Found Underneath: Finding Me Duet #2

by K. L. Kreig

  Panic now joins the get-together in my stomach. I chuck the pillow that was over my head to the floor and pop an eye open, unable to move for fear of losing the war with tequila. Sierra wears her usual scowl but it’s overly pronounced as she listens to the male voice on the other side of her cell. As he talks, her scowl deepens. She looks at me, her eyes widening as she listens to the voice a few more seconds before handing me the phone. She immediately snags my iPad from the nightstand and my stomach sinks.

  Now what?

  “Don’t beat around the bush, Noah. Tell me what’s wrong,” I croak. Those rocks in my bones have moved to my vocal chords.

  “Willow?”

  But it’s not Noah’s voice that filters through the speaker. It’s Shaw’s, rich and heady. My heart stutters. An actual skip of a beat. A rush of relief runs through me that he’s all right but it’s quickly snuffed out, replaced by the memories of everything he’s put me through. I glance up at Sierra to cut her with my invisible shank for tricking me into thinking I was getting Noah but her eyes are racing over the iPad screen.

  “What do you want, Shaw?”

  He sighs, clearly dejected over my harsh tone, but answers me regardless. “There’s an article in this morning’s 7-Day.”

  Of course there is.

  “What does it say?” I manage to ask, this time not sounding quite so gravelly.

  “Fuck, Willow,” is all he says back. I hear the pure frustration and implied apology in his deep voice when he adds, “I don’t know how yet, but I promise you I will fix this.”

  “Fix what?” A fire of anger boils the witch’s brew in my belly to toxic levels. I push myself to a sitting position and secure the phone between my shoulder and ear. I swallow a few times until I’m sure the bad decisions I made the night before will stay put for now and yank the iPad from Sierra’s hands. “Did another one of Noah’s and your mistakes end up on page one?”

  A sharp hit of air, followed by a soft, “I deserve that,” reach me but I can’t respond. I’m frozen by the damning article in the 7-Day.

  A campaign parlor trick?

  A week shy of Election Day and a potential scandal has rocked Mayor Mercer’s campaign.

  Early on it was clear there was no love lost between Seattle’s current mayor, Preston Mercer, and his seat’s rival, Wicklow Harrington III, a lifelong resident of Seattle and an esteemed, respected entrepreneur. Mayor Mercer acquired his current position when Mayor Thurston passed away suddenly from a stroke in April 2015.

  While both parties have turned up the heat as Election Day draws near, both camps have managed to keep typical campaign mudslinging to minimal levels. Until recently, that is.

  In an interview with Mayor Mercer last week when asked about the accusations from his opponent that he was a roadblock to enticing new businesses into Seattle, he candidly told one of our reporters, “My record speaks for itself.” When pressed to respond to Harrington’s allegations, Mayor Mercer said, “I want to run a clean campaign based on my leadership merit, not my ability to one-up my opponent. Instead of rhetoric not based on merit, we need to stay focused on the issues that matter to Seattle’s residents, such as reducing our homelessness, providing affordable housing for everyone, and implementing civilian oversight for the police department. My eye is focused on my obligations to the people of Seattle, as it always has been and will be while I’m blessed to serve a city that I love. Anything else is simply not worth my time.”

  Interesting, then, that the 7-Day has learned Mayor Mercer’s campaign may not be as squeaky clean as he would lead us to believe and that he may be using his eldest son’s recent and conveniently timed relationship with Willow Blackwell as a good old-fashioned parlor trick to demonstrate picture-perfect family stability when that’s also recently been questioned by the Harrington campaign.

  * * *

  I gasp, dropping the phone as my eyes continue to scan the article.

  * * *

  Blackwell, an audiobook narrator for LLK Publishing, began dating Shaw Mercer, co-CEO of Wildemer & Company, just days before Mayor Mercer’s official campaign kicked off. It’s speculated Blackwell also works for an exclusive entity that provides companionship in exchange for strict confidentiality and a hefty price tag, which, according to the 7-Day’s confidential source, is actually how they met and not via a car accident as the couple claimed in an interview with the 7-Day a few weeks ago.

