The Scandal and Carter O'Neill

CHAPTER THREE

“TALK?” SHE SQUEAKED, because the look on his face said that what he really needed was to take her out back and chop her into pieces.

He nodded, curt and decisive. His jawline was like the marble bust of a Roman emperor—all he was missing were the laurel leaves in his hair.

The truth was—her secret, hidden truth was—that there was something about a man in a suit. She had a history with men in suits. And this man wore a suit like no one else.

She pulled her faded silk robe tighter around her ballooning waist, as if to compensate.

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even acknowledge that he had in fact barged into her apartment uninvited. He just looked around as if he smelled something far worse than ginger cookies.

Anger trickled down through her spine, but the baby fluttered against her hand as if to say, Hold on a second. He is Deputy Deadbeat Daddy because of you.

“How did you get in here?” she asked. Someone had to buzz him in the main door.

“I helped Tootie Vogler with some groceries.”

“I…ah…guess this is about the newspaper?” she asked.

His blue eyes burned like acid.

“Can I apologize again?” she asked. “I’m really, really sorry.” He didn’t respond, and her apology sat there between them like dog poop on a carpet.

“How…ah…did you find me?”

“Phone book.”

“Right.” Her laugh was awkward, and she wanted to take herself out back and end this misery. “Of course.”

The silence was awful. It pounded between them, pulling her skin tighter, sucking out every molecule of air.

He was terribly out of place in the middle of her chaos, a dark spot, leaking menace like a fog into the center of the glitter and beads, the embroidered silk and pillows.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked, pulling a bunch of pointe shoes and one of her more salvageable tutus off the pink-and-green watermelon chair. It was this chair or the velvet couch, with the much-maligned scarf.

His sharp blue eyes made her so nervous, so aware of the frivolity of her home, that she actually patted the seat in enticement.

Carter O’Neill, the cold fish, didn’t even crack a smile.

“How about something to eat?” she asked. “I have ginger cookies. I just made them and there’s some salsa in the fridge. Not that you’d want that together, obviously. But I have some chips. Somewhere.”

He tossed the newspaper on the coffee table, carelessly knocking her favorite pig mug onto the rug. Luckily it was empty. She leaned over to pick it up and caught sight of herself, right there on the front page of the paper.

On a chair, a little blurry, but obviously pregnant. And frankly, the look on her face was pretty good, if she did say so herself. It managed to say it all—I loved you, but you hurt me so much that I can never forgive you.

All those acting classes her mother insisted on had really paid off.

Carter cleared his throat.

Right. Matter at hand. Political scandal.

“Are you involved with someone?” he asked.

“Involved?” she asked, yanked sideways by the question.

“Yes. Dating, or—” he heaved a big sigh, as if all this were a distasteful job “—whatever.”

“No,” she said.

“The father?” he asked, gesturing vaguely toward her stomach. “Is he around?”

“How in the world is that any of your business?” she asked, horrified.

“They’re calling me Deputy Deadbeat Daddy,” he said. “You kind of made it my business.”

“I know,” she whispered, guilt choking her. “I saw.”

“Papers in Houston, New Orleans and USA Today,” he said. “Did you see those, too?”

She blinked, her stomach in knots. She shook her head.

“All right, then how about you answer my question. The father—”

“Not…ah…” She got lost for a second in the absurdity of this conversation. “Around.”

“That will make things easier.”

Things like disposing of my body? she wondered. “Look, I didn’t know there was a photographer there. Or that any of this would happen.”

“Clearly,” he said, his tone dubious.

“You don’t believe me?”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. Or what you thought when you stood on that chair like a child and made up lies about me.”

She gasped. She couldn’t help it, it just came out.

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered, his voice and eyes, everything about him so suddenly menacing that she collapsed backward in the watermelon chair. He was gigantic; his hands could palm her head. He could make mincemeat out of her in a second. Not that she thought he would, but still…

“Don’t pretend for a moment that you are in any way the injured party in this situation. You put us here.” He pointed to the front page of the paper. “And you’re going to do whatever I say to get us out.”

