“I’ll apply for battalion chief—the guy who’s over my station and four others is retiring soon and he’s hinted at me being qualified.” Only, I’ve always brushed it off with a thanks for being considered. “That will make me more visible and give you a boost in this area. You know you need it. You’re not polling well in the city.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be a top dog?”
I don’t, but Saylor is more important to me. “I’m willing to compromise.”
“Spoken like a—”
“Walker. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. But this has nothing to do with my last name. It has everything to do with protecting Saylor.”
His mouth quirks. “You have no clue, do you?”
“About what?”
“What you’ve gotten into.”
“Are you that pissed off I got married instead of running for office?”
He shakes his head. “Not anymore.”
“Because I’ll apply for the battalion chief.” It’s not a question.
“That’s one of the reasons. Hayden, no matter what you think of me, of what I do, I want to see you succeed. I want nothing but the best for you.”
“How about letting me decide what’s best for me.”
He inclines his head. “Fair enough. We have a deal. No campaigning for Saylor, no required events…however.” Shit. There’s always a however. “We’ve been invited to a charity function next week, and I’ve already RSVP’d for the four of us.”
“How did Brooks and Briggs get so damn lucky?”
“Please consider attending, son, but not for my sake. The event is to raise money for wounded veterans. We’ve let them down and it’s time we lift those men and women up—mentally, physically, and monetarily.”
While I know that’s one of his most famous and well-received lines of his recent campaign, I also know he means it. I’ve seen what he’s done off-script and off-camera with veterans. The money he’s anonymously donated. The behind-the-scenes work he’s done while asking that no one give him credit.
“If Saylor agrees, we’ll go. If not, I’ll go because I agree with you.”
“Thank you.” He glances over my shoulder. “When she comes back, I will apologize.”
“It might not be enough.”
“Then I have to live with that.”
I look at him in surprise, and this time it’s my turn to thank him.
Chapter 20
Saylor
The outer door to the ladies’ room opens and Hayden’s mother walks in. She looks just like the women I compared myself to when we first arrived. She also looks kind as she cautiously approaches me.
“Saylor, may we talk?”
No, I don’t want to talk to any of you. Quickly, I dry my eyes and sit up straight on the sofa. My dress pulls tight against my breasts and I inwardly grimace. I’m never wearing this thing again.
“This is pretty fancy for a bathroom,” I say, unsure of what she wants to talk about.
“I think the chandeliers are a nice touch.”
“That one looks like the one from—”
“Beauty and the Beast.”
My mouth drops open a little as she sits beside me. “You’re a fan?”
“What girl wouldn’t want a library that big?” She winks at me and I start to feel a little better. “I’ve come to apologize for my family’s behavior.”
“You didn’t make them act like alphaholes.”
“I did not, but I raised one of them to be a gentleman.”
“Maybe you should have tried that with Hayden,” I half-joke. “He’s younger and easier to influence.”
She bursts out laughing. “I like you.”
“I think I like you, too,” I reply honestly.
“Refreshing. Most of the women Hayden has allowed us to meet, or rather the ones we preferred for him to date, unfortunately had ulterior motives. Not all of them, of course, but…when that’s all you know, when that’s all you’ve been told you’re good for, it tends to make relationships forced and unnatural. It tends to make one look outside a marriage for what you’re missing.”
“Were you picked by Mr. Walker’s mom?”
“Oh good Lord, no. She hated me on sight and told me as much, too.” She raises her chin a little. “What was it she used to call me—ah, yes, that little trailer park whore.”
“Why? You’re perfect, like the First Lady perfect.”
“Because I was from some dinky little town in the armpit of North Carolina, as some like to call it, and had absolutely no connections.”
“But y’all got married anyway.”
She blushes. “We were in love and, much like Hayden, Bishop rebelled against his father’s wishes. And Great-Grandmother Walker loved me because she was from the same town. So we had her blessing.”
Was that the reason why my own parents had an affair—Tripp was rebelling against his family? “Are you still in love?”
“With the exception of how my husband just conducted himself, I love him more today than yesterday.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“I’m sure it will be that way for you and Hayden.”
I smile and nod rather than answer with words.
“When I first met you, I thought you looked exactly like your mother, but you have your father’s eyes.” She tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “All the Sterling girls have beautiful brown eyes.”
I try to suck in air, but I can’t. The room swims. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh my word. You’ve turned as pale as a ghost.” She grasps my hands, patting them. “Forget I said anything. You’ve been upset enough this morning.”
“Actually, I’m not feeling well.” Black dots appear in front of my eyes and my stomach roils. “I want to go home.”
“I’ll get Hayden. You lie down right here and I’ll be back.” She moves to the door, then pauses. “I meant what I said, Saylor. Please forget what I said. It was just a guess by a true fan of your mother’s.”
“Okay. Please get Hayden.”
I close my eyes for a minute. The next thing I know, Hayden is lifting me up, murmuring in my ear that everything will be all right, that he’ll take care of me.
His dad is with us, saying that he’s sorry. His voice sounds distraught.
“I know you are, and we appreciate it.”
I close my eyes again.
