Caught by the Chief of Staff (A Presidential Affair Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Caught by the Chief of Staff

  About the Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  The Press Secretary’s Passion

  Playlist

  Also by Jennifer

  About Jennifer

  Acknowledgements

  Caught by the Chief of Staff

  Copyright © 2020 Jennifer Rebecca

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover Design and Formatting by

  Alyssa Garcia

  www.upliftingauthorservices.com

  Editing by

  Kayla Robichaux

  For more information about Jennifer Rebecca & her books, visit:

  www.jenniferrebeccaauthor.com

  For my baby daddy, Sean.

  I love you with everything I am and then some.

  It was only ever you.

  About the Book

  Secrets have a funny way of bubbling to the surface when you least expect them, and these are the deepest, darkest of all. I buried them in the past with my husband and any hope we had of a happily ever after.

  But now he’s back. Only, the sweet and funny sailor I married has been replaced with a political mercenary.

  Can I trust him with the secrets of our shared past?

  I guess there’s only one way to find out.

  “This Administration is Off to a Rocky Start”

  Prologue

  Gone

  I clutch my phone in my hand so tightly I’m afraid the glass will shatter, and then where will I be? I just stopped the video. I’m going to be sick, but I can’t now. I have to get to Rick. If anyone can fix this, it’s him. I know we have a lot to atone for between us, but I know I can trust him with this.

  My lungs burn with the air that isn’t filling them as I race from the First Lady’s offices to the main ones. I had come in to style Grace. She has an appearance tomorrow and two next week we needed to get everything squared away for. I love being her stylist, and life in D.C. totally agrees with my daughter Rachel and me.

  Or so I thought. Now I’m regretting every decision that led me here.

  “Stop, ma’am,” one of the marines who guards the offices says. “No one is allowed back here.”

  “I need to see Rick Donovan right away,” I tell him as I flash my badge. My voice is thready, and my hands shake. “It’s an emergency.”

  “Right this way, Ms. Donovan,” Gus, one of Jake’s Secret Service agents, says. “You can wait in his office. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  “Can’t I just go to him?” I ask. “It’s important.”

  “No, ma’am. He’s in a closed-door meeting,” Gus explains.

  “Oh okay,” I reply. “Just… please hurry.”

  I pace Rick’s office while I wait for him. If he doesn’t show soon, I’m going to puke in his wastepaper basket. The offending video on my phone plays over and over in my brain on a loop. These things are time sensitive, right? And my baby. I can’t bear for her to be away from me for one more minute.

  “What the fuck could be so important that you’ve interrupted me during a closed-door meeting, Cara? Did you break a nail?” he seethes. I know he hates me; I hate me too. I did things he will never understand to protect him, to protect Rachel, and now it was all for nothing.

  “She’s go—” I whisper. The words get stuck in my throat and I can’t get them out.

  “Who’s gone?” he asks, his body instantly alert.

  “Our daughter,” I explain. “Somebody took Rachel.”

  And poor Rick. He just found her, and now if something happens to her, it will gut him. I know he hates me, and I accept that he should, but Rick is a good man and an even better father than I could have dreamed he’d be. He is the way he is because of me and my actions, not because of him or who he is deep down.

  “What do you mean somebody took Rachel?” Rick asks after a pause.

  “She’s gone, Rick,” I answer in a panic. My belly is churning with acid and I know I’m going to be sick just saying the words. “Someone took her from the school.”

  I hold out my phone with the video queued up. Rick takes the little stack of glass and metal that hold our whole entire world in them. I watch as he hits play, his face is blank until the video starts and I watch the tightening of his jaw, his fingers whiten around my piece of shit phone, it’s the only outward sign he gives that he’s upset. Rick is a fortress and I’m that little piggy’s straw house, one more gust and I’m toast.

  “I think I know who did it,” Rick says after a moment.

  “You do?” I ask. “Well, go get her. We have to get her back.”

  “I’ll get Rachel back if it’s the last thing I do,” he vows.

  God, I hope it’s not. He and Rachel need time to get to know each other after spending almost nine years apart. I don’t want anything to happen to either of them. I love them both and always have.

