I spun around to face him. “Fine. I want to go back in time to last May. I want to do everything different.”
“Like not hire an escort?”
I shook my head. I didn’t regret meeting Devlin. Despite how badly it had all gone wrong, it was the greatest love affair of my life. I didn’t even regret marrying him, considering it may have been the only shot at that I was ever going to get. I couldn’t see anyone else meaning as much to me as he did, but I didn’t see Suzanne letting him go. “Like break Suzanne Everhart before she broke me.”
“Now that,” Caz decided with a raised finger, “we can do. Sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
“We take her down, of course. Epically. Publically. Like, the history books will record it for centuries to come.”
I leaned against the counter. “And how are we going to do that?”
He ran a finger along the neckline of my shirt. “The hook is baited. We just need to reel in the whopper.”
My eyebrow arched. “Harvey?”
“Name one bigger,” he said with a smile. “You still have his number, right?”
“I’m not going to fuck Harvey Everhart.”
“Of course not,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to take him down anyway. It’s got to be someone more controversial. Someone younger. Someone,” he said as he bent forward, “underage.”
My eyes widened as I stared up at him. “What are you suggesting?”
“You know what I’m suggesting, CC,” he said. “It’s a simple bait and switch. From what Margot tells me, Suzanne won’t even be in town until Friday. So invite him over for dinner tomorrow. He’ll come because he suspects you’ll be an easy target. Then we’ll introduce him to Aubrey, who can play for him, and give him a not so easy target. Which one do you think he’ll want more?”
“I am not going to use my cousin like that. She’s just a kid.”
He scoffed. “Please, CC. That girl has had more lovers than you have, of both sexes. And she’s not just a kid. She’s nearly eighteen, just like he likes ‘em.”
I shook my head. “No. We can take them down without sacrificing one of us.”
His eyebrow arched. “Can we?”
“This is ridiculous. I’m not doing it.”
He shrugged. “Okay. Fine. We’ll figure out something else. But fair warning. It’s going to have to be huge, otherwise it’ll just ping off of them like they’re made of titanium.”
I sighed. I knew that much was true. Harvey had had several notable gaffes over the past few months, saying things one might not want to say in polite conversation. His “blunt” talk had come off both racist and sexist when he had criticized one of the moderators at one of the first debates. A Hispanic reporter had tried to nail him down on whether or not his marital record suggested he was fit to govern women, and to retaliate he had said, “Cool your jets, senorita. I only have to answer to real Americans.”
Despite this, his poll ratings soared. People praised him for not being afraid to say what he thought, even if it wasn’t nice. Several memes had floated around the Internet, showing a black casket with the words “RIP Political Correctness” boldly declared on the side, a direct quote from Harvey himself when he had been grilled about the comment and refused to apologize or back down from it.
Finding him with an underage girl, particularly after the controversy he had already faced in the past, would likely derail his run for the White House. But it wasn’t going to be Aubrey. No way. No how.
I, however, was still on the table, and I knew it when I got his call the following afternoon. “Miss Cabot,” he greeted in that slimy way that made my skin crawl.
“Mr. Everhart.”
“I was wondering if you were free this evening. I’d like to invite you back to my hotel for dinner.”
I shuddered involuntarily, and not the good kind. “Will your wife be joining us?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know.
“No,” he answered bluntly. “Just me. And just you.”
I gulped hard. I knew what he meant. This was not a social call by any means. It was a booty call. “I don’t know, Mr. Everhart,” I hedged. “We have a lot of last minute things to do for the party tomorrow night.”
“Fuck the party,” he dismissed, and his language surprised me. “Suzanne and her minions can handle that.”
“I am one of her minions,” I reminded him through clenched teeth.
“Not tonight,” he declared before he gave me his hotel information. “See you at nine,” he said before he hung up, as if my agreement wasn’t all that necessary.
I supposed it wasn’t.
Suddenly Caz’s plan didn’t sound so awful. I would have much rather met with Harvey on my home turf. The only thing that stopped me from trying to change the plan was that I didn’t want that old creepy guy around Aubrey, which is what I repeated to Caz when we talked about it.
“I’m not going to do it,” I told him. “So don’t even ask.”
“Fine,” he said. “So what are you going to do?”
I had no idea, so I immediately called Lucy. She had always been my partner in crime and I needed her evil genius. She, however, was quieter than usual. “Are you okay?” I finally asked.
“Just my back,” she dismissed. “It’s hard work carrying a bowling ball around in your belly.”
I felt a pang of envy. “You’ve only got three more days,” I encouraged.
“I can’t wait,” she said, and I could hear the weariness in her voice.
I decided to head over to her house that afternoon, just to check on her. She was lying on the sofa, her feet propped up on pillows, as she managed the lower back pain. I was beside her in a second. “You look exhausted.”
“I am exhausted,” she said. It was the most un-Lucy-like I’d ever seen her. Her stomach was huge, practically dwarfing her. When I placed my hand on her belly, I could feel it tighten and move under my fingers. The wonder of it all struck me silent.
She winced, so I withdrew. “What’d I do?”
“It’s not you,” she said as she swung her feet over the edge of the sofa, balling her fist in the small of her back. “I think I’m in labor.”
