair, in this dressing room.

  Everest goes quiet. “Did you mean it when you said you’d love him for the rest of your lives?”

  I suck in a deep breath and try not to crumble under the onslaught. “Yes. I meant that too.”

  “Then do what you have to do.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. “He’ll see.”

  45

  Graham

  It takes eight separate phone calls to find Bellamy.

  CNN. Fucking CNN. They were probably her first call, and now she’s going to go on the air for the morning show.

  The car stops at the curb and I launch myself out. It’s still cold at this hour and my temples throb with the need for sleep. Glorious sleep. I’m worth several billion dollars but I can’t buy restful sleep.

  Not on such short notice, anyway.

  I stride for the front entrance of the headquarters.

  A gloved hand slaps the handle at the same time as mine,.

  “Apologies.” I say it with half a smile, sheer habit, but the voice that answers me doesn’t belong to a stranger.

  “You’re in an awful hurry, Graham.”

  I’m not hallucinating—it’s my father.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His hair is neatly combed back, and it might be six in the morning but his suit is impeccably pressed. I see it for what it is now—a facade, to keep the rest of the world from knowing the rot that’s underneath.

  “I’m here to address some rumors.” He sticks his hands in his pocket and shakes his head, as if a national news item were a couple of housewives gossiping over the fence in the backyard. “What trash.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck rise. I look him in the eye—eyes the same as mine. “Is it? There’s nobody else here. You can tell me the truth.” I put a hand up. “No, don’t bother. You’d only lie.”

  He presses his lips into a thin line and my chest swells with triumph. For once, my father is the one who’s cowed. His eyes flit over my shoes and linger just past my shoulder until he can bring himself to look back. “It was one dalliance.”

  I brace myself against the door to stop myself from falling. “Holy shit. I can’t believe you admitted it.”

  My father frowns. “Language, Graham. How many times—”

  “Did you step out on my mother? Is there a half-brother in the world that’s been kept a secret from me for a decade? Yes or no, Dad. I’m short on time.”

  He hesitates. “Yes, and yes.”

  “And what were you going to do? Go on television and say it wasn’t true? That the president is the one who deserves to take the fall?”

  His expression softens. A familiar glow comes to his eyes. A very familiar glow. I’ve recently seen it in Andrew’s.

  “My god. You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s the right thing to do, Graham,” he wheedles, and puts his hand on the door handle. “Let’s go discuss it inside. It’s freezing out here.”

  I step inside and he follows.

  “Mr. Blackpool, the dressing room is down this hallway to the right,” says a woman at a polished-mahogany reception desk. Is she talking to me or him?

  “Thank you.” My father answers for both of us and we walk down the hall. He passes the dressing room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I want to watch the previous segment,” he says. “I want to see it for myself. I want you to see it, so you can understand why I need your help.”

  A surge of happy warmth cascades through my chest. No. I want to claw that feeling out with both hands, with all ten fingernails. But beneath all the walls, all the shields, there’s still the ghost of that teenage boy who wanted his father to love him.

  Like he loved Andrew.

  I stop dead in the middle of the hallway.

  He keeps going.

  I only thought they loved Andrew better than me, but that wasn’t true.

  What they loved was his compliance.

  They were rewarding him for following along even as they used me to create a distraction.

  “Are you coming?” My father has stoppped ten paces ahead and waits with narrowed eyes.

  I follow him out of instinct while my mind reels.

  I come up alongside him.

  He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Graham, you’ve grown up so much in the past couple of months. I’m proud of you.”

  It makes me thrilled. It makes me sick. That old, hapless part of me still wants to hear the words from him. The man I’ve become wants nothing to do with it. “If you’re going to ask me for a favor, you can ask without the flattery.”

  We pause outside an office the size of a closet and my father waves to someone inside. The woman there jumps out of her seat. “Mr. Blackpool. We’re so glad you could—”

  “Send someone to do makeup in the studio.” My father charms her with a smile so transparently false I can see right through to the other side. “I want to see what my daughter-in-law says.”

  “Of course. Of course. We can do that.” She hustles around behind us and down the hall. “Shelly? I need you down here...”

  As soon as she’s out of earshot, he turns back to me. “I’d rather see what you have to say. Come on.”

  He goes farther down the hallway, and I follow like I’m on a fucking leash. Why can’t I break away? Why can’t I walk the hell out of here and never look back?

  The studio door is open.

  Inside, it’s a pool of darkness with a searing bright center.

  On a chair in the middle of that light is Bellamy.

  She looks flawless, lit from heaven. Angelic. Righteous.

  She stares straight ahead like a queen.

  “You need to stop her.” My father’s voice is smooth, convincing. It’s a sound I’ve always craved. It’s the way he always spoke to Andrew.

  But now I hear it for what it is—a lie wrapped in a second lie. A promise rotten to the core.

  “You need to take her place. Do you understand?” He puts his hand just above my elbow and turns me to face him. “I would be so grateful to you, Graham, if you’d do this for me. For our family.”

