A fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Olivia Russo spiraled out of control when protestors broke through security and entered the gala. President Hadley, Russo, and other high-level political figures had to be escorted out of the premises before the guest of honor was able to give her highly anticipated speech.

“What was that?” Jax said as soon as Joey jumped back into the Suburban.

“What was what?”

“You and Russo?” He looked over at Joey, a brow tipped up. Of course Joey knew exactly what Jax was talking about, but he needed a moment to think about it. Process it. Come to terms with it. Whatever it was. He wasn’t really ready to discuss it.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, sure you don’t.” Jax chuckled. “Don’t forget I leave tomorrow for two weeks.”

“How can I forget? You’ve been stressing about it for months.” Jax’s fiancée, the lead singer of TNT, was leaving on tour and Jax was going with her. He’d planned and re-planned it a dozen times, as if Joey wasn’t capable of keeping ICS afloat without him.

“You think we’ll have to cancel our fishing trip again when I get back?” Jax asked.

Joey had been obsessively monitoring the toxic algae situation that had been moving south from central Florida for the last two months and worsening every day. And it didn’t look as if they’d be fishing or even swimming anytime soon. “Fuck if I know, but if McGregor doesn’t start giving a shit, shit’ll just get worse. He’s not even addressing it.”

“He’s a politician. They lie, turn a blind eye, and do what’s in their best interest.”

That made Joey think of Olivia. Would she just bend over and succumb to lobbyists just for political gain like her opponent and incumbent governor, Harry McGregor? She’d been notoriously hard-nosed in the school system, which was, according to the research he’d done, where she’d begun her political career. Apparently, while she’d been the secretary to the superintendent of the school district, there had been rumors that he’d been embezzling funds that were supposed to go to programs for special needs’ children. Risking her career and reputation, she’d single-handedly blown the lid off the scandal, causing him to disclose the budget and the embezzlement. He was now in prison and she had run as a write-in candidate in the next election. That was eight years ago. The community loved her and the changes she’d made to the school district were huge and groundbreaking. People wanted her as governor, which is why she had run. So no, he didn’t agree with Jax. Not all politicians were self-serving liars.

“Annie and Rocco tried to go to the beach last week and it was closed,” Joey said. Annie was his sister and Rocco her boyfriend. “Been living here all my life and have never seen the beach closed. I’ve seen warnings about riptide, but flat-out closed? Never.”

They reached the parking lot of ICS and got out of the car. It had been a long day and the tuxedo now felt constricting and uncomfortable. But damn, he could smell Olivia on it. She’d fucking rubbed herself on him and pushed her tit into his mouth in the elevator. He’d never gone so crazy with lust before, but she’d looked and sounded like she was going to come just from his mouth on her nipple. Hell, he’d almost come himself just from watching and hearing her.

“So tonight? You really think it was nothing? Those protestors were able to get through the feds,” Joey said. “That’s serious, man.”

“Yeah, they were pretty intense, but I think the Secret Service overreacted in canceling the event. They should’ve gotten the president out and the protestors out, and kept the event going. It spooked everyone but it was manageable.”

“You think it had to do with Olivia?” He’d been wondering this all night. Even during the kiss, his mind had wandered to her safety.

“Not sure,” Jax said. “But I bet with your super-sleuthy detective work you’re going to figure that shit out before tomorrow morning.”

Joey chuckled.

“At least try to wait until the morning so our contact at MDPD can give you the names of the people arrested. Don’t want you spinning your wheels for nothing.” He patted Joey on the back, hard. “I’m headed out, brother. Be good.”

“I’ll try,” Joey said as he walked away. He wasn’t going to wait for MDPD; that would take too long. Knowing the names of those arrested would make things easier and faster, but when did a little extra work ever stop him?

Joey got into his overpriced Ferrari, which he’d won in a contest—and secretly loved, even if it was kind of douchey and over-the-top—and headed home, feeling excited for tomorrow night and his date with Olivia and amped up to start working on finding out who the hell had tried to get close to her and the president.

