by Lisa Childs
He hadn’t dried off well. He must have been in a hurry to be with her again. To watch over her.
She shook her head.
“You’re not?” he asked. “Did you eat anything today?”
She shook her head again.
“I’ll make something.”
“I don’t have any food in the house,” she warned him. She hadn’t shopped for groceries the past week. She’d shopped for lingerie.
“I’ll order takeout,” he said. “What would you like?”
“I want you to leave,” she said.
“Allison—”
“I’m not in any danger,” she said. She suspected the mole had gotten what he’d wanted anyway: public embarrassment for her. “Nobody’s here. Nobody’s physically trying to hurt me.”
“But you don’t know—”
“I know that you’re in more danger,” she said. “I know that you need to stay away from me.”
He tensed. “What?”
“My professional reputation is ruined.” Her personal one, too, but she wasn’t worried about that. “I don’t want yours ruined, not when you’re getting ready to run for office.”
“What?” he asked again.
And she had a sick feeling. “You were telling the truth about that, right? It wasn’t just a ploy to get evidence against me like your seduction?”
He ran his hand over his face, to brush away the water. “Allison...”
She shook her head. “I can’t handle any more lies.”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “It’s not like I’m trying to run for an election right now.”
“No,” she said. “You need to revamp your image first. I thought you needed to step away from your friends to do that. But now I know that I’m the trouble. I’m the one you need to stay away from.”
Trevor looked at her, and for the first time since she’d known him, the big man looked helpless. He had no argument for her. She smiled sadly and pushed him toward the door. “You need to leave and never come back.”
Or she was going to fall even harder for him than she suspected she already had.
Maybe that was why she was pushing him away. She didn’t want to get hurt anymore.
And it was clear that Trevor hadn’t been completely honest with her yet. He wasn’t like her grandfather at all who would have never hurt her.
She knew that Trevor could hurt her more than anyone else in her life ever had...because she’d started to care the most about him.
He stopped at the door and turned back to her. But he must have had nothing to say because he just lowered his head and brushed his mouth across hers. Then, lips still clinging, he pulled away and headed out the door.
Out of her life.
It was for the best. If he stayed, Allison was only going to get hurt. She wasn’t in any more danger from the mole. Trevor Sinclair was the danger—to her heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TREV FELT LIKE HELL. He’d lied to her. And he hated himself for it. No. He hadn’t lied. He just hadn’t told the truth. He should have been honest with her when he’d had the chance. Told her that he had never had any intention of playing politics.
She would know that he’d lied to her. Wouldn’t she understand, though, that he’d been after the mole? But she was already hurting over his suspecting her of being the mole.
And that news report had devastated her, so much so that he couldn’t stay away from her. He wasn’t worried about his image or whatever she’d been concerned about when she’d thrown him out the night before.
He was concerned about her.
So, even knowing that she would be upset, he headed to her office. Reporters had the lobby staked out, and the minute he appeared, microphones got shoved in his face.
“Are you the one who scorned her?” a male reporter asked, his eyes bright with interest. He clearly wanted details. “Are you the one who thawed the ice princess?”
Trev glared at the man.
“If not, why are you here?” another reporter asked.
“It’s business,” Trev replied. Then he singled out the female reporter who’d given the special report. “That report was bullshit. The reporter who gave it has no business being a journalist or a friend.”
The woman flinched.
“And as all you reporters should know,” he said, and now he looked at them all, “reporting false, unsubstantiated claims leads to defamation and slander lawsuits.”
“Is that why you’re here?” another female reporter asked. “You’re representing Ms. McCann in a lawsuit?”
He just smiled, letting them all believe what they would, then he headed toward the elevators. Why hadn’t Allison done that? Why hadn’t she given a statement to defend herself and clear up her reputation?
She was a publicist. She knew better than anyone how to spin bad press into good. Why hadn’t she done that yet?
He stormed off the elevator onto her floor with such purpose that Edward jumped and spilled the coffee he was pouring.
“Where is she?” he demanded to know. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He headed toward her office. When he pushed open the door, he found it empty.
“Where is she?” he asked again as Edward had followed him down the hall.
“I don’t think she’s coming in,” her assistant replied. But it was clear he didn’t know, especially as the elevator dinged and Allison stepped off it.
Her face was flushed. She must have had a run-in with the reporters in the lobby, as well. Perhaps after his threats, they had been a little more respectful, though.
“Did you straighten them out?” he asked her.
She walked past him and headed toward her desk, dropping into her chair as if her legs weren’t quite steady enough to hold her.
“Looks like you’re the one I need to straighten out,” she said. “I told you to stay away.”
