Yours in Scandal

by Layne, Lauren

  “Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “I know you have things to say, but . . . can I go first?”

  “Of course,” he said, trying not to panic at how distant she looked. He’d thought at first she was calm, and had been glad for it, but he saw now it was something else. There was a remoteness in her blue eyes that made his chest ache.

  He tried to draw her even closer, but she pulled away completely, easing out of his embrace.

  Robert sucked in a breath at the pain of the rejection.

  “Would you . . . can you sit down?” she asked, her voice a little unsteady. “Over there?” She nodded toward his desk chair, and he realized with a sinking heart that she was distancing herself from him in every way.

  “Sure,” he managed, going back around his desk and sitting as requested.

  Addie remained standing, first staring at her feet, then crossing her arms and looking into his eyes. “You’ve already probably figured out that the pieces surrounding Adeline Blake’s mother and Addie Brennan’s mother didn’t add up.”

  He gave a slow nod. “I was under the impression your mother died in childbirth, and that your father raised you alone. Your mention of your mother’s recent passing, and her inspiring you to be an event planner, admittedly caught me by surprise.”

  “I’d always believed the same story you did,” she said in a monotone voice. “He even gave me a picture. A beautiful blonde with curly hair, a big smile, and bright eyes. She was the love of his life, and he’d been shattered when she’d died just hours after I was born.”

  She swallowed. “I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? It was even on Wikipedia, for God’s sake. But then, on my seventeenth birthday, just when he and I were really starting to butt heads, he fired one of his longtime bodyguards. A decent guy, who I think stuck around more for my sake than anything else. Jake passed me on his way out to his car his last day, and he’s the one who told me my mother wasn’t dead.

  “I didn’t want to believe him,” she continued. “But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like something my father would do. I confronted him, and he seemed almost smug when he told me that it was true—he paid her off to disappear and stay out of my life, in exchange for his promise that I’d receive the best of everything. But even after he confirmed she was alive, he wouldn’t tell me where she was, her name, or even what she was like, and I just sort of lost it.”

  She gave a smile that held no joy. “That’s about the time you started hearing about me in the news. A lot. I wanted to punish him, so I hit him right where I knew it would hurt the most—his reputation. I did everything I could to embarrass him. The drugs, the topless pictures, the guys, the partying. I figured if I pushed him hard enough, he’d give me her name.”

  Addie shrugged. “I learned the hard way that the more I tried to punish him, the more he punished me by withholding what I wanted most. The man is downright sadistic that way.”

  “But you found her,” Robert said, his chest aching for the young girl who’d longed for something as simple as knowing her mother.

  “Only because I changed my tack. Apparently, threats to my reputation he could weather. I think he even used it to his advantage to create sympathy—that poor, concerned dad with the slutty addict daughter. But his misdeeds being presented to the public, on the other hand . . . those would be harder for him to overcome.”

  “You blackmailed him.”

  “Absolutely,” she said, smiling without remorse. “You don’t live with someone for eighteen years and not know what happens behind closed doors. I figured out real quick that the random women in our kitchen at two a.m. weren’t ‘just friends,’ and that his weekend ski trips weren’t with his buddies. The five-year-old girl playing hide-and-seek in her dad’s office may not have known what that white powder locked in the safe was, but his fifteen-year-old daughter definitely did.”

  “Christ,” he muttered, dimly realizing she was confirming everything he—and Martin—had suspected. That she knew her father’s worst secrets. He was also surprised to realize that the only reason he cared right now was for her.

  For the girl she’d been then, the woman she was now.

  He took a deep breath. “What happened?”

  “I offered him a trade. My mother’s name in exchange for the flash drive with ten years’ worth of photos of him with other men’s wives. Evidence of his cocaine habit. The time he punched out the gardener for getting his new BMW wet. He accepted the terms, and we agreed never to see each other ever again.”

  Addie smiled, a real one this time, even though her expression was distant. “Mom was a brunette, as it turned out. Not blonde. Straight hair, not curly. But other than that, she was everything I wanted her to be. Everything my father wasn’t. Kind and loving and generous.”