Maybe Jax was right. Algorithms did excite him.

* * *

“Mommy, can I eat my waffles in the living room?” Sophie asked the next morning, as Olivia scraped the burnt waffles out of the waffle iron. She’d been daydreaming about Joey and the way his tongue felt in her mouth and the way his big hands felt against her body, and she’d forgotten to open the machine. She groaned and poured out more batter.

“Yes. It’ll be ready in two minutes.” She turned the contraption over as she heard Sophie turning on the television to the ever-familiar sound of Peppa Pig. When the light on the waffle maker turned off, she opened the machine. This time they were nice and golden. She served them to Sophie who was sitting on a beanbag chair in front of the television, laughing loudly at something on the TV.

She needed to get her mind off of Joey and the date she’d agreed to go on that evening. A date she still wasn’t sure was a good idea. A date that made her nervous as hell, but also stupidly excited. A date that was nine hours away, that she needed to not obsess about.

So she pulled up the newspaper app on her iPad and sat back, her feet on the ottoman, to read the news as her daughter lounged in the living room. She hadn’t had a lazy Sunday in far too long and she was actually looking forward to doing a load of laundry without being rushed, helping Sophie finish a puzzle that had been sitting on the corner of her coffee table for a week, and then maybe going to the park before having to get ready for the date she was trying not think about . . .

“What the f—” she whispered to herself, planting her feet on the floor and sitting up.

“Mommy, you said a bad wod.”

Without looking up, she waved her hand at her daughter. “Sorry. Sorry. Watch your cartoons, sweets. I’ll be right back.”

She stood and walked to the kitchen and away from Sophie to look closer at what she’d just seen in the news. A photo of her opponent Governor McGregor, at least twenty-five years younger, sitting on a couch with a woman in a bikini on his lap and what looked like frat guys sitting next to him. He had a joint in his hand and a smile on his lips. The caption read: Happy 420!

It looked like it was taken from McGregor’s own Facebook page, as if he’d captioned it himself. She looked at the corner of the iPad screen to verify and yes, today was April 20th. She laughed out loud because no way in hell had ultraconservative McGregor posted that photo.

The headline read: Harry’s Hacker Strikes Again.

It was the third time in as many months that someone had hacked into McGregor’s social media account and posted something completely inappropriate. Coffee almost flew out of her nose as she laughed at the photo as well as all the comments that had been bombarding the site.

She was sitting at her kitchen table, comfortable and relaxed, reading the rest of the article, wondering if Mark had already read this. Oddly enough, the photo reminded her of when she lived in Brownsville. Watching the neighborhood kids smoking pot from their front porch while she and Connor walked home from school. It felt like a lifetime ago, and she tried hard not to think of those times. She shook her head and refocused on the article in front of her.

. . . the photo has since been deleted and changed with a statement from Governor McGregor condemning drug use. McGregor was a strong opponent of the medical marijuana bill that recently passed . . .

Mark never slept and was always a step ahead of her opponent, so of course he’d read it. Unlike Olivia, he was likely not laughing. She loved the older man like family, but he was a serious, “by the book,” sort of man, just like Neil had been. Even if he’d never condone drug use, he’d be flabbergasted (his word) by the hacking of Harry’s account. Grabbing her phone for the first time that morning, she saw the text messages from Mark telling her to put on the news, as well as a number of other messages she’d been trying to ignore until Monday.

Reading it now. This is hilarious, she typed back as she propped her legs onto another chair to continue reading.

Hilarious? Olivia, this is not hilarious. We need to meet and strategize. How are we going to fix this mess? You are running a campaign based on wholesome family values, for crying out loud. This isn’t like you at all.

She wanted to win fair and square, not because of some stupid hacker who was hell bent on messing with McGregor, but still, she couldn’t deny that this was funny and ultimately would help her campaign. Relax, Mark. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. It’s just a joke. Probably Photoshopped.

But as she looked at the photo more clearly she couldn’t figure out how it could’ve been altered. It was obviously straitlaced McGregor dabbling in a little weed when he was in college. Now the photo was coming back to haunt him.

