Chapter Thirty-Two
Colton
Al and I are sitting in Cassy’s dining room strategizing my next move. It is no secret to Al that I haven’t put my full heart into wanting to run for the presidency.
“This is your out, Colton. Your big break out of the invisible chains your father had around your neck,” Al smiles crookedly. He hates that my father controlled me for so many years but he is also too familiar with powerful men who manipulate no matter the cost. His father is very much like mine. Only Al walked away. He hadn’t realized my father could be so selfish and manipulating when he came along on this journey with me.
“A break, huh?” I repeat Al’s words. I feel dazed and confused which is so unlike me. I usually have my shit together. I was generally in control.
“Snap out of it, man. Your new PR firm will be here any minute. You will make a few statements. Bow out of the race and move on.” Al claps me on the shoulder and stands up from his seat. “Where the hell does Cassy keep the coffee?” he grunts, spinning in a circle. I laugh at him. As smart as Al is, he is spoiled rotten. He has a maid bring him coffee every morning and breakfast too, for that matter.
“Go fuck yourself,” he chortles back at me.
“It’s in the kitchen doofus,” Cassy shouts from her bedroom leaving me to understand she was eavesdropping on our conversation. I know she wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, but I need space from her. My heart is breaking over Evie. I don’t want to have to deal with Cassy on top of everything else in my life.
I get up and walk over to the kitchen. “Come on, I need coffee too,” I murmur and Al follows.
Cassy has an easy setup, and I know my way around her kitchen well enough since I have spent enough nights with her. I hit a few buttons and bam. Coffee is made. I take a sip closing my eyes.
“Fuck man, watching you is depressing.” Al snaps me out of my quiet moment enjoying my cup of coffee. “It’s her, isn’t it?” he asks, and it surprises me that he would. I told him how vital Evie had become in my life. He just isn’t getting it.
I nod.
“Colton, you’re looking at this the wrong way. I think you were so enamored with Evie because she was deaf. Something about her must have reminded you of Jake.”
I blow out a long-frustrated breath. “You just don’t get it. Yeah, maybe her being deaf intrigued me at first. Maybe somewhere deep in the depths of my mind, I had little snippets of a baby boy I tried to communicate with, using my hands, maybe they were short dreams.” I shake my head. I’m not really sure. “But that wasn’t what I loved about Evie. I fell in love with her, man. Everything about her was perfect, the way she smiled, the way she listened to me, the goodness in her heart, the way she treated her son.” Fuck, listen to me, I am a fool. She lied to me, screwed me over. I am sick just thinking of all the times I opened up to her. Forced myself to share things with her that I wasn’t comfortable sharing. Al watches me with his lips twisted. He doesn’t understand how I could have fallen in love because Al has never been in love. He loves his sister and mother. Hell, I am sure I am on that list too but he never actually fell hard for a woman even though he left many broken hearts along the way. “It doesn’t fucking matter anyway. It’s over. She fucked me over and it just goes to show you why relationships suck. If I ever tell you that I want to be in a relationship again, I give you the right, no, I insist that you clock me one, seriously.”
Al takes a long drink of his coffee. “Just get your head on straight,” he says. There is a knock on the door. “And stop looking so fucking doe-eyed and sad. We need to come up with a new game plan. You are still governor, the people of Illinois still rely on you, and you need to make a statement, even better, we need to push this scandal under the rug.”
I go back out to Cassy’s dining room with Al. Cassy lets my new PR rep in. I am expecting just one person, but there is a team.
“Rebecca Caufield. Nice to meet you.” The tan woman extends her hand for me to shake then walks past me to the dining room table where she places her suitcase on the floor. “This is Chuck, John, and Larry,” she continues, and I feel like she is shitting me because the person she called Larry is very much a woman. She is wearing tight black leather pants, a leather top and her almost white blonde hair is tied in a high ponytail on top of her head. She gives me a nod then Chuck and John give me a grunt. I quirk my brow giving Al a side glance. He throws his hands out for a minute but tilts his chin back to Rebecca who begins to speak. She is the leader of this crew.
“We checked into your past. The media has done quite the job spinning this story.” She reaches down to her briefcase and pulls out some files. “Your father banished your mother. He found out she was having an affair. He told her he didn’t believe Jake was his baby and told her to leave. He felt your baby brother would ruin his chances to have a political career, but by banishing them, he ended any chance he had to run in politics. Your mother and brother were your father’s dirty buried secret. If he ran, it would have been easy for someone to dig up the story. Instead, he focused on you, obsessively wanting to make you into something he dreamed of but could never be. Almost thirty years later the story of your mother and brother was dead.” Rebecca states, a matter of fact.
“How do you know this?” I ask, a little dumbfounded. She quirks her brow at me and gives me a look that says, ‘shut up and listen.’
“Your brother is, in fact, a Mathis. His blood tests located in that file will prove that to the 90th percentile. If you want more accuracy, we need to run a full DNA test. Your father threatened your mother. He told her to leave the house and take Jake. If she didn’t leave, then your father threatened to hurt her and Jake. Your father had ties to Jeffrey Davis,” she says, then pauses. “Does that name ring a bell?”
It takes me a few seconds…Wayne Davis…drug dealer. He had been in court when I was a prosecutor. His father Jeffrey Davis was the head of a drug cartel. There had been numerous CIA and FBI investigations into the Cartel, but they had always been untouchable.