  * * *

  Oh. My. Fucking. God. I can’t breathe. There’s a sharp pain piercing my chest.

  * * *

  Blackwell, along with her mother, Evelyn, survives scientific researcher Charles Blackwell. Charles Blackwell, better known as “CJ” by his colleagues and friends, took his own life in November 2012, leaving both Aurora Pharmaceuticals and the scientific community in a state of shock and disbelief. In an interesting twist, Wildemer & Company, a global management consulting firm, is assisting Aurora Pharmaceuticals in their IPO launch, planned for early next year.

  * * *

  I scan the rest of the article for one name and one name alone, and blessedly not finding mention of Randi, I drop the iPad to the mattress, unable to stomach reading the last half. The only good news is tequila has decided to give me a reprieve for the moment.

  How in the hell did this happen? Who knew? What kind of blowback will this have on Preston’s campaign? And, oh my God, what will Randi do once she finds out?

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. This is devastating. And no matter what Shaw says, there is no fixing this. This is far worse than him pictured with that woman. This is career destroying. For all of us.

  I need to do something. Anything. I realize Sierra is no longer here and neither is her phone. I snap mine off the nightstand and power it up. Just seconds later the notifications pour in.

  Shaw (7:32): Missed call

  Reid (7:33): Missed call

  Shaw (7:33): I know you’re still mad, but call me, please. It’s urgent.

  Reid (7:34): I need to talk to you. It’s not about the other night. Pls call right away.

  Randi (7:44): Missed call

  Shaw (7:44): Willow…I’m not kidding. I need to talk to you. It can’t wait.

  Randi (7:45): we need to talk…now

  Reid (7:46): Now is not the time to dig in those stubborn heels. It’s critical I talk to you ASAP.

  Jo (7:53): girl, what the hell did you do?

  Millie (7:59): Missed call

  Shaw (8:01): Missed call

  Reid (8:03): Missed call

  Randi (8:05): call me or you’re fired

  Shaw (8:10): I promise you, Goldilocks, you won’t be able to sit for a week if I don’t hear from you in 10 min.

  And the list goes on and on, each text progressively more urgent and threatening. Each missed call more and more frequent. My gaze lands on the digital clock. 8:35.

  I rank the urgency, quickly deciding Randi is most critical. Forget about me. What’s done is done. I’ll fade into the background with the next headline tomorrow. It’s her ass on the line. The “anonymous” source certainly knows about Randi, about what she does, and intentional or not, if some greedy reporter starts digging further this could spell big trouble for her.

  Heat prickles my skin in a slow, painful roll. I want to talk to her like I want to be escorted to my own beheading. And I have nothing to offer. I have no idea what happened.

  Fuck.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  I am dead. She’s going to kill me. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew I should have walked out of her office and away from the one man who made me feel vibrant and teeming with life. Even if I didn’t intend on returning to La Dolce Vita, I certainly didn’t want to go out this way. Baked in scandal. Possible criminal charges brought against her.

  Crap on a cracker.

  In the few seconds it’s taken to run all this through my mind, my phone has buzzed six more times. It’s ringing now. And as if her ears were itching, it’s Randi.

  I send it to voice mail
and immediately pull up the number of the only person I can talk to about this. The only one who will shoot it to me straight.

  The phone rings only twice before he answers.

  “I was wondering if you would call,” he says, his tone not holding any of the lightness I’ve become used to. The edges of my mouth drop, though he can’t see.

  “Guess you don’t have to wonder anymore.”

  “How are you doing, doll?” His voice is low, full of concern. I want to cry. I wonder if Shaw is standing nearby. I imagine him pacing, becoming more and more agitated the longer we talk.

  I lie back down and try to forget the sloshing in my belly and the heaviness in my limbs. “I’d say on a scale of one to ten, I’m at about a negative three.”

