Yours in Scandal

by Layne, Lauren

  For one gut-wrenching moment, she wanted to. She wanted to let her guard down with this man who’d proven to be as kind, honest, and caring as they came. If he were anyone else—literally, anyone else—she might consider it. But that was exactly the problem. Somehow she’d let herself forget who he was. He’d spun the perfect web of charm and friendship and goodness, and she’d come so close to getting stuck.

  But he’d just reminded her who he really was—a title first and a man second—and he had more power than anyone to hurt her. She had to get out of the web now before she had no chance of escape.

  “Please. Leave me alone,” she said quietly. “I don’t want . . . this.” Adeline gestured between them and, with a quick shake of her head, turned to walk away, only to come up short as she nearly ran into another man.

  “Pardon,” the other man said, the expression on his face unapologetically speculative as he gave her a once-over, then looked between her and the mayor.

  She’d been about to excuse herself and brush by the stranger, but she paused and gave him a second look, because he knew her but she was quite sure she’d never met him.

  He extended a hand. “Martin Tillman. The mayor’s campaign manager.”

  She almost laughed. If she needed another sign that she and the mayor were oil and water, it was right here in this man, whose literal job was to keep the mayor in the public eye and to systematically crush anyone or anything who might taint his public image.

  “Good luck with the upcoming election,” she said, her voice kinder, less cold this time. She was surprised to realize she meant it. It had taken all of five minutes of meeting the mayor to know he’d make a better leader than her father ever would.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Tillman muttered, giving her another of those speculative looks as she slid around him and headed out of the ballroom.

  “Ad—Ms. Blake,” the mayor called. His tone was firm, and she had no doubt that most of the time, people heeded his command.

  Not this time.

  She made her way back through the party and into a cab, without a backward glance.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Monday, October 26

  “I don’t get it. How have you known the woman nearly a month, and still not know what she’s been doing the past few years? Even where she’s been living?”

  Robert didn’t look up from the pamphlet he was leafing through as he answered his agitated campaign manager. “Because she’s a professional. How many people do you know who go spilling their life stories to clients they’ve known less than a month?”

  “Bullshit.”

  This time, Robert did look up. “Excuse me?”

  Oblivious to the warning note in Robert’s voice, Martin didn’t stop pacing around his office. “I know what I saw that night of the party, and it didn’t have shit to do with the damned appetizers.”

  “Easy,” Kenny said from where he stood, leaning against the corner of Robert’s office, his preferred spot for “spectating,” as he called it.

  “And where the hell were you?” Martin snapped at the chief of staff. “Isn’t it your job to make sure he doesn’t go off the rails and get seduced by the one woman on the planet guaranteed to cost him the governor’s seat?”

  “Martin,” Robert said, keeping his voice deliberately calm, “there are plenty of campaign managers out there. I’d be happy to hire one if you can’t get your head out of your ass.”

  Martin shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it onto the back of a chair before dragging his hands over his face, clearly trying to get himself under control. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But, Robbie, if there’s something going on between you and Addie Brennan, I need to know it now so I can get ahead of it.”

  Robert reined in his knee-jerk instinct to remind Martin that she had the right to be known as Adeline Blake now, as well as to keep from asserting that a potential relationship between him and Adeline was nothing to get ahead of.

  “We’re friends. Don’t forget that we hired her as much for her career as we did her father,” Robert pointed out instead. “She was there to plan a party, and that’s what she did.”

  “And now that the party’s over, now what?” Martin snapped, hands on his robust waist.

  “You tell me,” Robert snapped back. “This was your plan.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought you’d have gotten something by now. You haven’t learned a single useful thing?”

  Robert heard Kenny shift slightly behind him, no doubt wondering why Martin didn’t know about Adeline’s mother not dying in childbirth.

  Or maybe Kenny did know. Maybe Kenny had known all along what Robert was just now beginning to suspect—that Martin Tillman wouldn’t hesitate to use the information in a way that would hurt Adeline as much as it did her father.