“Do you want me to call security?” Edward eagerly asked. “The police?”
She shook her head. “I will handle this. You can close the door on your way out, Edward.”
He hesitated a long moment, though, before he followed her order. So long that Trev considered shoving him out and slamming the door in his face. “Why do you keep that guy around?” He asked the question he’d been wondering for a while.
“He’s a computer genius,” she said. “Can find anything online...”
“A hacker?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how he does it.”
“So he doesn’t get all his information from listening at doors?” The door in question rattled as if Edward had fallen against it.
They both laughed.
“There, that’s better,” he said. And the tightness in his chest eased with the smile on her beautiful face.
She still looked pale, though, but for the dark circles beneath her eyes. She obviously was back to not sleeping well. He stepped closer and leaned over her desk. Then he ran his fingertip along her jaw. “You should have let me stay last night.”
She shook her head. “I had a reason for making you leave. But you blew that by coming here today and talking to those reporters.”
“Someone has to,” he said. “But it should be you. You can clear all this up. If anyone can repair a bad reputation or spin it, it’s you.” Now he came around her desk and twirled her chair. “Spin it!”
She laughed but when her chair stopped and she faced him again, the humor didn’t reach her eyes. She still looked sad. Defeated. And the tightness returned to his chest.
He hadn’t come here just to fire her up again. He’d come here to tell her the truth. But now the words stuck in his throat. He didn’t want to make her angry with him.
But maybe it was better that she get angry than seem so defeated. He opened his mouth to speak but Allison reached out and pressed h
er fingers across his lips.
“You’ve already said enough,” she told him. “For both of us. You scared Monica.”
“Monica?”
“The reporter,” she said. “She thinks I’m going to sue her.”
“You should,” he said. “Or you should at least get her to tell you her source.”
“It was a man,” she said, and she stared hard at him now as if she wondered if he was that man.
“It wasn’t me,” he assured her. But it could have been one of his partners. He needed to talk to them again and make sure nobody had done anything stupid.
Like he had.
He never should have suspected her of being the mole.
“Does she know who?” he asked.
Allison shook her head.
“We’ll find out,” he assured her.
She shook her head again.
“This mole can’t hide forever,” Trev insisted. “We will figure out who it is.”
“No,” she said. “I will. You will focus on your practice and on running for office.”
“Allison—” He needed to tell her.
But she pressed her fingers over his lips again. “This is my problem,” she said. “Not yours.”
He stepped back and studied her face. “Do you know who it is?”
Doubts creeped back into his head. Was she the mole? Was all of this just a ruse to fool him? He only had her word that the reporter claimed a man was her source. Her source could have been Allison herself.
She was more likely to give press releases than anyone else.
“Do you know?” he asked again when she had been silent for far too long.
* * *
Allison shivered from the suspicion on his handsome face. He still didn’t entirely trust her. But then she didn’t trust him, either.
Maybe it was just because of the way they had both been raised—by mothers who didn’t care—that they struggled to trust anyone.
“I don’t know who it is,” she said. There were so many people it could have been.
Muriel Sanz. Her friend Bette.
But Trevor had said they’d already ruled them out because his partners had slept with them. That was obviously how they conducted their investigation.
She wasn’t going to run hers the same way. She was going to investigate. She wanted to know. And she had one suspicion. But she wasn’t about to share that with Trevor. She didn’t want him to do anything that might require him hiring Stone as his criminal defense lawyer.
“You act like you don’t care,” Trevor said as if that was an accusation, as well.
She sighed. “I care.”
“Then why won’t you do something about it? Why aren’t you threatening to sue that reporter and setting the record straight?”
Like he had. She’d been standing behind him in the lobby and had heard his every word. Nobody had noticed her because they’d been so focused on him. He commanded attention and respect.
He really would make a great politician. If her mother had married him, she might have had her shot at being first lady one day.
But Allison didn’t even know where her mother was. Given her history, she was undoubtedly married again. She’d never been able to go without a man and his money.
Since she hadn’t inherited her father’s, she would have had to find another rich husband to support her expensive habits.
“Maybe the record is straight,” she said.
And he narrowed his eyes. “You said you’re not the mole.”
“I’m not.”
“But then how would the record be straight?”
“Karma,” she said. “I deserve some bad press for all I’ve given out. I deserve this because I have become my mother’s daughter.”
She’d started training her from such a young age to be a bitch like her, to take people down with backhanded compliments and mean smiles. She shivered as she relived the coldness with which she’d been raised. “My mother is not a nice woman.”