  Noah makes a hum in the back of his throat. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  Yeah. Me too. Then I get to the point. I can’t do small talk right now. “I don’t suppose you know who did this?” For some reason, this all feels a little personal, though I know it’s probably just dirty politics.

  “Not yet, but we’ll find out. Trust me on that.”

  I have no doubt Shaw won’t stop until he knows who to burn at the stake.

  “Okay then.” I sigh, moving on to the next most important question. And while I shouldn’t care anymore what happens to Shaw or the rest of the Mercer family, the simple fact of the matter is I do. I’m pretty sure I always will.

  “Tell me how I can help.”

  Chapter 27

  The last fourteen days have been a trip straight to hell and back.

  Every last fucking second of them.

  Starting first with the fiasco at my father’s fundraiser, not only have I spent fourteen nights in my bed alone, I’ve pretty much made a full-time job out of babysitting Annabelle and trying to clean up the nuclear fallout that resulted from the article in the 7-Day last week. On top of that, I’ve had to work side by side with my nemesis to accomplish the latter.

  I want to slit my wrists about now. I’m exhausted, I’m angry, and I’m ravenous for a woman I’m not sure I’ll ever get a genuine taste of again.

  Within an hour after the exposé broke, Mergen had come up with a game plan, finally demonstrating the value he brought to my father’s campaign. I had to reluctantly agree it was a good one, but it required Willow’s cooperation, and I wasn’t sure if she would go along with it. I wasn’t sure I blamed her.

  I wanted to be the man to reassure her. The one she leaned on. So when I realized Noah was talking to Willow—that she had called him back to get details and not me—I may have lost it.

  My father, Mergen, Noah, and I were in my home office at the time, which now is short one bottle of very pricey Hennessy 250. Even though I later had the entire carpet steamed twice, I can’t get the stench of liquor out of the air. And the dent it made in the wall where I chucked the full bottle still needs to be repaired.

  But after that minor blowup, I had to look past the agony gradually eating its way through my soul to the immediate problem at hand. I sat not so patiently while Noah calmly explained to my girl the steps we needed to take to mitigate the damage.

  Surprisingly, she agreed, though for some inexplicable reason, Willow will do anything for Noah. If I’d asked, I can only imagine the expletives she’d have filled my ear with.

  In the past six days, Willow and I have given an interview to the biggest and most respectable daily paper in Seattle, the World Herald, along with on-air interviews to each of the major news stations in town. We refuted the 7-Day article, of course, citing their past behavior as demonstrative of their blatant support of Harrington, along with an obvious bone to pick with me.

  We’ve subtly called the 7-Day’s editor-in-chief’s integrity into question when Mergen uncovered she conveniently happens to be the second cousin of Harrington’s wife. I wish I’d known that.

  And between all this, we’ve made it a point to be seen out together often while Mergen anonymously tips off reporters where we’ll be.

  Leaving city hall hand in hand.

  Cozy dinners on the water.

  Taking my niece and nephews to the children’s museum.

  We’ve somehow convinced the outside world we are stronger than ever when we are anything but. After a torturous week apart, Willow spent time with me not because she wanted to, but because she was forced to. She jumped in to do what she does best. What I’d originally hired her for. She played my girlfriend to a very fucking pointy T, and by played, I definitely mean acted.

  She pasted on that dreamy smile she’s flashed me countless times.

  She let me touch her, lavish attention on her for the cameras.

  She grazed my jaw with her lips and batted her eyes with practiced shyness when I told her how she took my breath away.

  But when the flashes ebbed and we were alone, I saw it. It took me months to find the bottom of those hidden blue depths, but now a murky, impenetrable darkness blocks my view.

  It’s what I’ve feared most.

  She’s shut down thoroughly. Shut me out completely. She is right next to me yet a world away, and I don’t know how to get her back.

  It’s a truth that burns me to my core.

  It’s burning me right this second, in fact, with her warm body plastered to mine, her arm around my waist.

  It’s D-day. Election evening, actually. The day I’ve been dreading since I walked out of Randi Deveraux’s office with Willow’s signature still wet.

