Hard As Stone (Beautiful Betrayal Book 1)

by Alex Elliott

  Oh crap. I stare at my fiancé with his pants down. Down as in around his ankles as he gets nailed by an older man. From the looks of the hairless pale cheeks and legs, I’m ninety-nine percent certain it’s Nigel Dupree sticking it to him. One of the senior architect partners from the UK. Spencer had just returned from overseas, learning the ropes. An irony or is it where he developed a thing for being bound and gagged?

  “If he thinks he’s taken it up the backdoor hard, he’s got another thing coming!” Blinded by fury and my injured pride at having been perceived as too foolish to catch him, I ball my fingers into fists. “I will not take being cuckolded lying down!”

  “It isn’t cuckolded. If you were doing Simon’s hot brother—as I had advised you—it would be cuckholding. But on Spencer.”

  “You’re splitting semantic hairs.”

  “Hey, you’re the communications major.” Brooke is in law school and a prodigy, seeking to own any and all debates. A personality quirk of hers since kindergarten and I don’t have the emotional resources to stand my ground given it’s an argument about my fiancé’s zeitgeist. Or lack thereof.

  “And counselor, you’re making your case but this isn’t court.”

  “Preemptory. You’re going to have to begin to formulate your defense.” She thrusts a tumbler holding an ample serving of amber liquid into my awaiting hand.

  “Okay, fine. Alexa?” I rant. “What is the female equivalent of cuckold?” It’s one thing to be outgunned by a pair of boobs and legs. It’s another to be sucker-punched by the fact my not-future-husband is gay.

  Alexa spouts out, “Cuckquean.”

  It’s so unnerving to hear the smoothly cool robotic voice schooling me in the proper terminology that I snort, “Cuckquean?”

  Brooke guffaws loudly. “Who says the U.S. doesn’t have royalty. You’re highness, Cuck Queen.” Tossing back her bourbon, she sinks into a low curtsy.

  By accident, I tap the space bar of the laptop and another video is cued and starts to play. From bound and gagged, Spencer slathers himself with lube and rams into the man he is supposed to be working under. Holding onto the other guy’s hips, my fiancé pumps his body in an aggressive manner that looks erotically unhinged. His head is thrown back and the muscles over his body are tighter than whipcord.

  “How could I have been so gullible?” His good name, his modern manners, and his lukewarm overtures out of bed never amounted to a hill of beans. He’d kept this part of himself in a closet. “Jesus, he sure looks like he’s enjoying himself.”

  “Does he do it like that straight?”

  “Not even close. He…we… NO!” I bluster. Hard, fast, rough, deep isn’t the type of sex I’ve ever had. And being too much of an idiot to put two and two together about Spencer.

  “Pity.” Brooke knocks back her drink. “Regardless, you’re going to have to explain why you broke it off. Especially if you don’t want him to sue you for half. He could ask for damages. Not that he’d win an award, but his claim might boost his settlement. A problem since Massachusetts has same sex marriage precedents out the wazoo.”

  “How? You mean these clips aren’t evidence enough that he’s demented and never loved me? If he tries anything, I doubt he wants these aired.”

  “Even if these hit YouTube tonight, and Spencer has them removed, they could easily get downloaded and you don’t want that. Don’t get me wrong, I adore your grandparents, but they’re pit bulls in how they get their way. These videos will prove their point that Spencer was all wrong. Or that you knew he was gay and you were into it or didn’t care. There’s so much dirt here.”

  “Yeah, and for once it isn’t mine. Unbelievable! I turn my life around. Walk a straight line and am getting stabbed in the back.”

  “X... S…” she whispers.

  “I haven’t been that person for so long,” I reply, feeling hollowed out. “But who will know after this?”

  “It’s your reputation that’s on the block and Spencer the dick knows it. “Does that ring a bell and I’m not being glib.”

  Hearing her articulate my fear lands like a kick to my gut and punches the air from my lungs. I cringe at the thought of everyone seeing Spencer in the act. The laughs. Snickers. Cutting remarks. What I’ve put up with for a lifetime in not knowing my own father’s identity will be a hundred times worse. My grandparent’s adage of maintaining a stiff upper lip is not only archaic but useless. And being under their all-too-caring thumb is salt on the proverbial wound.

