A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)

by Meli Raine

  Worst case, he fires my company from covering Lindsay.

  Best case, he yells at me for punching Blaine.

  There is no option for being praised.

  “Who’s the text from?”

  “Gentian.” I walk closer to the window, careful not to make my body viewable from outside. The pre-dawn light makes the sky a strange color. I’m wiped and wired at the same time. A long, hard day followed by too many beers, a six-mile run, and a lovemaking session that qualifies as the best of my entire life.

  All the good and bad in the world crammed into the same single day.

  “Hey,” Lindsay whispers, coming up from behind me and wrapping her arms around my waist. “Everything okay? Is Silas texting because there’s a problem?”

  Understatement of the year.

  “Your dad plans to attend our seven a.m. staff meeting.”

  “But he’s in D.C.”

  I shrug. “Maybe he’s on video feed. Or maybe his schedule changed. My little stunt with Blaine might have worse consequences than I anticipated.”

  She sighs, hot breath tickling my shoulder blade. Pressing her cheek against my back, she melts into me. “They don’t tell me anything. I’m relieved now, though.”

  “Relieved?” I text back a quick yes to Gentian, then put the phone down and press my palms against her hands. Having her touch me is an anchor.

  “I think they’re happy I performed the part. They’re done with me, for a week or two at least. I smiled, I was vibrant, I played the good daughter in a highly public role. I’m not some sex-crazed kinky deviant who is an embarrassment to the good senator.”

  “Lindsay,” I protest, my voice low with anger. “No one thinks that.”

  A bitter laugh vibrates against my back. “Everyone thinks that, Drew. Daddy said he couldn’t believe I let it happen.” I rotate her around so she faces me.

  “He said that to you? I remember Harry saying it to me.” Fury turns the room a dark shade of red, her sadness making me protective..

  She blinks rapidly as she struggles to remember. “Oh. Maybe that’s when I was eavesdropping on you two.”

  “When you were what? Excuse me?”

  An impish smile stretches her lips and she shrugs. “It was my first day back. I was desperate.”

  All I can do is sigh.

  “At least I didn’t punch a California state representative,” she needles. “My only saving grace is that the news media cycle is so fast. Everyone cares more about a boy in a tiger display at a zoo than they do about me now. The media is fickle. The more boring I am, the better for Daddy.”

  “You’re anything but boring.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  My temper flares up. “Yeah. I do. And I hate it. You’re so much more than a pretty face on a stage, filling a spot on a politician’s checkbox.”

  “Am I? Are you sure?”

  I tighten my hold, my thighs pressing into her hips, my cock dragging across that soft skin right above her mons. As much skin as possible needs to connect between us. If I touch her enough, I can erase time, right?

  I know I can’t.

  But I’ll give it my best shot.

  “I’m sure.” I kiss her forehead, then both cheeks, finally settling a sweet kiss on her lips. “More than sure. You deserve your own life, Lindsay.”

  “I don’t know what that even means.”

  “You’ve been home barely a week. Give it time. Settle in and give yourself space.”

  She grabs me, hard. “I don’t want space. Not from you.”

  “Present company excepted.”

  She laughs, her eyes flicking up to catch mine. “I’ve missed you. Not just you. Not just your presence. I’ve missed this.” Her palm flattens against my back, sliding up my spine as if counting the bones. “The easy way we have with each other.”

  “Me, too.” Emotion overwhelms me. She cannot possibly know how deeply I’ve ached for her. Four years.

  Four fucking years.

  “All that anger, Drew. I was so hurt, and I hated you so much for betraying me. Knowing now that I was wrong makes me feel so ashamed. I’m sorry.”

  I pull her back from me by the shoulders, my fingers gripping her hard enough to make her yelp. “Don’t you ever say that!” I hiss, the explosive emotion in me set off like an IED. “Never. I never, ever want you to feel shame for anything those bastards did to you. How you felt about me is understandable. They planted that feeling in you. They orchestrated the betrayal by your friends. They set us both up. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  I’m shaking her. I can’t stop. Some deep part of me thinks I can shake the shame out of her.

