by K. A. Linde
“Well, I wouldn’t want to be president! Can you imagine how much work it all is? My dad said the president never sleeps.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, momentarily relieved.
“Though I guess there are perks,” she said, giggling. “The president did get a blow job in his office.”
Clay’s eyes lit up. “That is a perk I could get on board with.”
And then, without thinking about it, he leaned forward and kissed her. It was soft and unexpected. He didn’t even know why he had done it. It just felt right. It felt like their moment.
When he pulled back, they both looked away, a little embarrassed at his brazenness. She stayed sitting there, staring out at the ocean, for a little while longer before saying anything else.
“Just so you know, I don’t think you have to be the president or the attorney general or anything. I just think you have to be you, and that will be enough,” Andrea said.
He smiled at her words. It was the first time anyone had said something like that to him. If only it were true.
He would die before remaining under Brady’s shadow for the rest of his life. Maybe one day, he would outshine the golden boy.
Chapter 1
BOW TIES
“So, you really work for the Supreme Court?” the girl asked in disbelief.
Clay popped open the door to the cab they’d taken over to the building and tried to suppress a sigh of frustration. He fucking hated when people questioned him about his job. Yes, he knew he was one of the youngest clerks in history. He’d worked his ass off to get there, and he was damn proud of it. But still, it was better to have them question him than when they recognized his name.
Luckily, this girl hadn’t. She stepped out of the cab and revealed the enormous rack he’d been staring at all night, and he remembered why he’d let her question him. It was going to be fun to have her look at him in disbelief when they actually walked inside, and then he’d fuck her against all those heavy law books on his bookshelf.
He figured fucking her in his office was a fitting going-away present since his term as a clerk was coming to a close.
“I really do,” he told her.
She took his hand, and they walked up the steps and inside the building. It was the middle of the night a week before Christmas, and no one else was here. Even the annoying diligent douche who worked for the justice down the hall wasn’t in the building.
“This is so cool,” the girl said.
She seemed jittery with excitement. He doubted many people could actually boast that they’d had sex in an office at the Supreme Court. This was what dreams were made of.
He cracked a smile at his own thoughts.
They reached his office at the end of the hall, and he pulled his keys out of his pocket. Jiggling the key into the handle, he turned the knob and yanked the door open for her. She stepped inside to his personal hell for the last two years.
He’d spent half a year clerking for a federal court before he was called up to the Supreme Court. Some had said that he only got the position because of his name, the damn Maxwell name. But he didn’t think top of his class at Yale Law had hurt anything.
“Wow,” the girl said.
She walked right over to his bookcase, sending his brain into overdrive. He could just imagine pinning her body back against it. Definitely his plans for tonight. Easy enough.
“Clay, have you really read all of these?” she asked.
Fuck, he didn’t even remember her name. Just that the skimpy green thing she considered a dress matched her eyes, and she had lips that looked like they belonged around his cock.
“You’re asking too many questions,” he said dismissively.
“That so?” She leaned back on the bookshelf facing him. “Is this better? This what you want?”
He arched an eyebrow as she ran her hand down her front in invitation. He didn’t move. He liked the anticipation.
“Or would you rather have me here?” She stepped up to his desk and then laid her body across all the work he had to pick up before he cleared out his things this week.
“I think the bookshelf,” he said, revealing a dimple for her.
“Mmm, me, too.”
She crooked a finger at him, and he was about to oblige when his phone started ringing.
Fuck. Bad timing.
He raised a finger at Green Dress Chick and removed his phone from his pocket. A name flashed on the front of the screen that immediately brought a smile to his lips.
Andrea.
“Seriously?” the girl snapped from his desk.
“Have to take this,” he said.
He turned away from the girl, ignoring her less than flattering comments. “Hello, love. This really isn’t a good time.”
“Is that so?”
“In the middle of something.”
“What’s her name?” Andrea asked. Her voice was high and musical, just like he had always found it throughout the past fifteen years they had known each other.
“Should I remember?” Because he didn’t.
He didn’t even know if he had bothered asking for her name. It hadn’t mattered at the time.
“Your standards are slipping.”
“I’m still with you. Can’t be that low.” Clay smirked.
“I’m out of your league, honey.”
“Always have been,” he agreed easily.
“Why do I put up with you anyway?” Andrea sounded bored, not irritated.
She was never irritated with him. Not really. She didn’t give a shit about what he did. Just like he didn’t care about what she did in her spare time.
Clay had met Andrea on the beach on Hilton Head when he was almost thirteen years old. Since then, they had spent every summer together on that beach, even after her parents had finally split up during her sophomore year of high school. She’d endured years of endless arguments between them. Then, after the divorce, there was limitless pampering from her mom to make up for the fights that had jaded Andrea’s soft heart.
By the time they had gotten together at Yale during their freshman year of college, they were both very different people than they had been that one summer when he was embarrassed from kissing her on the beach.