Her eyes narrowed. Whatever he said? Not likely. “I can write a letter to the paper,” she said. “Tell people that I’m off my meds, like you said. That I made it all up. Or we could just tell the truth, that someone paid me a thousand—”

“No,” he said, his laugh not sounding like a laugh at all. “We won’t be telling anyone the truth. Jim Blackwell is all over this like a dog on a bone.”

“So…ah…what are we going to do?” she asked, suddenly light-headed with nerves.

“You,” he said, pointing at her, pinning her to the chair, “are going to say nothing. To anyone. And we—” he waggled his finger between them “—are going to date.”

For a moment, his words didn’t make sense, and when they did she laughed. She laughed so hard she had to put a hand under her belly. And here she thought Carter didn’t have a sense of humor.

“I’m not kidding,” he said, stone-cold serious.

“You’ve got to be!” she cried. “There’s no way in the world anyone is going to believe that I am dating you!”

His face hardened, a cold mask that chilled her from across the room. Cruel and distant, his eyes raked her, pulled off her clothes, her skin.

Got it, she thought, pulling the tutu and mug against her chest as if the pig and the silk might keep her warm against the chill of him. You wouldn’t date me if I was the last woman alive. Message received.

“Then why do this?” she asked, her voice a little shaky.

“Because,” he said, “you’ve made me and this administration a laughingstock and the only way to bring back any legitimacy is to put our heads up and pretend like it was a bump in the road.”

“What road?”

“Our road.”

“We don’t have a road! I stood up on a chair and…” She blinked, shook her head, something awful occurring to her. “People are going to think this baby is yours.”

He stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. “They already do,” he said. “And no one, no matter what we say, or whatever letter you write is going to believe otherwise.”

“So how about we don’t do anything. We lie low—”

“The news crew that’s been following me around all day followed me here. They’re camped out on your front lawn.”

“What?” she cried, whirling in her seat to peer through the light green sheers over her window. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. He was right. A camera crew was loitering right in front of the main entrance to her loft building, smashing the bougainvillea Tootie Vogler had planted last year. This is not good.

“Did they see you come in?” she asked, her voice so high it practically scraped the ceiling.

“They followed me, Zoe.”

“You can leave out the back!” she cried. “Plead the fifth if anyone asks. Just pretend—”

“I’m a public official,” he interrupted. “I can’t lie low, and if this isn’t addressed in some way, the speculation will only grow. And I can’t let that happen,” he said. “I won’t.”

For the first time in the brief twenty-four hours she’d known him, he seemed human. The ice in his blue eyes melted and revealed something vulnerable, as if he had something he cared about and might lose in this whole farce. His job.

“You like your job?” she asked.

He blinked, and after a long moment, he nodded. “I love my job. I have…work I want to do for this city.”

Ah, man, why couldn’t he go on being a jerk? Now she was totally sunk—she couldn’t be responsible for him losing his job.

“So we date?” she asked, still dubious.

He nodded. “We’ll tell people I met you at one of the community center informational meetings. That I fell for your—”

Beauty? Charm? Too-big heart?

“Quirkiness. Your…ah…offbeat sense of humor. We’ll tell them that stunt on the chair was your idea of a joke. Not a good one, but a joke. For a few months, we go on some very public dates. We get our photos taken and then you dump me.”

Dumping him, she liked the sound of that. “What if I was married? Or in a relationship—like you said—”

“I knew you weren’t married,” he said. “But if you were involved in some other more informal relationship, our research might not have—”

“Research?” she interrupted, a cold chill spreading down her arms and across her chest. She stood, a toe shoe falling out of her hands, and she reeled it back in by the ribbon, reluctant to lose any of her armor. “You researched me?”

“Of course.” He sounded as if he researched all of his dates. As if it made perfect sense.

“What exactly do you know?” she asked. “About me.”

