by Claire Kent
“It makes no difference! He’s low and vulgar and completely inappropriate, and you flaunted your affair with him right out in public. How could you not know it would come out?”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened again with a bleak despair that just seemed to get worse. “Why would anyone even be interested in what I do? I mean, I’m nobody!”
“But your father isn’t nobody. And you knew very well that he was going to run for governor—”
“But he hadn’t even announced yet. I wouldn’t have gone to the club after he’d announced, just in case it reflected poorly on him. But I couldn’t imagine that—”
“You obviously weren’t thinking about your family at all. You know what the media is like. Anything that can smear a good man, they’ll grab onto and run with. If you wanted to hurt him—”
“I didn’t want to hurt him. Of course I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted…” She was almost sobbing now. “I just wanted…to do something…to be…me. I never thought that—”
“You weren’t thinking at all. I can’t believe you were so thoughtless and selfish. You’ve ruined us. You’ve absolutely ruined us. I’m never going to be able to show my face in public again.”
“Oh God,” Elizabeth gasped. “It will blow over. Things like this always do. People won’t hold it against you.”
“Of course they will! You can’t be so naive. And your poor father. How could you do this to him? He’ll never be able to run for governor now. He’ll never be able to hold public office again.”
This may or may not have been true, but Elizabeth knew that he wouldn’t even try now. He’d step down immediately. He’d fade out of sight. And all of his political dreams would go up in smoke.
All because of her.
She fought to repress the sobs that kept rising in her throat. “Can I talk to him?” she asked breathlessly. “I want to talk to him.”
“Well, he doesn’t want to talk to you. He’s very upset. Can you just imagine how he felt when he turned on the news and saw this? Can you even imagine how we feel? We always thought you loved us—”
She almost gagged on her tears on the idea that her father was so devastated that he wouldn’t even talk to her. “I do love you. Of course I love you—”
“I just can’t talk to you anymore. I hope you understand what you’ve done to us.”
Elizabeth heard the call disconnected but she kept holding her phone, staring down at it through tears.
She’d always tried to be a good daughter. She’d always tried to make her parents proud.
And instead she’d mortified and humiliated them in a way they might never recover from.
When her phone rang again in her hand, she jumped, hoping it was her mom again. Or maybe even her father.
It wasn’t. It was her boss.
Elizabeth listened in horror for a few minutes, then mumbled, “Okay,” before she hung up again.
She wasn’t to come into work tomorrow. Parents had been calling in droves for the last few hours, not wanting their precious children in proximity to someone like her.
She was officially on leave for now until the board could make a decision.
Elizabeth knew what the decision would be, though.
She’d lost her job.
She’d lost her parents.
And she’d lost Matt—before she’d ever really had him.
—
Matt felt like crap as he drove over to Bare Assets at about four o’clock in the afternoon.
He hadn’t been able to sleep after Elizabeth left in the morning. He’d gone to visit his mother, but she was so out of it that he’d only stayed a couple of hours. He hadn’t been able to work, though. He hadn’t been able to do anything but sit and brood over how she’d looked as she left his place and how there wasn’t any hope for it to get better. So he’d drunk himself into a stupor, something he hadn’t done in years.
When he woke up, he’d had a pounding headache and ashes in his mouth, but he’d made himself get up and take a shower and then head to the club to get some work done.
Better to try to distract himself so he wouldn’t do anything foolish like call up Elizabeth and beg her to take him back.
He was surprised to see a number of cars in the parking lot, since no one should be working at this time on a Sunday.
One of the cars was a news van.
Frowning, he parked his SUV and got out, trying to figure out what everyone was doing here.
Several people came over to him immediately, snapping pictures and firing questions at him.
“Can you tell us how long the affair has been going on?”
“Are you still a stripper?”
“Did you know she was the daughter of Preston Marks?”
Matt stared in shock, trying to process what was going on here.
“Do you have any comment?” one woman said, sticking a microphone in his face.
“No.” He pushed through the crowd, feeling trapped and bewildered and annoyed. He had no idea what was happening, but he knew for sure he didn’t want to talk to these people. And he didn’t want them taking his picture.
He put a hand up to hide his face as he plowed his way through to the door.
He was so disoriented he had trouble finding the key, so he ended up being hammered with more questions.
“Are you and Elizabeth Marks in a serious relationship?”
“Do you make it a habit to have sex in public?”
“Did she pay for your services?”
The door to the club was suddenly opened, evidently by Robbie, who was standing in the doorway. Relieved, Matt started to duck inside, but he heard one more question.
“Did Elizabeth Marks use other men the way she used you?”
Matt whirled around, a blaze of anger overwhelming him, and he advanced toward the young man who had thrown out the last question.
Robbie grabbed his shoulders from behind. “Don’t! You’ll just make it worse.” He hauled Matt inside and growled at the reporters and photographers, “This is private property, and we’re closed for business. Get out!”
