“So you two aren’t…”
“Involved?” Adrian grins. He shakes his head. “No. Not at all. Not even a little bit. I’ve never thought of her as anything other than an employee.”
I chew my lip and look away from him until he puts a finger on my chin and turns my face towards his.
“Do you believe me, Stella?”
I take a deep breath, looking in his eyes. I nod. “Yes.”
“I meant what I said. I’m in love with you, and nothing is going to change that. Not my assistant, or the news, or your sister hating me. You don’t have to say it back, I’m not pressuring you. I’m just telling you how I feel. It’s… it’s new to me.”
My eyes start to mist and I nod. My voice is gone. I can hardly swallow because my throat feels like it’s closing up. I take a deep breath.
“Okay.”
We sit down together on the couch, and I nuzzle into his chest. Adrian sighs and kisses the top of my head.
“I’ve spent the last decade of my life thinking that I wanted power and rank in politics. I haven’t had a real connection with anyone until I met you.”
“I hated you when I met you.”
He chuckles. “I know. But you get me.” He sighs. “I was lonely. I thought that because I had votes, and employees, and my family’s money that I had it all. I was wrong. You’ve shown me what I’ve been missing, Stella.”
My heart thumps and I run my fingers over and back across his chest. I take a deep breath. “You’re alright, too.”
Adrian laughs and squeezes his arms around me. My heart sings. I spent all day trying not to spiral into jealous thoughts, and now, it feels like my efforts have been rewarded. I trust Adrian. I know that he’s telling me the truth.
I lift my head up and kiss him softly, smiling.
“I think I love you, too,” I whisper.
His arms tighten around my waist and a smile stretches his lips. He leans his forehead against mine and sighs happily.
I’m floating on a cloud. His smell envelops me, his smile beams on me, and his kiss warms me to my soul. I press my lips to his and feel my whole body melt against him.
I love him.
I love the man I thought I hated.
I love Adrian Maguire. He says that I changed him, but I think it’s the other way around. He’s made me reconsider all the judgements I’ve made, how I’ve thought ill of people before meeting them. He’s made me think of how much I’ve been putting my sister first—not a bad thing, but now I’m realizing that maybe I should put myself first once in a while, too.
It’s time that I dated someone who seems to care about me—the real me. It’s time that I let myself feel the way I want to feel, that I don’t stop myself from diving head-first into a relationship just because I think I should be focusing on my career.
Maybe I can have it both ways. I can be a career woman with a husband and a family. My mind starts whirling with all the possibilities—a cousin for Ashley’s baby. A happy family, happy house, maybe a dog.
A future.
My face hurts from smiling so much. Adrian kisses me again and I sigh in his arms.
“You hungry?” I whisper.
“Hungry for you.”
I laugh, yelping as he picks me up and lays me down on the couch. When we make love, it’s intimate and happy and completely perfect.
Basked in bliss, he nuzzles his head into my neck and whispers in my ear. “I love you,” he says. “I’ll never get tired of saying it.
“I love you too.” We smile at each other like two loved-up fools until my stomach grumbles, informing me that it’s time to eat.
“Let’s order in,” Adrian says. “I don’t want to move.”
I smile and lay my head on his chest. “Okay.”
While I grab my phone to order some food, Adrian reaches for the remote. We stay intertwined on the couch, moving as little as possible as I tap on the phone.
The TV flicks on, and a news reporter’s voice drones through the screen.
“…Breaking news about former Mayor Adrian Maguire. DenverTV has received exclusive evidence of blatant corruption in the former mayor’s past. Texts, emails, and contract documents have been procured from an anonymous source detailing the extent of his crimes. Last month, Maguire resigned from his position as Mayor of Denver amidst a slurry of corruption charges. The charges have been dropped, but new evidence could mean the investigation will be reopened.”
Adrian freezes underneath me. His heart starts to thump and we both stay glued to the screen until it changes to the weather. I push myself off him, eyes wide. I look back at him.
“I thought you said she didn’t have any evidence?”
“She didn’t.” He’s still staring at the screen, his mouth hanging open. He shakes his head and finally looks at me. “There’s only one person that had those files.”
“Who?” I’m breathless. My heart is beating at a million miles a minute and my thoughts are flying in a thousand different directions.
Ashley will never forgive me.
I’m trying not to cry. My hands are gripping the edge of the couch so hard I’m creasing the upholstery. I look at Adrian, shaking my head.
“Who, Adrian?! Who had the files?”
He glances at me, his eyebrows arching in concern. When he speaks his voice is quiet.
“Liam,” he replies. “Liam had them.”
30
Adrian
Liam didn’t do this. He wouldn’t. He hasn’t spoken to me much, but he’s not a vindictive person. As long as he’s left alone, he doesn’t hurt anyone. He found those files on a USB key in my parents’ house last year—the one place I thought they were safe. He used them as leverage to make sure I would leave him and Ashley alone.
That’s all he wanted, and until this investigation broke, I did leave them alone. He doesn’t want to hurt me, or ruin me, or destroy my career and reputation. He just wants to make sure that he and Ashley are safe. As far as I know, he doesn’t care about me. I doubt he would care about Stella, either.