  Robert shrugged. “It’s like I said. Most people don’t spill their guts to their client. She’s a professional.”

  Martin snorted. “Professional, my ass. Have you googled Addie Brennan? The third search result is titty pics.”

  Robert felt anger curl through him, his fist clenching under the desk, though he kept his voice carefully impassive. “Look, you had a plan, we took a stab at it and came up empty. There’s got to be another way to win this thing than just discrediting Brennan.”

  “True,” Martin said, reluctantly dropping the Adeline topic. “It’s the city’s worst-kept secret that you’ll be announcing your candidacy the second the new mayor’s sworn in, so we’re getting a better sense of the pulse.”

  “And?”

  “Well, Man of the Year both hurt and helped,” Martin said, pulling out a chair and plopping down. “Among millennials you’re more popular than ever, but we know they don’t vote like Gen X and baby boomers.”

  “I’ve always polled well with them.”

  “As a young man early in his career, yes. But it’s like I said—you’re not a twentysomething marvel anymore. The same things that made you popular in your twenties are hurting you in your thirties.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The single status is starting to hurt.”

  Robert shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Not say. Do. Would it kill you to go on a goddamn date?”

  Unless it’s with Adeline Blake, maybe.

  The thought was absurd. He couldn’t date Adeline. Even if she said yes, and that was looking increasingly unlikely after the party, it was too risky. A relationship with Adeline would be a bit like walking through a minefield. Fine, as long as they avoided all things Addie Brennan.

  One wrong step, and he wasn’t the guy dating the elegant event planner. He was the guy dating his opponent’s wild daughter.

  A file slapped onto his desk, and with a questioning look at Martin, Robert picked it up.

  Kenny looked over his shoulder and whistled. The woman in the photo was stunning. Her dark eyes were wide and intelligent, her lips full and sensual, the rest of her features classically beautiful but unique enough to be arresting.

  Robert lifted the photo, unsurprised to see that the rest of the file was a dossier on the woman. He also knew what Tillman had in mind.

  On paper, the woman was the ideal partner of a governor hopeful. Her New York roots would appeal to those born and raised here, and her double degrees in sociology and economics spoke of someone with varied interests and balanced perspectives. Her quick rise through the entrepreneurial network to become a marketing director of one of the most buzzed-about start-ups of the last decade was every bit as impressive as the testimonials, which painted a picture of a woman both sharp and kind, funny and generous. She’d even played golf in college, just as he had, and still listed it as one of her favorite hobbies, just as he did.

  She was, in other words, exactly the sort of woman he should be pursuing. He could barely stomach the thought. All of his attention was focused on another woman, who wanted nothing to do with him.

  Irritatingly, Martin had been right when he’d accused him of being
seduced by Adeline. The fact that she had done so by accident was humiliating. The fact that she hadn’t been seduced by him in turn was as frustrating as it was motivating.

  He flipped back to the first page of the file, frowning as he sensed he was missing something.

  Rosalie. It was an unusual name, and yet he was certain he’d heard it recently. He searched his memories, filtering through conversations over the past few weeks, trying to figure out where a Rosalie had popped up in conversation . . .

  Robert went still as he realized where he’d heard that name. And from whom.

  From Adeline.

  Their first lunch together, she’d mentioned her friend Rosalie. Had even suggested setting them up.

  “You can’t be serious,” he told Martin.

  “What am I missing?” Kenny asked.

  The campaign manager pointed at the folder. “That woman is one of Adeline Blake’s closest friends. And they went to the same high school.”

  Kenny caught on immediately. “So this Rosalie knows Adeline Blake and Addie Brennan are one and the same.”

  “One of the few who does, from what I can tell,” Martin said. “There’s another friend, but she’s got a longtime boyfriend.”

  “Why does that matter?” Robert asked, even though he already knew.

  Martin gave him an impatient look.

  “That’s your plan?” Robert asked. “You want me to date her friend?”

