“Okay, so I’m sure there are people from ten years ago that will come out of the woodwork and say they saw River and Kimberly together. We can’t stop those people. But we need to stop anyone who has real information, anyone that knows for a fact that River is the father of Jackson. The problem is, both Kimberly and River don’t think anyone knows the truth.”
“Mariah, from what they have said, no one really knows except his assistant. Do you think they are lying to us?”
“Oh, people know! People don’t have an affair and a baby without someone knowing. I think Kimberly and River are trying to be proactive, but they don’t really think this news will come out,” Mariah said as she scribbled some notes down.
“I think River knows someone else that has information on him; why else would he have hired us?”
Mariah wasn’t quite sure, but something felt off. Kimberly’s husband had run for governor and been elected without the secret coming out. That was a pretty big deal. If someone in their past knew about their child, why wouldn’t they have released that information during that political campaign?
No. Something had scared River and Kimberly into seeking public relations help. Mariah was convinced there had to have been an incident or some other event that made them react the way they had. Something that made River seek help in preventing the truth from coming out. Now the only problem was that Mariah needed to figure out what had scared them so much.
“I’m going to head home; let’s talk about this more tomorrow,” Mariah said as she grabbed her things and rushed toward her door.
There was something bothering her, and Mariah needed to figure it out. Her mind swirled with the information she had on the case so far. It was beyond clear to her that River wasn’t telling her everything. She had to either figure it out on her own or go talk to him and get him to tell her the missing pieces of information. It wasn’t fair for him to expect that she could protect him if he weren’t going to be honest with her.
“Oh, Mariah is developing a plan … you always rush away when you think of a good plan,” Elizabeth yelled after Mariah as she hurried down the hall.
Mariah made her way down to the parking garage and her vehicle as quickly as she could. She had to figure out what it was that had scared River into coming to her. If she knew what had precipitated him seeking her firm out, it would help her decipher what to do next. They couldn’t possibly protect him from everyone who would gossip about the governor’s wife, but they could protect him from the one person who contacted him and scared him.
As Mariah left her work, she decided to go for a little drive. Using her phone, she googled to see if River’s address was easy to find. With a simple search, she did get an address that was reportedly his home, so she followed it. Certainly, it couldn’t be that easy to follow the uber rich River Anders right to his home?
The home she pulled up in front of wasn’t anything like the mansion she imagined River lived in, though. There was no security gate out front, and it appeared as if there was no security at all around the home. She parked on the street and walked up to the house to get a closer look. It baffled her that the house she was in front of could possibly be River’s. He was leaving himself exposed to anyone and everyone who had access to a computer search engine.
Her adrenaline spiked as she walked past a black sedan and up toward the home. The yard was manicured and looked well kept, but that was normal for any home in the Portland suburb she was in. As Mariah continued up toward the door, she got a sinking feeling that the home she was at wasn’t River’s, and she was about to knock on some stranger's door.
She slowly raised her hand and hit the door with three quick knocks as she tried to think of a good story for why she was there. It wasn’t something she had planned on doing, but Mariah needed to know if River was as exposed. Was he leaving himself open to anyone who wanted to follow him to get dirt on him?
“Hello,” River said as he opened the door. “Mariah, what are you doing here?”
“River Anders, what the hell! You don’t even have a gate. Oh, my God!” Mariah yelled as she looked around at how easy it had been for her to find him. “Anyone could follow you. Anyone could come to your door. You could have national news stations standing outside the second there is the hint of a story.”
“Calm down, Mariah, I’ve never had any problems,” River said as he pulled Mariah into his home.
He looked around and seemed a little embarrassed by the commotion she was making. Mariah couldn’t believe that River was just living in a normal house without even a security gate out front. If Kimberly had ever come to his home to visit, that would have been enough for someone to get the idea that there was something improper going on between the two of them.
“River, you are too exposed. I didn’t even have to work hard to find you. I simply searched Google. This is bad. This is so bad,” Mariah said as she pulled her notepad out and started to write things down. “We need a gate out front as soon as possible. Do you have an alarm at least?”
“Yes, I have an alarm.” River laughed. “I think you are overreacting. It’s Portland, not Hollywood. The press doesn’t just show up at your door here.”
Mariah started to take in deep breaths and let them back out again. She began to walk around his home as she breathed and quickly realized he didn’t live like a man who had as much money as he did. His home was a small ranch style house with modern décor. His kitchen looked like it had been upgraded to the latest technology, but otherwise, the home seemed decidedly plain.
“Your house seems so normal. Do you have another house?”
Mariah looked skeptically at River as she continued to give herself a tour of the home. There wasn’t anything elaborate about his house at all; she couldn’t understand why a man with his kind of wealth would choose to continue to live in such a basic home.
More importantly, Mariah couldn’t understand why a man with as big a secret in his past as River had wouldn’t protect his privacy more. Even the local television news hosts had more security around their homes than River did, and River was in national news stories.