  “Please,” I beg. I hope he knows I mean I need him to get our daughter back but also need him to come back in one piece as well.

  “I don’t know exactly who it is, but I think I know why.”

  “What? Why?” I question.

  “Someone is trying to blackmail the president, and the only way to get to him is through me.”

  And then I promptly throw up in the wastebasket after all.

  “New Chief of Staff Feared by Many”

  Chapter 1

  Oh fuck

  New York, New York

  Six months earlier…

  “You have got to be shitting me.”

  I never thought I would hear that voice again. A voice that had only ever spoken to me sweetly in the past is seething now, and I can’t even blame him. There’s too much history between us, too much water under the bridge. Even though he obviously hates me, my heart still pangs at the sight of his handsome face. He looks good. I hate myself for thinking that. I hate that I’m so drawn to him, that I can’t seem to stay away even though I know it’s better for both of us if I do so.

  I picked my daughter Rachel up from school, and she bounced into the car with her normal high-energy motions. My sitter called me while I was sitting in the pickup line from hell to tell me that she was sick and couldn’t make it tonight. Having once been a seventeen-year-old girl, I was pretty sure she had a serious case of teen hormones and the only thing that could cure her was her boyfriend’s penis. I was young once. I could be
cool; I could relate, so I told her that I hoped she felt better soon and planned to take Rachel with me to Grace’s house to get ready. Rachel is a great kid, the best really. She’s happy with books and a couple of games on her phone. I knew that I would be able to do what I needed to do for Grace with Rachel in the house. I had my doubts about what was really going on, and still do, but there was nothing I could do. It’s not like I have a family I can rely on. Hell, I don’t even have family outside of Rachel. I was an orphan before I married her father, and after that, I was a divorced single mother. It’s not exactly an ideal life, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t lonely, but Rachel is one hundred percent worth it.

  And I’m lucky tonight’s client is Grace Sanders, a high-power attorney and my friend. I dress her for formal functions where there will be press or the upper crust of New York. Anything fancier than the normal. She has impeccable taste and really doesn’t need me, but she uses my hair and makeup skills as well. And I make Grace look good. She’s also really easygoing and loves my daughter, so she won’t mind Rachel has to tag along.

  “What are we doing tonight, Mom?”

  “I have to work.”

  “Boooo,” she complains.

  “But it’s Grace and you get to come with.”

  “Yay!”

  “Hey, Auntie Grace,” Rachel says when Grace opens the door. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe a butler or a live-in housekeeper answering the door now that she’s living with the most popular U.S. Senator. He was gracing the tabloids with his bachelor antics before Grace won his heart. He’s from an old money family, and I guess I just expected more.

  “Hey, kid, what’s up with you?” she asks Rachel, tossing her hair and making her laugh.

  “Sorry,” I say as I roll my big makeup tote in the house behind my daughter. “My sitter is sick. I think being sick means she’s getting laid.”

  “Oh the good old days,” Grace replies, and I can’t help but laugh. She’s not wrong. Back when I was married, I got laid all the time and took it for granted. Now, it’s been so long that I’m not even sure all of my parts work anymore.

  “Here,” a handsome man in a suit says to me before lifting my heavy cart up as if it weighs nothing. He’s handsome in a rough-around-the-edges way. I could totally be into that. Once upon a time and all. “Let me take that for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Wow. I think our stoic Gus might be smitten,” Grace says, and I barely hold in a sigh. I wish he made my heart go pitter-patter, but it’s been dead as long as my marriage. The only thing keeping me alive is Rachel. Before she was born, I was just going through the motions, doing anything I could to survive. Rachel and I are fighters, survivors; we’ll always do what we have to in order to get through.

  “Oh hush, you.” I force a laugh and change the subject. “Now, show me what you’re wearing, so I can work my magic.”

  “Right this way, boss.” I let out a whistle when I get a load of how the other half lives. A girl could get used to this, but then again, I’m not the kind of girl who gets a fairy tale.

  She leads me into her own private dressing room, and I take in the sweet pink ballgown with flowing skirt and bodice of gold beads. It’s a great fucking dress.

