“So,” the blond reporter began. “What did you and Miss Palmer discuss at breakfast?”
“Crepes and pancakes,” Liza said with her camera-ready smile plastered on her face. “It’s not a secret that I worked on Mr. Montgomery’s campaign. I think he has been preparing for political office since we were undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina. We had a disagreement on some issues and thought it best to part ways. I’m not involved in any campaigns, because I have a business of my own to run. I was never paid by Mr. Montgomery’s campaign and who am I to turn down crepes?”
“Are there any questions?” Teresa asked. “Mr. Franklin and I have some campaign work to do and Miss Palmer has her business to run. And, let me add, she is not affiliated with the Franklin for Senate campaign.”
The group of reporters was disarmed by the statements that Liza had prepared, as she knew they would be. That’s why she kept it fun, light, and told the truth. She hoped the story would play out that sometimes breakfast is just breakfast.
Match point, jackass, she thought as she watched the cameras get packed away. Liza thought it was best for her to leave with the media. She was surprised that Jackson followed all of them outside. He shook hands with reporters, and when the trucks began pulling out of the parking lot, Jackson turned to Liza.
“That went well,” he said. “Are we still on for dinner and dessert?”
“Jackson,” she said, turning her eyes away from him, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What did I tell you?”
“Do you want to be the first senator for district forty-five?”
“You know I do. But how does having dinner with you tonight change any of that?”
“The game was changed when we had that press conference and said we don’t have anything to do with each other. If you think that doesn’t change anything that happens between us, then you’re wrong.”
“We just told the press that you don’t have anything to do with my political campaign. That’s the truth.”
Liza closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she didn’t hear Teresa’s voice in her head.
“I want you to win this election because you are the best man for the job.”
“Okay,” he said. “Glad to have your vote. Now, can I have more?”
“And what more do you want?” she asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“You know exactly what I want more of, and tonight, I’m going to get my just desserts.”
Heat flushed her face. “This is dangerous.”
“It is not. Are you married? Are you involved in illegal activities?”
She rolled her eyes. “If only it were that simple.”
“Later,” he said, fighting back the urge to blow her a kiss. Liza walked away and Jackson watched until she climbed into her car. His mind wandered to her legs wrapped around his waist and . . .
“Franklin? You want to come in and work on your campaign?” Teresa called from behind him.
Turning around, he saw that his campaign manager wasn’t very happy. “Let’s go to work,” he said.
Once they were inside the building, she turned to him and shook her head furiously. “You have to leave thoughts of Liza Palmer in the wind.”
“Teresa.”
“I’ll admit that I was wrong about her—she’s not trying to take you down—but that’s when things get complicated. The media is going to be looking for any hint of something shady. That includes another breakfast meeting or watching her leave your house looking like a carbon copy of yesterday.”
Jackson folded his arms across his chest. “I find it hard to believe that my personal life makes a big difference in where I stand on the issues.”
“And Bill Clinton never had sex with that woman. John Edwards was just hanging out with that videographer and the baby wasn’t his. Anthony Wiener . . .”
“I get it. But those men had something that I don’t: a wife.”
She nodded. “True indeed. But I don’t trust that Nic and Montgomery won’t use this woman to sully your reputation indirectly. Imagine someone having naughty pictures of you and threatening to use them. How would you handle it? Wait, don’t answer that. I know what you would do. You’d explain it to people and hope they understood. You’re an honorable man. I don’t hold your opponent in such regard. I think any man who would cheat on a woman like Chante Britt—and get caught by a social media maven—is a damned idiot. But he’d throw you and everyone else under the bus to save himself. If those pictures come out, we can’t have anything to do with them, and being around Liza is going to cloud how innocent we are when it comes out.”
“When?”
“Stuff like that doesn’t stay hidden for long. We’re talking sex and politics. One thing Robert did today was paint a target on his back while he was trying to paint one on your head.” Teresa smiled. “I tried to tell Nic a long time ago that when you start digging graves for people, be sure you don’t fall in first. He has this idea that he’s smarter than everyone else in the room. I’ve never voted for a candidate who hired that sleazebag to run their show.”
“You and this Nic guy have history, huh?” Jackson picked up a folder from the center of the table and looked at the latest poll numbers that Teresa had printed off.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “All that matters is getting you elected. The margin between you and Montgomery is narrowing and I wonder how the events earlier today will change these numbers.”
Jackson didn’t say anything as Teresa began going over the upcoming campaign events and debate preparations. Maybe he was fooling himself thinking that he could make a difference. The main thing he’d wanted he’d gotten: funding for the center. Was he ready to give up his personal life in order to be a public servant?