Then Robbie slammed the door, clicking the lock sharply.
“What the hell?” Matt bellowed, wanting to hit someone, preferably that little asshole who had spoken about Elizabeth that way. “What is going on?”
“You haven’t watched the news yet today?” Robbie asked, his grizzled face wrinkled with something worried and tired.
“No. Why would I?” Finally able to think, Matt put the pieces together. “Did something come out about me and her?”
“You could say that.” With a sigh, Robbie walked over to the bar and pulled up the lid of his laptop. “You better look.”
Matt followed him. “What are you doing here this afternoon, anyway?”
“I saw what was happening and figured you might need some help. The press will be waiting to ambush when the guys start arriving for practice tonight.”
Frowning deeply, Matt stared down at the Web site Robbie pulled up. It was a site that handled local news. The first things he saw were a couple of marketing shots of some of the guys from Bare Assets in their underwear, posing on the stage. Then he saw a picture of Elizabeth with her parents at some sort of charity event. Then he saw a video front and center.
He clicked on it and watched in horror at himself fucking Elizabeth against the car last night.
He scanned through the article. They had almost everything. Her father’s entire career and political plans. Who Matt was. What he did. The history of Bare Assets. The first time Elizabeth had come to the club. They’d even interviewed one of the bridesmaids from that wedding, who said that Elizabeth had acted disgusted by the idea of male strippers and that she’d had no idea Elizabeth would decide to hook up with one.
It wouldn’t be long before they found his mother.
It was ridiculous. Line after line, picture after picture, devoted to what was no one’s business but Elizabeth’s and his. The only justification
for all the attention was that her father had been planning to run for governor.
Matt stared at the video again, focusing on Elizabeth’s face.
She looked beautiful, overwhelmed with pleasure, like she’d completely given herself over to him and how he made her feel.
It had been one of the most powerful experiences of his life, fucking Elizabeth like that, both of them naked and vulnerable and surrendering to their feelings, rivaled only by making love to her later in the night.
And now it was fodder for the world’s basest entertainment.
“I’m sorry, man,” Robbie muttered, evidently reading the expression on Matt’s face correctly.
“Who took this video?” Matt asked, his voice hoarse and broken.
“It must have been a customer. Did you not see anyone around when you…” Robbie trailed off, uncharacteristically tactful.
Matt shook his head. He hadn’t been aware of anyone but Elizabeth. How stupid could he have been? Why hadn’t he realized something like this could happen?
“I think we better cancel the guys tonight. The press will be all over them.”
“Yeah,” Matt agreed, rubbing a hand across his face, trying to make himself think clearly. “Do you mind calling them?”
“We might think about closing all of this week. Maybe by next week it will have died down. The good thing is the press has a very short attention span.”
“Yeah,” Matt muttered. “Yeah. Let’s hope it dies down.”
“You might think about leaving town for a while. You’ll be hounded for the next few days.”
So would Elizabeth.
Matt suddenly realized what this would mean for Elizabeth. Her rich, respectable parents. The exclusive school she worked for. Her snotty friends.
She must feel like she was on the verge of losing all of it. She must be absolutely devastated.
With a rough sound in his throat, he reached for his phone and dialed her number, which he’d gotten his hands on last week but never actually used. He needed to make sure she was all right.
It rang. And kept ringing. Then finally her voice mail picked up.
He hung up with a sigh.
“Not answering?” Robbie asked.
Matt shook his head.
He was suddenly furious. At the nosy bitch who had recognized Elizabeth and thought it would be funny to record her in a private moment. At the blood-hungry media who jumped on any hint of scandal like piranhas on fresh meat. At everyone in the entire world, who ate this kind of thing up in some sort of malicious attempt to feel better about their own pathetic lives.
Elizabeth didn’t deserve this. She was the most generous, passionate woman he’d ever met, and she had opened up this month in a way he’d never imagined was possible.
She deserved to be protected and treasured and always made to feel loved.
And Matt was just as guilty as the rest of the world of treating her like garbage.
He grabbed his phone and tried to call her again.
—
Elizabeth ignored Matt’s second call, just as she’d ignored his first. She couldn’t talk to him. She didn’t want to hear his attempt to be sympathetic. She just couldn’t handle it.
When the phone rang again, she was about to send it to voice mail when she saw it was Katie and not Matt. She picked it up.
“Hey,” Katie said. “Are you okay?”
It was nice that someone seemed concerned about her. So nice that Elizabeth’s throat tightened. “Not really.”
“This is terrible. Why won’t they just shut up about it?”
“It’s a juicy story. They’ll run it and rerun it until they’ve sucked every drop out of it. That’s what they do.” Elizabeth’s voice was bitter.
“I don’t think it will last long, though. Some bigger news will happen, and they’ll move on. Your father was just thinking about running, after all. It’s not like he was actually governor.”
He would never be governor now. Her whole body ached at the thought. “Yeah.”