Romance was wasted on them, so they had entered into the arrangement of a lifetime. They could do whatever they wanted, but at the end of the day, they would be together. Guard their hearts. No feelings would get hurt. They wouldn’t turn out like her parents, and he wouldn’t have anyone in his life to disappoint because of his behavior. It was perfect.
“You don’t put up with me. You enjoy it. It’s all my charm.”
“Oh, right,” she drawled. “That Maxwell charm. It does have a certain appeal.”
“Every appeal,” he said confidently. “So, I assume you called for a reason.”
“I have a game for you,” she said huskily.
“Right now?” he asked.
He glanced back over at the girl who had, seconds ago, been eager for him to fuck her against the bookshelves. Now, she just looked irritated.
“Don’t tell me you’re backing down from a challenge, Maxwell.”
“You know I never do.” He made a decision on the spot.
Andrea was an easy choice. He always chose her over everyone else. Ten years of the perfect arrangement and perfect sex had taught him that coming home to Andrea was better than any one-night stand.
“I’ll call you back in ten.”
“Make it five, or forfeit,” she said before hanging up on him.
“All right. Let’s go,” he said briskly to the girl in his office.
The girl sat up on her elbows and stared up at him in disbelief. “Go where?”
“We’re leaving. I’m sending you home.”
“What?” she nearly shrieked.
“I’m not sleeping with you. Time for us to leave.”
Her hysterics didn’t seem to be working, so she changed tactics and gave him a seductive lo
ok. “What about your place?” Her eyes glittered with excitement.
“I don’t think so,” Clay said, bored.
It had been fun when it was a challenge. He liked challenges, but this was too easy. He could pick up any girl at a bar if he wanted to. At least put some fucking effort into it. And if he didn’t get her out of this damn office, he was going to miss his opportunity to put in all his effort.
“Time to leave.”
He yanked the door open without preamble. She pouted but had enough dignity not to say anything else. She begrudgingly followed him out the office, back down the hall, and outside. He had texted a cab service after hanging up with Andrea, and a cab was waiting for them when they made it into the fresh air.
“I can’t fucking believe you’re doing this,” she said.
“Believe it.”
“Was that even your office?”
He smirked. “Obviously.”
“I don’t know who the fuck called that would make you want to spirit me away so quickly.” She looked down at the ground and then back into his eyes. “We could have had a really good time.”
“We could have,” he agreed. “But it was my girlfriend.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re an ass!”
She rushed into the cab and glared at him as the cab pulled away.
Well, that had been easier than he’d thought. That was the normal reaction he would get from people when he told them that he had a girlfriend. No one really understood their relationship, nor did they care to figure it out. It was easier to just let people believe he was a philandering asshole than to explain that they had been in a successful open relationship for the last ten years.
Easier to let people believe he was the bad boy of the Maxwell political dynasty than to clue them in on his long-term plan—top of his class at Yale, clerk at the Supreme Court, federal judge, attorney general. Thinking of it both excited him and made him feel sick. He wanted to live up to the man his father expected him to be, but following the mold made him crazy. It was a double-edged sword, a line he constantly skirted.
That girl would have been a treat for completing his clerkship and moving one step closer to the end goal on his path. Another thing completed on a checklist. Finishing didn’t seem fulfilling in the same way it had when he was accepted to clerk. But, tomorrow, he would have to clear out his desk and get serious about deciding on which private practice offer he would accept.
He had been staring at three offers for over a week now, and since each position began in January, they were expecting an answer by Christmas…maybe New Year’s at the latest.
But he didn’t need to worry about that tonight. He could have Andrea as a treat instead.
Clay fished his cell phone out of his pocket again and smiled. Four minutes. Perfect.
He dialed Andrea’s number and waited for her to answer while he waited outside of the building. It clicked over to voice mail.
He scowled down at the phone. “What the fuck?”
Then, it almost immediately lit up again.
“Can I help you?” she asked curtly.
Clay cracked a smile.
“So, where are you? I’ll grab a cab now and meet you.”
Andrea made a tinkling giggle. “Do you think you’re the only one who can have fun, Clay Maxwell?”
A smile spread across his face. “You’re bad, and it turns me on.”
“Well, you’ll have to do something about it by yourself. I have…other plans,” she said breathily—for his benefit, he was sure.
His body itched from the challenge she was posing. Andrea always seemed to do this. He could fuck so many other girls, and then one little giggle from her would make him want to claim her all over again.
She was a continual challenge. She was beautiful with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a tall, lean frame that he knew intimately. But every time he thought he had her figured out, every time he was sure she was going to do one thing, she would do something else. She liked to play games, and he liked her games.
Because, at the end of the day, he knew exactly where her head was in all of this. It wasn’t seeking out a Harry Winston engagement ring. It wasn’t demanding an I love you before bed. It wasn’t a scowl for his philandering or the way he treated his brother or innumerable other reasons. It was just an arrangement for two people who cared about each other…in their own way.