“Saylor…wake up, we’re home—my home, anyway.”
Forcing my eyes open, I take in my surroundings. I’m lying in his bed, completely nude, while Hayden is still dressed in dark slacks and a button-down shirt with the sleeves pushed up. His tie is loosened and hanging askew.
“That wasn’t embarrassing.”
“I think the combination of a too-tight dress and lack of food made you faint.” Hayden has EMT training, so I take him at his word. “You could possibly be dehydrated, so I ordered chicken noodle soup. Can you sit up for me? I’ll feed you.”
Hayden helps prop me up with pillows, then begins to spoon-feed me the most delicious soup I’ve ever had.
“Added a bit of my family’s honey to it. Legend has it that the bees were originally brought over from a country off the shores of England that no longer exists.”
“Like King Author’s Avalon?”
“Something like that. Only, they had a queen and whenever a new king of England or Scotland was crowned, they traveled to that island to be blessed with this honey.”
I grin at his story. “Walkers are descendants of that queen?”
His blue eyes dance as he grins. “That’s the rumor.”
“That the Walkers made up?”
“I can neither confirm nor can I deny that it’s a rumor made up by my ancestors.”
I giggle, then take another spoonful of the soup. “Why does the country no longer exist?”
“Oh, the usual—political power struggles.”
I frown. “That’s too bad. I just don’t understand why everything has to
be a power struggle.”
He gazes into my eyes. “Maybe they were fighting for what they believed in…or maybe they were fighting for a someone instead of a something.”
“I like to think they were fighting for love.”
“You can think whatever you want because that country doesn’t exist and Walkers are Welshmen turned Quakers turned Methodists. Hardly descendants of royalty.”
“Thank you for sticking up for my mom and…me.”
Hayden takes the empty bowl of soup away and sets it on the nightstand. “You didn’t deserve his test, not like that. Normally, families are prepped over months. In some cases, years, if that’s their ultimate endgame, but what he did to you…while I hated it, I got it. He was trying to look out for you, in his way, at least.”
“By saying just a small fraction of the things that have been written about my mother? I’m not a child. I lived with her until I was thirteen; I remember a lot of things. When she sent me away, it was to protect me. She didn’t have anyone to do that for her. I can’t fault her for wanting to keep me safe, even if it meant leaving me.” Tears well up in my eyes. My throat becomes almost too thick to talk. “My mom got pregnant with me at seventeen, Hayden. Seventeen. And my dad…my dad abandoned us. He was a married man in his midtwenties. He knew better.”
“You don’t have to tell me who he is, but if you do, I’ll consider it an honor to track him down and kick his ass.”
“You would?”
“Absolutely, sunshine. You’re my family, which is why I told the senator that you will never be required to attend any political event. It will always be your choice.”
And in that moment, I know that I’m irrevocably in love with my husband.
—
“You look tense as hell,” Hayden murmurs as we walk inside the Capitol Club, my arm threaded through the crook of his elbow.
“I’m nervous.”
“We can go home right now and I’ll come back by myself. No pressure, sunshine.”
“I want to be here,” I say firmly, but then I catch a glimpse of a familiar face and my knees start to shake. “This is only to support the veterans, right? No politics.”
“No outright politics. The event is bipartisan with a focus on the needs of our veterans. That’s it.” His hand slides down to encircle my wrist. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
He pulls me through the first door we happen upon and shuts it behind us. It’s so dark that, at first, I can’t see a thing. Then his mouth is on my mine and his hands are coasting up the sides of my legs, pulling my dress right along with it.
I stumble back, my butt coming into contact with a shelf.
“Put your hands on top of it and hang on,” Hayden says, his voice husky with desire. “We’re in the linen closet, so plenty of soft places for you to sit.”
He sweeps my dress out of his way and lifts me high into his arm. I feel the heat of him, the hardness of his cock pressing against me, and I part my thighs in welcome.
“Such a good girl,” he sighs into my ear, his tongue licking at the bottom as he slides inside me with a long, hard thrust. “We have to be quiet, sunshine. Everyone who’s anyone in the free world is right outside this door, and I can’t have them hearing you scream my name.”
Equal parts of me are mortified and turned on at the thought of being caught with him. I feel a rush of wetness and he groans into my ear.
Adjusting his angle, he works his body so that it’s constantly grinding against my clit. My toes curls in my high heels and my nipples tighten so quickly that it hurts.
“I’m going to come in you so hard, sunshine. Make you walk around with my come sliding along your thighs. You’d feel me with every step, every sway of your hips.” He yanks at the top of my dress, freeing my breasts. He latches on to one of my nipples, suckling hard.
I cry out at the sensation, at the way it feels like each tug of his mouth is tugging at my clit.
“Yes. Oh, yes,” I moan.
He sits me on a pile of towels, rocking into me while his hands roam my body. He palms one of my breasts, tweaking my nipple while he crushes his mouth to mine and slides his free hand between us, two fingers working at my clit.
His thrusts don’t stop, don’t let up, and I feel my body soaring toward an orgasm that’s just out of reach.