  This is what I get for trying to outmaneuver my grandparents’ stranglehold on my existence. My trust account was tiny compared to what my cousins, aunts, uncles’ possess. Absolutely, I might be a Silver—O’Malley in name but I wasn’t one of those Nantucket types. I don’t have real estate or stocks that my grandparents should be interested in controlling. Yet, I suspect that out of habit Gran seeks to maintain control. A show of power to investors in how she and Pop, the faces of PanCorp Banks, wield control under the NIMBY principle (Not in my back yard!). Nonsense I’d endure if my grandparents won the right to keep my trust fund secured until I was fifty. Fifty!

  “I better get my story straight or I’ll never hear the end of it,” I say.

  “That won’t be the cruelest humiliation. Stuck on the cape is about as bad as it gets. Unless you turn the tables on them.” Brooke looks pensive, nibbling on her bottom lip.

  “I need a job. Stat.”

  “A job?” she asks as if I’d announced I was about to rob a bank.

  “To establish I’m not a flake. Isn’t that what you just suggested?”

  “Yes. But…” Her voice changes from singsong to resolute. “My father could just write you a—”

  “That’s perjury,” I croak. “Thanks, but it’s time. I’m graduating. I’ll put in a call to Jon.”

  She nods. “He’s in D.C.”

  “And working at The Federal Post. One of the few media outlets who couldn’t care less about my grandparents.”

  Brooke screams, “I’ll live there full-time if you agree to leave Beantown.”

  She has a condo in Georgetown, attends G.W. on an expansive timeline, and I smile. It almost hurts after today’s nightmare. “If he can find me a job, I will. I have one shot and it’s got to be good. Frankly, I can’t be picky. I’ll take anything as long as it gets me a reference to contest this firestorm on the horizon,” I admit on the verge of pulling out every caramel-blonde hair on my head.

  Brooke narrows her eyes. “Spencer is screwing around on you. Right?” Her eyes are focused on a spot on the wall, concentrating.

  I play along. “Rhetorical, Perry Mason. How ‘bout you connect the dots?”

  “Correct me but didn’t you supply him with an indirect-dowry? In the down payment on this place?”

  A burst of heat races up my neck and streaks my cheeks. “I suppose that’s true. But we aren’t living in the seventeen hundreds. How does it matter?”

  “It might not matter on point, but it suggests agreement. Everyone who acted on that contract has a legal obligation.”

  “But I need an argument to trump my grandparents. Not prove they were right. Their attorney will demonstrate I’m too immature or irresponsible or ungrounded. And this fiasco, as you’ve said, is the stake they’ll drive through my heart. They’ll have not one argument, but a slew. They always do.”

  “Everyone just takes it,” Brooke counters. “It’s not a law. It’s a mindset.”

  I shrug. “Yeah, but it’s stellar PR BS. I don’t blame my family. This is how they survive.”

  “You’re too forgiving,” she retorts.

  “What I am is an outsider looking in. For what it’s worth, I’m more objective.”

  “Wake up, Phoenix! Your family has you brainwashed.”

  I laugh incredulously. Brooke is part of the exotic glitterati and hard to believe that we’re friends. But we are and I get that her lifestyle within the elite upper two-percent of the internat
ional super wealthy give her distinct advantages as well as blind spots. Her dad Richard Tate headed the original software engineering team for our present day search engines. When she speaks of homes, the actual number changes from day to day. Concepts like tradition and an American dynasty are foreign to her. Her parents have missed more of her birthdays than they’ve celebrated together. A point I don’t bring up.

  Instead I say, “It’s tradition and believe me, I would know if someone successfully thwarted my grandparents. They make a show of rewarding ‘good behavior’ just as there are consequences for bucking their system. In the beginning, they didn’t like Spencer and it has been an uphill battle getting them to come around.”

  “Did they?” she asks, wearing a frown.

  “You’ve been here to witness it.”

  “Have I? Have you?”

  She’s making a point in that silent way she does, not overtly stating but getting me to see it for myself. As if grasping for the pieces of some imaginary puzzle, I offer up, “They sent him a solid-gold watch. Rolex isn’t exactly a turd.”