“Pray tell, love. Who is the lucky bastard?” Clay asked.
He was already sliding into the cab that had appeared for him and adjusting the purple-striped bow tie at his neck.
Andrea came from old Southern plantation money. Her mother was a Southern pageant queen, and they had both been raised in the South Carolina Junior League. Her father owned half of Charleston and regularly purchased, stripped, and resold the other half. The Maxwells could stretch their lineage back to Thomas Jefferson himself. They had been in real estate in The Triangle area of North Carolina for just as long. Clay was a Southern boy through and through, and if there was one thing Andrea couldn’t resist, it was when he acted like it.
“He’s no one you know,” she told him.
“I know everyone.”
“Not this one.”
“Stop teasing me.”
She giggled. “Oh, but you don’t really want me to do that, Clay. You probably want me to describe him on the phone. Should I start with his suit or how big I think he is?”
“Always good to know your competition,” he said.
“Well, I don’t have time. I have to get back to my game. I don’t want him to think I have a doting boyfriend waiting for me at home.”
Clay snorted. “Doting. Sounds just like me.”
Andrea was silent for a moment, and if he couldn’t hear the bar noise in the background, he might have thought she had hung up on him.
“Sometimes, it’s not that far off,” she said quietly.
“Right,” he said with a laugh. “Doting, Andrea?”
“You’re an ass.”
“Yeah, you’ve always known that. Now, I’ll show you doting. Where are you?”
“Don’t ruin my game, Clay,” she said without conviction.
She had called him after all.
They had rules, and they were simple. When they were together, it was just the two of them. When they were apart, anything was fair game. But when one of them called, ruining the other person’s game was exactly the rule of thumb. He was coming to claim her, and she knew it. They had both known it as soon as he answered.
He could hear the telltale signs of excitement in her voice. He was sure she was pouting to look like she was upset.
“I would never,” he lied.
“I don’t ruin yours.”
“You do if you can help it. Now, tell me,” he demanded.
“Fine,” she said. “But you’d better bring your A game. He’s a keeper.”
“Don’t I always?”
She told him the name of the bar where she was. It wasn’t far from his townhouse or his work, which made him wonder if she had picked it, hoping for this outcome. She was conniving, and he wouldn’t put it past her.
Clay felt emboldened as he left to chase down his girl.
Chapter 2
GAMES
Clay stepped into the dimly lit bar. It was one of those upscale artsy places that Andrea frequented and he loathed. The actual artists wouldn’t be caught dead in here, but art enthusiasts congregated in the space. And if Andrea liked anything, she liked throwing her fortune away at art shows.
He spotted her sitting at the horseshoe-style bar in the middle of the room, talking to her prey. She was in a demure black dress that hugged her lithe curves and two-thousand-dollar shoes that she had a closetful of at home. She was facing the entrance, which was likely strategic on her part. Her head had tipped up when he entered the bar, but aside from a passing glance, she didn’t even acknowledge him. But she certainly knew he was here.
That was enough for now.
&nbs
p; Bypassing her, he took a seat on a barstool with her in his line of vision. He didn’t often drink by himself out in the city, so sitting alone was a change of pace. He believed it was better to have a wingman or two at his side when picking up women since they tended to travel in packs. It was lucky for him when his friends Cash and Ethan had ended up in D.C. after graduating from Yale Law. He’d had tons of friends growing up and in college, but these were the only two, other than Andrea, whom he could actually still stand.
They would probably laugh at him if they knew what he was up to. While they’d claimed to understand the thing he had with Andrea, they’d encourage his crazy lifestyle. Not that he needed encouragement.
Clay ordered a double Crown and Coke from a passing waitress and leaned back in his seat to observe his competition. The guy looked uppity in a black suit and tie. It fit but wasn’t tailored to his build. He could use a haircut and a shave.
How had this idiot even caught Andrea’s eye?
At least Andrea had made it easy on him.
He would bide his time for the perfect opportunity to make his move.
He went through three drinks in the hour. The bar was clearly an after-hours place because, in the short time it’d moved toward one in the morning, people flooded in. He could barely see Andrea now and knew it was about time. She had flirted her way through much of her conversation with this guy, and Clay decided the poor sap was just a front. Andrea hardly seemed interested even though the guy was mooning over her. Andrea was not the kind of girl for that.
“Anyone sitting here?” a girl asked, coming up beside him.
Clay turned to face the girl. She was hot. Like smoking hot. He’d say she wasn’t his type, but hot was his type. Tall, brunette with freckled olive-toned skin that drew attention to her perfect pink lips. Unfortunately, he preferred blondes and dresses. This girl wore a pantsuit. He hated pantsuits. He understood them as a necessity for women who worked in the business sector, but the misogynistic pig in him loved to get a good look at legs in a pencil skirt.
She slid her charcoal jacket off her shoulders to reveal the silky burgundy sleeveless top underneath. Better but not great.
