Trevor Reese: His Secret Love

by Mallory Monroe

  TREVOR REESE

  HIS SECRET LOVE

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2017 Mallory Monroe

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  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EPILOGUE

  INTRODUCTION

  WHEN TREVOR MET CARLY

  Carly Sinatra never cared to be called into the Boss’s office. It felt too much like high school. Too much like trouble brewing and the heat was on. But when she got the word, and began heading down the hall, that was exactly how it felt: like high school. Like being called to the principal’s office.

  Not that Phil Merrick was a problem boss. He wasn’t. He was a kind, considerate manager. But it always made her wonder if he wanted to see her because her last assignment, or the assignment before that, blew up in their faces. It always made her wonder if she’d somehow dropped the ball.

  She stopped at the door, exhaled, and then walked in with a smile on her face. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  “Come in, Carly. Have a seat.” Phil Merrick was seated behind his desk writing, and did not look up.

  Carly sat in the chair in front of his desk and waited. When he looked up, she smiled, and asked how he was doing. “I heard you hit a sixty-nine on the links yesterday. It’s all the buzz around the office. Not bad.”

  “Not bad?” Phil smiled, dropped the pen he had been writing with, and leaned back in his chair. “I’ll have you know, young lady, I had the best round of golf any golfer on God’s green earth would be proud of. It was by far the best my club had seen in years. Not bad indeed!”

  Carly grinned. “Congratulations, sir,” she said.

  Phil continued to lean back, staring at her. “Why don’t you come out and play a round with me someday?” He glanced down at her breasts. “I can show you the ropes.”

  But Carly knew mixing business with pleasure to that degree would not be a good idea. Brownnosers did it all the time, thinking it would give them the leg up on the next promotion or an inside track on their next assignment. Carly was no brownnoser. “Golfing is not my thing,” she responded. “But thanks.”

  She could tell her boss didn’t like her response. But they were in L.A., the acting capital of the world. He knew how to hide and glide. He knew how to keep it moving. “Any luck on your job search?”

  Carly always wondered if he would hold that against her. “No, sir. Not yet.”

  “I don’t know why you would want to move from the beautiful west coast to that dreary east coast anyway.”

  Carly smiled. “My family is in Maine. I want to be closer to them.”

  Phil nodded. Stared at her again. “Are you lonely, Carly? Is that the real reason? Because if it is . . .”

  Carly looked him dead in the eye. “I want to be closer to my family,” was all she cared to say about it. She’d been forced to overlook his sexual innuendos ever since she started working for him. If she didn’t love the job, and knew it was the best opportunity a young consultant could hope for, she would have left long ago.

  But Phil was still harping on it. “I don’t get you,” he said, still staring at her. “You’re young. You’re hot as hell. There’s a dozen men in this firm alone who would love to call you their woman. But you don’t give any of us, I mean any of them, the time of day. I don’t get it.”

  Carly didn’t respond. Although her private life was as dreary as he claimed, it was still her private life.

  Phil knew it too. Carly, he’d long since realized, was too tough a nut to crack. He moved on. “I’ll miss you,” he said as he sat erect. “But I understand.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’ll be your loss anyway,” he added.

  Carly smiled.

  Then he leaned forward, and picked back up his pen. “Get over to Senator Redgrave’s house.”

  Carly was surprised. “The president’s commerce secretary-nominee, sir?”

  “That’s her. The Times is poised to run a very unflattering story about the very married nominee and her escapades with a certain lover.”

  “Oh, boy,” Carly said.

  “Oh, boy, indeed,” Phil echoed. “The president will most definitely have to withdraw her name if that story is proven to be accurate. He doesn’t want it squashed from Washington. He wants it squashed right here in L.A. In other words, Carly, this assignment, like all of your previous assignments, is top secret to the top of the secret. And it had better stay that way.”

  Carly looked at her boss. “I’m surprised you aren’t handling it, sir.”

  “I am. But from a distance. You will be the front person for this agency. We want to downplay the story, not overplay it. But I’ll be behind the scenes, don’t worry.”

  “Is the story true, sir?” Carly knew, once she took the assignment, she could never ask her client.

  Phil looked at her. “What if it is true? What will be your job?”

  Carly didn’t flinch. “To make it untrue,” she said.

  Phil smiled. “Right. Now go.”

  She stood up, said goodbye, and was about to leave.

  “Oh, and Carly?” Phil looked up.

  “Sir?”

  “In addition to me, Trevor Reese will have a behind-the-scenes presence on this case too.”

  Carly was surprised. “Trevor Reese? Of Reese Marketing, sir?”