Photoshopped? This really looks like the dress you wore last night, Olivia.

Dress? Huh?

She put her coffee on the table scrolled down the article.

. . . Governor McGregor isn’t the only one having a little bit of titillating fun. Looks like his opponent, Olivia Russo, was enjoying herself last night in an elevator. While the president was being rushed out of the Hotel Victoria because of an angry mob, Russo was getting hot and heavy with an unknown man in an elevator . . .

She stood up abruptly.

She scrolled down until she saw the photos. Her back was pushed against the elevator as Joey kissed her, her fingers digging into his back and his legs grabbing her ass firmly. You couldn’t see her face clearly, but her sapphire dress was unmistakable.

Oh. My. God.

Her heart started to pound.

Her breast. She’d been exposed. She was going to throw up praying that whomever had posted this had the decency not to post anything explicit.

Cautiously she scrolled to the next photo. It was just as bad as the first, but luckily, Joey was covering her with his body as they kissed. It wasn’t a sweet first kiss either. No. It was a salacious erotic devouring.

She was about to pick up the phone and call Mark but was too embarrassed to talk to him. Damn, she was too embarrassed to talk to anyone.

How could she have been so stupid, so careless, so immature . . .

She looked down at the phone which sounded with an incoming text. Don’t even think about canceling on me tonight.

It was Joey.

Was he texting her because he’d seen the news or because he knew she was nervous about the date to begin with? She wanted to ask but she also didn’t want to draw attention to the article. It was too humiliating. Maybe he hadn’t seen it. God, please don’t let him see it.

I forgot I had something tonight. Raincheck, she texted back, and was relieved when there was no reply.

There were two other photos and both showed them kissing. Joey’s back and parts of her face were the only things exposed. In one, her head was thrown back as he kissed her neck, her eyes shut, obviously enjoying herself. She couldn’t stop staring at the way her fingers were digging into his back or the way her eyes were shut so tightly. She looked so . . . desperate.

She closed the scree, put away her iPad and phone, and went back to the living room. Maybe if she pretended it hadn’t happened . . .

She tried to do a puzzle with Sophie, but her mind kept drifting, and she was so jittery she couldn’t concentrate. At one point, not knowing what to do or how to respond to the barrage of emails, texts, and calls she could hear coming from her phone in the next room, she did the most mature thing she could think of—she shut down her phone.

Denial was a beautiful thing, sometimes.

After lunch, Sophie fell asleep and Olivia had never been so glad for her daughter to take a nap. She needed to freak out and pace her house without anyone around. And by pacing she meant doing laundry because nothing kept your hands as busy as folding clothes. Unfortunately, that plan came to a halt when she heard someone open and close the front door. There were only two people who had keys to her house, Tom and Winnie, and Tom had the day off today.

“You slutty slut slut!”

It was Winnie.

Olivia groaned as she threw a towel she’d been folding over her face.

Winnie plucked the towel away and started to fold it. “I thought you had a speech or some shit. I didn’t realize you needed me to babysit so you could get off with some mystery guy in an elevator.”

“I did have a speech but there was an emergency and I got stuck on the elevator with Joey.”

“Joey? The guy that fixed your laptop? Why would the guy who fixed your laptop be at the function last night? And why would that same guy have his tongue down your throat?”

Olivia threw a sock at her friend. “Because he wasn’t just some guy who fixed my computer. He owns a security firm and was hired as security. I was surprised to find him there.”

“So surprised your tongue fell into his throat in an elevator?”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “It just happened.”

“That shit does not just happen. There had to have been some flirting or wordplay or something.”

“Wordplay?”

“Like foreplay but for smart people. Foreplay without hands and tongues.”

She thought about it. “Well, we did have a spark.”

“Why didn’t you say something when you came home with your new shiny laptop, you little Slutty McSlut?”

