The Billionaire's Last Fling (Scandal, Inc Book 5)

by Avery James

  Nolan opened his eyes to the half dark of Abby’s bedroom. It was still early, before dawn. Even though he’d adjusted to the time difference since his return, he found himself waking earlier than usual. In truth, he liked having the quiet moment at the start of the day. He looked over at Abby, who was still asleep next to him. The gentle line of her side was visible through the sheet, which was tucked under her arm and over the curve of her breast. A week and a half had passed since Nolan returned from Scotland. It had been blissful, too good to be true.

  Nolan turned over and reached for his phone. As he checked the time, its screen cast a bluish white light over his face. It was still before six, and Abby wouldn’t be up for another forty-five minutes. He started to go through his unread emails, scanning for anything of interest. For the first time in his professional life, he was falling behind on work, letting emails stack up, returning phone calls days late.

  As he read through the emails, he found his thoughts drifting towards the future, his future with Abby. He loved her with a fierceness he hadn’t known possible. It was all consuming, stronger than all his other desires combined. He knew that he’d do whatever it took to be with her, and whatever it took to keep her safe. He knew if it came down to choosing her or the rest of his life, he’d choose her.

  When he opened the latest update from Erin and the Politicker team, his thoughts snapped back to the present. It was their first feature length article, the one Erin had promised would set the tone for the website. He opened the attachment and started to read.

  This can’t be true, he thought. Could this be true? He reread the article a second time to make sure he wasn’t missing something, but every word stayed the same. This was the exposé he’d been hoping for since he launched Politicker. He was about to make a difference. There was only one catch: it was going to blow his life to pieces.

  Though the accusations against the Hecks were shocking, they weren’t complicated. Shortly after arriving in D.C., Andrew Heck had registered as a lobbyist, something many former politicians did. He represented clients across a broad range of industries, mostly agriculture and light manufacturing. Because his wife didn’t sit on any related committees, there was no conflict of interest, but the accusations were that Andrew Heck was charging defense contractors money for direct access to his wife and the ability to write legislation, and that the whole thing was happening under a little known corporation he and the senator co-owned.

  This was explosive. If the allegations were correct, it meant the senator was abusing her office for her own benefit, which broke all kinds of laws. He needed to go to work, get to the bottom of the story, and figure out what he was going to do. If the story was accurate, there was no way he could hold it back.

  Nolan leaned over and kissed Abby’s cheek. “I have to go into work,” he said softly. He half hoped she’d just stay asleep. He didn’t want to even think about what she’d do when she found out about the story.

  Abby rolled over and grinned up at him drowsily. Her eyes were still half closed. “I can’t believe you have an office here, or that it’s so close to my place. That extra short commute means I get you a few minutes longer, right?”

  “Well, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.

  As he started to get up, Abby wrapped an arm around him. “What’s the rush?” She leaned into him and planted a kiss on his lips. “Will I have to use my powers of persuasion on you?”

  “You’ve been awake for two minutes,” he said as she pulled herself closer to him. Nolan let his hand slide down her back, resting just above her hip. Her hair was tousled from the way she’d slept, and her cheeks had a hint of color. Nolan wanted nothing more than to kiss her back, wrap his arms around her, and forget about everything else for just a little while longer.

  “I was dreaming of you,” she said. “We were in a meeting at some big company, and you couldn’t keep your hands off me. You were sitting next to me at one end of a long conference table, and you had your hand on the inside of my thigh, and then someone called on you, and you gave a presentation while secretly fooling around with me under the table.”

  “And no one noticed?”

  “Oh, I think everyone noticed,” she said. “That’s what was so hot about it. Dreams don’t always make the most sense. I was wearing a white button up shirt, thigh highs, a garter, and nothing else.” She kissed his neck and ran her hand over his chest as she described more details of the dream until he ached for her.