“You’re thirty-seven, single.” He arched one of those imperial blond eyebrows. “You were raised by Penny Madison, a single mother who works for the post office. You are—I guess were—a dancer. You recently moved back to Baton Rouge from Houston.” She held her breath, a cold sweat blooming across her back. Was this happening? Did he know? Was her secret in a file somewhere, discussed at a meeting as though it was nothing? A bubble of nausea burned up her throat.

“You teach dance classes to kids and grandparents,” he said, leaving Houston and her secret behind. “And obviously…you’re…ah…pregnant,” he said, gesturing, embarrassed, at her belly, as if she were carrying a Shih Tzu in a dress instead of a baby.

“That’s all?” she asked.

“Is there something more I need to know?” His blue eyes narrowed, sharp as knives.

“No.” She edged around the blue couch to get as far away from him as possible. Unbelievably, she still felt the warmth from his body, like a distant sun. “That’s my life,” she muttered, wondering how something so full could be reduced to a few lines.

It occurred to her she didn’t know anything about him. Not his age, not where he grew up. The lack of knowledge felt lopsided, but it’s not as if it would ever occur to her to have him researched. Vetted.

She didn’t work that way.

She looked at him, the compelling stillness of him, the cool of his eyes and the fine bones of his face. He was like nobility or something, a man removed from the messy realities of the kind of life she lived. Who looked, honestly, pained to be here with her. As if he were barely holding back all the disdain he felt for her.

This wasn’t going to work. There was simply no way anyone would believe they liked each other, desired each other, respected each other—not for a minute.

“I know I made a mistake,” she said. “I’m—” she swallowed and shook her head “—prone to that kind of thing, but look at you. You can barely stand to be here and, frankly, I don’t like you being here. No one is going to believe that we’re in a relationship.”

Carter wiped his face and sat down on the edge of her coffee table. His knees a few inches from her legs, the edge of her silk robe trembled as if trying to get closer. “Look, we go out on a few dates. Get our picture taken. We make it…convincing.”

“Convincing?” she squealed, wondering if that was code for sex. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

He rolled his eyes. “We go to dinner, smile at each other. We hold hands.”

“Hold hands?” She laughed. “Like we’re teenagers? That’s not going to convince anyone.”

His hand, big and warm, stroked the kung fu grip she had on her tutu. His thumb surfed the bumps of her knuckles and his fingers found her pulse, which jackhammered against her skin.

Touch. Warmth. He had calluses on the tips of his fingers, and the abrasion sent little shock waves through her body, waking up the parts of her that were hibernating during her long cold winter. Oh, lord, it had been so long.

Her blood slowed, turned to honey, as desire warmed in her belly.

The mug fell from her hand, thumping onto the carpet.

“I think we can make it work,” he said, pulling his hand away and standing up, crossing to the far side of the room.

Golden sunlight burned through the windows, setting him aglitter. He was truly the most handsome man she’d ever seen, and that was saying something. It wasn’t as though the Houston Ballet Company was filled with trolls.

Awareness and embarrassment buzzed through her, and she bent to pick up Sir Piggy as if the dollar store mug were her most prized possession.

The silence between them hummed, loud and awkward. He watched her, quiet. Waiting. But not smug—if he’d been smug, she would have chucked Sir Piggy right at his head.

But still, this reaction of hers, it wouldn’t do. Not while he stood there, calm and collected, as unmoved by her as he’d been when he’d walked in the door.

“Okay,” she said brightly, as if she weren’t shaken down to her feet. “Public hand-holding it is. When do we start?”

“Tonight,” he said, and her stomach plummeted. She’d been hoping for a few days, some time to get her head around this. To warn her mom and Phillip.

“What do I tell my friends?” she asked. “My mom.”

“Nothing would be best.”

“That’s…that’s not possible. They’ll know this baby isn’t yours. That we’re not…together.”

“That reporter—Jim Blackwell—he’ll be all over your life, and that includes your family and friends. The less they know, the easier it will be on them.”

Well, she thought, what was one more secret between her and her mother?

“All right. So where are we going tonight?”

“Bola,” he said, naming the fancy steak house that had opened downtown a few months ago.