  She rips herself away from me and stands a yard away, mouth twisted in fury. “I know that! I know it up here!” She taps her temple. Then her hand moves over her deliciously creamy skin, settling just above a naked breast, right over her heart. “But I don’t know it here.”

  I cross the space and press my palm flat over hers.

  “I do,” I whisper. “I know.”

  Her eyes fill with tears.

  And I almost tell her.

  In Afghanistan, there was an incident. IED, ambush on a high mountain road, and in the middle of the attack one of our jeeps went down a three-hundred-foot cliff. The driver managed to jump out, but the guys in back were lost. As it tipped before my eyes, the passenger door had a hand.

  Yeah, a hand. The hand shot out through the open window and I grabbed it as the soldier jumped out, bracing his legs on something inside to get some force. Our eyes met.

  It could have gone either way. Life or death. Success or failure.

  His body smashed against the edge of the window, ribs squished like thick toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. He later had massive internal bleeding but my grip on his forearm – hard enough to dislocate his shoulder – kept him from tipping over that edge.

  The jeep nearly dragged him down.

  Impulse and training and sheer will kept him alive. The jeep almost took me down, too.

  And right now, Lindsay looks an awful lot like a random hand poking out of an open window on a bombed jeep that is about to go over a cliff.

  We are naked, standing before each other, hands on her heart. The look on her face says so much.

  Rescue me.

  Love me.

  Don’t leave.

  I’m damaged.

  Don’t shame me.

  I’m sorry.

  “How do you know?” she asks. “How do you know what I should or shouldn’t feel?” Her voice is so soft. There’s no challenge. No anger. Just a gentle request that I answer the mystery of the universe.

  No pressure, right?

  “I don’t claim to know you better than you know yourself, Lindsay.” I look down at our hands, together against her fine skin. “But I know that if you harbor shame inside you for how you’ve treated me, let it go. Let every fucking drop of it go. That’s not a burden you need to carry. All the shame is on John, Stellan and Blaine.”

  She flinches at their names.

  I reach to her chin and tip it up, so her eyes meet mine. “You are my world. My soul can release when I’m with you. My blood runs free and wild when you’re near. We’re meant for each other, my love.” Emotion chokes my throat, my heart slamming against my chest, trying to get out and hold hers.

  She does not look away. Her fingers lace through mine, her tips digging into the sweet spot above her heart, her shaky inhale seemingly endless.

  “I love you, Drew. I never stopped. It was just the pain of what I thought had happened that held me back. It consumed me. It blocked out everything else in the world. Now that I know the truth, I feel like I can see the sun again. I can breathe again. I can live.” She closes her eyes, a single tear slipping down her cheek. “I can love.”

  Her eyes fly open and lock on mine. “I can love you.”

  Four years.

  A bolt of pain shoots through me, paralyzing my heart. She finally trusts
me. After all this time, all this heartache, so many years of struggle and hard work, I’m getting what I want.

  Her.

  Honesty is the best policy, right?

  I need to tell her the truth. My truth.

  But it sticks in my throat, choking me.

  “I love you,” I rasp, the words pushed out of me so hard the air lifts tendrils of her hair, making them float. She gives me a kiss, her hands tightening around my shoulders, and I hug her back. She loves me. She trusts me.

  Those bastards didn’t win.

  Bzzz.

  “Fucking phone,” I mutter, actually grateful for a break from Lindsay. the dissonance between our professions of love and my inner turmoil too much. I check the screen. Gentian.

  Your suit is out here. The bathroom’s clear if you need to shower, he texts.

  I make a sound close to a grunt. He’s ready to run a presidential campaign single-handed.

  Tks, I type back.

  And then I’m on top of Lindsay, my hands on her neck, my thighs on either side of her hips, my chest rubbing against her breasts, the friction of skin against skin generating an impulsive energy that fuels me.