“I meant to give this to you at our meeting this morning, but we had to put out that fire,” she said, then handed him a letter. Jackson smiled when he saw the return address was from Fort Bragg.
Dear Sarge,
When I first joined the Army, I thought I’d never see war. I thought I was just doing this so I could go to college. You made me understand what wearing this uniform means when you told me about the four tours you did in Afghanistan. I knew then that service wasn’t just about what I could get out of it. The last time I saw you was when you got your Medal of Honor for saving your brothers in battle. Then, the other day while I was wasting time on the Internet—not while on guard duty!—and I saw this YouTube video of you on the roof talking a man down. I was like, damn! Sarge really meant all that stuff he said about leaving no man behind. I’m not rich. But I had to send you some money for your campaign. You are the hero this state needs. And I don’t care about you not liking the term. You. Are. My. Hero.
Sincerely,
SGT Riley Cooper
82nd Airborne
He blinked back the tears in his eyes. Cooper had been a hotheaded private and now he was a sergeant. Jackson felt like a proud father hearing from one of the young men he’d trained all those years ago.
Teresa handed Jackson Riley’s three thousand–dollar donation. It was that moment right then that Jackson knew he couldn’t quit or do anything to risk his chances.
Liza walked into her office, but she didn’t turn the television on. She didn’t really want to see the news coverage because seeing Jackson on TV would do nothing but set her body on fire. Still, the professional inside her knew she needed to see how the story was playing out. Rubbing her eyes, Liza told herself this wasn’t a story but her life. A life Robert was trying to make a part of political theater because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
Now, she was mad. Picking up her office phone, she called Chante. If her friend wanted to be stupid, Liza needed to know if the heffa had seen her text message.
“Hello?” Chante answered.
“Chante, it’s Liza.”
Her friend’s sigh echoed in her ear. “What could you possibly want? Great performance you put on tod
ay. Caught you and your coconspirator on the news.”
“You really think Robert is telling the truth?” Liza scoffed.
“I know you, Liza. And as much as you tried to pretend there’s nothing but crepes between the two of you, I know better.”
“If you know me so well, then you have to know I’m telling the truth about Robert.”
“What I know is, you’re bitter and you think that every man in the world is like your father or Alvin Thorne. You introduced me to Robert, and for you to do what you did to him, it makes no sense. I thought you wanted me to be happy and get a life outside the courtroom.”
“Chante, if you’re going to believe the lies Robert told you because you want to be married so badly, then go ahead. But those pictures I sent you don’t lie. That’s the man you’ve pledged your life to and he doesn’t give a hot damn about you.”
Chante sighed again. Liza could feel her friend faltering. “Maybe you shouldn’t have done such a great job of selling Robert to me, because I love him, Liza.”
“Then I guess you’ve decided that love makes you stupid. Chante, if Robert had been the man I thought he was, the man who pretended to care about you and the people of this district, then I wouldn’t have those pictures.”
“Like you couldn’t have Photoshopped them,” she said in a small voice.
“No matter what Robert tells you, Chante, I’m not trying to hurt either of you. But I don’t want to see you make a mistake and wake up in twenty years realizing that you married a fraud. Or finding out that you have some incurable disease because of his wayward dick. But you’re a grown woman.”
“Just be honest. You don’t want to see Robert happy.”
“Chante, I don’t want to see you hurt,” she replied. “Yet, every time I try to tell you about your man, you want to throw my past in my face.”
“Liza, you introduced us. You said Robert was the best thing since sliced bread. Now he’s the devil and a liar?”
“This is your bed and you’re going to have to sleep in it. I tried,” Liza said exasperatedly.
“Liza, what really happened between you and Robert? Last week the two most important people in my life were the best of friends. I had been looking forward to planning my wedding with you. Making that stuff we talked about while we were in college come true. You’re my best friend and I just want you to stop this. . . .”
“Have a nice life and I pray that Robert shows you his true colors before you walk down the aisle.”
“So, that’s it?” Chante asked.
“You’ve already decided that I’m the bad guy here, so I’m going to move aside and let the chips fall where they may. If you need me, you know how to reach me.” Liza hung up the phone and fought back an ugly cry.
She and Chante had become instant friends when they were pledging their sorority. Chante had been the legacy who’d wanted to prove herself to her new sisters. Around the third week of pledging, Liza had been ready to quit, wondering what was the purpose of being a member of the oldest black sorority in existence. Chante had been the one to encourage Liza to stick it out and showed her the true meaning of sisterhood. Liza mourned for the loss of that friendship, that sisterhood.
Tears wet her cheeks and Liza said a silent prayer that Chante would come to her senses. Her iPad chimed, alerting her that she had a Google alert. Opening the message, she wasn’t surprised to see that it was about her. When she saw the source was QC After Dark, she started to ignore it. After all, the gossip site had written about her earlier today. She clicked the link anyway, curious to see if they’d updated the story since her press conference with Jackson.