Nope. Uh-uh. Not going to happen. She would fakedate him anywhere but there. “I’ve heard it’s awful,” she lied.

He shook his head. “From who? The food there is amazing.”

“Well, if it’s amazing food you want, I know of a great soul food place down on River—”

“The point is to be seen by people,” he said slowly, as if she were stupid. “Get our photo taken.”

“But Bola has cockroaches,” she whispered, as if Zagat were in the room with them. “In the kitchen.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” he asked. “Because I really do not get your sense of humor. We’re going to Bola.”

Of course, she thought, resignation like a brick settling in her stomach. Maybe, if she was lucky, Phillip wouldn’t be working.

At least the food would be good, she thought, happy to see a bright side. This baby loved steak. Zoe, of course, loved it dipped in cream cheese, but she would try to control herself.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said.

“That won’t work. I teach until seven and then…well, I’ll need to get ready. Eight at the earliest.” More like seven-fifteen at the earliest, but he didn’t need to know that and he certainly didn’t need to have every single thing go his way.

He nodded. “Eight then.”

She managed to smile as if this were a real date, something to look forward to. “Eight it is.”

Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, she thought, watching his long lean body cross the floor of her apartment. He was handsome, wealthy—at least she’d be able to eat a whole lot of steak in the next few months. Plus, he could hold hands better than most men made love. If she could just keep herself together and he managed to not be an autocratic ass, maybe everything would be all right.

Of course, there was Phillip to consider now, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

“Try to wear something appropriate,” he said.

And with that little ego crusher, he was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

ZOE WAS RUNNING LATE. As usual. And Mom was not helping.

“No,” she said, tucking the phone between her ear and her shoulder and locking the door behind her. She clicked on the lamp by the door and a puddle of warm light spread around her. “Mom, we’re not…serious.”

“But that thing in the paper, and now this? Dinner?”

“Yes, Mom, it’s just dinner.”

“At Bola? That’s not just dinner.”

“It is. It’s just a fancy dinner.” A fancy dinner that required a fancy dress. “He’s sort of a…fancy guy.” She winced; that wasn’t right at all. He was the opposite. He was stark and serious. Fancy like a rock face, maybe. Or an oak tree. She ran to her bedroom, shedding clothes as she went. Yoga pants—her pregnancy uniform—just weren’t going to cut it tonight.

“And how long has this been going on?”

Zoe rolled her eyes and pulled open the accordion doors to her closet. “Not long,” she said, yanking the ribbon attached to the small chain on her overhead light. She was trying to be vague, like Carter had told her, but her mom was like a hound dog. “A month, maybe. Honestly, we’re just friends.”

“Honey, why didn’t you say something? I thought…” Penny trailed off, her voice leaving behind a little wake of pain mixed with guilt.

A delightful combination that her mother specialized in.

Zoe sighed and sat down on the mess of pillows and blankets she called a bed. She quickly bounced up and pulled a cereal bowl out from the duvet before settling back down. She didn’t like lying to her mother, and she really didn’t like hurting her, but at some point there needed to be some distance. Some breathing room.

Not for the first time, Zoe doubted her decision to come back to Baton Rouge to have this baby.

“I mean, you used to tell me everything. But recently, you’re so different. The baby—”

She didn’t want to talk about the baby with her mom. Not again. For four solid months it had been all they talked about, and now the subject was closed. Closed.

“Mom, listen to me. I sort of blew it with the whole standing on the chair thing, and now we have to go public. It’s not a big deal.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Zoe took a deep breath and jumped right into the new cold waters that swirled between them. “You know why, Mom.”

“You’re going to be a single mother, Zoe. Dating isn’t—”

“And there you go,” she said, standing up and wiggling out of her bra. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I don’t need another chapter from your How To Be A Single Mother textbook.”

There was a pause, the silence long and slow, like colliding with an iceberg, and Zoe bit her lip to keep from apologizing. She was right on this.

“Do you like him?” Mom asked, her voice quiet. “Is he nice to you?”

