THIRTY-THREE
GRAHAM
I have to rewind. Because the end—the goddamn brutal end—goes right back to the beginning.
To an accountant who likes to watch girls he can’t touch since his wife probably hasn’t wet his dick in months. And to a redheaded waitress who was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.
Since 202 is my least favorite place on the east coast, I’d given Daniel shit when he asked me to meet him there to pick up my forecast for the first two quarters of this year. I’d told him the last time we met that I would never be forced into pretending to like the food in that hole in the wall or dealing with waitresses throwing themselves at me, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to budge on that decision. After I reminded him, again, that I’d be happy to take my business elsewhere, he agreed to meet me at my office.
That’s how I ended up with Janelle, the goddamn waitress, in my car.
“Did you miss me?” she asked, sliding into my passenger’s seat seconds after I started the ignition. I stared over at her in shock, and she flung her red hair over her shoulder and pursed cherry-colored lips into a pout that did jack shit for me. “You look surprised, Senator. I thought you liked hearing from the public.”
“Are you stalking me now?” We were in private parking, and she’d just invited herself into my goddamn car. “And that invitation for feedback from the public refers to emails, not women forcing themselves into my private space.”
She ran her fingertip along the gear shift. “Doesn’t the public pay for your sparkly little BMW, too?”
“My own fucking pockets take care of that. Why are you here?”
She leaned against the door panel behind her and shook her head. “Your accountant told me I’d find you here—when he came in 202 earlier.” That meant she’d followed Daniel to my office. Fuck, she was out of her mind. “I mentioned to him you said you wouldn’t come back, but he thought that was bull. Guess he didn’t realize everything is just a game of control with you.”
“No game. I meant what I said. I won’t be back to 202 to meet my accountant because I enjoy watching my net worth increase, not witnessing your boss’s bad taste in employees.” I reached behind her for the door handle. She scooted her body to the left, blocking it. Smirking, she popped her chest out through her partially unzipped jacket and crossed her legs like she was interviewing for a fucking swimsuit model position.
“Get the fuck out of my car,” I said.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “Why?”
Daniel was fired. He was absolutely fucking fired for doing this shit and bringing this bitch right to me.
“Because being in here with you has shit all over my night and I could have you arrested for trespassing.” When she snorted and gave a skeptical roll of her eyes, it took everything in me not to physically get out of the car and haul her out the passenger door. After the day I had, this woman was the last thing I wanted to deal with.
The hangover from last night, the spilling of my goddamn soul to Eleanor Courtney, left a permanent ache drilling into my skull. I’d gone through all the motions—frustration, self-loathing, and regret. I’d put everything into Elle’s hands when I should have just walked away. But it was out there now, everything, and she’d reacted so … her. Blue eyes overflowing with emotion, fingers soft as she apologized for my fuck-ups. For her father’s fuck-ups. I had stayed with her despite my conscience begging me to tell her the truth of what I’d planned for her and see if she still wanted me around. And then I decided my conscience could go fuck itself because the only bright point in my day was when I spoke to her just before Daniel came to my office.
“My face is right here.” Janelle grasped my chin, pointing my focus down to her. I caught her wrist in my fingers. Her eyes widened. “Are you going to hurt me, Senator? Because I don’t buy that crap about me ruining your night. If anything, I’ll make it better.”
She snatched out of my grip and dragged her talons down the sides of my pants as she leaned across the center console. She reached for my zipper.
“Do you tell every dumb motherfucker you harass that?” I closed my eyes. Gritted my teeth. This woman could try all day, and I couldn’t get hard for her. She’d crossed a hundred different lines, and I was ready to get her out of my life. “And if you do, do they tell you the truth? That you’ve got to actually give a fuck to hurt someone. ”
Gasping, she dropped her hands from trying to tease my cock through my pants. When I heard something slide across the leather seat, a cruel grin twisted my lips. Opening my eyes, I found her huddled against the door, her lower lip trembling. Her back was turned to me and her head bowed.
“Praying won’t help,” I drawled.
Her muscles tensed. She took a few breaths. And just as I gripped the door handle on my side to follow through with my first idea—removing her from my vehicle—she demanded in a soft voice, “You really do think you’re better than me, don’t you?”
“I think your persistence is a goddamn shame. I think you’re wasting your time if you think that I’ll magically want anything to do with you.” Once again, I was cautious not to say we. Not that it mattered when it came to this one—she seemed to believe that all it took was a wiggle of her ass and a pout to turn me into an idiot with no control over his dick. “I think that if you ever, ever, try some shit like this again, you’ll be looking for another job. And bail money.”