What she saw made her jaw drop: Was Liza Palmer a Hush-Hush call girl?
“What the . . . ?” She read on, her blood boiling as she saw the lies:
A source has uncovered documents that link Liza Palmer, the social media and PR maven, to the Hush-Hush call girl agency that was broken up in 2007. According to documents, Palmer worked for the high-end agency and the so-called South Park Madam.
Liza stopped reading the lies and wanted to call her attorney. Then she laughed scornfully. Chante was the person she’d call with this kind of stuff and she had just given her friend the kiss-off.
Folding her arms across her chest, Liza knew who leaked the story and she wanted to drive straight to Robert’s campaign headquarters and choke the life out of him and Nic. When that woman had approached Liza after her release from federal prison, she’d refused to work with her. The former madam had reached out to her so that she could rehab her image. But Liza had said no. She had no intentions of turning a sex peddler into a saint.
It would’ve been a lucrative account, but Liza had her principles, and to see this story online enraged her beyond words. Part of her wanted to toss her iPad directly into Nic’s face and break his nose. Because she had no doubt that he was behind this. And Chante is questioning my loyalty. Robert told Nic about this and now they’re using it all out of context.
She turned on the TV and wasn’t surprised that she was the lead story. Not wanting to hear the lies, she shut the TV off and groaned. How was she going to combat this?
When her cell phone rang, Liza was shocked to see that it was Chante.
“What?”
“I just saw the news and I know that mess isn’t true.”
“Then ask your fiancé why he’s spreading rumors.”
“You think Robert was behind this?”
“Think? Chante, I told two people that the South Park Madam wanted me to help her when she got out of prison. You were one of them.”
“He wouldn’t. . . . Can I talk to you and not see what I’m going to say as a headline?”
“That’s Robert’s MO, not mine.”
Chante expelled a sigh. “He’s changing. In ways that I don’t like, and I’m willing to believe that he would do anything to win this election and . . .”
“You’re starting to question the engagement again, huh?”
“Liza, I’ve missed having you in my corner. At first, I thought this was kismet. Thought this was my chance at a great love. That’s why I didn’t want to believe anything you said about him, when I knew you were telling the truth.”
“Chante, love makes us do crazy things. Think about how many times you and Gabby tried to warn me about Alvin.”
Chante laughed. “And you didn’t listen.”
Liza started to say they didn’t have pictures of him with other women, but she held her tongue. “I’m going to confront your man and since you’re my attorney, I need you present.”
“Sure, but how does me being your attorney make a difference?”
“You can remind me of the charges I’ll face if I break his face!”
“He and Nic are at Capital Grille.”
Liza did laugh heartily. “Are you going to meet me there?”
“No, I’m going to come to your office and pick you up. If Robert did this to you, I don’t want anything to do with him. I understand politics is a nasty game, but to out and out lie on you, I can’t let that go.”
“Then let’s go.”
“I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes,” Chante said.
When Liza hung up the phone, she smiled. Glad that her friend had gained control of her senses again. She couldn’t wait to see Robert’s face when she and Chante walked into that restaurant.
Chapter 18
Jackson watched the newscast in silence. This was the last thing he’d expected to see or hear about Liza. Teresa shook her head and grabbed the remote control. “A call girl?” she bemoaned.
“No one said she was a call girl,” Jackson replied.
“But that’s what people are going to think.” She started pacing. “I wonder if this was part of Montgomery’s plan? To throw his friend under the bus.”
“How do you know he’s involved?”
“Too many unnamed sources and this type of rumor is just too personal.”
Jackson pulled out his cell phone and walked
out of the room. He needed to know if Liza was all right. He didn’t believe what was on the television, but he knew she had to be mad as hell.
Voicemail. God, I hope she doesn’t do anything crazy, he thought as he hung up the phone and pressed it against his forehead. He wanted to find her, not to ask her about the rumors, but to hold her. He knew this was going to be hard for her to overcome, especially since her reputation was a huge part of her business. And to think that her friend had done this to her—so much for a clean campaign. Wait, technically, this had nothing to do with him. Who was he kidding? He would be linked to Liza and this rumor would haunt them. More importantly, the woman he cared about was hurting.
Wait. He cared about her? How could he not? She was sexy, sweet, driven, and the best kisser he’d met in some time. “Jackson,” Teresa called from the doorway. “We need to release a statement. I’m getting calls about Liza and I thought we made it clear that she wasn’t a part of our team.”
Jackson rose to his feet. “Not yet,” he said. “I need to see her first and make sure she’s all right.”
Rumor Has It Page 14
