No Stranger to Scandal

by Rachel Bailey

“Could be. But why is she more vindictive than the others? And if she’s capable of manipulating at least two people in a complicated scheme of illegal phone hacking—and having them cover for her even after their arrests—then she’s not a person to underestimate.”

  “She wouldn’t do anything to me,” Lucy said, but even to her own ears her voice sounded unconvinced.

  “Lucy, this is my area of expertise. Angelica Pierce would hurt you if she got the chance. I want you to stay close to me, where I can protect you. Tell ANS that you need to stick near me while you’re working on the damn exposé.”

  Something inside her chilled. Angelica would hurt her if she had the chance? What sort of person operated that way? She’d known about Angelica’s complete lack of ethics in her reporting and information gathering, but this was something else altogether....

  She withdrew her hands from Hayden’s clasp and wrapped them around her waist. Journalism had once seemed a shining light of truth-seeking and integrity. Seeing the tape of Troy Hall and Brandon Ames hiring hackers to illegally invade people’s privacy hadn’t affected her too much, because she’d figured the pair were rogue elements. But Angelica Pierce was a star reporter, and even though Lucy had known she was nasty, before she’d worked at ANS she’d idolized Angelica’s reporting. What was the saying about never meeting your idols...?

  She lifted her chin. One thing was for sure—Angelica wouldn’t get the better of her. “I’m not a child in need of protection. I’ll be fine.”

  “Believe me, I know you’re not a child.” He ran his fingers down her arm and then drew her against him. “Let me protect you,” he murmured in her ear.

  At every point of contact, her skin heated until champagne sparkles fizzed through her bloodstream. But she tried not to lose herself in her body’s reaction to him.

  “It’s not your job,” she said against the cotton shirt covering his chest.

  He smoothed fingertips down her sides till he reached the curve of her hips and drew her even closer. “I want to protect you. I want you safe.”

  She winced. The last thing she needed in her older lover was for him to think of her as a damsel who needed rescuing—couldn’t he see that?

  Laying her palms flat on his chest, she eased away so she could see his eyes, so he could understand this was important to her. “Hayden, I don’t want you to see me as someone you need to look after.”

  His gaze softened, then blazed. “There are many things I see in you. Your courage and determination. Your lush curves. That someone who’s possibly crazy has it in for you. That I can’t stop thinking about making love to you again. That—”

  “Stop there.” She moistened her lips. “Go back to that one.”

  “That someone who’s possibly crazy has it in for you?” he drawled with a knowing smile.

  She shimmied against him. “The one after that.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed one fingertip after the other. “I can’t stop thinking about making love to you again?”

  Her breath caught high in her throat. “That’s the one. Tell me more about that.”

  “There are the waking thoughts and the dreams at night,” he said, turning them so she was trapped between his solid body and the counter behind her.

  “Start with the dreams.”

  He gave her a slow, sensual smile full of promise. “In my favorite one, I was in bed at home in New York, and you slipped through the door and climbed under the covers with me.”

  She shivered as the image formed in her mind. “What was I wearing in this dream?”

  “Nothing.” His voice dropped to a seductive whisper. “That’s why it’s one of my favorites.”

  Her eyes drifted closed and a dull throb pulsated at her core. “What happened once I was under the covers with you?”

  His freshly shaved jaw scraped over her cheek as he pressed his lips to her ear. “I spent the rest of the night making sure you had a good time.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “And did I?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, teeth nipping at the side of her throat. “You were very enthusiastic in your appreciation. When I woke, I was surprised you weren’t still there.”

  Such a simple fantasy, but it aroused her to the tips of her tingling toes—thinking about what they’d done, but also just that Hayden Black had dreamed about her.

  She wound her arms around his neck. “Sounds like a dream that was meant to come true.”

  “I’m working on it.” He glanced around. “You got a bedroom in this place?”

  “Down the hall. Tell me about the waking thoughts,” she said, and bit down on her lip.

