Power, Seduction & Scandal

by Angela Winters

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my . . . I’m so sorry. Michael!”

  “Um . . .” Michael coughed a little as he started to stand.

  “No,” she said.

  She pushed at his shoulders to make him stay down, but it actually made him stumble back a little.

  “Don’t fall!” she shouted.

  “I’m trying not to.” He was laughing although he seemed a little confused.

  “Just stay there,” she said, reaching to the left and grabbing a white cloth napkin from the table. She kept apologizing as she wiped his face and part of his shirt. “I can get it off, I promise. I just . . .”

  Michael grabbed her hand as she went to pat his head. “Stop it, Billie. It’s okay.”

  She let him remove her hand from his head and dropped the napkin to the floor. She looked down at him somberly.

  “I ruined it,” she said.

  “The only way you could ruin this is if you say no,” Michael assured her.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” she screamed loud enough to be heard a mile away.

  “Good.” He laughed loudly. “Now, can I get up?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  She was trying to hold back her tears as he took the ring out of the box and placed it on her finger, but she couldn’t. She looked at the platinum band ring, lined with a stripe of diamonds that led to a large oval diamond shining brightly under the romantically lit balcony. It was the most glorious thing Billie had ever seen.

  “It’s beautiful, Michael,” she exclaimed, her voice almost a sigh.

  “You know this was supposed to be more romantic,” he said. “I’d set it up with music in a private room at the restaurant. It was going to be a whole thing. I had to improvise when you wanted to stay in. It would have been perfect.”

  You’re wrong,” she said. “Nothing could have more perfect than this moment right here.”

  Returning home from Saturday-morning errands, Erica was almost giddy at the great news that Billie had just texted her and Sherise. Michael had proposed to her last night and she’d accepted. Erica knew it was coming. Over the last year, she’d watched Billie and Michael fall more and more in love and couldn’t be happier for her best friend.

  As she opened the door to her D.C. apartment, Erica was also a little giddy for herself. She’d watched the football game Thursday night with fervor, rooting for her Redskins. Sadly, they lost, but the pain of that loss was quickly tempered by a text she got less than five minutes after the game ended.

  U owe me dinner—Corey.

  She texted him back immediately demanding to know how he got her number, even though she wasn’t at all upset about it. He responded that he’d informed Justin of their bet and Justin gave him her number.

  Send me the bill, she texted, referring to their plan B agreement.

  Curious to see his response, she laughed out loud when he called her a coward. They texted teasingly, flirtatiously back and forth for a while before she agreed, pretending it was reluctantly, to go out to dinner.

  So they made plans for dinner later that night and Erica couldn’t remember the last time she was this giddy about a first date. She was so distracted by the idea that she hadn’t been paying attention after she entered her apartment and placed her grocery bags on her kitchen counter. Out of the corner of her left eye, she saw some movement.

  She turned and jumped, realizing there was a large dark figure in her living room, sitting on her sofa. Erica screamed.

  The intruder turned on the lamp on the end table next to the sofa where he was sitting.

  “Calm down,” he said. “Don’t scream again. Someone will call the cops.”

  “I’m going to call the cops!” she yelled.

  Jonah Nolan didn’t seem fazed by his daughter’s threat as he simply stared at her with that immovable, authoritarian stare she’d gotten so used to.

  He was a very attractive man in his fifties, with a powerful presence that seemed to radiate far beyond him. He was tall and trim, but not thin. He had a warm pink hue to his skin and dark hair that was graying at the temples. He had a firm jawline and thin lips that made him look very serious all the time.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to slow her rapid heartbeat. “And don’t say you have a key. I just had my locks changed.”

  A look of concern came over his face. “Why? Did someone try to break in?”

  “Yes,” she said. “There have been a lot of break-ins in the neighborhood. A few weeks ago, I came home and saw my locks had been tampered with. Had to replace them. Was it you?”

  “No,” he said, seeming almost offended. “I don’t try and break into apartments, Erica. You need to move out of this shitty neighborhood.”

  “I can’t afford anything . . . wait, what the fuck are you doing here?”

  He looked at her sternly, letting her know he didn’t appreciate her language. Erica swallowed a bit. That look always made her nervous.

  Jonah was the kind of man who could make anyone nervous. Not just because he had that look of authority about him, which he’d developed after years in the military, but also because he carried himself like a man who knew how much power he wielded. Or at least, used to. He was supposed to be in the Oval Office one day. A man who once could make people disappear, change the directions of their lives, and mold events to fit his needs was now mostly reclusive.

  After the scandal hit, his wife divorced him and took most of the millions, which was only fair since she had brought most of the money to the family. His kids, the ones he acknowledged, didn’t want much to do with him. His kids he didn’t acknowledge shunned him too. He’d quit his job and the various boards and committees he was on, saying he needed to take a break from public life for a year.

  Erica guessed that year was over and Jonah was on his comeback. Was this visit a check off his list of people to bring back in his life? Well, he had another think coming if he meant to do that.