  “C’mon, it’s fucking brilliant! You’ll get a picture-perfect girlfriend, possibly even the next First Lady of New York—”

  “You’re getting way ahead of yourself,” Robert interrupted. “And how do you envision this happening? I somehow accidentally bump into them and angle for an introduction?”

  “You said yourself you and Addie Brennan were friends,” Martin said, putting a slightly mocking emphasis on the word. “And what do friends do, if not set each other up with compatible mutual friends?”

  Robert cracked his knuckles, barely realizing he was doing so. The thought of going out with Adeline’s friend made him slightly queasy. The thought of asking Adeline to make that happen made him extremely queasy.

  Unfortunately, the thought of losing the election to George Brennan because he was hung up on a woman was equally unappealing.

  “I like her,” Kenny said quietly.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Rosalie? You don’t even know her.”

  Kenny shook his head. “Adeline. She’s somehow hard to read and authentic, all at the same time.”

  Robert shrugged as though it didn’t matter one way or the other, but he knew as soon as he heard the words that his chief of staff had nailed the description. Adeline was both complicated and simple, cunning and forthright, vulnerable and shatterproof.

  “I like her,” Kenny repeated, “but Martin’s got a point.”

  Robert’s stomach tightened in dread. Those weren’t words the Martin-averse Kenny would utter easily. “About?”

  “Everything,” Martin muttered.

  Kenny and Robert ignored him. “Dating your event planner might raise some eyebrows. But dating your opponent’s hell-raising daughter could be a career killer.”

  “Who said anything about dating Adeline?” Robert said. “I’m not even close to dating her.”

  Kenny gave him a look. Everyone in this room knows you want her.

  “Kenny’s right,” Martin said.

  “Since when have you two ever seen eye to eye?” Robert snapped.

  “Since you became Man of the Year, bringing your bachelor status into unflattering focus. Since you got a hard-on for the incumbent’s daughter, yet haven’t learned a single thing from her that we can actually use.”

  “I don’t have a hard-on for anyone,” Robert snapped.

  “Prove it,” Martin said. “If she’s just a friend, if she’s just your event planner, ask for her friend’s number.”

  Robert wanted nothing more than to tell his campaign manager to fuck off, but something stopped him. The fact that Martin had helped him win two mayoral elections. The look on Adeline’s face when he’d told her he’d be running for governor. Her dismissal when he’d practically begged for a chance.

  Please. Leave me alone. I don’t want . . . this.

  Robert picked up his phone, and before he could rethink it—before he could think at all—he did what gave him the best chance of getting an edge in the election.

  He texted Adeline Blake and asked for her friend’s phone number.

  “Happy now?” he asked Martin as he tossed his phone back on the desk, cracking his knuckles again.

  “Yes,” the campaign manager said. “And you will be, too, when you see taking my advice will lead us straight to the governor’s mansion.” Martin paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “Your father would be proud.”

  Robert gave a distracted nod, suspecting that Martin was only half-right. His father would have been thrilled to know that Robert had served well as mayor and was moving up to the governor’s seat, which historically, was a stepping-stone to the White House.

  Everything he’d wanted was within reach.

  Except . . . happiness.

  And Robert was getting the sinking feeling that he’d just put a nail in the coffin of his chance at being happy with Adeline Blake.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Saturday, October 31

  Adeline did a double take when her friend’s name appeared on the screen of her phone, not with the usual text notification but with the persistent buzz of an incoming call.

  “What’s wrong?” Adeline asked, picking up immediately.

  “Why would something be wrong?” Jane asked.

  “Because I literally can’t remember the last time you called me instead of texted.”

  “It’s an emergency. I mean, I’m trapped in the Jersey suburbs on Halloween. I told Dan I had to take an urgent work call. That’s you.”

  “Ah.” Adeline tore open a mini bag of peanut butter M&M’S with her teeth and plopped on the couch. “I thought you were looking forward to passing out candy at Dan’s parents’ house.”