  Phil nodded. “Yes. That Trevor Reese. He knows the Redgraves in some capacity or another and I guess they called him in to lend a hand. He phoned me. Said he wanted a local consultant to handle the local press and to front-manage the situation. Since you want a consultant’s job on the east coast, you may as well shoot for the stars. It doesn’t
get any bigger than Reese Marketing. It’ll be your chance to impress him.”

  Carly was overjoyed. “I applied to his firm,” she said. “He has the largest agency on the east coast. His headhunter placed me on the list of potential hires, but I haven’t heard a thing.”

  “You applied? Good. Maybe he knows about you already. But remember, just because the headhunter might have been impressed doesn’t mean his boss will be. The final hiring decision is not up to the headhunter. It’s up to Reese. Do what you do. Put that beautiful brain of yours to work.” Phil smiled. “I don’t see how you can lose.”

  Carly wanted to hug her boss, but she knew that would give a man like him, a very married man, the wrong idea. “Thank you, sir. Thank you so very much.” And she left.

  “And then I have to attend the concert on the mall,” Peggy Redgrave, US Senator, said as she put on an earring. “As if I have time to listen to some country-and-western yahoos sing about that ridiculousness they love to sing about. But that’s what the president wants. So, we’ll have to be there.”

  Joe Redgrave walked up to his wife in their master bedroom and, just as she was about to put on her second earring, backslapped her. Her knees buckled, and she had to hold onto the dressing table to avoid collapsing completely. She looked up at him with shock and fear. She was shocked, not because it was the first time he’d hit her, because it wasn’t; but because it came out of nowhere. She was putting on earrings. They were talking casually. And then this.

  Joe exhaled. “You never bothered to ask,” he said, “but that’s how I feel about this situation you’ve gotten us into. That’s how I feel about you. Just because I’m agreeing to do this doesn’t mean I approve of your behavior. I don’t. You should have been discreet.”

  “I was discreet!” the Senator fired back.

  “Then how did the Herald get that story?” her husband angrily asked. “If you were so discreet, how the hell did they find out about this dalliance you’ve been having? They don’t have any stories on me! They don’t know shit about me! How did this happen, Peg?”

  She continued to put on her earring.

  He moved closer to her. She winced. “Well?” he asked. “How did they find out?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “You and these consultants you’re hiring had better find out. I know I married a whore. A rich whore, but a whore nonetheless. I don’t want the world to know I married one.”

  Then a defeated look appeared in his small eyes. “Let’s just go downstairs and get this over with,” he said distastefully. “Reese is waiting.”

  Peggy Redgrave finished putting on her second earring, and then looked in the mirror to make sure a bruise was not on her face. And then they, arm-in-arm put on the mask and headed downstairs.

  Trevor Reese stood at the large, bay window in the living area of the Redgraves’ home with his hands in his pockets and his mind on daffodils. They were bright and brilliant, as they showed their blooms in the garden just outside of the window, and they were perfect in bloom. Just like the perfect storm of events Peg Redgrave found herself in. The president’s pick for Secretary of Commerce. The vetting committee missing all kinds of shit about her. And now this newspaper article that was about to drop and blindside not only DC, but the entire nation. He already had his theories about this matter, but he knew Peg would never believe him, and would decide he had an ax to grind, if he was the one to tell her.

  Trevor asked his friend Phil Merrick to send over a consultant from his agency, one that could handle the local media and cut through the bullshit. Phil told him about one of his consultants, a young woman with the best instincts he’d seen in years, and that she, in fact, was looking to relocate to the east coast. She supposedly had applied to Reese Marketing a good while back. Trevor checked with his headhunters and she was indeed on their list as a potential for his firm in Boston. He hadn’t ordered them to run a background on her yet, simply because he wasn’t in any dire need for a new consultant just yet. But now that he was in town, and she was available, this, he felt, would be a good audition for her.

  And as she drove onto the Redgraves’ property, in one of those sleek little BMWs, he stood at that window and watched her closely. And when she stepped out of her car, and grabbed her purse and briefcase, his interest piqued even more.

  He knew she was young, and she looked very youthful, but Trevor had no problem with that. Some of his best consultants were young. He also knew that she was African-American, attractive, and smart.

  But what he didn’t expect was the style and grace with which she carried herself as she made her way across the walkway. She didn’t come across as brash and hard-charging, or cocky to the point of obnoxiousness the way many young consultants seemed trained to behave. She wasn’t marching up the walkway, as if forcefulness was demanded too, but was taking her time with deliberate, careful steps. This young woman, this Carly Sinatra, came across to Trevor as a seasoned pro; as somebody who didn’t feel a need to impress her client, but felt that her client, who was the one in trouble, needed to impress her.