“What are you saying, Ms. Caufield? That my father threatened to have, my mother and brother, killed?” I swallow hard. My world isn’t just tilting sideways it is being turned upside down. The man I had revered all my life is a horrible, deceitful man. All the guilt he made me feel, all the times I conceded to his every whim because of his so-called sacrifices he made for me…it is all a sham.
Rebecca leans forward on the dining table pressing her palms onto the surface with a sure look in her eyes. I don’t know what her sources are, but she seems professional and confident. I choose to believe her even though I will verify everything later.
“And Evie Harper? What role did she play in all this? Was she hired by one of our opponents?” Al takes a step forward and asks. He had been standing off to the side this whole time just listening. Leave it to Al to ask the question I am not brave enough to ask myself. Or maybe I just don’t want my heart to splinter further than it has.
Rebecca cuts him a look and pushes off the dining room table, straightening herself out. “She has no ties to anyone. She’s a teacher, works for a school for the deaf, she is a single mother, and from what I understand, you pursued her, Mr. Mathis.” Rebecca’s stare cuts from Al to me on her last words. “The poor woman has been put through the wringer.” She purses her lips and glares at me.
An anguished laugh escapes my lips, and I shoot up to my feet swiping a hand over my mouth. “You mean to tell me that this is some sick coincidence that I was dating a woman connected to my long-lost mother and brother?” I begin to pace. I think Rebecca said something but my mind was in overdrive.
“Here.” Al pushes his cell phone into my chest. “Don’t even think about her, Colton. Look at this.”
On the screen of Al’s cell phone is an article from the Sun with a large picture of Evie in a bathrobe. You can’t see her face, but her long red hair is hard to miss. Standing at the entrance to the hotel room is Jake. He’s shirtless, all abs of steel and muscle. He has a sad smile on his face. The headline reads.
Ms. Harper Can’t Decide Which Brother She Wants.
I begin to read the article. It starts by giving a physical description of Jake and says how good genes must run in the Mathis family. I can’t read anymore, so I push the cell phone back into Al’s hands and stalk off. I head for Cassy’s balcony, needing air. This is just too much to handle. The thought of my brother touching Evie when she’s probably feeling vulnerable makes me want to tear this place apart. I lean on the railing of the balcony when I feel slender arms around my neck, and a head pressed against my back. I don’t need to turn around to know that it’s Cassy.
“I’m sorry, Colton. I heard everything. I didn’t mean to listen, but that woman just speaks so loud.” Her voice purrs as her hands rub all over my body trying to console me. Only I’m not comforted. She begins to press soft kisses on my neck, and I cringe. I pull out of her grasp and hold her hands in front of me so that she will stop touching me.
“Cassy, please.” I take a breath because I need to show her patience, she doesn’t deserve to be snapped at by me. “I appreciate all the help you’ve given me. For allowing me to stay here. I just need time to figure things out in my head,” I say softly.
“I have an idea, Colton,” she says, and I let go of her hands. She crosses her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a tight black tank top and black tights. She looks ready for a workout. When she crosses her arms, it makes her breasts bunch together. My eyes drop to her chest because hell, I am a man, but I don’t feel that same spark I used to feel for her. Hell, I feel nothing other than the thought she has a nice set of tits.
“What is it?” I put my hands in the front pockets of my trousers and listen.
***
“You have two options, Mr. Mathis,” Rebecca says sounding very matter of fact. Her team stands around the table holding on to her every word. “One…you work things out with Ms. Harper, and you two make a joint statement to the press that the mere coincidence of life brought you together, then you go on to live happily ever after. The media will stop treating Ms. Harper like some harlot.” She pauses, and I let her words penetrate, only that scenario will never work for me. Evie must have known about my connection to Jake and Veronica. That day at the Navy Pier her and Veronica couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.
“What’s my second option?” I ask. Al claps me on the back indicating he wasn’t a fan of option one either.
“The second option is that you make a public appearance with Cassandra Steel. You go on a talk show and say that you and Ms. Steel have recently decided to take things to the next level. You buy Ms. Steel a diamond ring. You tell the public that you and Ms. Harper were a short-lived fling. That it was a mere coincidence that she had ties to your mother and brother. And as the mother of your nephew you will continue to see her at family events,” Ms. Caufield stops speaking, but her gaze remains trained on me as if she is dissecting my every thought. It probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that I am not crazy about proposing to Cassy. Cassy is in the living room listening to the options and decides at that moment to plop herself in my lap. Fucking great.
“Cassy, give me a minute sweetheart.” I slowly help her off me then cut Al a look that says, ‘follow me.’ We both go out to the balcony. This time I close the doors behind us.
“Where did you find this crew?” I ask.
Al tilts his head to the side and breathes in slowly. “A little over the top, aren’t they? For what they cost, they should be.”
“I’m not following. Where the hell did you find them?” I repeat.
“Issy, my sister,” he says plainly. “Apparently the Walsh clan has used the Rebecca Caufield agency to avert more than one scandal. Although I’ve been assured that she knows how to bury the scandals that do make it to the surface. In your case, it’s erupted like a fucking volcano. Nevertheless, she can put this thing to sleep and then we can get on with our lives.” He smacks me on the back. If I ever for a moment thought I led a normal life then this was a perfect reminder that my life was far from ordinary.
“I don’t like any of the options she offered me,” I say through shallow breaths.
Al guffaws. “I can see that. Can’t say I blame you. In both scenarios, she has you tied down,” he cringes. The truth is, I cringe too.
“There must be another way.”
“Okay, let’s head back in there and tell her we need option three.”
“Let’s do that because there’s no way in hell I’m committing ever again,” I hiss and we walk back inside.