  “What the hell do you expect me to say?”

  The woman from the small office brushes past with someone else—it must be Shelly.

  His lip curls upward, an indulgent smile. “That the child is yours, of course. That you were unaware of his existence. That you’ll be fighting to take him back. You’ll lose, naturally. The mothers always win. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that it will take the spotlight off Andrew and let him do his job the way he was meant to do it.”

  I swallow what feels like pure bile. “And if I agree?”

  Now he claps both hands around my shoulders. “Son, we’ll be forever in your debt.”

  46

  Bellamy

  The morning news anchor is a woman in a heather-gray suit named Rachel Knight, and she is flawless.

  I did my best, but next to her I look like I recently rolled out of bed. Shelly keeps smoothing my hair back away from my face, fiddling with the makeup. I want to push her hands away. None of this is going to help.

  Everest stands off to the side, in the shadows next to camera three.

  There are five minutes left to go.

  “After this, you can do anything.” She says it softly, as if I’m standing right next to her. I catch the words over the chatter of the crew. Rachel Knight talks to her assistant about what she wants for breakfast.

  I shrug. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that this feels like doing something rather than running from an unnameable disaster.

&n
bsp; Though, if I’m honest, the disaster Graham caused when I chased him out onto that sidewalk wasn’t so abstract.

  “Come back to D.C. and be your assistant?”

  “We’ll open a firm together. You passed the bar.”

  My mouth drops open so quickly I get a mouthful of Shelly’s makeup brush. “Girl, hold still.”

  I lock eyes with Everest. “How do you know that?”

  “The letter came to our apartment. Did you not forward your mail?”

  I try my best to communiate with my eyebrows that opening another person’s mail is a federal crime and Everest should know that. “I haven’t had time. What about you?”

  She waves a dismissive hand through the air. “Of course I did.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since Thursday.”

  “You didn’t tell me?”

  “You were getting married!”

  Shelly swipes a different brush across my cheeks. “There. You’re good to go.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  She steps away from the chair where I sit in front of a big green screen. I wonder what they’ll put behind me—the New York City skyline or a picture of me and Graham? Oh, God.

  Without Shelly blocking everyone else from sight, I can finally register the hum of activity in the studio. There are way more people in here than I expected. I wipe my palms against my skirt.

  “Belle.” Everest’s voice is cool and collected. “You’ve got this.”

  “Ms. Leighton, I’m so happy you were able to join us this morning.” Rachel Knight sounds like she’s already on the air and the precise edges of her consonants shock me into the reality of this moment.

  “I—” I want to tell her that my name is Mrs. Blackpool, but maybe it’s not. Maybe it won’t ever be official. I’ve been pushing aside the screeching pain of losing Graham in favor of hair and makeup and justice, but it comes rushing back at the thought of speaking his name. “You’re welcome. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  She laughs, a bright, cutting sound. “I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we? You’re giving us enough material for at least until the five o’clock broadcast. That’s all that matters.”

  “Of course,” I say automatically.

  Rachel’s assistant hustles up to the desk and murmurs a question I can’t hear.

  “Oh, no, we have to go on her word for the moment. Alisha scored the senior Blackpool. He’ll probably admit to it once the lights come up.”

  The backs of my hands go cold. My heart skips a beat. I’m certain it has and for a moment I’m sucked in by a terror that it won’t start again.

  It does.

  What am I doing here?

  Hearsay. It’s all hearsay. I trusted the president’s word. But what if he’s not trustworthy? What if all I’m guaranteeing in this moment is a denial by his father and a rupture in the fabric of their family?

  What if Graham was right?

  This isn’t justice. The only justice in the world is making him happy. In reveling in the fact of him, free from everything else. Free from trying to fix what happened to my mom by fighting endless battles for women like her. Free from his brother sitting in the Oval Office. All of it.

  I cut a glance toward the door.

  I can’t make a run for it. There are two men in the way.

  Two men.

  Graham.

  “Two minutes.” The man closest to camera one has a voice like tin foil.

  Two minutes.

  What am I going to say?

  Graham turns, his face in shadow. It’s too dark by the door to see what he’s going to do. All I can see is his sillhouette, raising both his hands. Shaking his head. Oh, god. Somebody dragged him here to make nice on camera so the entire country doesn’t know the wedding was a sham, and he’s not having it. A strange flare of pride rises in my chest. I’m glad he’s not having it. I’m less glad for me.

  “One minute.”

  I swallow hard.

  “Don’t worry, Ms. Leighton. I’ll give the introduction to the morning segment and then we’ll talk for a few minutes about what you know.” Rachel Knight flashes me a vivid white smile. “Be yourself. Our audience is going to love you.”

  What they’re going to love are the rumors. They’re going to love the speculation, the image of me on their screens with shaking hands and nearly perfect hair. They’re going to sink their teeth into the meat of the only revelation I have to offer, which is that I can’t prove anything.