Kate was silent for a minute. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. It just didn’t seem…It didn’t seem like it was part of my real life.”
“So you were just…This is the guy you were just having fun with?”
Elizabeth sighed. “Yeah. It started that way. I just wanted to do something…something wild. Something that hadn’t been planned out and prepared for me.”
“Oh.”
“I guess I should have been smarter. But it never occurred to me that anyone would…would even care what I did in my private life.”
“Yeah. I guess I can understand. I’m really sorry. It’s going to be so hard for you now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just trying to move on from this. I mean, any guy you date will have seen that video. What kind of nice guy is going to want to deal with that baggage? I know you were hoping to marry a good guy and have a family, and it’s just going to be…I don’t know…It’s going to be hard for you now.”
Katie was obviously trying to be nice, sympathetic, understanding. But her words made Elizabeth’s stomach heave again.
That picture-perfect life was lost to her now. Utterly, completely lost.
But the worst thing was that Elizabeth didn’t even want it anymore.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted, though she’d gotten a taste of it last night. But even that had been just a delusion—another false hope she’d poured her heart into.
One day she wanted to hope in something that was real, but she was starting to doubt that was even possible.
“Are you still there?” Katie asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. This is just so…Can I call you later?”
“Sure. Anytime. Call anytime.”
When she hung up, Elizabeth sat frozen for several minutes, feeling like every shred of clothing she possessed had been stripped away and the entire world was seeing her stark naked.
It was paralyzing.
She’d never felt anything worse.
When she was finally able to move, she went over to turn off the television, which she’d had on mute. Then she got up and closed every blind in her house, and she locked and double-locked all the doors. Changing her mind, she went to turn the television back on, but she switched it over to her streaming service, where she pulled up her collection of Jane Austen movies.
She turned one on and then went to get a blanket and huddled under it on the couch, watching the screen, trying to lose herself, bury herself in a different kind of story, which always had a happy ending, where people tried to be good, where false appearances were always stripped away, and true virtue was rewarded.
Her phone rang and she glanced at the screen.
Matt.
She didn’t know why he was calling, but she wasn’t in any shape to talk to him.
She turned off the phone. Then she disconnected her landline so there was absolutely no way to reach her.
She knew there was press camped out on the sidewalk outside, but she wasn’t about to leave her house.
She tried to focus on the movie and shut out the world—at least for a little while.
Chapter 11
As much as she wanted to do so, Elizabeth couldn’t stay on her couch watching Jane Austen movies for the rest of her life.
She hibernated for the rest of Sunday and all day Monday. She didn’t leave her house, and she didn’t answer the phone, except to talk to her mother and Katie, neither of whom were very encouraging. She didn’t open her email or go online for any reason, and she didn’t turn on live television at all.
But on Monday evening she was running out of food, and she knew she would have to go out. She was still worried about the press—who might still be camped outside—so she waited until almost midnight and then she found the courage to peek outside.
There didn’t appear to be anyone out there. Maybe they’d already gotten bored and moved on.
Having no
other choice unless she wanted to face the morning without coffee, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a baggy T-shirt and took a step outside.
Nothing happened. It was dark, and there was no one in sight.
With a sigh of relief, she hurried to her car and got behind the wheel without incident.
She drove to an all-night grocery store and walked through the aisles quickly, stocking up on everything she needed. There were only a few people shopping, and none of them appeared to recognize her.
It was a relief. She’d felt like as soon as she stepped outside the whole world would be mocking and pointing fingers. But she wasn’t really newsworthy. She wasn’t a public figure or a celebrity. She’d had a blip of notoriety, but maybe it had already passed.
She was feeling almost hopeful as she checked out and loaded the bags into her car. Then she drove home, enjoying the bliss of anonymity.
She’d never believed it was such a blessing before.
She was lugging her bags up to her front door when a figure stepped out of the shadows.
She squealed and almost dropped the bag with her eggs in it.
Then she realized the figure was Matt.
“Sorry,” he said, reaching out to take a few of the bags from her hands. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He was dressed in his normal jeans and T-shirt, and he didn’t look like he’d shaved in a few days. His expression was sober.
“Well, what did you think you’d do, sneaking up on me that way?” she snapped, her heart still racing from being so startled and also anxious about what he was even doing here in the middle of the night. “It’s after midnight, you know. You don’t jump out at girls in the dark, unless you want to get a face full of pepper spray.”
“Sorry,” he said again as she unlocked her door. “I was waiting for you.”
“I can see that. What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you, and you aren’t answering my calls.”
She had the door opened now, but she didn’t step inside. She just glared up at him. “Maybe that’s because I didn’t want to talk to you.”
Matt blinked at the rancor in her tone. “All of this isn’t my fault, you know.”
She sighed, knowing he was right, knowing she wouldn’t have been so sharp if he hadn’t surprised her that way. “I know it’s not your fault. But I’d rather you not be here. Someone is going to see you and take another picture.”