  My entire family is here, waiting. And it would look odd if my girlfriend weren’t by my side, wouldn’t it?

  “Can I get you anything, beautiful?” I ask her. I set my lips to her temple and inhale the coconut scent of her shampoo. Her breaths come faster. My dick twitches. He misses her as much as I do.

  “No, thank you. I’m good,” she replies curtly.

  The corner of my mouth lifts up, but it’s a far cry from a smile.

  I am done with this. The evasion. Her stubbornness. I’ve put up with it for two weeks now and my patience is rubbed completely raw.

  “You and I are talking tonight after this is over.”

  “We’re talking right now.”

  Christ almighty. I want to bury my face between her legs until I have her so worn and weary she’ll listen to every goddamn word I have to say.

  Instead, I tilt my head to the ceiling and pray for patience. I haven’t prayed this much since I wanted a golden Labrador at the age of twelve.

  “I’m tired of this bullshit, Willow. Of all this surface crap you’ve given me this week. We need to talk like adults, without the cameras. Just you and me.” She stiffens beside me but keeps that false fucking smile planted on her lips. I lean down, whispering in her ear, “You owe me this, Goldilocks.”

  Her smile wavers. Just a bit, but she schools it in record time. Looking up at me she beats those long lashes lovingly but her voice drips with incredulity. “I owe you? That’s rich. I distinctly remember you telling me you wouldn’t be anything less than honest with me. And I foolishly believed you.”

  The day after the 7-Day story was printed, my father’s lead dropped by five full points, narrowing his lead with Harrington to within a statistical margin of error. A week later, it’s crawled back up three points but it’s still too close for comfort, and what should have been a landslide is now too close to call.

  I should care more than I do if my father wins or not. After all, that’s the only reason this beauty is glaring at me with barely veiled icicles dangling from her eyelids. But the only thing I can make myself care about is her and how I can win her back.

  I pivot and press my body fully into hers. Her breath skips in warning, but she doesn’t make a move away from me because that’s not what a doting girlfriend would do.

  We’re tucked toward the back of the packed room and no one is around us at the moment. All eyes are focused on the updated polling results scrolling along the bottom of a giant screen on the wall. Not that I’d care if we were in the middle of
a circle with everyone’s attention on us anyway.

  It wouldn’t stop me from doing this…

  Cradling her face in my hands, I don’t give her a chance to deny me as I press my lips to hers in a gentle, tender kiss. It’s real, not for show. I move my mouth slowly against hers, with purpose, the way I did the first time I kissed her. I run my tongue along the seam of her pillowy lips. I nip at her lower one until she stops resisting and her moans turn into a sweet symphony of submission.

  I lock my muscles tight forcing her to stay flush with me. She hasn’t let me kiss her this way all week and I am greedy. Insatiable. I’ll never get enough. I keep kissing her until her hands crawl up my back and, whether she means to or not, she pulls me closer.

  I allow my heart to soar with hope.

  She doesn’t want this to end any more than I do. She simply doesn’t know how to move through it. I don’t have the answers either. All I know is we have to do it side by side.

  “I love you,” I tell her adamantly against her swollen lips when I break away and lean my forehead to hers. Her eyes close as I talk but I can’t close mine. I need to watch every single reaction. “And you deserved the truth from me the second I found out. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I was scared. I’ve never been more scared of losing anything in my life, Goldilocks. You, Annabelle. Everything I loved was on the line.”

  Her hold loosens. Her hands drop to my lower back and now she’s barely touching me, only her fingertips making contact. I am bereft.

  “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this, Shaw,” she tells me lowly. She’s still hiding her eyes from me, though they’re open. They’re downcast as she moves her hands from my back to my sides and curls them around the fabric of my dress shirt. Now I don’t even feel their warmth. “I love you, but I’m not sure that’s enough.”

  The wind puffing my sails a minute ago is suddenly still and stifling. I’m dead in the water.

  What do I do? I try not to panic. To think logically, strategically.