  Why did the article have to arrive on this morning of all mornings? Nolan gritted his teeth. All he had to do was delay the story. He could find some excuse, and then he could spend as long as he liked indulging every one of Abby’s fantasies. He gritted his teeth and cleared his treat. “There’s something I need to show you,” he said.

  “I like where this is headed,” she said as she traced her fingers down his abs.

  Nolan sighed and grabbed his phone. “As much as I want that, you need to see this, Abby.” His tone conveyed how unsexy he felt telling her this.

  “This better be a sex tape of us,” she said as she took the phone from his hand.

  “It’s not,” he replied. “But we can talk about that later.”

  As she read, Abby pulled back from Nolan. She sat up and leaned over the phone. “Is this real?” she asked. Her entire demeanor had changed. She went from being playful and sexy to dead serious. She was in work mode. “How long have you known about this?”

  “I just found out five minutes ago,” he said.

  “Are you serious?”

  “I told my team they had complete autonomy,” he said. “I wanted you to see this.”

  “My boyfriend is trying to put my client in jail,” she said. She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m dead.” She got up and made a beeline for her closet.

  “You’re not dead,” he said. “You had nothing to do with either side of this.”

  “I’m the reason you even know who she is,” Abby said.

  “That’s not the case at all,” Nolan replied. “Well, maybe it is, but I told you, this isn’t my story. This is my team’s story, and Erin has been digging into this since before I hired her.”

  “Are you really going to bring her up right now? She’s had it out for me since day one.”

  “Abby, that’s not true,” he said. He’d gotten the sense that Erin wasn’t exactly thrilled that he wasn’t interested in her, but Abby had to know that that kind of personal drama played no part in this story.

  “You know it is,” she said. She pulled on her dress and grabbed her phone. “I have to go.”

  “You have to go? Abby, I’m trying to talk to you,” he said. “Give me a few hours to look into this.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I have a responsibility to go to my client now. You know that.” She glared at him.

  “We need to talk about us for a second,” he said. “You know this doesn’t change anything about how I feel about you, right?”

  “I don’t have time for this right now,” she said as she grabbed her shoes. “I just found out that my boyfriend is out to end my career.”

  “Come on, Abby,” he said. “You know that isn’t true. I told you as soon as I knew.”

  “Fine, your blonde has it out for me,” she said.

  “My blonde?”

  “Your reporter, the one you took to that thing in New York.”

  “I knew what you meant, but you know my relationship with her is strictly professional, don’t you?”

  “Maybe for you,” Abby said.

  “There’s a story here,” Nolan said. “Your client broke the law for her own personal gain. You can’t expect me to bury this.”

  Abby paused in the doorway. “No,” she said. She sighed. “You know what you have to do, and so do I.” There was a slight tremble in her voice. It wasn’t that she sounded sad so much as she sounded resigned, and Nolan wanted to jump out of bed and tell her that everything was going to be ok, but, in truth, he didn’t know tha
t at all. As he got up, he heard Abby leave the condo. He needed to find a way to make things right, and he knew that time wasn’t on his side.

  Chapter 25

  The allure of Ruth Heck’s office had faded since the last time Abby had stood before her desk. The senator was standing, talking to someone on the phone, looking bored. Her arms were crossed, and she was staring off into space as she went through the pleasantries of conversation. From the sounds of it, the senator was schmoozing a donor. It was illegal for members of Congress to fundraise from their offices, but given the allegations Nolan’s site had just leveled against the senator, it was barely a blip on Abby’s radar.

  “We need to talk,” Abby said.

  The senator held up a finger and gave Abby a very annoyed look while asking about the donor’s Appaloosa and conveying her gratitude for the flowers sent after her husband’s death.

  “We need to talk now,” Abby said. “Every minute counts.”

  Ruth waved her hand as if to tell Abby to leave until she was ready.