  And although she dressed glamorously in Givenchy head-to-toe, wearing an exquisite form-fitting red skirt and a white silk blouse, layered with a button-down red jacket that dropped along her hips, he could see in her face that they were nothing more to her than the clothes of her profession. It was the uniform a top-level crisis manager was expected to wear when she would probably be more comfortable in jeans and jersey. Trevor even smiled as he watched her, because he knew the feeling. The Armani suit that draped his own body was his uniform too.

  “Trevor, hello.”

  It was Joe Redgrave walking down the stairs with his wife on his arm.

  Trevor turned his attention away from the consultant outside to the Redgraves inside as they approached him. They both were smiling a smile, he knew, that was as fake as their marriage.

  “How nice to see you again,” Joe added as he and Trevor shook hands. “I hear your Pats are putting up some serious numbers this season.”

  “They’re having a good year.” Trevor shook Joe’s hand. “But they aren’t my Pats.”

  “No?” Joe was surprised. “I thought for sure every New Englander loved their Patriots. But, of course, you always did move to the beat of your own drum. I should have known.”

  “Yes, you should have,” Trevor said.

  As the doorbell began ringing, Trevor looked at Peg. Although she was putting on the brave front, he could tell she and Joe had gotten into it. He wondered to what extent. “Hello, Peg,” he said.

  She smiled. “So good to see you again. Sorry to have to drag you across the country like this. And under these circumstances.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t mind, dear,” Joe said. “Anything for you.” Then he looked at Trevor. “Right, Trev?”

  “Kiss my ass, Joe,” Trevor responded.

  Joe laughed, although his eyes told a different story. “What would you care to drink? I see my man hasn’t gotten you anything.”

  “He offered. I declined.”

  “Want anything now?”

  Trevor studied Joe. He was a hothead who would beat this horse to death if Trevor let him. “Whiskey,” he said.

  Joe smiled. “A whiskey man.” A pretty boy more like it, Joe thought, trying to be tough. “I’ll see what I can do.” He headed for the full-sized bar on the opposite side of the room.

  His butler, Dobson, walked in. “The consultant, ma’am, sir,” Dobson said, “has arrived.”

  “Sent him through, Dob,” Peg said.

  “It is a she, ma’am, and right away.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows as Dobson left to retrieve their guest. “A she? Terrific.” He smiled an unfriendly smile and shook his head. “What else do I have to contend with on this bitter earth?”

  And when Dobson returned with Carly by his side, and Joe saw her, he shook his head again. “And she’s black,” he said in a voice barely audible. “Fantastic.”

&n
bsp; He was barely audible, but Carly heard him. Yet she continued to smile. She refused to let his shaky manners shake her smile. She went toward the woman she knew to be her subject. “Senator Redgrave,” she said as she extended her hand. “I’m Carly with the Merrick agency. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Peg shook her hand. “Very nice to meet you. And this handsome gentleman right here is Trevor Reese.”

  “Yes, I know,” Carly said as she turned her attention to Trevor and extended her hand. “Very nice to meet you, also, sir.”

  The official photograph at his website did him no justice, she thought. He was great looking in the photograph, and he lived up to that billing. He was a very handsome man with thick, rich hair that dropped down to the nape of his neck; hair Carly could tell he sometimes cut low or didn’t cut at all. And with eyes so blue, and with just enough of an outer layer of purple, that they looked violet. But what took her by surprise was the expression in those eyes. A very deep, sincere expression, as if he was a serious man who did not suffer fools well and did not play games at all. The kind of man she would love to work for, she felt.

  And the sexiness he conveyed. With his suit of clothing form-fitting every contour of his muscular body, causing her to be hyper-aware of his thick biceps, and his thick chest, and his midsection that housed such a massive load that even his thick thighs seemed unable to conceal its’ size. She could hardly believe the sensual vibes he gave off just from standing near her. She was tempted to look down once again, at that beautiful load, but had enough discipline to keep her eyes straight on.

  She’d never been this impressed with a person’s physicality before in her life. She was so impressed that she began to wonder if there was something else driving it. Maybe it was just the fact that he was the person with the job that could make her dreams come true, and that was the real reason driving her outsized attraction to him. But when he reached out and shook her hand, she felt the heat to the roots of her hair and the innermost parts of her womanhood. And she knew then and there: the way she was feeling had nothing to do with a job.