“That’s it, Saylor. Come for me, show me how much you love my cock. How much you—”
My inner muscles clamp down hard on his erection as I shatter into a million pieces. “I love you. I love you,” I gasp into his neck, helpless at the onslaught of emotions and desire that twine inside me. My heart beats against my chest, while what I’ve said makes my stomach twist and turn.
Did he hear what I said? Does he feel the same? What if he doesn’t? What if I’m his rebellion?
He lifts my chin, possessing my mouth in such a way that the worry and panic over what he might have heard and what he might be rebelling against disappears. “Pull your dress up. I want to mark you instead.”
My hands shake as I obey him. Just as I yank the material to my waist, he pulls out of me, gripping his cock and stroking it until he comes all over my thighs. He peers at me from beneath his long lashes, blue eyes glimmering in the dim light of the small room.
“Your pussy looks so damn hot like that.” He grabs a couple of towels and cleans me up. “Seems like a waste.”
Tossing the towels into a linen basket marked used, he turns back to me, helping me adjust my dress before he fixes his tux.
“Damn it,” I mutter as the material catches on the sharp edge of a shelf and pulls tight, squeezing me so hard that I wince and almost rip it off. “There’s no way I could have gained weight on the way here.” Even if I had eaten an entire bag of pretzels while he drove, but I was hungry and had no idea when we would eat since Hayden warned me ahead of time that these types of things always ran late.
“Are you okay?” His smile is tender. “Was I too rough?”
“No.” I sigh thickly. “Obviously marriage has made me gain weight because everything is tight.”
“Or it could be because I’ve been doing the laundry.” He winks at me.
“You know how to do laundry and your explanation doesn’t explain this dress because no one washed it!”
“Did you try it on before you bought it?”
“No,” I say, realizing that I should have, but I was focused on getting out of there before anyone really paid me any attention. “The store had pictures of my mother as their model and I freaked out a little.”
“You were recognized?” he asks.
“Kinda? One of the sales clerks said I looked familiar and I realized that I was standing right beside a life-size poster of my mom.”
He laughs and I frown.
“You have to admit that’s funny.”
“I guess it is.” I smile, then kiss him. “Thank you for making me feel better.”
“You’re welcome and just so you know, in about an hour, I will need you to make me feel better.”
I snicker. “Bless your horny heart.”
He gives me a wicked smile. “It’s not my heart that’s horny, sunshine.”
We do a double once-over of each other before Hayden opens the door. “All clear.” Opening the door wider, he grabs my hand and we walk to the main room where there are a million people waiting inside.
Okay, so there are only about two hundred, but it feels massive.
“Don’t be nervous. You are beautiful and smart, and if the only thing you want to do is stand by my side and listen, then that’s all you have to do, or don’t do any of that. Mingle. Talk.
“However, if you still want to go home, I’ll take you home right now. Your choice.”
“As I live and breathe, Hayden Walker actually shows his face,” a breathy voice exclaims.
“Fuck,” I hear Hayden mutter as he grows stiff.
We turn as one and I come face-to-face with my biolo
gical father. And a woman young enough to be my sister.
Tripp’s mouth quirks, his dark gaze assessing. “Who’s your lovely date?”
My mouth drops open. He’s going to actually pretend that we don’t know each other. This can’t be happening.
“Senator Sterling. Kennedy. Allow me to introduce you both to my wife, Saylor.”
Oh sweet Lord. It is happening and that woman is my half sister. The same half sister who was once engaged to Hayden but cheated on him. Her hair is as light as mine is dark and she’s at least four inches taller, but our eyes are almost identical in color. At least I don’t have to worry about Hayden being subconsciously attracted to me because of her.
“Hayden,” his dad calls out from across the room.
“Duty calls,” he says by way of explanation. He leans close, whispering in my ear. “I need to do an interview. You’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Go on, Hayden, we’ll take care of your wife,” Kennedy says with a lilting laugh, but as soon as he steps away, her brows arch in unison as she gives me a once-over. “The rumors are actually true for once.”
“Rumors?” I echo weakly. Is she going to out my—our family secret here?
My half sister smiles at me while my father remains silent, just like he’s been for my entire life. “That Hayden took up with that B-movie actress’s daughter, not that I consider her B-list. I’m so fond of Taylor’s work, especially when she was cast as a Bond girl. A true performance if there ever was one. How old is she now—sixty?”
Kennedy has no intention of claiming me as a sibling, if she even knows. She’d rather insult me instead, which is why I suspect she’s motivated by jealousy over Hayden rather than our shared parentage.
“She’s forty-five,” I correct.
“Isn’t that special?” She smiles, taking my breath away with her beauty. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to talk to people who actually matter.”
I hate how pretty she is, hate how mean-spirited and petty she is. Most of all, I hate how much I wish I could love her. “It was really nice meeting you.”
Kennedy rolls her eyes. “Ugh.”
“Sorry, it was really horrible to meet you.”
My half sister’s eyes narrow at me, but before she can make another nasty comment, Tripp steps between us. At first, I get my hopes up, thinking he’s going to tell her to apologize, but when he allows her to sashay away, those are dashed.
Hard to Fall Page 15