“Because it was nothing and I didn’t think I’d see him again. And then last night was chaotic and you were asleep when I got home and you left early this morning. When would I have told you?” She was just making excuses. She could have told Winnie at any point if she hadn’t been so afraid to admit to herself that she liked Joey. “He thinks we have a date tonight.”

Winnie sat down on the coffee table, her legs crossed comfortably. She was eating a Twizzler. “Why would he think that?”

“Because I may have said yes when he asked.”

Winnie took a bite of the disgusting gummy stick. Once she finally swallowed she said, “Did he ask while his hands were in your dress?”

“Maybe . . .”

“You slutty slut slut.” Winnie laughed. “Were you going to go on this date with Sophie?”

Olivia looked at her in confusion. “No. I was going to call you this morning and beg you to babysit . . . again. But then I saw the photo and canceled on him.”

With her mouth open in shock and the Twizzler in her hand she asked, “Why? Why would you cancel?”

“I’m humiliated. I can’t see him.”

“Why the hell not? And why are you humiliated? He was there, wasn’t he? Did you fart in the middle of the kiss or something?”

“Oh my God, are you crazy?” Olivia laughed. “I’m humiliated because, I mean, I look . . . it looks like . . . I was clawing him, Winnie. Clawing him. I look desperate. The picture makes me look like some sort of desperate hussy.”

Winnie reached forward and put her hands on Olivia’s shoulders. “Honey, I love you, you know that, right? But you look desperate because you are desperate. It’s been five years since Neil died, and in all that time I have never seen you go on a single date. It’s time, Livie. You need to get back out there. You’re young and accomplished and it’s perfectly okay, healthy even, to want to have sex. And I’m sure if the camera angle would’ve been on him, he’d have had the same look on his face. Stop worrying.”

Was it okay? Neil wouldn’t have wanted her life to end with his. But how about Sophie? She was growing up without a father, and Olivia didn’t want her daughter to become attached to Joey. She also didn’t want rumors to start spreading about her sex life.

“I’m babysitting Chloe today.” Chloe was Winnie’s niece. She was five years old, just like Sophie. “We’re going to Chuck E. Cheese. Not sure how I got swindled into that. But I came to get Sophie on my way to pick up Chloe.”

Olivia grabbed another towel from the pile and began to fold it. “Maybe I’ll come along.”

“No can do, girlfriend. You need to get ready for that date.” She yanked the towel from her hands and began to help with the laundry.

“Winnie . . .”

“Livie . . .”

“Ugh . . . fine. I’ll go on the stupid date.”

* * *

It was five in the afternoon and all Olivia had done was bathe and shave. She wasn’t dressed, her hair was still wet, and she hadn’t even texted Joey to let him know she was un-canceling their date.

I can’t do this.

I can’t do this.

I can’t . . .

Her doorbell rang.

Open the door, darlin, Joey texted her as the bell rang again.

Oh damn! She was in a robe, her hair wet, as she jogged to the front door and looked into the peephole.

“I can hear you, Livie. Open the door.”

“It’s not seven yet.”

“You canceled, so the time’s irrelevant.”

She exhaled and her shoulders sagged. Damn it. There was no way of getting around this. She opened the door. “I canceled.”

With a sly smile he placed his hand on her belly, gently pushed her back, and then walked right in as if he owned the place, closing the door behind him. “I’m not great at following instructions.”

“And you don’t eat vegetables. I’m sensing you have a lot in common with my daughter.”

God, he looked good. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with an old rock band’s logo on it. His mostly shaved hair was a little longer than when she’d met him three days before, and he had a bit of scruff on his face.

“Sit. We need to talk,” he said, his mood changing enough to give her goose bumps. He couldn’t be breaking up with her—they weren’t even dating.

“I know,” she said, putting him out of his misery. “You saw the photos. They look bad, but . . .” She shrugged and then, needing to do something with her hands, she found one of the twenty fidget spinners she had around the house. “You’re a good kisser, and yes, I’ll admit it had been a long time since I’d kissed anyone, and yes, maybe I lost control. But I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m not desperate. You’re not that good.” She was babbling nervously. She knew she made no sense but she needed to say something before he did, or else it would be awkward.