  He swung her up into his arms and headed out of the room. “They mainly center on regrets.”

  “Regrets?” She placed a hand on the side of his face, bringing his gaze back to her as he carried her along the hall. “About making love to me?”

  “Yep. I’ve got a list.” He indicated the open door to her bedroom with a tilt of his head and she nodded.

  “Such as?”

  “It happened too fast,” he murmured in her ear, his mouth hot. “I didn’t get to do some things I wanted.”

  He eased her down on the pale blue coverlet, then climbed onto the bed, prowling over her, filling her vision. “To taste the skin just where your diamond pendant hides.” Slowly, he undid the tie holding her wraparound dress together and pulled it open. She held her breath as one hand firmly cupped the lavender lace he’d uncovered and his head dipped to the hollow between her breasts. The heat of his mouth and tongue sent a shower of sparks through her bloodstream, and when his teeth gently bit at the slope of her breast she arched up, offering more, wanting more.

  When he lifted his head, his eyes were as dark as night, and filled with banked desire. “Or to feel the satin smoothness of your inner thigh,” he said as a hand snaked down her body and drew one knee up. He kissed a trail down her belly, around her hip, to her leg and up to her raised knee while his fingertips traced circles on her inner thigh near the edge of her panties.

  “I didn’t get to linger in places I wanted to.” His tongue joined his fingers and she came close to dissolving on the spot. “I’m a man who hates having regrets, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll be rectifying the situation right now.”

  “Be my guest,” she said breathlessly.

  For what seemed like hours, Hayden drove her slowly out of her mind, bringing her close to the edge then ruthlessly turning his attention to yet another sweet zone, removing pieces of clothing as he went. All the while, she explored the ridges of his abdomen, the powerful muscles of his shoulders and arms, the rough hair covering his thighs, every part of him she could reach, peeling his clothes away until there were no barriers between their skin except the protection. They didn’t have forever, she knew that, but for now he belonged to her. Today and for a few days she laid claim to his body; here in her bed, his attention was focused on her. And there wasn’t another place in the world she’d rather be in this moment. Maybe there never would be again.

  Hayden paused, looking deep into her eyes, then his lips came down to meet hers, all his passion and hunger coalescing into one perfect kiss. She practically floated off the bed, but Hayden’s weight pressing down on her kept her anchored.

  “Lucy,” he rasped when he broke away. “I’ve never wanted anyone this much.” He shook his head, as if having trouble believing it himself. “Anyone.”

  He lifted her knee and, without losing eye contact, entered her. Air hissed out from between his clenched teeth, and, unable to restrain herself, she called his name. His eyes flared and he began to move, slowly at first, then faster. She arched her back, wanting everything he could give her, wishing this could last forever, needing him more than she’d thought possible. When she reached the edge, he captured her mouth, pushing her right over the brink, not slowing, keeping her soaring high, then followed, her name wrenched from his throat. As she drifted back to earth, Hayden eased up, then pulled her along
the length of his body. She’d never felt as safe, as cherished. Never felt as much herself. Would anything—any man—be enough again?

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Lucy sat in Graham’s office, a large lump of panting bulldog at her feet. She fingered the framed photo still sitting in a box on her lap, surrounded by tissue paper—her fifteen-year-old self, standing between Graham and her mother, beamed up at her. Her stepfather had arranged for it to be reproduced and framed and had given it to her when she’d walked in a few minutes ago.

  “Thank you for this,” she said through a ball of emotion in her throat.

  “I know you still miss her.” His voice sounded a little affected, as well.

  She touched a fingertip to her mother’s face in the photo. “I do.” Graham gave her presents regularly, but this one was priceless.

  “So how’s the research for the exposé going?” he asked as he leaned back in his chair, changing the subject as he always did once it became too emotional. “We almost ready to start production?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ears in an effort to stop a guilty blush from creeping up her cheeks. “Not so much.”