  “I’ve offered to help you one million times,” he said.

  “And I’ve declined your charity one million times,” she answered back, not moving from her spot behind the kitchen counter. “How did you get in here?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does!” she yelled. “I don’t want you in my apartment! Did you steal my keys and copy them? Did you pay the landlord? I’ll call the cops on him for helping you.”

  “Enough with the threats,” he said, sounding annoyed.

  “I’ll ask again,” she explained. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to come by and see you,” he said, simply. “It’s been almost seven months since—”

  “Since you last ambushed me,” she interrupted. “I made it clear to you then that this little shameful secret was done.”

  “I’m not ashamed of you,” he said. “I never have been.”

  “Don’t give me the speech.” Erica was disgusted that he still didn’t understand how cruel it was to keep a child secret for your career ambitions.

  She had always wished she’d had a father like Billie’s. One who loved her, treated her mother with respect, and was devoted to her. She’d thought her brother Nate’s father was her own until Jonah found her at twenty-five and told her the truth. When he’d told her he wanted to be in her life but keep her a secret because of his political ambitions, it was a stab in Erica’s heart. Time and time again, she tried to reject him for making her his dirty little secret, but he would pull her back into her life. She let him.

  Breaking her heart to maintain his ambitions was a perfectly legitimate excuse for him. But then again, Jonah believed everything he did was perfectly legitimate. No matter whose life was destroyed, as long as it wasn’t his. Look at where that got him.

  “I’m too tired to do that,” he said.

  She looked him over. He did look different than usual, more humbled and less like a bully. It was likely another ploy. He’d used this before to get him on her side. It was all a ploy.

  Erica r
ealized he wasn’t going to leave until he wanted to, so she went ahead and started putting her groceries away.

  “After what you did to Alex,” she said, “I will never forgive you. It’s worse than the threats you made to Terrell and Sherise if they ever told anyone you were my father. I forgave you for that.”

  “Did you?” Jonah asked sarcastically. “Because you seem to still remind me of it all the time. Doesn’t sound like forgiveness to me.”

  “But with Alex,” she continued, ignoring him, “you destroyed his life.”

  “His mother destroyed his life.” There was a hint of Jonah’s anger in his usually controlled voice. “Alex would have had a perfect life had she not exposed me as his father.”

  “A perfect life?” She turned to him in disbelief. “You just don’t get it, do you? A perfect life not knowing the truth about who you are or who your real father is? Have you even tried to reach out to him?”

  “I know he’s in Miami,” Jonah said.

  “He had to leave D.C. and his dream of a life in politics,” she reminded him. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m sure he wants nothing to do with me.”

  “That’s the excuse you tell yourself.” She looked at him shamefully. “You probably resent him for even existing, don’t you? You blame him for ruining your chance at the White House.”

  “His fucking mother—”

  He stopped when Erica slammed her fist on the counter.

  “Had to expose who you were because we all believed that you were going to kill Terrell! It was the only thing she could think of to save him. This is all your fault, Jonah. You still don’t fucking get it.”

  “I get it more than you know,” he said calmly.

  “Well, you can just leave me off your comeback tour, Jonah. Even if it is in secret.”

  “Comeback tour?” He frowned before smiling. “That’s not what this is. I’m here to agree with you. You were better off without me in your life and I agree that we need to go our separate ways.”

  Erica studied him intently, trying to figure out what this game was.

  Jonah stood up from the sofa and walked over to the kitchen counter. Standing on the opposite side, he looked into Erica’s eyes. He sighed like a man with a heavy heart, but Erica was suspicious, often questioning that he even had a heart.

  “I’m going to leave you alone,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you that no matter what I’ve done, and I’ve done a lot, I’ve never lied to you about your mother.”

  “Don’t,” Erica warned as she felt herself choking up.

  “I’m not trying to use her to soften you up,” he said. “Like I’ve done in the past. I’m just telling you the truth. I cared about Achelle. She was . . . one of the best people I’ve ever met in my long, traveled life.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me that my mother was a great person,” Erica said.

  “I’m telling you anyway.” Jonah stuffed his hands in his pants pockets, the move of a much less confident man than Erica knew him to be.

  “And she was right to never tell you about me, Erica. She knew that I wasn’t going to be what you needed me to. I would love to believe that if she’d told me about you, I would have done the right thing; the good thing. But I don’t know and she didn’t want to put you through the pain of that choice.”

  Erica looked away from him, trying to get control over her emotions. She never questioned her mother’s devotion and love, but she did wonder what her life could have been like if she’d known her real father.

  Would it have been even more painful to deal with his social rejection as a small child? Maybe he would have provided for her and her life would not have been such a financial struggle? Who knew? Erica would not question her mother’s choices. She knew her mother loved her and her brother Nate more than anything in the world.

  “And that’s that,” he said as plainly as if he was ordering food at a restaurant.

  “So you’re leaving,” she said as firmly as she could muster. “For good this time.”