  Abby took a breath and walked up to the desk. This had the potential to be a very bad decision, but she didn’t feel like she had any choice. She lowered a finger against the phone base and ended the call. “The decisions you make in the next thirty seconds will determine whether you’re reelected in two weeks or if you spend the rest of your natural life in a prison cell.”

  “Excuse me,” the senator replied. “What on earth has gotten into you?” She sounded more like an upset schoolmarm than a woman who’d just learned she was facing jail time.

  “I just received a copy of a story that’s set to publish outlining how you and your husband charged defense contractors millions of dollars in consulting fees in exchange for access to you and influence over your decisions on the defense appropriations committee.”

  “What evidence do they have?” Ruth asked.

  “Two hours of interviews with your husband, and a paper trail linking his consulting business to nearly a dozen defense contractors.”

  “This is why I hired you, to keep this from happening,” Ruth said.

  “You hired us to keep an eye on your husband so that he wouldn’t upend your campaign with a sex scandal. You never spoke a word of this.”

  Ruth sat down at her desk and put on a pair of reading glasses. She gave Abby a dead-eye stare over the bridge of the glasses before looking down at something on the desk. “Tell me more,” she said. She sounded more bored than worried.

  “Is any of this true?” Abby asked.

  “Does that matter?” Ruth replied without looking up. She was flipping through a book of some kind. Abby could hear the sound of each page as the senator turned them one by one.

  “Yes, it matters,” Abby said. “We don’t lie, and we don’t break the law. You know this. We stretch the truth, we misdirect, we omit absolutely everything we can, but we do not lie. And we especially do not lie about felonies. You hired us to prevent a scandal without telling us the truth. I’ll ask you again, is any of this true.”

  “You don’t want the answer to that question,” Ruth replied. She stopped flipping the pages and jabbed her stubby index finger down on the page. “You never want the answer to that question. And spare me the sanctimony. You and I both know what you do for a living. You’re paid to bury things. Now I need you to bury this.”

  “You knew all along,” Abby said. “This was always the scandal you were trying to prevent.” As she spoke, she got the distinct impression that Ruth was barely listening to her. Instead, the senator was rummaging through a drawer. “Just tell me you weren’t involved.” She was trying to think of any narrative that exonerated the senator. If her husband had been dealing behind her back, there was a chance she didn’t know.

  “Andrew couldn’t tie his shoes without my help,” Ruth said. She sighed.

  “With all due respect, he wasn’t exactly a doting husband.”

  Ruth sighed again. “Yes, I let him carry on his little affairs. Why wouldn’t I? The worst kept secret in Washington was that my husband and I hated each other. Except we didn’t. I wasn’t interested in sex, at least not with him. And he always had a wandering eye. His infidelities created a nice cover. Andrew meeting with a blonde off hours? Must be fooling around, people thought. Made things easier. Of course, he had his affairs, too, but I always knew. That was our deal.”

  Abby tried to keep up with everything she was hearing. Her mind jumped back to her limo ride with the senator. This is what she was hinting at. You have to know what you want. Abby had assumed she was giving some kind of life lesson, but instead she’d been priming her for this discussion, hoping that it would make Abby understand why she felt free to do what she had done.

  “You have to understand,” Ruth continued, “that the best thing in the world is to have your enemies underestimate you. I’m a schlubby governor’s wife from the Midwest. Did you think the matronly outfits were a mistake? Do you really think the men in this town thought I’d have each and every one of them by the balls?”

  Abby thought back to Andrew Heck’s warning: You think you know my wife… She’d just assumed he was blowing hot air, but he was right. Abby needed to figure out what he knew and who he told.

  “Senator,” Abby said. “You broke the law. There’s no spinning this.”

  “This is what I’m paying you for, isn’t it?” She pulled the drawer out and placed it on top of the desk. She reached into the hole where the drawer had been, her arm disappearing almost to the shoulder. As she watched the senator, Abby wondered if she was even listening to a word Abby said. “What’s the plan?” Ruth said impatiently.