“No.” River continued to laugh, “This is my only home. I do travel often and spent about half my time in hotels.”
“I just don’t get it. There is so much about you that I don’t get.”
River walked into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of wine out of a floor to ceiling wine cellar that stood in the corner. He just watched Mariah as she walked around and mumbled to herself for a little bit. She could see him in the kitchen watching her but couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.
“Wine?” River asked as he handed her a glass of red wine.
Instead of refusing like she had intended, Mariah grabbed the glass and started to sip from it as she made her way to the couch in the living room. River baffled her; everything about him seemed so different than what might be expected from a man of his wealth.
Even learning that he was a father and how he was working to have contact with his son had surprised Mariah. River wasn’t the playboy guy she thought he was, but he wasn’t a family man either; River was somewhere in between the two extremes. He wasn’t anything like she had expected him to be, and that was hard for her to reconcile.
River found a seat next to Mariah, and they both sat quietly and drank their wine. Mariah had so many different thoughts running through her head. She couldn’t figure River out, and that really bugged her. At first, she had expected him to be a player who just wanted to get laid, but then he had turned down her offer to stay with her at her apartment.
Then learning everything she had learned that day at work had blown away the persona that Mariah had attached to River altogether. He wasn’t a jerk like the tabloids made him out to be in his personal life. River also didn’t seem like the kind of guy that chased after as many girls as the tabloids made him out to do.
“Do you really have as many girlfriends as the tabloids say you do?” Mariah asked questioningly.
She couldn’t keep her inquisitive nature to herself any longer. If she was going to work with River, she wanted to know more about him. She had already been surprised enough by River over the previous two days, she couldn’t take any more surprises.
“How many do they say I have?” River laughed.
“I don’t know. It’s like every week they have a picture of you with a new woman. That doesn’t seem like the real you. Is it?”
River paused for a long moment and watched Mariah, but she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. She wanted to know his answer. How was it that in person he seemed like such a nice, normal guy, but in the press, he was a man whore?
“I enjoy going on dates, but I’m often not in one town long enough to date anyone.”
“So you’re a serial dater?”
“I guess that would be a good description. But I don’t think of it as dating, more like hanging out with nice women.”
“Do you sleep with them all?”
“Ha, no,” River responded quickly.
“You aren’t as much of a jerk as I thought you would be,” Mariah said as she sipped her wine, watching River’s amused expression.
“Thank you, I guess.” He laughed.
“So tell me what scared you? What made you come to my office after all these years of keeping this secret? I mean, the governor ran for his current office and was elected; you didn’t fear that your secret would come out then. Why now? Tell me what’s really going on.”
Chapter 11
RIVER
She didn’t need to know. There was no way that telling Mariah about the threatening phone call River had received would help with anything. As much as River wanted to be honest with Mariah, he really had no idea if the caller had even been referring to the secret about his son. People made weird calls to him all the time. Sometimes what they said made sense, and sometimes it seemed like it was total gibberish.
The caller had said, ‘Secrets will kill you eventually.’
That really could have been about anything. It could have been just a prank caller who didn’t even know who River was. But when River told his assistant, she instantly thought about Jackson and that long time secret. Tensions were high because the governor had been hinting about running for president in several interviews. But there had not been a definitive decision yet, and Kimberly promised to tell River as soon as she knew.
So when Kimberly called to tell River that the decision was final, and her husband was, in fact, running for president, he knew they needed to be on high alert.
“Don’t be so dramatic Mariah, there’s no big conspiracy.”
Mariah looked skeptically at River as she tried to figure him out. He wasn’t as big a mystery as she was trying to make him out to be. In fact, there really wasn’t all that much to figure out about him at all. River cherished his business, his son, and his friends. There wasn’t much else that was important to him in his life. Even the day to day fun he had with models wasn’t at all important when he thought about the whole scheme of his life.
“You’ve got me in your house and drinking wine, I feel like you’re a little dangerous,” Mariah said softly as she moved closer to River.
“Me? I’m not the one who randomly showed up here. I think you are the dangerous one, maybe even a little bit of a stalker. Perhaps I should phone the police and let them know there’s an incredibly attractive blonde woman who broke into my house.”
“I didn’t break in; you let me in,” she said with a smile.
“Oh, yes, there is that.”
River let Mariah move even closer to him as he waited for her. This time, he wasn’t going to turn down anything she was offering. He had worked through all his trepidation, and he was one hundred percent sure that he wanted to have Mariah in his bed with him.
The idea of feeling her delicate skin against his was something he just couldn’t get out of his mind. The way she looked at him, the way she talked to him, even how she just sat next to him, it all drove River wild with desire for her.
“I’m not dangerous,” Mariah said as she leaned in to whisper in River’s ear.
