Chapter 8

MARIAH

“Is River here?” Mariah asked Jennifer at the front desk.

“Yes, but there is someone else in there too.”

Elizabeth and Mariah stopped and turned around to face Kimberly. They hadn’t expected anyone else to be there. River hadn’t mentioned bringing someone else with him, and it was certainly a surprise considering he hadn’t wanted to share his secret with anyone.

“Who is it?” Elizabeth asked.

“The governor’s wife,” Jennifer said with a straight face.

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Mariah said as she turned around and headed back toward the conference room. “Let’s go, Elizabeth, we don’t have time for games today.”

The two women opened the conference room door and walked in, staring in awe at River and the woman sitting next to him. It certainly did look a lot like Kimberly Emerald, the wife of Oregon’s Governor Millard Emerald.

“Hello, Mr. Anders, it’s good to see you again,” Mariah said as she tried not to stare at the woman sitting next to him. “This is my partner, Elizabeth, she will be working with me on your case.”

Mariah felt betrayed by River, and she couldn’t stop the feeling. He certainly didn’t belong to her, and she had no right to be so damn angry at him, but why was he sitting across from her holding the hand of the governor’s wife? This was some real big bombshell if he was about to say he was in love with this woman. Mariah really didn’t know how she could protect him or her from the publicity of such a scandal.

“Hello Mariah,” River said as he tried to make eye contact with her, but she refused. “Elizabeth, it’s nice to meet you as well. This is an old friend of mine, Kimberly Emerald.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Kimberly said, extending her hand to shake with both Elizabeth and Mariah.

“Alright, Mr. Anders, so would you like to tell us what we need to protect you from?” Elizabeth asked.

Elizabeth was holding it together much better than Mariah. All Mariah could think about was how River had been with her the night before. How he had looked at her with such desire. Although he had let go of Kimberly’s hand when he introduced her, it was obvious they had been holding hands when Mariah had walked in.

She couldn’t figure out why River would have flirted with her so much if he was involved with the governor’s wife. Certainly, he had to care about Kimberly if he was willing to stay involved with her and risk his business going under.

“I’m going to get to the point before I lose my nerve,” River said as he looked at each of the women at the table. “Kimberly, do you have a picture of Jackson?”

“Oh, yes. Here he is,” Kimberly said as she pulled out her phone and showed the pictures to Mariah and Elizabeth.

“This is Jackson, he’s my son,” River said as he tried to catch Mariah’s eyes.

Mariah and Elizabeth both looked at the picture on Kimberly’s phone. It was an adorable young boy about ten years old. He was playing at a playground and had a huge grin on his face.

“Well, it’s not a publicity issue to have a kid in today’s day an age,” Elizabeth said as she handed the phone back to Kimberly.

But as she returned the phone to the governor’s wife, suddenly Elizabeth started to figure out what was going on. She turned to Mariah with her eyes as big as they could get. Both the women looked at River and then at Kimberly.

“You mean … um … you’re saying …” Mariah tried to get the words out, but she just couldn’t find what she wanted to say.

Elizabeth decided to give it a try. She was the more refined and experienced public relations manager, she could handle the situation.

“So Mrs. Emerald, Jackson is your son with River? Did you conceive him before your marriage to the governor?” Elizabeth asked.

Certainly, if River and Kimberly had been dating before she had married the governor, that wasn’t the best of situations. But things happened, and if she got married shortly after and found out she was pregnant, they could work with that. Mistakes in timing happened in today’s society. People fell in love quickly, and relationships moved fast from one to the next.

“I was married,” Kimberly said as she looked down at the table.

River rubbed her back and tried to soothe Kimberly as she started to cry. The situation had gotten much bigger than Mariah or Elizabeth had imagined. They had expected some sort of prior arrest or assault. Something that was in the past and could stay in the past, but a child certainly couldn’t stay in the past at all. Especially one that looked like a spitting image of River.

“Does your husband know?” Mariah asked.

She pulled herself together and started to write down notes on her pad. They needed all the details if they were going to be able to keep the secret. Things were going to move quickly now, and Mariah had to get her mind around what was going on.

“I never officially told him. For many years, he was just so happy; we had our baby, finally. We had spent our first three years of marriage trying to get pregnant. But then as Jackson grew up, it was clear that he didn’t look like his father much at all. Jackson has never come out and asked me about it, but I think he suspects.”

Mariah took down some more notes as she listened to Kimberly tell her story. There was one thing that Mariah couldn’t quite figure out, though.