My eyes opened wide. “What? Since when?”
“I’ve been in early labor since Wednesday,” she confessed. “My doctor said I was already two centimeters dilated at my checkup yesterday. The contractions didn’t start until yesterday, but they were pretty far apart and inconsistent.” She glanced at her watch. “That one was about six minutes from the last one.”
I sprang to my feet. “We have to get you to the hospital.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to be induced on Sunday. I’ve made all the plans.”
I laughed as I pulled her up. Lucy Lyon was still trying to dominate the world. “Looks like Axl has other plans.”
I juggled my phone to call Gus, who was still at the office.
By the time we got Lucy to the hospital, her contractions were four minutes apart. The doctor confirmed that she was already four centimeters dilated, which put her right in active labor. They set her up in her own private room, where both Gus and I fussed over her as she tried to manage the increasing pain. The Dunleavys had a decision to make very soon. Axl was still breech, and since they had opted for a C-section delivery, they hadn’t bothered to turn him. But it was clear that Axl wasn’t going to wait for Valentine’s Day. He was on his way, and Lucy was probably going to have to deliver C-section that very night.
So much for Harvey Everhart. I didn’t even bother to call him. I was too busy trying to keep Lucy’s spirits up as her birth plan went right out the window.
“Give me that drug to stop contractions,” she begged the doctor, who shook her head as she patted her on the leg.
“No can do, Lucy. That baby is coming tonight, decided by a much bigger authority than both of us. Mother Nature made this call.”
“She’s even more powerful than your mother,” I told Lucy with a smile as I
wiped her sweaty brow with a cool cloth. “Barely,” I added to make her smile. She simply glared at me as she panted through her contraction.
“I can hold him in,” she decided. “I just won’t push. It’s my body, right?”
“Not tonight, it isn’t,” the doctor replied before she ordered Lucy prepped for delivery.
Finally, at about seven o’clock, they wheeled her into the delivery room, where Axl Justice Dunleavy was born shortly after. I got to finally meet my ‘nephew’ at a little after eight-thirty, after both Lucy and Axl had been taken upstairs and settled in her hospital room.
My breath caught and held as I approached my best friend as she cuddled her newborn son. Her hair was matted from all the exertion of the day, but her skin glowed as she stared down at him in wonder. “Isn’t he beautiful, Ceece?”
Tears fell from my cheeks as I nodded. I reached instantly for him and she handed him off to me, her most precious cargo. I stared into his face, so perfect and round, with a smattering of dark hair on his head. He opened up those dark blue eyes and stared up at me, like a shriveled and wise old man. I laughed as introduced myself. “Happy birthday, Axl. I’m your Aunt CC.” I held up my hand and he grasped one finger. I gasped with amazement, which drew his attention. His mouth opened wide to mirror my expression.
I fell head over heels for him in an instant. They practically had to force me from the room when visiting hours ended at nine, where I left Axl with his new parents, who were about to learn the fine art of breastfeeding.
The minute the door shut behind me, I felt the whole painful reality crush upon me of all that I had lost. After their Vegas wedding last year, it felt wrong to be there with both Lucy and Gus without Dev. He should have been there. We should have been together.
I should be fat and happy with my own beautiful baby, the real tangible evidence of our undying love.
I should have had it all. But I didn’t. And it was because of Suzanne Everhart.
I dried the tears from my face and I pulled out my phone to call Harvey. “Are you still hungry?” I asked.
“Starving,” he replied.
“Good. I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I really didn’t even have a plan as I drove to the hotel that overlooked the ocean in Santa Monica. I just knew that I couldn’t go on the way I was, living life by the rules everyone else set. And I always had been, no matter what I had done to wrestle my destiny back under my control. If that meant I had to tell Harvey the truth about his wife, then so be it.
Maybe if he knew that I was ready to torpedo his whole campaign over it, something might finally change.
I was met by security detail, who escorted me to the penthouse suite, where Harvey opened the door for me himself. He wore a casual button-down shirt and slacks, and carried a tumbler of Scotch in his hand. “Miss Cabot. So good to see you.” He turned to his bodyguards. “Give us some privacy.” They nodded before they headed back to the elevator. Harvey closed the door before he held out his hand towards the sitting room. “Please. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like a drink?”
My stomach turned just thinking about it. “No, thank you.”
“Very well,” he said as he led the way to the sofa, where he sat leaving enough room for me to join him. Instead, I opted for the chair. He chuckled. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering dinner. It should arrive shortly. Why don’t you join me on the sofa, so that we may get to know each other a little better?”
“I’m fine here,” I said, indicating the chair.
“Playing hard to get, I see. Interesting turnabout from Suzanne’s party. Why the change?”
“I was trying to piss Suzanne off at her party,” I answered bluntly.
He chuckled. “Ah, yes. I should have known.”
“Your wife has made my life hell for months.”
He toasted me. “Join the club.” He drained his glass. “So is this where you tell me that you have evidence my wife has been fucking around on me for years, and that if I don’t rein her in, you’ll take it to the press?”
I gulped back any surprise at his blunt statement. “Basically,” I answered.