  I can’t. Prove. Anything.

  “I don’t want to do this.” It comes out as a half-whisper that nobody hears, especially not Rachel Knight.

  “Ten. Nine. Eight—” The cameraman counts us in, and all around the bright lights, people are going still like they’re about to play the national anthem. Instead, the theme music for the early morning show on CNN cascades down, a cheery, uplifting swoop of sound, and Rachel Knight grins into the camera. The lights come up. I’m blinded.

  “Good morning, and welcome to Up Early with Rachel Knight. My co-host, Mark Freedman, is on vacation this week, but you and I will dive into all the stories you need to start your day. First up, the president’s secret godson. Rumors are flying about the alleged connection between President Blackpool and Julia Dehren, who has claimed that her son—”

  My heart pounds in my ears. Is there a way I can discreetly unclip myself from the microphone and fade into the shadows? I swear, I’ll be the best damn lawyer this world has ever seen if I can just—

  Rachel Knight doesn’t stop speaking, but she does make a subtle movement under the desk with her hand.

  I blink once. Twice. The room beyond my chair comes back into focus.

  And there’s Graham, standing at the edge, looking into my eyes.

  There’s his father, just off his shoulder, looking furious.

  47

  Graham

  “You can’t interrupt the segment. Sir—”

  “Put another chair next to my wife.”

  “I—” He’s got to be a low-level assistant, the redhead with the slightly crazed eyes, but he’s the one who won the task of talking to me.

  “Do it, and I’ll double your salary for the year. Do you understand?”

  He snaps his mouth shut and disappears to the outer reaches of the studio. He’s sweating when he reappears with the chair. I give him a nod. “Go.”

  He steps out onto the studio floor gingerly, runs up next to Bellamy, and puts the chair by her side. Rachel Knight, the host, covers her what-the-fuck expression with a broad good-morning smile.

  The assistant scurries back to where I’m standing and I hand him one of my cards. “You send your name and address to this email, and I’ll send you a check.”

  He stares, open-mouthed. I don’t have time for his disbelief.

  I stride onto the floor and sit next to my wife.

  She looks into the bank of cameras in front of us, not turning her head. “What are you doing here?”

  “—us today we have Bellamy Leighton, wife of Graham Blackpool, with some startling revelations about exactly why Julia Dehren’s son is a person of incredible interest this morning. Bellamy, it’s so nice to have you and your husband with us.”

  She smiles across the space between her desk and our chairs—all of three feet—and her eyebrows are almost at her hairline.

  It’s so easy. We’ve practiced this a hundred times. The only thing that’s different are the words.

  “Thanks for having us here, Rachel.”

  She’s a consummate professional. She doesn’t miss a beat. “Congratulations are in order for your very recent wedding, Mr. Blackpool. Was the president in attendance at your big day?”

  “He would only have missed it for a pressing emergency,” I joke, and she laughs.

  Bellamy slips her hand into mine.

  “Ms. Leighton, I’d like to ask you about the information you’ve obtained regarding President Blackpool and his stepson. Mr.
Blackpool, I’d also like to ask—”

  “I hate to interrupt, but I can answer all of your questions, Rachel.” I turn and look at Bellamy. She’s pink under the lights, her forehead creased with worry. “But before I do that, I have to say one thing.” I speak directly to the woman who was willing to risk it all to come here and set things right. “I’m in awe of you. You tried your damndest to do a hard thing.”

  That fire comes back into her eyes. “I still could.”

  “No need.” I lean my head closer to hers. There is nothing intimate about this moment—so many cameras—and yet everything is intimate. “You don’t have to carry this alone.”

  “Mr. Blackpool—”

  I train my attention on Rachel Knight. “I’m here today to categorically deny the rumors that Ms. Dehren’s son is my brother’s godson. In fact, the relation between the three of us is half-sibling.”

  Rachel’s mouth drops open. “Oh—” It’s a momentary slip, and she catches herself mid-fall. “Are you suggesting that there’s a branch of the Blackpool family that wasn’t included in the campaign?”

  “Here’s what I know.” I squeeze Bellamy’s hand. “I know that my brother, Andrew Blackpool, is the most honorable man to sit in the Oval Office. Ever. He did not hide secrets from the American people. This is only an attempt to draw attention away from the real issues that matter.” It all comes back to me, from out on the trail—the stock phrases that get the interviewers going. “Which is why we only want to share a few details about our honeymoon.”

  This is not the direction that Rachel Knight thought we were going to go, but that’s the irony of this plan—the public wants more about the wedding. They want to know where we’re honeymooning. They want to know when we’ll leave. They want to know when we’ll be back. It’s a circus that goes around and around again.

  “So you can’t confirm or deny that Julia Dehren is telling the truth?”

  “I can’t. If you’d like more information on that relationship, you’ll have to ask my father. He’s here in the studio, waiting for his chance to be interviewed.”