No, this wasn’t him.
Which means there’s only one other person who could have accessed those files: Ashley King.
I glance at Stella, who’s still wide-eyed with shock. She gets on her phone and Googles the news story frantically. My heart thumps and I stare at the TV again, seeing nothing.
How can I tell her that I think her sister did this? It’ll kill her.
Turns out, I don’t have to tell her. She drops her head in her hands and takes a deep, trembling breath.
“This was Ashley,” she says. Her voice is listless. She looks completely flat. I run my hand over her back and she doesn’t react. “Liam didn’t do this. Ashley did.”
I take a deep breath. “We don’t know who did this.”
Stella laughs bitterly, glancing at me. “We do, Adrian. Stop trying to defend her. She’s been nothing but cruel to you. She was horrified that you were here with me, and now this? She’s furious with me, and it’s payback.”
I sigh, leaning back on the couch. “Lots of people seem to be furious we’re together today.”
Stella shakes her head. “I can’t believe my own sister would do this.” She snorts. “That’s probably exactly what she’s thinking, too. How could we be so awful to one another? She’s my entire life.”
I take a deep breath. I thought I’d dodged a bullet with Cheryl, but I’m exactly where I thought I’d be this morning. Clearing my throat, I glance at Stella.
“Barry told me there’s a chance the feds will come after me.”
Stella’s eyes widen. “What? Who’s Barry?”
“He’s… an associate. He does things for me.”
“Legally?”
“Sort of.”
“Fuck, Adrian,” she recoils away from me. “When does it end? I asked you if the construction contract was the only thing dirty about you and you promised me it was. What kind of shit are you into?”
“Nothing! I mean, no
thing anymore.” She looks at me like I enjoy strangling puppies for fun. I groan. “I swear, Stella. I know that I shouldn’t have made that deal with Hansen Constructions. I know that I shouldn’t have accepted the campaign donations. But fuck, how am I supposed to compete? Everyone does it.”
“If everyone jumped off a bridge…” she arches her eyebrows.
I start laughing without a hint of humor. “I know. I know.”
She takes a deep breath. “I guess I’d better talk to my sister.”
“So you’re not… you won’t kick me out?”
Stella glances at me and puts her hand on my thigh. She squeezes gently and shakes her head. “No, I’m not going to kick you out. Somehow you’ve convinced me to trust you against all my better judgment.”
“I take offense to that.”
“Take offense all you want,” she grins. She takes a deep breath and groans. “I wish this weren’t happening. Why isn’t anything ever easy?”
“I don’t know.”
She bites her lip and glances at me sadly, then takes a deep breath and waves her phone. “I’ll try to call her.”
I nod, and she walks out to the next room. I groan and lean back in the sofa and take out my own phone.
“Barry,” I say when he picks up.
He grunts.
“You see the news?”
He grunts again. “Cheryl?”
“Don’t think so. My brother and his wife.”
“Your girlfriend’s sister?”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing, right now.”
“Adrian, we need get out in front of this. If we don’t do anyth—”
“I know. But I don’t want to cause a shitstorm in my personal life as well as my professional life, okay? This past month has been good… It’s been really good! I don’t want to fuck that up.”
“Going to prison would fuck that up. And a pretty guy like you wouldn’t last long in there.”
“Fuck off, Barry.”
He chuckles, then sighs. “I’ll ask around and see what I can find out.”
“Thanks.”
The phone clicks just as Stella reappears. Her face is drawn and tears are clinging to her eyelashes. She dips her chin down.
“It was her.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay.”
“I’m so sorry, Adrian. If I’d have known, I wouldn’t have…”
“Wouldn’t have what?”
“Pursued you!”
I stand up and walk to her. I stroke her hair and pull her in to my chest. She sighs, her tears soaking my shirt. I hush her.
“I’m pretty sure I’m the one who kept showing up at your house and your work. I’m the one who pursued you, Stella. And I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologizing. It’s not your fault. You haven’t done anything wrong.” I pull away from her, holding her face in my hands. “Do you hear me? You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I should have faced this instead of hiding you away. I should have just had the guts to tell my sister we were involved. If I’d said it upfront, this would have never happened.”
“You have no idea how many times I’ve said that to myself over the past six weeks. If only I’d been a more honest politician. If only I’d been upfront about my involvement in all these deals. If only, if only, if only. Well, you know what? I learned. And I’m being upfront with you now. The only thing I care about right now is you and me. I don’t care about my reputation—it’s ruined anyway. I don’t care about what the media says, or what your sister thinks. I just want you to be safe.”
“I want you to stay out of prison.”
I grin. “That too.”
She takes a deep breath. “She was so mad just now. I’ve never heard her like that before. It’s probably so bad for the baby.”
I chuckle, pulling her in for another hug. “With everything going on, you’re not upset that your sister has tried to tear us apart. You’re not upset that she’s done something cruel to you—you’re worried about her unborn child.”