Or maybe she’d made it worse . . .

“How long?” he asked, and when her brows furrowed he continued. “Since you’d kissed anyone. How long had it been?” He reached forward and snatched the spinner from her hand and softly placed it on the table.

“Since Neil. Five years. But the clawing . . . I’ll have you know I have plenty of men coming on to me. You just . . . you confused me, and then the elevator got stuck. I’m a woman. Women have needs too. It’s not because you’re a great kisser.” She poured herself a glass of water and then drank it all in one single gulp as he watched her, amused.

“Great,” he said with a smirk that befuddled her.

She placed her glass down a little too forcefully and wiped her mouth with the back of her hands. “What?”

“You said I was great. You didn’t say good. You said great.”

“That’s not the point, the point is . . .”

He took a step closer and her heart rate—her stupid heart rate—spiked.

“The point is . . .”

“The point is?” He smirked again.

What were they talking about? God, he smelled good. Why did he always have to smell that good? And those baby-blue eyes, they were so clear and mesmerizing.

“Uh . . . what were we talking about?”

He chuckled. “Do you think I’m here to discuss the way you kiss?”

“No. More like to discuss the way I was all over you in that picture.”

“I was one of the two people in that picture, if I remember correctly.”

“Well . . . yes. And?”

“And?” He reached forward, cupped the back of her neck and pulled her forward. “And, my cock was pressed against you. I know you felt it. My tongue was in your mouth. I almost got on my knees to taste you. You were desperate? No, sweetheart, I was fucking frantic. But now that I know that you haven’t had a man in five years, I’m glad we didn’t go any further.”

“You were? You are?”

“Yes, you deserve better than a quickie in an elevator. And don’t doubt, not ever, that I want you as much as you want me. Hell, I’m sure I want you more. Any man would be lucky to have you. Don’t second-guess that. Not ever.” Then his lips came to hers, but this time it wasn’t the crazed open-mouthed kiss from the elevator. This was soft and reverent but just as erotic because now she knew it wasn’t just the heat of the moment drawing them together. There was something else . . . some mutual attraction that maybe needed to be explored.

He kissed her one last time before lacing his hands around hers and pulling her to her couch as if he’d been in her house a dozen times.

“So why did you come over, then?”

“Is Sophie here?” he asked, and looked around.

“No, she’s with Winnie.”

“Okay good. I need to remember that she may be close by when we kiss,” he said it mostly to himself and then shook his head and sat down, turning toward her. “You asked me why I was here. One, we had a date and I had no intention of letting you cancel.”

So he hadn’t just given up. Not after the first time they’d met and not today. That made her smile big.

“The other reason is that we need to talk about that photo. While you’ve undoubtedly spent all day working yourself up as to how I felt about the picture or what people would think about the picture, you missed one very important thing.”

“I did? What’s that?”

“How is it that we took a service elevator and our pictures were splattered across the media? Inside the elevator?”

She hadn’t thought about that.

“I assume it was the hotel personnel who’d leaked the photos. From the camera in the elevator?”

“Livie, sweetheart, there weren’t cameras inside the elevator.”

* * *

The small relaxed smile she had on her face quickly evaporated. “Pardon?”

“We’d done a sweep of the entire hotel and so had the feds. ICS and the Secret Service had prepared for weeks for this event. The service elevator did not have cameras. I went back today and checked and there were none. I wouldn’t have kissed you knowing we’d be filmed, and I looked around the moment we got on the elevator.”

“So what are you saying?” This didn’t make any sense.

“I’m saying that obviously there was a camera, seeing as our photos were taken, but it wasn’t a standard issue security camera. There was some sort of bug inside the elevator. A small one we didn’t catch. It must’ve been placed after the feds swept the building that afternoon.”

Her leg began to bob up and down. “A bug? Why?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“It was probably something to do with the president.”

“Maybe. But it was your face on the news, not the POTUS, and he’d taken that same elevator a few minutes before we did.”