His body reacted instantly to her breath so near him. River felt the blood rush through him, and as much as he wanted to wait and let Mariah take the lead, he couldn’t stop himself. He was comfortable being the one in charge, and he wasn’t about to give up that leadership for Mariah. She was his to play with now, and he couldn’t wait to get her out of the clothes she had on.
Swiftly, he grabbed Mariah and lifted her up onto his lap. Her red skirt thrust up toward her hips as she pressed against his body. River’s hands slid slowly up and down her back and finally found their way to Mariah’s ass, which he grabbed and pulled firmly up against him.
Everything about Mariah’s body felt perfect next to his body. River finally had a small bit of relief from the electric energy that had been between them. With Mariah on his lap, he felt like he finally had her right where she belonged.
“Oh, you are dangerous,” River whispered as he moved his lips in toward Mariah’s.
He couldn’t wait to feel her mouth on his, to feel her tongue as it thrust inside of him. Mariah didn’t seem nearly as shy as she had been the previous night; instead, she was very interested in teasing and torturing River with her body. It wasn’t anything River minded, though, having the delicious Mariah on his lap and her hips thrusting against his throbbing cock was about as close to perfection as he could imagine.
Without warning, River grabbed Mariah and stood up. Mariah’s legs wrapped around River, and she yelped in excitement as she held on with all that she had. She giggled as River carried her down a long hallway and to his bedroom where he stood near the bed and pulled away from her so he could look into Mariah’s eyes.
She mesmerized him with her delightful smile, and River wanted to make the moment last as long as possible. Mariah was more than just a young, cute blonde; she was also smart and witty. The way they were able to talk about both business and personal lives was so familiar that it was hard for River to even imagine that he had only known Mariah for a couple of days.
“I’m glad you stalked me and came to my house tonight,” he said with a grin.
“Better me than the paparazzi.”
“You are so beautiful,” River said as he leaned Mariah back and let her rest on the bed.
He climbed onto the bed with Mariah and settled over her as he admired the delicate nature of her body. Her skirt was still hiked up almost to her waist, and it left her black lace panties exposed to him. Of course, he couldn’t resist the allure of her sweet lace panties and soon found his lips moving up her legs as he grabbed the delicate lace and pulled it off of her body.
Mariah let out a seductive moan as River got rid of her unnecessary undergarment and then started to kiss her bare legs gently. His kisses were soft from her toes all the way up her legs.
Slowly, his lips found their way to her center as he looked up at her face which was filled with anticipation. River couldn’t remember the last time he looked forward to being with a woman as much as he wanted Mariah. From the very first time he had talked to her on the phone, River had imagined what it would be like to have her in his bed.
The moment had come; it was real, and Mariah was there in his bed, her breath heavy with desire for him as his tongue gently touched her wet center.
Soon, Mariah had her fingers totally intertwined in River’s hair, and her moans had increased to a fevered level. Harder and harder his tongue lapped against her as he brought her close to orgasm.
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Mariah moaned as her body gave in to River.
He wasn’t about to let her explode just yet, though, and he quickly released her from his mouth and started to kiss up her body toward her breasts. With one swift movement, he flipped Mariah over and unhooked her bra while letting his hands move firmly up and down her back to remove her remaining clothing.
Mariah pressed her ass back against River as her body be
gged him to enter her. The perfectly round mounds of her ass were calling to River, and he could have slid inside just like that, but it wasn’t how he wanted to take his sweet new woman. No, he wanted to see her face as his hard member entered her.
With a quick twist, River grabbed Mariah’s hips and flipped her back over. She laughed with surprise at how easily he maneuvered her. River again paused and looked at his beautiful specimen of a woman that was there with him. She was young, her skin firm and flawless; she was the ideal of what any man dreamed of, but River had her all to himself.
“Protection, just a second,” River said as he jumped up from the bed and pulled a condom out of his dresser drawer.
Within a minute, he had the lubed item over his throbbing cock, and he was positioned above Mariah. Perched and ready to enter her.
Slowly, he moved her hair out of her face and let his lips touch her neck with gentle kisses as he pressed his body into hers. The feeling of her body arching back as he entered her was delightful.
“Yes …” Mariah breathed slowly and let the word linger on her lips as River pressed deep into her.
Her tight body around him made everything in his body hard with excitement. It could have taken less than sixty seconds for him to release with pleasure. But he wasn’t about to let the moment end like that; instead, he moved slowly as he pressed deep and then pulled back as far as he could.
With each thrust, Mariah let out a deep sultry breath. Her body urged River on, and he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting harder and harder. To prevent his body from giving in totally, River stopped to kiss Mariah on her lips, neck, and chest. Anything he had to do to prevent the ultimate explosion that his body wanted to deliver so desperately.
Mariah wiggling under him as her hips thrust with his, and her fingers dug into his back and urged him to move deeper. Soon, he couldn’t resist the primal urge his body had to feel Mariah tightening around his member.
Breaking the Rules: A Billionaire Romance Page 9