  “You haven’t found anything?” Deep frown lines appeared across his forehead.

  A barrage of images filled her mind of all the things she had found out about Hayden Black—the ridges of muscle that crossed his abdomen, the way the dark hairs covering his chest felt against her cheek, the expression on his face when he found release inside her....

  She picked at a spot of lint on her skirt, then shrugged a shoulder. “There don’t seem to be any skeletons in his closet. He’s a good man, a newly single parent and straight up and down in his job.” Her research had found evidence of minor issues, such as an uncomfortable relationship with his deceased wife’s parents, and some hard partying when he was a student, but nothing that would fill an exposé. It wasn’t even worth mentioning now.

  Graham waved her assessment away with a sharp slashing motion. “There must be something you can find.”

  “Actually, I’ve hit a slight snag.” She rubbed Rosie’s chest with the toe of her shoe as she formed the question she needed to ask. “How far do you trust Angelica Pierce?”

  Graham didn’t hesitate. “Good journalist. Solid instincts.”

  “She told Hayden that I was doing an exposé on him.”

  His eyes widened. “Damn.”

  “I thought you didn’t trust anyone else to know that plan.” That was the part that had surprised her the most about the whole situation.

  “She came to me last night, worried about what damage Black’s investigation might do to the network. I told her we had it covered. I was going to use her to front the piece, so she would have found out soon enough anyway.” He picked up a pen and began tapping a furious beat on his desk. “She went straight to Black?”

  Straight to him with the information, plus a bonus attempted seduction. “She dropped in on him this morning.”

  “She must’ve thought she could use it to get some leverage. Get him to back off, or give up his sources.”

  Lucy bit down on her lip, amazed he was already explaining away Angelica’s actions. Making excuses for her. Couldn’t he see what was under his nose?

  “Until this is over,” she said carefully, “I don’t think you should trust her.”

  “Rubbish. Angelica won’t bite the hand that feeds her. She’ll put ANS’s interests first.” He threw the pen he’d been tapping across the desk and scrounged in a drawer till he found his ever-present antacid tablets. “How did Black take the news? Is he going to be difficult?”

  Given the things Hayden’s mouth had done to her this morning, she’d say he’d taken the news very well, all things considered. “No, he’ll still let me help with his investigation. I convinced him I’d be ethical about it.”

  Graham grinned as if he thought she’d lied to Hayden, and something inside her withered. Angelica’s ruthlessness had given Lucy pause. But Graham seemed to respect that about his star journalist. And now he’d shown approval at the possibility his own stepdaughter would lie and double-cross someone. She’d known Graham was a hard-nosed businessman, but she’d—probably naively—thought that there were different expectations of the journalists at ANS.

  Where did that leave her plans for her own career? If she refused to be like them, to play in a sandbox with loose rules, did she have a future in broadcast journalism? Her stomach hollowed out. She had no answers.

  “I need to get back to Hayden,” she said, reaching for her hold-all bag and pushing up out of her chair. “I said I’d help him with some research this afternoon.”

  Graham’s brow folded into deep wrinkles, making him resemble Rosie. “You’re not getting too close to Black, are you? Don’t be fooled into sympathizing with your target. Rookie mistake.”

  She thought of Hayden stretched naked across her sheets only a few hours ago, smiling lazily at her as she brought them a tray with toast and coffee.

  Her hand fluttered up to circle her throat. “No, we’re not too close.”

  “Good,” he said with a decisive nod. “I knew I could count on you.”

  But Lucy had begun to wonder—just who really could count on her? And just as important, who could she count on? She looked down at the photo of her with Graham and her mother for long moments, then slipped it into her red bag. She rolled her shoulders back and pushed the disloyal thoughts away. Graham could count on her and she could count on him. They were family.

  She gave Rosie a final scratch under the chin, hugged Graham quickly and left.

  * * *

  Hayden stared at the two photos side by side on his laptop screen, a triumphant rush filling his veins. The resemblance was unmistakable. Without taking his eyes from the computer, he reached for his cell and dialed Lucy’s number.