“Are you threatening me?” Her voice was ice, and when she turned around, clutching her purse to her chest. Flames flew from her gaze. “I’m not like that other dumb bitch you got fired.”
My grin tugged wider. She was right about one thing tonight. She was nothing like Elle. “I’m promising you.”
“You’re the one who would be screwed over if I opened my mouth.” She jabbed a red-painted fingernail at me. “Not the other way around.”
I clenched my jaw. “And who would care? I’m not married. There’s no scandal there, so if you want to spread your mouth as wide as your legs, go for it. Do your worst.”
She shoved her face close to mine. Her eyebrows pulled together and she raked her hand through her hair. “Graham, I—”
“I dare you,” I’d said before I spotted a security guard making his rounds. “Looks like your escort is here, Janelle.”
She slunk away before I could flag him down. Because she still thought a couple of orgasms and a half-hearted blow job equated to me coming back. Because, at the end of the day, she wouldn’t do shit.
And fuck, I was wrong.
Elle hasn’t moved from her chair, but the look she gives me is damning. Cuts me right down to my marrow. We both know where these photos came from. We both knew who took them. And I might not have sent them out, but we both know how this conversation will go down even before I say a word.
My attention lands on the short message accompanying the pictures.
Your site says you pay for stories. Well, here’s one. Guess which politician’s daughter is another senator’s slut?
I take in the name of the sender. [email protected]. She hadn’t even tried to hide her identity, and I close my eyes as I replay the encounter in my car. She’d forced her way in. Had moved her body in front of the door handle. She’d tried to unzip my pants. And at some point, she’d ended up with my goddamn phone.
I’d been so busy thinking about Elle that, for the first time in ten years, I’d forgotten my left from my right. I was so distracted that I couldn’t remember if I’d taken the phone with me to my car. On the way over here, I told myself that I must have left the thing in my office—that was the last place I used it, when I talked to Elle. I was wrong, though, and now she knows just how deep my manipulation ran.
I slam the screen shut and scrape my hand over my face. “Elle, let me explain.”
She scoots her chair back, slamming it into the wall behind her. There’s a wild look in her big blue eyes as she shakes her head. “Did you take these?” She turns her head toward the closed laptop and swallows hard. “Those photos … did you take those of me?”
It would be easy to lie. To feed her a bunch of bullshit about someone bugging my apartment, but when I open my mouth, I freeze. Eleanor is so trusting, so willing to see the good in people, and she brings out the human in me. Not the politician. The fallen look on her face makes me realize that it would only be easy to lie if she were anybody else.
“Yes,” I say, “but I didn’t send them. It was that—”
“Stop talking, Graham! Just stop it! You. Took. These. Of. Me!”
“Yes,” I growl.
She’s out of her chair now, gripping the edges of the desk I just had her bent over. Eyes tightly clenched as she struggles to catch her breath. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it? When you said you used me. You took these to hurt me, didn’t you?”
I move toward her. She darts away. And a fist pounds into my gut because she no longer wants me to touch her. It’s not like it was in the beginning—when she said one thing and then looked at me with curiosity and lust behind her gaze. When she opens her eyes and stares me down, there’s nothing but pain and fury there.
I thread a hand through my hair and release a noise that sounds like I’m being ripped in two. “I wasn’t going to send them. I … I had wanted…”
She covers her face with her hands and the sob that hitches her throat freezes my fucking blood. “You thought screwing me would punish my dad?” When I say nothing, she drags her hands back, spreading makeup and tears over her skin. “I’m so dumb, so stupid and dumb. I actually let myself believe in you and…”
“Elle.” I reach out to her again. Grab her wrist. And then her palm flies across my face, the slap ricocheting through me. She looks dazed as she draws her hand back to herself and grasps a handful of her white shirt. “I didn’t want this to happen,” I say.
The worst part, the part that makes me an evil motherfucker, is that I can’t even tell her I never wanted it to happen. It was the second thought I had the first time I laid eyes on her in person. She blinks up at me through a haze of tears and moves her head.
“Sure you didn’t, Senator Delaney.” She pulls away from me and her movements are stiff as she walks to the door of her office.
“I’m going to fix this.”
“Not taking those pictures would have been a good start.” She keeps her eyes lowered, and I watch helplessly as her tears mingle with her mascara and fall. They splash to the back of the hand she’d used to slap me. To her white shirt. Onto the drab gray carpet. She doesn’t look at me again, but her voice is firm when she finally speaks.
“Please … just go.”