There was a knock at the door. “Excuse me. That’s our dinner.”
I stood. “I don’t want to eat. I want you to do something about your wife.”
“Don’t you think if I could have, I would have?” He walked to the door and opened it so that they could roll the table in with the food.
“Fine. Then you go down with her,” I said, with as much bravado as I could muster before I realized that the person rolling the table into the suite was none other than Devlin Masters. My eyes widened as I realized how angry he was as he glared at me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Harvey wanted to know.
“I’ve come for my wife,” Devlin spat.
Harvey slid me a glance. “She told me you weren’t married anymore.”
His words were cold and clipped. “She was mistaken.”
“Either way,” Harvey shrugged. “I’ll tell her what I’ve told you. There is no stopping Suzanne. There is only surviving Suzanne.” He turned to me. “Ask Devlin. He knows.”
“So… wait. You know about Devlin?”
“I know about all her little slaves,” Harvey admitted. “She made sure of it.”
I wilted back into the chair. I wasn’t expecting this. I watched Dev remove one of the silver domes from the plates, grab a roll and then saunter down into the sitting room that overlooked the ocean. He sat down as if he was completely welcome, and Harvey didn’t seem to care. “What’s going on, Dev?”
“I told you that I have been trying to break free from Suzanne for years. You honestly think there is anything you can think of that I haven’t tried, Coralie?”
“Devlin arrived on my doorstep three and a half years ago, with video in hand of him fucking my wife, bound up and gagged just like she likes it. He never realized there’s a reason for that. It makes it look like she’s there against her will, so she can always fall back on her sterling reputation as a lady to refute any claims otherwise. He goes public with that video, he goes to jail for rape. With our high-powered lawyers, it would be an open and shut case, especially given his rough upbringing. He’s a grifter. She’s a trusting employer. He’d be fending off a whole new crowd of fuck-buddies in prison.”
I grimaced as I glanced at Dev, whose jaw clenched. I knew he was thinking about his stepdad.
“So instead I made Devlin a deal. I’d give him a way out of Vegas and he’d get me into Congress. He cleaned up her act. I knew he could clean up mine. We’d let bygones be bygones and we’d never have to discuss Suzanne again.”
“And what does he get if you get to the White House?”
“Freedom,” he answered. “She moves to Washington for four years, and he gets his life back. Who do you think has been helping me with my campaign, Coralie?”
My eyes slid to Devlin’s. “So you’d put this crook in the White House for your own personal gain?”
His eyebrow cocked. “Isn’t that the American way?”
“It was Dev’s idea to make her pet project homeless youth, to get kids off the street before they have to resort to prostitution just to survive. The dumb cunt bought it because she thinks she can control me with those underage rumors that have dogged me for years.”
“Rumors, Harvey?” I questioned. “Don’t you mean video?”
He chuckled before he turned to Dev. “She’s a smart one. I can see why you married her.” He turned back to me. “She’s been parading all kinds of young girls through my office to publicize her mission, just hoping she can catch me in another gotcha moment. I’m not stupid enough to fall for that twice.”
“But she is,” Devlin informed me. “We’re just waiting for our opportunity.”
I looked back at Harvey. “But what about the White House?”
He laughed. “White House, Shmite House. Like I want to run this goddamned country. Dirty, tha
nkless job and the pay sucks. I make that kind of money within any eight-hour window at the Harvey alone. Do you have any idea how much money I’ve made at my casinos since I’ve begun this campaign? Free publicity, with book deals and TV rights and speaking engagements out the wazoo. There’s no downside.”
“Unless you win,” I said. “Then you’ll actually have to do the job.”
“Have you seen the liberals losing their mind over how well I’m doing? There’s no way those whiny shitheads are going to let me win. And even if they do, that’s what Congress is for. They do all the heavy lifting; I’m just the face of leadership. I’ll have advisors and a cabinet full of competent people. And in four years, maybe even eight, I go back to the casino biz, maybe open up a five-star resort named The White House. Put it in Puerto Rico. Really piss people off.” He chuckled as he guzzled some more Scotch.
“People believe in you,” I said as I glared at him.
“People are foolish to believe in anyone but themselves,” he shot back.
I stood. It was clear that he didn’t give a shit about his campaign. He didn’t care about being exposed. The only thing he cared about were legal charges, which I assumed is the only thing Suzanne had left on him, if she had video of him with an underage girl. I started to suspect it had happened more than once, with someone younger than sixteen. That meant the only way to take him down was using someone like Aubrey, which I wasn’t about to do. “You’re disgusting,” I told him as I grabbed my purse and headed for the door. “I’ll send my ‘foolish’ father your regards.”
“Your father is a good man,” Harvey toasted. “You make sure you tell him how much I appreciate his support.”
Before I could slam out of the door, Devlin was hot on my heels. He spun me around to face him at the elevator. “What the hell were you thinking coming here, Coralie?”
I yanked my arm free. “I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could fix things so we could be together.”
“I’m working on it,” he gritted. “Why can’t you trust me?”
I glared at him before we both entered the elevator. “Really? You can ask me that?”
Masters Forever (Masters #3) Page 19