  “Can you come over?” he asked when she answered. They’d fallen into a routine over the past few days of taking personal time at her house each day—but at varying times, for discretion’s sake—and her dropping over to his hotel either in the afternoon or evening to touch base on the investigation. But now it was only 7:00 a.m.; Lucy would be on her way to ANS soon and his discovery couldn’t wait a full day.

  She didn’t hesitate. “Sure. What’s up?”

  Unwilling to say too much on the phone, he simply said, “I’ve found some things you’ll want to see.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  By the time Lucy arrived, Hayden had put together a slideshow of the images his office had sent him and strapped Josh into his high chair for breakfast. As he opened the door, he stole one lingering kiss, then before he drowned in her floral scent and broke their rules by dragging her off to his bed, he led her over to share his discovery.

  “What have you got?” she asked, her hazel eyes bright with curiosity. She kissed Josh on the top of his head and slipped into the chair Hayden had pulled over on the other side of his, laying a hand proprietarily over his thigh. At the simple gesture, something moved in his chest.

  He froze. This was supposed to be a fling—was he becoming emotionally entangled? No, he wouldn’t let himself. There was no future for a single father from New York with a twenty-two-year-old heiress from D.C. Ignoring her hand and any deeper implications it represented, he turned the laptop screen so she could see the images and gave Josh a spoonful of stewed fruit.

  “After a bit of digging, I found a photo of a girl called Madeline Burch.” He clicked the mouse and a picture of a teenager with mousy brown hair, plain features and dishwater-brown eyes appeared. “When I met with Rowena Tate that night at the airport, she said that she and a friend had suspicions about Madeline Burch. She gave me a photo of Madeline from their school days, but the resolution was too low. So I found a better one and sent it to the tech guys at my office. They did some imaging work and came up with these projections.”

  He gave Josh another spoonful with one hand and clicked the mouse with the other. The same
girl now appeared with straight blond hair. On the next click, she had aqua-blue irises. Then lips that were plumper.

  “If Madeline colored her hair, wore contacts, had her lips done and had a nose job—” he clicked the mouse again and the same girl now had a different nose “—then she becomes more recognizable.”

  “Angelica,” Lucy murmured. She took the baby spoon from him and stood, seamlessly taking over feeding Josh while watching the screen over his shoulder.

  “Bingo. Angelica Pierce started life as Madeline Burch. I’ve also tracked Madeline’s records, and she disappears a couple of years after graduation. Angelica’s records go back to school years, but the tech guys in the office looked deeper and found they’re all plants. She’s tried to cover her tracks, and it’s worked, to an extent.”

  Lucy tapped a fingernail against the bowl she held. “That’s a pretty thorough makeover.”

  “No doubt about it.” He flicked through the slideshow again as he spoke. “My main question now is, did she do this for a new start, maybe to increase her chances of scoring an on-camera job...”

  “Or is she hiding something?” Lucy finished for him.

  He nodded. “I’ve made a few calls, and no one from her school has stayed in contact with Madeline. She was brought up by a single mother who’s passed on, and doesn’t seem to have any other family. Several women remember that Madeline was always bragging about having a rich father whom she couldn’t or wouldn’t name, but other than that, no one knew much. I had my staff trace her birth certificate, but her father wasn’t named.”

  “And I’m betting we won’t be able to find anyone who knew Angelica Pierce as a child.”

  “Not that I’ve found so far.” He flicked his pen over and under his fingers as his mind ticked through the facts. “In fact, besides you, I can’t find a single person who will say a bad word against Angelica. Troy Hall and Brandon Ames will only sing her praises, even though I’m pretty sure she set them up.”

  When Josh finished eating the stewed fruit, Hayden wiped his face with the washcloth and Lucy took the bowl to the sink.

  “She’s got to be blackmailing them with something,” she said over her shoulder.