  “I’m sorry you lost her.”

  “Me too,” she said lightly. “But those couple years with her in New Mexico, she was more of a parent to me than he’d been in the decades I’d lived with him. I had what I wanted most. Someone to love me.”

  His eyes watered, and he cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry, Addie. About what a bastard your father is. About your mother. About the fact that I even thought of using your past for my own gain.”

  “But you didn’t,” she said. “You wouldn’t. I think I knew that all along. It’s why I let myself trust you. You’re a good guy, Robert.”

  Maybe. But I’m sure as hell not a courageous one.

  “About the story that broke yesterday,” he said, desperate to make things okay so he could keep her near. “We can deny it. They don’t have any proof. We’ll be extra careful for a few months, and then—”

  “I don’t want to deny it.”

  “Yes, and then—” He broke off when her words registered. “What?”

  Her gaze was sympathetic, a little sad, but determined. “I’m done hiding who I am. I’m done dyeing my hair and feeling ashamed of my past. I didn’t do anything wrong, not really. I certainly didn’t do anything unforgivable. I’m through letting my need to distance myself from him also mean I distance myself from me. I am Addie Brennan. You’ve known that all along, but I don’t think you really know what it means. I like dancing and late nights. I like dirty jokes and dirty sex, and though I’ll admit to some regrets about my past decisions, I can’t undo them. I don’t think I would undo them.

  “But I’m always going to be the woman with that past. Even if I could overcome past scandals, I don’t want a life where I’m terrified to make a single wrong step and end up on the front page. I just want to be me, and I think we both know that I’m not what the Davenport legacy needs.”

  Damn her for saying that last part. For forcing his brain to deny his heart what it wanted. For forcing him to choose between honoring his father’s memory, being a respected leader, and the woman who’d stolen his heart.

  He stood and braced both hands on the desk, looking at her. Pleading with her. “I don’t want to lose you, Addie. I don’t know what to do, but I know I don’t want to lose you.”

  She gave a sad smile and stepped toward the desk, setting her palm to his face, stroking her fingers over his cheek in a gesture that felt devastatingly like goodbye.

  “Robert. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that being with me—in public, for real, for everyone to see—can you tell me that won’t hurt your career? That being the guy who slept with his opponent’s loose-moraled daughter won’t cost you the governor’s seat and any other elected position?”

  He wanted to deny it. He wanted so badly to scream from the rooftop that it wasn’t true, that they could weather anything.

  But there were rules to public life. Rules to his life.

  He dropped his head in defeat. “No. No, I can’t say that.”

  “And can you tell me that it doesn’t matter? That it wouldn’t hurt you to give that up?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look at her. “No.” He said it in a harsh voice.

  “I know,” she whispe
red, leaning down and brushing her lips over his cheek.

  He opened his eyes, just in time to see her hand setting something on the desk between his splayed palms. He stared at the small thumb drive. “What’s this?”

  “You already know,” she said with a smile, stepping back. “It’s the reason you hired me in the first place. Everything you need to bring down Governor Brennan. Pictures, a couple videos, a written statement from my mother, the falsified death certificate.”

  His head snapped up. “I stopped wanting this a long time ago.” After I fell for you.

  “So do it for me,” she said, moving toward the door. “You’re going to make a hell of a governor, Mr. Mayor. And I can promise you’ll have at least one vote from the Manhattan district.”

  “I don’t want your damn vote, Addie. I want . . . you.”

  She was already gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sunday, November 22

  “Have I mentioned how good it is to have you back?” Jane said around an enormous bite of her French toast.

  “Only . . . I don’t know, what has it been, ten times now?” Addie asked, glancing over at Rosalie.

  “At least ten,” her friend confirmed. “But to give her a little credit, she’s totally right.”

  Addie picked up her mimosa. “You two act like I’ve been dead for the past few years.” Neither friend said anything, and she put the glass back on the table with an exasperated look. “Oh, come on. It hasn’t been that bad.”