  “I am dangerously close to having your father not only fire me from managing security for you, but if he finds me in your bedroom, my ass will be kicked thoroughly.”

  She pinches the ass in question. “You could totally beat my daddy in a cage fight.”

  I kiss her and laugh at the same time.

  “Not something I really want to test out, Lindsay,” I say, pulling myself off her, grateful to have a distraction. Sliding into my shorts and sweaty t-shirt, I watch as she crawls under the covers, her gorgeous shoulders peeking out over the top of the sheet.

  I sigh.

  I plant my hands on my hips and think for a few seconds. My phone says it’s 5:21 a.m. To be safe, I should get out of her bedroom by six. Meeting’s at seven, here at The Grove in the senator’s office, so it’s a fifty-fifty chance whether he’ll be here in person.

  I need ten minutes to shower. Ten to shave.

  Fuck it.

  I grab my shorts and pull them down. The waistband snags on something hard.

  I’m naked in three seconds, slithering under the sheets as Lindsay squeals.

  I silence her with a kiss.

  “I have time for one more.”

  “One more what?” she asks, batting her eyelashes with mock innocence.

  “Oh, you need instructions? Let me show you,” I murmur as I split her legs open with my hands, burying myself in a place where the past doesn’t exist.

  And where her pleasure is my present.

  Chapter 11

  “Don’t try to bullshit me, Drew. I know exactly what you were doing yesterday when you cornered Blaine Maisri and punched him. Convenient there’s no video.” Harry’s voice drops to a deadly whisper. We’re in his home office, Anya quietly leaving us alone with a reminder that Harry has a call with the party chairman in ten minutes.

  It’s 7:02 a.m.

  “If that’s all you’d done, we wouldn’t be in this meeting. But you dragged my innocent daughter into it, damn it. Made her faint from the stress. Just when we had our first success with reputation rehabilitation.”

  I can taste his innocent daughter on my tonsils.

  “Now there’s a video clip of her pointing through an open Exit door, eyes wide and fearful like Bambi after his mother was shot, complete with a fainting spell. If we don’t spin this carefully, the media’s going to resurrect her scandal.”

  I bite my tongue. And inner lip. And curl my fingers into fists.

  “We’re covered,” I assure him.

  “I didn’t ask whether we were covered.” His look is designed to make me cower. It fails. “I am telling you that you fucked up.”

  I just look at him.

  “I know why you punched him, Drew.”

  Wasn’t expecting that.

  “You acknowledge what he’s done? You know he’s one of Lindsay’s rapists?” I can’t keep the shock out of my response.

  Harry ages ten years in two seconds.

  “Jesus, Drew. You’re sure?” He looks away. His shoulders sag.

  This isn’t the first time he’s been told this bit of information. I can tell.

  “Absolutely sure. I was there,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “They told me...” He weakens, grabbing the edge of his desk for support. “They said it was possible. Not a certainty.”

  “‘They’ who?”

  “The video analysts. Other advisors.” Like who, I wonder. Marshall? Victoria? Those “LB Incident” people from the meeting with Lindsay?

  He gives me a bleak-eyed look. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you ask?”

  “Ask you?”

  “Ask Lindsay, for starters. And yes, me. We’re the victims.” I hate that word. A flash of the psychologist who helped me after the attacks hits my brain like a missile strike. I shove the image away.

  Victims.

  “We got reports from her doctors on the Island, but they said her information wasn’t reliable. It came through a drug fog.”

  “Then let me make the truth abundantly clear to you, sir. Blaine Maisri was, without doubt, one of the people who raped and tortured your daughter.”

  He bares his teeth at me, like an angry stray dog.

  “I’m supporting his bid for my old House seat. I’ve endorsed his campaign. You tell me this now?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Harry. It doesn’t suit you.”

  He’s pale, his shoulders rising with each breath, chest moving fast. “Fuck you.”