Zoe nearly laughed. Nice? Carter O’Neill? The word simply did not apply. “Of course.”

“All right, just…be careful with yourself, honey.”

“I will. I have to go, Mom. Bye.” Zoe hung up and tossed the phone on the bed.

She approached her closet like Napoleon taking over a battlefield. None of her pants fit, and she didn’t have the money for new special maternity ones, so she shoved aside a small quadrant of black, white and denim pants. It wasn’t a terribly formal sort of place so she pushed away the turquoise beaded gown and the black sheath from her days at the Houston Ballet. Ballerinas needed gowns for those fundraiser things, but why she still kept them she had no idea. Well, they were glittery and she did like glitter.

“This is a disaster,” she moaned, flicking hangers back and forth, contemplating her pink cowboy shirt with the lassoing hearts. There was the red-and-white maternity tent dress her mother had bought her a few days ago, which honestly made her look like a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant. She pushed aside a few cardigans and dug way back into her closet, her heart sinking farther and farther into her stomach.

She wanted to look good tonight. Smokin’, even. Because Carter had mocked her and had made her heart flip over in her chest when he’d held her hand.

The combination stung like salt in a wound.

But it didn’t look like glamorous Zoe was going to make an appearance tonight. Or any other night for the foreseeable future. She was five months pregnant, a political prisoner of her own making, and she was attracted to the stone-cold warden.

Wedged into the back of her closet between her old prom dress and the remnants of her flapper phase, she found a clear plastic garment bag.

Sunshine dawned in her dark loft as she pulled out the hot pink raw silk A-line dress. A few years ago in Houston, she’d fallen in love with this dress, with its big red and yellow appliqué roses on the short hem, its bold color, and the way it made her legs look about a million miles long. The only problem was that it had been a little too big and she’d meant to have it altered, but kept forgetting.

Thank God.

She tore open the bag and pulled the dress over her head, shimmying it down around her belly and hips. She stepped sideways into the full-length mirror and squealed with delight. A little tight around the belly, but she was pregnant, what could one expect?

But the rest of it, oh the rest of it…perfect. The big collar clasped around her neck, a floppy silk rose beneath her chin. Her arms were bare, so she slid on a few silver bangles. And then a few more.

Shoes. Shoes would be an issue. Her swollen feet begged for the low sandals with the ghetto-fabulous gemstones, but she remembered how tall Carter was, how he seemed to tower over her, and she reached into the way back for her black second, secondhand Chanel stilettos.

Yes, she thought, admiring herself in the mirror. Oh. Yes. She pliéd, dipped. Tried to arabesque, but the seams wouldn’t allow it. She felt beautiful in this dress.

Lush and womanly and sophisticated.

Like a woman who owned her life.

She could do this. She could go on this date and hold hands and smile at a man who didn’t like her at all. In this dress, she could do anything.

The walls of her apartment shuddered as someone pounded on her door. It could only be one person and she clapped.

“Eat your heart out, Carter O’Neill,” she whispered and mini jetéd, as best she could, to the door.

“I’LL TRY TO BE THERE, Savannah,” Carter said into his cell phone as he brushed the rain off his jacket.

“You’re lying, Carter,” his sister said. “I can tell. I can always tell. Honestly, why do you bother trying?”

Carter smiled, staring up at the ceiling. He liked it when his little sister called him on his bullshit; it made him feel closer to her, as though it was ten years ago and she still needed him to protect her.

He remembered her a year after their mom had left them on Margot’s doorstep. Savannah had come into his room in the middle of the night, her voice a whisper, her hand against his arm a hot little puddle.

“She’s not coming back, is she?” she’d asked, moonlight turning her eyes black. “Mom’s left us here.”

“I don’t know,” he’d whispered, though he’d known. Of course he’d known. But he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He hadn’t wanted any more injury to befall this little girl.

“You’re lying,” she’d said. “You’re always lying to me.”

Suddenly, in this hallway, Carter felt a million miles from his sister. From his family. From the man he was. And it was his own fault. Every time he tried to protect them he ended up putting more than miles between them.