  “No,” Jane was quick to reassure her. “But I’ve got to admit, there was nothing quite so satisfying as helping you pack up all those blazers for the Goodwill.”

  “I don’t know,” Rosalie said, helping herself to a strawberry off Jane’s plate. “Going with her to that hair appointment was pretty great, too.”

  “Not for me,” Addie grumbled. “Nobody warned me that going from dark brunette to blonde was going to be a hell of a lot harder than going from blonde to brunette. I sat in that chair for nearly four hours.”

  “But it was worth it,” Jane said. “Right?”

  Addie touched the honey-blonde knot at the back of her head and smiled. “I feel like myself again, so yeah, I’d say it was worth it.”

  “Okay, okay, show her,” Jane said, tapping excitedly at the table in front of Rosalie. “You brought them, right?”

  “Brought what?” Addie asked suspiciously as Rosalie leaned down and picked up her purse.

  She dug around until she came up with a small white box wrapped in a red ribbon, which she placed in front of Addie. “For you. From us.”

  “I feel like I should point out that it’s not my birthday, and that you shouldn’t have, but I can’t deny that I freaking love presents,” Addie said, tugging off the ribbon and lifting the lid off the box.

  “Business cards?” she asked in confusion, seeing the neat, even row of cards. She fished one out and read the front.

  Her eyes watered immediately. “You guys.”

  “Cordelia helped us order them,” Jane said. “We wanted them to match your current Jet Set business cards with the logo, but with a little change.”

  A very crucial change. She ran a finger over the name printed in tidy black font: Addie Blake.

  “You said you wanted to find a way to blend Adeline Blake and Addie Brennan,” Rosalie said softly. “You’re already partially there. You kept Adeline’s hair style but went back to Addie’s color. You kept Adeline’s company, but went back to Addie’s fashion sense.”

  “And this way,” Jane said, reaching out and tapping the corner of the card with her finger, “you can still be Addie and ditch your disgusting father’s last name.”

  “I love it,” she said with a sniffle, tucking the card back into the box and reaching out to squeeze both of their hands across the brunch table.

  “Are you sure? Because we can keep calling you Adeline—”

  “Addie,” she said firmly. “Adeline’s fine, but it’s a little formal. Addie is, well . . . me.”

  “You’re not worried someone will put the pieces together?” Jane asked. “With your blonde hair you look pretty much exactly like your old self.”

  “Yeah, do you not age?” Rosalie asked with an exaggerated pout. “Even your boobs look like they’re stuck in a time warp. How are they so perky this close to thirty?”

  “I think they’re just happy to be out of the blazers,” Jane said. “Like flowers, finally able to reach for the sunshine.”

  “You’re making me regret this dress,” Addie said, looking down at the maroon wrap dress that hid enough to be classy, but revealed enough of her hourglass figure to make her feel like her old self.

  She hadn’t realized just how badly she’d been locked inside herself until the truth about her identity was out in the open. She’d thought being exposed would be her worse nightmare, but she realized now that hiding had been the real nightmare.

  Now, it was as though Adeline and Addie finally had made peace with each other, and she could simply be who she was instead of who she used to be, or who she was aspiring to be.

  She was Addie Blake.

  A blonde who preferred buns. A businesswoman who preferred bright dresses to black blazers. A woman who contributed to her 401(k) and went dancing on weeknights.

  She finally felt whole again.

  Well, except for the mayor-sized hole in her heart, but she was working on that day by day.

  “The dress is fabulous,” Rosalie reassured her, then took a deep breath. “The eyes, on the other hand . . .”

  “What’s wrong with my eyes? Is my makeup smeared?” She lifted her hands to check her mascara.

  “They’re dead,” Jane said bluntly. “As in, you look dead behind the eyes because you broke up with the mayor.”

  “Jane,” Rosalie chided.

  Her friend shrugged. “I’m just saying. She hasn’t talked about him. That can’t be healthy.”