  My eyes narrow instinctively, examining him. He’s not lying.

  But he’s not telling the truth, either.

  “Do you,” he says tightly, “have any idea how thin the ice you’re skating on really is, Drew? Blaine Maisri has connections you cannot fathom.” His eyes bore into me. I don’t flinch. I don’t move.

  I stare back. “Like Nolan Corning?”

  No reaction.

  “And those connections are more important than your daughter,” I challenge.

  It’s not a question.

  “No.” I expect more anger in his answer. “But pissing off Blaine and the people behind him does nothing but put Lindsay in more danger.”

  More danger.

  “He’s been texting her.”

  Harry blinks in surprise. “More texts?”

  “Yes. Threats. Pictures.”

  “You traced them directly to him?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’ve proven nothing, which means we can do nothing.”

  “Not true.”

  “You have to act within the law, Drew. This is my presidency at stake. The election year is a weird one. Once I’m nominated as the party’s candidate in the general election, it’s smooth sailing.”

  “How do you know?”

  He shoots me a dry look.

  “I know.”

  “But that assurance isn’t there through these early stages?”

  “No.”

  “Then this may very well involve Nolan Corning. He has a reputation for being cut-throat, Harry.”

  “So do I, Drew.”

  “What if he’s behind what happened to Lindsay?”

  “You think Nolan Corning convinced three college frat boys in your circle to do what they did to Lindsay out of a sense of...competition? Are you insane, Drew?”

  “I am considering all possibilities.”

  “You sound like one of those ‘9/11 was an inside job’ nutters.”

  “Why won’t you even consider the idea?”

  Silence.

  He’s a cipher. I won’t get more out of him. Time to cut off the chit chat.

  “Blaine and whoever’s behind him are using Lindsay against you. Always have.”

  An imperceptible shiver runs through him. “You mean they’re using her reputation against me.”

  I almost say
it.

  Almost.

  “No, Harry.” I drop my voice. “They’re using her. You know what happened with the brake lines. They’re trying to paint her as a crazy. It’s all a lie. But once they do that, they’ll try to taint you by association. We need to cut this off now. The fish rots from the head.”

  “I know you’re not referring to me.”

  “Of course not. I’m talking about whoever is pulling Blaine Maisri’s puppet strings. Whoever’s been pulling them for four years. It can’t have escaped your attention that Blaine’s rise has been meteoric. He’s my age and he’s a state senator. He’s barely old enough to even be a U.S. Representative, constitutionally.”

  Tap tap tap.

  It’s Marshall, one of the PR handlers for Lindsay that Harry hired last week. Last week.

  She’s been home barely a week.

  He doesn’t make eye contact with me.

  My hackles go up.

  “Senator? A word?”

  Harry frowns at me, then turns, giving Marshall his full attention. The guy’s eyes dart to me, then down to a newspaper in his hand.

  I can’t see the picture on it, but I immediately know it’s bad. Whatever’s on that cover, a shitstorm’s about to be unleashed.

  Harry pivots and tosses the newspaper on the table between us.

  I’m on the cover.

  I am the shitstorm.

  My sharp inhale feels like someone’s shoved an icicle down my throat.

  He’s going to ask me to explain. Explain why that photo shows me punching Blaine. Explain why that photo captures the moment I unleashed on the guy.

  And explain why it’s clear I was aiming for him.

  No other man is in the frame.

  I compose my thoughts even as they race at breakneck speed.

  And then he beats me to it.

  “You’re fired.”

  Chapter 12

  I nod, blinking, like this is unexpected.

  It’s not.

  “You understand, of course,” he says in a tone that makes it clear I’d damn well better not argue. “We can still spin this so we save Lindsay’s reputation. The ‘attacker’ slipped out a second before. You were shoved by the perpetrator and off-balance. Whatever we say, the focus will be on Lindsay. Not you. I won’t have my daughter’s barely salvageable reputation affected in any way by you, Drew. Not any more.”