“Do you think she could be behind this?” Trevor asked. “Do you think she could be the mole?”
And Allison’s heart clenched before she laughed. “She would not waste her time with me.” She very rarely had.
“But you inherited from your grandfather and she didn’t,” Trev pointed out. “Don’t you think she might want revenge?”
Her mother always wanted revenge for every imagined slight against her. But Allison was still her daughter, although at her grandfather’s funeral, her mother had denounced her.
“But how?” Allison asked. “How could she be the mole? I haven’t talked to her in years.”
Trev glanced at the door. “I guess I should let you handle this,” he said. “Especially since she’s your mother.”
“Yes,” she said. But instead of feeling the relief she’d expected since he was backing down, she felt that achy hollowness inside again. “Thank you.”
“Like you said,” he continued, “I need to focus on revamping my image for politics.”
“And being involved with me is only going to hurt you,” she said.
He nodded in agreement.
And she felt a twinge in her heart. He was willing to step back. Running for office must have meant more to him than she’d realized.
“It’s good that nobody knows that I was even considering it,” he said.
“Your partners know.”
“They didn’t want that getting out,” Trevor said. “Didn’t want it affecting Street Legal.”
She sighed. “And it would. It would look like you’re abandoning a sinking ship.”
His lips curved into a slight grin. “That’s what you wanted me to do,” he reminded her.
“To save yourself,” she said. “To save your career. That’s why you need to stay away from me now.” Because she was exactly like her mother now, poison for any man’s political career.
But instead of stepping away from her, he stepped closer. She knew what he needed—the same thing she needed. One last time...
One last powerful orgasm...
She was still sitting and he was standing, so she reached for his zipper. He groaned as she pulled down the tab and freed his cock. First, she glided her fingers over it, then she closed her lips around it.
It was so smooth and long. She sucked him as deep as she could in her throat. But he pulled back.
And when she looked up, he was shaking his head. Maybe he didn’t want what she wanted.
But then he reached down and pulled her up from the chair. He lifted her onto the edge of her desk and slid his hands up under her dress. She wore a long one, but he pushed up the hem until he found her panties. Then he pushed them aside and stroked his fingers over her core.
And as he did, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her. The kiss was passionate, as their kisses always were, but there was something else on his lips.
Regret?
Goodbye?
It had a twinge of pain striking her heart. But then his fingers eased inside her, and she felt nothing but desire and pleasure. She shifted against the desk, against his hand, and his thumb found her clit, rubbing it until she came.
She moaned into his mouth.
And he groaned. Then he fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a condom. After sheathing himself, he eased between her legs—sliding easily inside her.
She was so wet. So ready for him.
He moved his hands beneath her dress, over her abdomen to her breasts. He pushed down the cups of her bra and found her nipples, rubbing them with his thumbs until they ached with sensitivity.
Desire streaked from her nipples to her core, which throbbed for him. He moved his hips, thrusting in and out of her. He felt so good—so right—inside her, filling her the way that only he could.
He kissed her, his
tongue sliding inside her mouth, mating with hers. She held on to his tongue with her lips, stroking it, and he groaned again.
“Come,” he told her, his voice gruff. And she knew that he was barely hanging on, just waiting for her to come first.
Because that was the way he was. He wanted to make sure she found pleasure first. And thinking of that, thinking of how he had been every time they’d had sex, she realized something.
They weren’t just having sex. They were making love.
At least she was.
She loved him.
Her body tensed with the realization, with fear. But then he slid his hand down and stroked it over her as he continued to move his cock inside her. And her muscles convulsed as the orgasm shattered her nearly as much as her revelation had.
Then he came, his body shuddering as he found his release. He leaned his forehead, which was damp with perspiration, against hers and stared deeply into her eyes.
What was he looking for?
Did he see it?
Did he know she’d fallen for him? She’d broken her own rule about emotions, and hers were more involved than they had ever been. They twisted and turned inside her, squeezing her heart, squeezing her stomach.
But because she loved him, she knew she had to let him go. She couldn’t do what her mother had to all her exes. She couldn’t let her bad reputation ruin his life. She loved him too much.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for Trev’s plan to work. He barely made it back to the office before he heard the breaking report on the news.
Monica again.
She obviously hadn’t heeded his warning since she was so willing to report another unsubstantiated story. Maybe it had sounded believable to her. But it was unbelievable to him.
He was never running for office like Monica reported from the television in the middle of his conference table.
“Is it true?” a deep voice asked.
And he turned to find Miguel standing in the doorway. The receptionist looked shocked. And growing up as they had, on the streets, nothing tended to shock them anymore.