  “I thought it was going to be a way to show his parents that I was the mothering, adorable type. Restrained and maternal enough to tell the little darlings at the door to take just one, but playful and fun enough to dress up.”

  “And?”

  “Well, for starters, I’m the only one over the age of ten dressed up. His eleven-year-old brother is wearing argyle. Unironically. Also, his parents aren’t even here; they went to some party. Also, children are monsters.”

  “What’d you dress up as?” Adeline asked, popping an orange M&M in her mouth. They’d always been her favorite. So feisty, so underrated.

  “Sulu,” Jane said, referring to her favorite Star Trek character.

  “Naturally.” Over the years, Adeline had seen a lot of her friend’s Halloween costumes. Sulu had made many appearances.

  “What about you?”

  “Sexy nurse,” Adeline said, glancing down at the minuscule white costume.

  “Oh, from senior year! I love that one, mostly because your dad’s reaction was so much better than any disaster film I’ve ever seen.”

  Adeline winced at the memory. “In his defense, I was seventeen.”

  “In his defense, nothing. He acted like an ass, but then, I guess he always acted like an ass.”

  “Truer words.”

  “Tell me you’re doing something fun with that slutty costume,” Jane demanded. “I refuse to let anything that short and low-cut go to waste, even if you did reject my guy’s suitorship for your hand.”

  “Suitorship isn’t a word, and I didn’t reject him,” Adeline explained for the tenth time since her mediocre date with Jane’s colleague. “I had a nice time, just not quite nice enough to want to do it again.”

  “Fine. But that still doesn’t mean you should be hibernating in your apartment. It’s Halloween. On a Saturday. That would have been Addie’s Christmas.”


  Adeline smiled. She always had loved Halloween. She still did, hence the spontaneous decision to haul the nurse costume out of her closet, half with the vain experiment of wanting to know if it still fit (barely), as well as justifying having candy for dinner if she leaned into the holiday at least a little.

  But venture out into the city alone on one of the craziest nights of the year? She wasn’t feeling it. Especially since Jane was trapped in the suburbs, and Rosalie was . . .

  Adeline tipped the M&M’S bag back and dumped the remaining pieces into her mouth at the thought of her friend. She didn’t know what Rosalie was doing, but she had a pretty good idea of who she was doing it with.

  She’d given Robert Rosalie’s phone number less than a week ago, and already they’d been out on three dates.

  Three dates.

  Since Monday.

  Adeline had barely talked to Rosalie, and she definitely hadn’t talked to Robert, but as far as the media was concerned, they were a hit.

  She’d seen the paparazzi photos of them at dinner, and again at lunch just two days later. Simply put, Rosalie looked like the woman who should be sitting across the table from the Man of the Year. The mayor apparently thought so, too. He’d been grinning or outright laughing in every picture.

  She crumpled up the M&M’S wrapper, just as the repeated peal of the doorbell sounded on Jane’s end of the conversation. Her friend muttered a curse, followed by a gotta go, talk later, don’t be pathetic, love you, bye.

  Adeline pushed herself off the couch, debated a mini Snickers bar, and decided the occasion was better suited to a glass of wine. She poured herself a generous glass of cheap Chianti and was debating between Hocus Pocus and Halloween when the phone by her door buzzed.

  “I’m popular tonight,” she muttered, going to pick up the phone that connected to her doorman downstairs. “Hi, Jamie,” she said, getting the weekend evening doorman.

  “Good evening.”

  She looked at the phone in confusion. Good evening was a strangely formal greeting for someone she’d just seen twenty minutes earlier and had gotten into a heated debate with over the merits of Jolly Ranchers. (Her stance: waste of time. They took too long, preventing one from getting to other, better candy. But Jamie insisted the fact that they lasted so long prolonged the payoff. To which she’d said he didn’t even know the meaning of payoff if he thought a lemon Jolly Rancher could ever beat chocolate, and so on. Needless to say, their rapport was not of the sort where he was usually this deferential.)