“Why are you afraid now? Why do you think your secret is no longer safe?” Mariah said as she finally made eye contact with River.

River didn’t answer the question, though; instead, he looked to Kimberly to let her answer. It was a weird dynamic between the two of them. River appeared so much different around Kimberly. He wasn’t the confident and cocky guy that he had been; around Kimberly, he seemed like a shy young kid who was trying not to get in trouble. Mariah had to wonder how the two of them had met in the first place and if whatever it was that had been between them was still going on.

“My husband is about to announce his candidacy for the presidency,” Kimberly said as she broke down crying again.

“We need a minute,” Elizabeth said, grabbing Mariah and practically pulling her out of the room.

“No way, we need to drop the case. There is no way to keep this secret from coming out and no possible way to spin it,” Elizabeth said. “You have to go in there and tell him we can’t help him.”

“Elizabeth, this isn’t just about his company. Her family will be ruined if this comes out,” Mariah said as she tried to think of what they could possibly do to save the situation.

“Well, they should have thought about that ten years ago before they slept together. There is no way to keep an illegitimate child out of a campaign. Governor Emerald should just drop out now,” Elizabeth continued as she paced back and forth in front of Mariah.

“We can’t just give up,” Mariah said as she went back into the room alone.

“So what do you need from us? Are you going to tell your husband before he announces?”

“No, I can’t,” Kimberly said as her tears continued to fall.

“I’m going to try and say this as delicately as possible. You need to tell him now. If he announces his candidacy and then this news comes out, it will embarrass him. Give him the chance to decide not to run.”

“I can’t,” Kimberly said through her tears.

“River, what do you want? Why are you hiring us?” Mariah asked as she sat professionally and regarded River.

Mariah saw River in a whole different light at that moment. No longer did she worry about the sexual attraction between them. Instead, all she could think about was that he was a father, and there was another man raising his child.

“I don’t want Kimberly and Jackson to have their life ruined,” River said. “There’s one more thing.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I’ve been getting threatening phone calls. The person says that they are going to the press to tell them about my son and my affair,” River said as he looked at Mariah.

“Please, I hope I don’t sound too crass. But why do you care? You are already publically seen as a playboy; the public won’t care all that much if you have a son. Mrs. Emerald is in a much more precarious position.”

“I’m only a few short months away from a huge new product launch, and our partner is Wholesome Foods. The second they find out I had an affair with a married woman, they will cut the deal off. Especially when they know it resulted in a child. We are talking about billions of dollars that will be lost. Thousands of jobs, it might even mean the ruin of my entire organization,” River said as he finally let out all of the stress and worry he had pent up.

Mariah felt that she was getting a much clearer picture of what was going on. This wasn’t just about Kimberly’s wife finding out, or the press, this was also about the launch of his new product line. Mariah could see why he had been nervous to tell her about the details. It was certainly quite a mess going on around them.

“Do you think your husband will back out of the race once he finds out the truth?” Elizabeth asked as she stood in the doorway.

“No, I think he already knows and has just been denying the truth. He will want to keep it a secret and continue on. He’s got a huge campaign behind him; my husband won’t want to let anyone down by not running for the office.”

Mariah let all the possible situations run through her mind. She knew that River was in trouble with the press if this news came out. Right now, the press saw him as a harmless flirt that liked to take girls out on dates and then move on. River hadn’t done a thing to get the press worked up. He was a bachelor and was living the life he dreamed of.

But the public and the press didn’t like cheaters. The second they found out that River wasn’t just a fun-loving bachelor, his public was going to revolt. The public was especially going to find it hard to like him when they saw who he had cheated with.

The governor’s wife was a beloved woman, and someone that everyone loved. She participated in charity work and many other local causes. It was her selflessness that made it even more River’s fault about the affair, at least in the public’s eyes. River was going to look like the home wrecker.

Mariah took in a few deep breaths as she tried to figure out what the best way to go about their public relations dilemma would be. The real key would be if Kimberly’s husband were actually going to make a public statement or not. It certainly wasn’t in his best interest to bring up the news if he did know about it, but there were a number of other people who could bring the news to the press. Any candidate for the presidency was going to be under an enormous amount of scrutiny almost instantly.

“When exactly is your husband announcing?” Mariah asked.

“I think it’s Friday morning.”

“Okay, well we have at least until Friday morning to try and suppress the news. So first things first, who knows about this? Let’s make a list,” Mariah said as she handed River and Kimberly the pad of paper and her pen.