“I’m sure the POTUS wasn’t making out with one of the Secret Service guys. There probably weren’t any juicy photos to leak. A man riding an elevator isn’t exactly newsworthy.”

“That could be true, but it still isn’t sitting well with me.”

“I don’t think anyone would go through all this trouble just for me. I’m not really a controversial candidate. I’m pretty middle of the line. I have some fiscal plans that some don’t necessarily like, but it’s not some big controversial stand that would cause people to start planting bugs on me.” Right? She thought about the speech she was supposed to have given and the issues Mark had said would upset people. But nothing was that over the top. She needed to run this by Mark—he’d have a better understanding of her potential enemies.

“But you’re a threat to McGregor.”

“McGregor isn’t going to stoop to something like videotaping me.”

“You never know, Livie. I don’t like McGregor. He’s a slimy, sneaky man.”

“He’s pretty middle of the road, too. People like him. It’s not like I’m kicking his ass in this election. Hell, I may not even win.”

He was twirling a thread that had come loose from one of her toss pillows. “There’s something about him . . .”

“What? That he’s lying? He’s a politician. He’s showing you his best face. But still, I think for a politician, even as my opponent, he’s pretty forthright.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Well, I’ll keep my ears and eyes open.”

“Promise?”

She took the pillow out his grip before he destroyed it, and tossed it aside. “Yes. I promise,” she said.

“Good.” Then he sat back, looking much more relaxed. “Now about that date.”

“Can I be honest with you?” she asked, tightening the collar of her robe around her neck. “I haven’t done this before.”

“Done what?”

“Dated. I mean, I’ve dated,” she said with a roll of her eyes, “But not since Neil died.”

“You already told me that. I figured that if you hadn’t kissed anyone in five years, you likely hadn’t dated anyone either.”

“Okay, so now you understand. This is all new to me. And I know that you think I’m just spitting out excuses, but my daughter—she can’t have a revolving door of men walking in and out of her mother’s life. What kind of example would that set for her?”

With a smirk he said, “Revolving door of men? You’re saying this in the same breath as ‘I haven’t dated anyone in five years?’ Darlin’, I think you’re setting a perfect example for your daughter. I don’t think you going on one date with me will skew her five-year-old opinion of men.”

“Joey, you know what I mean.”

“I do. I do know what you mean.” He put a hand on her shoulder and looked at her intensely. “After my father died, my mother never dated. Not once that I can remember.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to—”

He ignored her protest and continued. “She was a widow with four small children, and she dedicated her life to us. She was the best mother, always worried about us and made sure we were okay. But do you think that if she had dated, that seeing her happy, seeing her settled with a partner now that we are all out on her own, would have upset any of us? Listen, Livie, I’m not telling you to bring random men around your daughter. What I’m telling you is that you need to be happy and have a personal life. You’re still young and vibrant, and you shouldn’t settle for being alone. Pick smart, when you pick a man to date, and introduce him to her carefully, or hell, don’t introduce them to her. But don’t hide behind work and your daughter because you’re scared.”

Putting your heart out and then risking it being broken was hard. She’d already faced that with Neil, and to a certain extent, with Connor too. She wasn’t sure if she would ever want to take that risk again. And there was also her public image that she needed to protect. An image that as of today was all screwed up, thanks to whoever had leaked those photos.

“Maybe just one date.” What harm could it do at this point, right?

“Fine. I’ll take it.”

She sighed with relief.

“And we’ll keep things casual. Just fun.”

He winked and stood up, then reached for her hands and helped her to her feet. “I can absolutely do fun, darlin’. Hurry up and get dressed.”

And that was it.

He didn’t ask for more.

He didn’t argue about what “keeping it casual” meant.

He didn’t even seem bothered that she was nervous.

He winked and promised her a good time.

And she gladly accepted. But somewhere deep inside she knew that Joey wasn’t the kind of man who gave up easily. In fact, twice already he’d surprised her by showing up and making it clear he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

And in that same vein of thought she realized this was most likely the first of many dates she’d have with the sneaky Josef Clad.