  He nodded. “Don’t look too choked up about it.”

  “Are you going to tell me how you go into my apartment?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  She rolled her eyes. “Then, yeah, I guess that’s that.”

  He looked disappointed in her reaction, but Erica could tell he knew he had no right to expect anything more.

  “Good-bye, Erica.”

  “Good-bye, Jonah.”

  With that, he turned and walked to the door, opened it and stepped out, closing it behind him. Erica stared at the door for several minutes, not knowing what to do or what to feel. She couldn’t deny that hint of longing that had existed inside her ever since she’d gotten over the shock of finding out Jonah was her father. She couldn’t help but wish for more.

  Ultimately, she knew the truth, and it was that this man had brought her nothing but pain and fear. He had tried to control her, rip her from relationships that she held dear, and threaten to hurt those she loved. She had done nothing to hurt him and had given him chance after chance.

  She felt anger begin to swell inside her. Who was he to walk out on her? Who was he to say this was over after she’d told him several times? Was this his way of having the last word? Another power play? Did he think she would fall for his ploy and beg him to be in her life?

  Well, she wouldn’t. This was no game. She knew she was better off without him in her life.

  “I’m better off with him dead,” she said soundly to an empty apartment. “To hell with you, Jonah Nolan.”

  “There he is,” Justin said as he pointed out Jerry Northman.

  Sherise turned to look where Justin was pointing. She saw him. Jerry had just entered the great room of the Maryland governor’s mansion. She’d been looking for him since they arrived at the house for the party, determined to get a chance to talk to him and get some answers about Maurice Blair. She hadn’t been able to find him yet and enlisted Justin’s help to keep an eye out.

  “God dammit,” she said. “He’s with him.”

  Standing only a foot from Jerry was Maurice Blair, looking dapper in a tailored blue suit. There were also three senators and the biggest tech billionaire on the East Coast. Maurice was cheesing it up with all of them, doing the thing he was known for, schmoozing.

  “You might want to watch your expressions,” Justin said. “You look like you want to bite his head off and stuff it up his ass.”

  “I do,” she said, regaining her composure.

  She watched as a couple more people approached Jerry, but Maurice played guard. He was setting it up so that they had to greet him first. He had no right to do that. He wasn’t a gatekeeper!

  “I’ll bet you he’s gonna try and keep Northman by his side all night,” Justin said, accepting a glass of wine from the waiter that passed by.

  He offered the glass to Sherise, but she shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I want to keep a clear head tonight. I’ve got to get Jerry away from him. I can’t grill him on Maurice if he’s hanging around.”

  “Just tell him it’s an urgent matter.” Justin took a sip of the wine.

  “No,” she answered. “I don’t want to say anything around Maurice. I don’t want him knowing that I’m trying to get Jerry away from him. He’ll know something is up.”

  “Hello, Sherise.”

  Sherise turned to see Stephen Northman standing next to her. Stephen was the youngest child of Jerry’s three children and the only son. At twenty years old, he was a junior at Harvard University who had taken off the current semester to support his father on the campaign.

  He was average height, about six feet tall, and thin. He was good-looking, with sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes. He favored his mother more than his father and had perfect teeth when he smiled, although he rarely did. He spoke very well, but always had a tone of boredom with life in his voice.

  Stephen always seemed fine, but he never seemed
happy. At least that was what Sherise had decided from the time she had spent around him in the past year and a half. He was very secretive. She’d remembered several times when neither Northman nor his wife knew where he was or what he was doing.

  This was supposed to be a formal event, but he was wearing a pair of khakis and an expensive blue sport jacket over a button-down shirt.

  “Hey, Stephen,” she said with a smile. “How are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “You look amazing.”

  “Thank you.” She placed her hand on Justin’s arm. “You remember my husband, Justin. You’ve met before.”

  “Oh yeah.” Stephen, almost reluctantly, held his hand out to shake Justin’s, but quickly returned his attention to Sherise.

  “You know I’m going back to school at the beginning of the year,” he said. “I kind of think I’ll miss this.”

  “It’s exciting,” she said, raising her tone to appeal to him. She had just figured out a way to get Jerry alone and needed Stephen’s help. “You’ve been such a great part of the campaign.”

  “I’d like to stay,” he said. “Work with you and the others. But Mom and Dad don’t want me to.”

  “We’re gonna miss your contribution,” she said.

  She titled her head to the side just a bit, so that the tendrils of her long hair fell to the side. She had his full attention. It was very easy. It wasn’t just because she looked amazing in the purple strapless gown she wore. She already knew that Stephen had a bit of a crush on her.

  “You helped me often,” she continued.

  He stood up a bit straighter with a proud smile. “I liked working with your team the most.”

  “You know what,” she said as if almost surprised at the idea that just came to her. “You can help me now. As a matter of fact, I think this is something only you could do.”

  “Anything,” he said eagerly.

  She glanced briefly at her husband, who rolled his eyes and smiled in response.