  “There’s really not much to talk about,” Addie said lightly, taking a sip of her drink. “It doesn’t matter what color my hair is, or what I call myself—someone like me is never going to fit into his world. Even if I could bury my past, I don’t want to. I’m done hiding who I’ve been and who I am, which means I’d only ever be a liability to him.”

  “How do you know?” Jane protested.

  Addie gave a pained smile. “Because I asked him. And he let me walk away.”

  She’d hoped that saying it aloud would help her come to grips with the way things had ended, but as she confided in her friends, she felt the ache in her chest squeeze tighter than ever before. Somehow, she’d stupidly thought that knowing the end was coming would make it easier. But over the past couple of days, she’d realized that while she’d been mentally prepared for the fact that she had no future with Robert Davenport, she hadn’t been emotionally prepared.

  Her brain had been braced for it. Her heart had been straight up blindsided.

  “Please tell me you fired his ass as a client,” Rosalie said.

  Addie shook her head. “I didn’t have to. He doesn’t have any party needs, and when he does, I’m sure Jada will be back. End of story.”

  “Just one more question,” Jane pleaded. “Then we can drop it.”

  “Fine. What?” Addie relented with a sigh.

  “Does he know you love him?”

  Addie flinched. She’d refused to let herself even touch on the l-word. Somehow, she knew the second she let herself acknowledge that she loved him was the moment she’d break apart.

  Her friends exchanged a look at her lack of response that she pretended not to see. She understood their concern, but she also knew there was no solution for this situation other than for her and Robert both to move on. The sooner the better.

  “I can’t,” she said quietly. “I can’t, so can we please talk about something else?” She turned toward Rosalie. “Have you found a new job yet?”

  “Or a new apartment?” Jane said after a pause, a good enough friend to kno
w when to drop a subject. “Whoever owns that Airbnb you’re staying in was way too fond of discount seafood.”

  “That’s true,” Addie agreed. “Last time I was in there, it smelled like a very suspicious fish market.”

  “Yeah, that happens when the air freshener runs out,” Rosalie admitted. “But I think I’m close, both on the apartment and the job front. I’ve got a final interview this week, but no talking about it. I don’t want to jinx anything or psych myself out.”

  “Fair enough. Can we at least toast?” Addie said, lifting her glass. “To new beginnings. Jane just got a promotion, you’re on the verge of a new home and a new job, I’ve got new hair and a new name . . .”

  “Well, sort of your old hair and your old name,” Jane said, pragmatic as ever.

  “Just be quiet and lift your glass,” Rosalie said.

  Jane did as she was told, and the three women toasted to fresh starts, new beginnings, and making peace with old demons.

  She’d let go of her baggage. She’d let go of her father, who’d never really been much of a father at all.

  Now, if only her damn heart could let go of a certain mayor . . .

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Friday, December 4

  “Mr. Mayor?”

  Robert jerked slightly in his chair, glancing across the table at his new campaign manager. “Sorry, what was that?”

  Rosalie Fabre gave him a smile that was both patient and annoyingly knowing. The price he paid for hiring Addie’s best friend as his new campaign manager, he supposed.

  But he didn’t regret it. Though it had taken no small amount of convincing to get Rosalie to come on board, she was the blast of fresh air the team had needed. She was the exact opposite of Martin. Her ideas were modern and innovative instead of Reagan-era, her mannerisms cheerful and upbeat, her strategies straightforward and aboveboard.

  He didn’t exactly enjoy that he couldn’t look at her without thinking about Addie, but that would ease with time.

  Probably.

  Maybe.

  He wasn’t counting on it.

  “I was asking if next weekend worked for you to make the formal announcement for your bid for governor,” she said. “I really think the timing is as good as it’s going to get. Bashing his own daughter—and you—in that article backfired on Brennan. His approval ratings are as low as they’ve been in two years, and he’s been digging himself in a hole by continuing to bash you at every turn. Something that you’re spotlighting by refusing to play. He’s looking increasingly like the surly old-timer throwing dirt when someone else’s back is turned.”