  “You need a lawyer,” Abby said.

  “I have the Attorney General on speed dial,” Ruth said.

  “You need counsel, Senator. I don’t think you appreciate the seriousness of this situation. When this story hits, we’ll have to—”

  Ruth cut her off before she could finish her sentence. “This won’t be a story,” Ruth said. She finally found whatever she was reaching for, and she pulled her arm out of the desk. To Abby’s surprise, she was holding a cheap cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Abby asked.

  “I told you,” Ruth said. “The Attorney General. You know what, before you go, I have one last piece of advice for you. In this line of work, it’s not what you know, and it’s not who you know. It’s what you know about them. The Attorney General is a dear friend. Unfortunately, he shares my husband’s taste in women. I didn’t get this far in life on my looks, or my principles, and I sure as hell didn’t get here by folding up shop when things got tough. I hope you’ll remember that you and your coworkers are neck deep in this, so you have a vested interest in my making it through unscathed.”

  Unscathed? Abby thought. You’ll be lucky if you aren’t led out of here in shackles. Ruth was savvier than her husband, though. Her threat was much more implicit than any he’d made, couched as advice.

  “Tell your boss I need to speak with her this afternoon. Now I have a phone call to make. If you don’t want to lie, I suggest you leave the room now.”

  Abby couldn’t agree more with that last piece of advice. She got up and headed straight out of the office. As soon as she was outside, she grabbed her phone out of her purse and made the call she knew she had to make. “We need to talk,” she said. “Now.”

  ***

  Abby had gone straight from her meeting with Ruth Heck back to the office. She’d learned her lesson about trying to handle things on her own and gone straight to Amy. After all, Ruth had suggested she was willing to take everyone down with her, and Abby wasn’t about to risk letting that happen just because she was afraid of what Amy would say.

  Amy Haven was waiting for her outside the front entrance of the building. “Well, I’m here. Let’s have that talk,” she said. “The Attorney General just scheduled a press conference.” She was sending an email, typing as she spoke. “This whole thing is about to get a lot more interesting, isn’t it?” She seemed en
ergized. Amy always seemed most in her element when she was a little pissed off, and it was safe to say she was more than a little pissed off.

  “What do you think he’s going to do?” Abby asked.

  “For his sake, I hope he does the right thing,” Amy replied. “Does Ruth Heck think she’s the only one in this town with dirt on the AG? There was a time when I thought arrogance was a male trait, but our lovely senator is proof to the contrary.”

  Abby gave Amy a recap of the meeting, explaining every last word Ruth had uttered. She also told Amy about the Politicker article that revealed the whole scandal. As they walked across the lobby and got in the elevator, Amy just shook her head and listened.

  As soon as the elevator doors shut, Amy started talking. “When I was younger, much younger, I worked one summer at a restaurant. It was the kind of place where local wheelers and dealers would come to get their picture taken and put up on the wall. I was a fill in hostess, and I probably worked there about two months in total. I made next to nothing, but I learned a few invaluable lessons. The first was to never assume anything about anyone. The second was to always, always take care of the people who take care of you.”

  “Ok,” Abby said. She had some idea where Amy was going with this, but she wasn’t sure if she had time for a trip down memory lane.

  “There was this one guy who came in every other Thursday with a young, beautiful blonde. He was a local big shot, and everyone tripped over themselves to take care of whatever he needed. The manager, in particular, was this sweet guy who always tried to avoid conflict. Then, one night, halfway through the summer, the big shot came in with another woman. This one was a blonde, too, but she was older. She was also his wife. So the big shot did his usual thing and complained about this and that, and the manager apologized profusely. And then, one of the waiters spilled a drink on the big shot’s wife, staining her expensive sweater. Well, the big shot raised hell and said he was going to have everyone fired for this, and the manager comped his meal and his expensive bottle of wine and everything. He even offered to pay out of pocket for the dry cleaning. I felt so bad for the guy.