  She bites the side of her cheek in thought. It’s like watching gears shift. As if by osmosis, I’m struck by a fully-fledged idea. “It was a farewell. Somehow they knew. I’m not paranoid, am I?”

  “Nope. A gold watch is standard banker issue,” she agrees. “God, they’re good.”

  I feel nauseous. They’re my grandparents. My blood. And their elegant savagery knows no bounds. “They aren’t pit bulls, they’re vipers. Silent. Deadly,” I whisper without animosity. More like a combination of awe and trepidation.

  Slipping on a pair of Tory Burch glasses, she’s says, “Not to worry.” In bookish mode, Brooke swipes her fingers across the laptop screen. Page after page, she scours a legal textbook. Dragging her finger down the screen, she harrumphs to herself. “You’re just going to have to sue him for damages. And your grandparents as co-conspirators.”

  “Excuse me?” I deadpan her, letting go a cheerless laugh as I walk to the glass wall overlooking the city. A light drizzle is falling, blurring the edges of the buildings, no longer a jagged line on the horizon. “No one has ever sued my grandparents and lived to tell.”

  “That may be true. But you aren’t everyone?”

  In the reflection, I see Brooke behind me. Arms crossed over her chest, she’s got that stubborn stance. Lucky for me, she’s on my side. Through thick and thin, she’s the only person besides Jon, who’s had my back.

  Chapter 4

  Atticus Stone~ Senator Rolling Stone

  CHICAGO CAMPAIGN STOP for the Republican party. When Beck Boone—the GOP frontrunner—got booted out, I was tapped to deal with damage control. ‘The Beck’ as Boone refers to himself has a mouth that operates similar to a runaway train. Who and why he’s running for office is a confidence I keep and for good reason. Same as the email disaster about to hit the DNC in Philly in a few weeks. The committee chair is the target all the way from Russia with love. Secrets equate to job security and a marker I leverage, but today it’s a mission with a steep price tag. A favor to the GOP? Damn straight. This is how I pay my senate dues on the surface. It’s also a covert method to test voter reaction to yours truly.

  I’ve been accused of being conniving, an overachiever, and a breaker of rules as if those are flaws. I can take the heat but not all the credit. My natural arrogance probably has a lot to do with the fact that I’m cast as a political genius or bloodsucker—depends on which camp you hail from. On Tuesday, the Times reported that I’m ahead by ten points. Forbes followed up with a projection of my net worth and not surprising, they missed it by a mile. But the best by far was making the cover of Rolling Stone. In return for a ‘candid’ interview, I reaped a gaggle of supporters and spinoff press. The journalist did a timeline, regurgitating my political achievements while promoting an angle of how I’ll garner the VEEP slot. The article also reported that I sway my fellow constituents on my way to bedding the women of my choice—on the Hill or off. Total bullshit but it sells.

  This political prick trademark of sorts has the propensity to precede me wherever I go, opening doors, wallets, and legs. PR hardball negative press, and unbelievably it’s gold. Instead of slamming the other guy, I’m thrown under the bus by my own team. The nonsense they sling on my account should get me booted out of congress, but it doesn’t. They’ve collectively got an ironclad pair and I’m rocking the nation.

  So much that tonight, Mayor Claire Andrews is chugging tequila like it’s going out of style. Inside my hotel suite, she’s half-dressed and without a doubt, she has more to lose if word gets out of our ‘little chat.’

  “Have a drink.” Claire holds out a glass.

  “No thanks and no talking,” I tell her, unzipping my fly. She’s better looking when she’s silent. You’d think a bastard like me can find a lay but it’s not that simple. Not anymore.

  I’m down for a quick hookup but Mayor Andrews starts talking again. To keep her quiet, I shift gears. Closing my eyes, I focus on busting my load. Just something to take the edge off—

  The customary four short and one long rap on my hotel door sends a spike through my awareness. A signal that it’s important. Crossing the room, I zip my fly, then open the door. Stationed outside and wearing a jackass grin, Vince is shooting the shit with my official bodyguard. The one who actually apologizes.

  He slips me his phone. “You’ve got a message, Senator.”

  “You can run, but you can’t hide. Answer your damn cell.” Looks like the Speaker of the House has tracked me down.