“Well, they say that the baby can feel everything that the mother is—”
I silence her with a kiss. She melts into my arms, then rests her head on my chest.
“I wish this wasn’t happening,” she whispers.
“Me too.”
The house creaks, as if responding that it, too, wishes things were different. Then, someone bangs on the front door.
“Police! Open up! Stella King!”
Stella pulls away from me, her eyes wide. She glances to the front door and they bang again.
“Open up or we will open the door by force!”
“Coming!” She yells. Her hand is trembling when she pushes away from me. I squeeze her arm and nod.
“They’re here for me,” I whisper.
I watch her gulp and then glance back at the door. She walks towards it, and every step is like a nail being driven into my coffin. Putting her hand on the doorknob, she takes a deep breath, glances back at me, and then opens the door.
“What’s going on—”
“Police!” In an instant, I’m tackled to the ground. Stella shrieks. A vase tumbles to the ground and smashes, a shard of it slicing across my forehead.
“That’s excessive force! Get off him!” My head hits the ground and my ears start ringing. Handcuffs are locked around my wrists and a police officer puts a knee in the center of my back. I groan. Stella is still yelling.
Another officer reads me my Miranda rights, and then they haul me up to my feet. Stella tries to protest, but I don’t hear a word. They drag me out of her house and stuff me in the back of a police cruiser.
The last thing I see is Stella shouting at an officer, pointing towards me. Her face is red and her anger is palpable. Even with half a dozen police officers around her, she’s not backing down.
I’m so completely in love with her, and I’m so completely fucked.
31
Stella
“I’m going to need your badge number. That was unacceptable and completely excessive. He wasn’t resisting, there was no need to tackle him to the ground like that.”
“Ma’am—”
“Don’t ‘Ma’am’ me! Give me the badge number of every single police officer who just showed up at my fucking house or I will have your head.”
“Watch your tone, Ma’am.”
“Badge. Numbers. Now.”
Steam blows out of my ears as the rage inside me intensifies. The police officer in front of me seems unconcerned. He arches an eyebrow and finally pulls a notepad out of his breast pocket. He jots down his badge number and hands it to me.
I nod. “Thank you.”
Within minutes, the police cruisers all disappear and I’m left standing on my front lawn, all alone. I see a curtain move in the house across the street, and I know all the neighbors have seen tonight’s drama.
I don’t care. I’m sick of hiding away. I want to be beside Adrian, to show him off, to let everyone know that he’s not the monster they think he is.
He’s good. He’s a good man with a good heart. Sure, he’s made mistakes, but he’s taken responsibility for them. He gave up his dream, his career—everything. And now, they just want to rub salt in the wound.
It makes me sick.
The media, the public, the police—they’re vultures. They see him vulnerable and they attack. They don’t want to know him, or to know the truth. They just want blood.
So, instead of following Adrian to the police station, I jump in my car and head to my sister’s house. It’s my turn to bang on her door and yell through it. I’m just as bad as the police. I might even tackle her to the ground when she opens the door, too.
When Liam fills the doorway, I take a step back.
“Where’s Ashley?”
“Stella,” he says evenly. He glances over his shoulder and takes a deep breath. “This isn’t a
good time.”
“Where is she?”
“Let her in,” comes Ashley’s voice from inside the house. Liam grimaces and finally takes a deep breath, stepping aside to let me in.
I don’t take my shoes off. I won’t be here long. I march down the hallway, glancing in the empty living room and continuing on towards the kitchen. Ashley has her back to me, stirring a pot of food on the stove. Her other hand is on her ever-growing belly.
I’m trembling. I’m so mad that I think I might explode. And Ashley just stands there, stirring her food and ignoring me.
“Are you not even going to face me?”
She scoffs. “Funny for you to say that to me after what you did.”
“After what I did?!”
Liam stands in the doorway for a second and then dissolves back into the hallway. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to watch this, either. What’s about to go down is a fight of epic proportions—a fight that only sisters can have with each other.
Ashley taps the wooden spoon on the edge of the saucepan and places it down on a plate. She turns slowly, lifting her eyes up to mine. They’re bloodshot. Her mouth is pinched into a tight line and she looks very pale.
“What the fuck, Ashley? How could you?”
“How could I? Are you listening to yourself right now? You shacked up with the one man that tried to ruin my life and my relationship, and now you’re turning around and telling me that I’m in the wrong? Are you fucking delusional?”
“Who are you calling delusional? You’re ruining that man’s life, Ash.”
“Good.” Her eyes darken.
“You shouldn’t have given those files to the press.” I try to keep my voice steady, but the anger building inside me makes it waver.
“Why the fuck not?” She leans against the counter and crosses her arms. “Huh? Why not? He did the same to me!”
“He did not! He was an asshole, yes. I agree. But did he ever actually do anything with the dirt he found on you? Did he do anything except get you fired from the job you already hated?”
“What, so threatening me is okay?”
“You don’t know him, Ash. He never actually did anything to ruin your life. But you! You could have just sent him to prison!”
Ruined: An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 14