  “Give me two,” I direct my security and return the phone. In turn, I dig out my own, impatient for it to power up. So much for one night.

  “There is no rest for the wicked.” Jax’s message and I curse at the truth. With my trousers, in theory around my ankles, I’m taking a break from canvassing Republican voters to get my rocks quasi off. Apparently, that plan just went belly up.

  Supposedly, this isn’t the type of sex I prefer. It’s complicated. A masquerade, and yet this vanilla layover in Chicago is over before it begins. Talk about timing. Cursing under my breath, I open my wallet. Newly minted Benjamins and I pull two free. I growl to my guest, “I’ve got to leave. Can you get home?”

  She stammers, “But, we haven’t—”

  “Hey, your choice,” I interrupt her, flashing the cash.

  From weeks on the road, I’m maxed out. Nonstop campaigning of fifteen-hour days, Monday to Sunday. Rewind and repeat. Lucky for Claire, we aren’t at the House. An elite little D.C. club I’m part owner of officially known as the Wheelhouse. How long has it been since I’ve been back? At the House, I’d have no choice but to react as if I gave two shits when a sub questioned my authority. Now, I merely cock an eyebrow.

  “No problem. I have a driver, but ya know, I could use a nightcap.” Claire takes the bills from my outstretched hand, tucking them down into her bra. She dresses and shoves the bottle of tequila into her purse.

  If this were the House and I was called away from a submissive, I’d have dealt with defiance without breaking stride. Not to mention how by virtue of being a dominant, I’d be forced to motivate a sub to act like a lady. A role I play—but doesn’t everyone wear a mask, if not a few. Maybe that’s the problem the US faces in letting ‘it’ all hang out. Freedom of speech equates to air pollution no better than diarrhea of the mouth and brain.

  Elegance, class, a vision for the future are all but dead. The mayor along with this whole town needs an attitude adjustment. No wonder Beck got ousted during his campaign blitz here. In short order, this country is headed straight to hell, wearing a flak jacket while waving a blur of red, white, and chocolate fondue.

  The hotel door opens and my bodyguard motions to the mayor. Problem dealt with; she’s no longer my concern. On my way to a cold shower, I shut the bathroom door, and lock it. Having cash to burn doesn’t mean I can let down my guard. Weeks on the road since I’ve dealt with my need for h
ardcore. Next stop, it’s Boston and I refuse to seek refuge in a bottle. I have to be sharp, in cutthroat form. This isn’t an underground club with safeguards in place, and the interruption is spot-on. Got to hand it to Jax and I text him back,

  “Your timing is stellar as always.”

  “Get your ass to the airport. Jet is fueled and waiting. We’ve got a membership meeting in Manhattan. Need your input.”

  New Wheelhouse member? Must be taking the spot of Senator Angela Warner. That will net us two-mil up-front and I run through the shortlist of possibilities. Given the location is Manhattan, this isn’t the moment to be off the grid. With a club to run under the radar, I’ve got to bail from the Windy City, and send my reply:

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  I toss my cell on the bathroom vanity, undress, and peer into the tired eyes that stare back. Four days, and I’ll return to D.C.

  Turning on the shower, I step into the icy stream, weariness giving way to numbing grit. I can hold out until I get back on terra firma at the House. Come hell or high water, I’ll find a professional, contract her for a night, maybe two. Exorcising the demons riding me roughshod, I’ll possess that pro in countless, nameless ways. No strings and no regrets, just a long ass fuck.

  Chapter 5

  X.S.~ When in Doubt, Go Blonder

  PERCHED ON THE EDGE of a white leather sofa in the receptionist area, I remind myself not to fidget. Dressed to the nines in a tailored navy Kate Spade suit, I balance my Prada portfolio on my lap. People come and go as the bank of elevators ding-ding-ding. I smooth a blonder curl behind my ear, wearing my recently balayage’d hair loose instead of pinned in place. Sitting up straight, I’m going for the All-American business, I’ve got a brain in my head serious worker, socially conscious, fashionista, but I can make you laugh… attire. I hope.

  “Ms. O’Malley, right this way,” the receptionist chirps, “Ms. Van Allen will see you now.”