  “Holy hot Cinderella, Batman!” I whisper. “I fucking love it.”

  I stare at the dress and try to take in every little nuance. I picture it on Grace and roll through my mental catalogue of looks to go with it. She’s one of my favorite clients, because she just lets me run with whatever I want to do, and she’s always happy with how it looks in the end. Finally, the perfect look pops into my head.

  “Okay,” I say suddenly. “I’ve got it. Let’s go set you in rollers.”

  She follows me back into the bathroom where I lay out all my supplies on the counter before rolling her hair up into large hot rollers. When I’m done with her, she’ll look like a mix between a silver-screen star and Cinderella.

  “All right, you know the drill,” I order, and she rolls her eyes, making me laugh.

  “You just like to see me in my undies,” she replies.

  “Don’t you know it.” I laugh. “And don’t mess up my rollers either.”

  “I won’t,” she calls out from her closet.

  She will. Grace always does. She’s too hyper to be able to sit still and let me work my magic.

  Grace hustles back into the bathroom and climbs into my chair. I dust her face with soft golds and shimmery pinks as she sits there in her underwear.

  “I forgot my bowtie,” the senator says as he tumbles into the bathroom to see Grace in her undies with her hair in rollers and me applying her makeup. “Holy fuck.”

  His expletive makes me laugh. He reminds me so much of the man I’ve worked so hard to put out of my mind for the last nine years—the man who every other doesn’t quite measure up to—and not just because they’re friends.

  “Jake, this is Cara. Cara, this is Jake.”

  “Hi, Cara,” he says, but he never takes his eyes off Grace, which makes me giggle even harder. Ahh, young love.

  “Can I see you in the closet for a moment?”

  “Absolutely not!” I practically shout, making him jump a little. “If she goes with you, you’re going to fuck her, and then you’ll ruin all my hard work. Fuck her later.”

  “You don’t know that,” he says nonchalantly, but I know bullshit when I hear it. “I could be careful.”

  “I don’t think so, Senator Chancellor,” I respond with a sweet smile.

  “Jake,” he corrects me.

  “Jake,” I repeat on a smile. “I’ve had a man look at me like that before. I know the look of a man who is at the end of his patience.”

  “Better get that bowtie and run,” Grace says before she busts out laughing too. Grace and I always have fun when we hang out.

  “Don’t think there won’t be retribution, Ms. Sanders,” he tells her with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “I would expect nothing less, Senator,” Grace flirts.

  And then he moves to his closet, and Grace and I wait quietly until he gets the accessory he needs and takes it to the spare room where he’s dressing.

  “Holy shit,” I say, fanning myself. “Have fun tonight.”

  “You know I can’t stand these things,” she says softly.

  “No. I meant after,” I tell her with a look to the doorway where Jake just left. “That man clearly has plans for you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  When I’m done with her makeup, I carefully unroll each of her curls and brushes them this way and that before pinning one side back with a gold barrette. Grace rolls stockings up her legs, and then I hold her dress out for her to step into then zip her up.

  “Here,” I say, handing Grace the deep-pink lipstick I slicked on her lips, and I watch as she drops it into my beaded clutch. “Oh! Your shoes!”

  “Right here, Cinderella,” Jake says as he holds them out. She moves to reach for them, but instead, he drops to one knee and takes her foot in his hand and slips the heel on her before setting it back on the ground. He taps her other foot to let her know to lift it to his ministrations.

  Jesus, that’s hot.

  I’m not gonna lie. I love Grace like a sister, but right now, I am all kinds of jealous.

  “Thank you.”

  “And this,” he says after he stands and pulls a long velvet box from his coat pocket. He snaps open the top, plucks a gorgeous diamond tennis bracelet from the silk pillow, and chucks the box onto the counter unceremoniously, making Grace smile and me laugh. He’s such a man. Jake wraps the bauble around her wrist and then lets her go. “I saw it and thought of you.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she tells him quietly, but still, I hear it.

  “You don’t have to say anything at all.”

  The two of them stare at each other for long moments, and I watch them openly. Romance, real romance, is so rare that you want to savor every piece of it, even if it’s not your
s to have. And then, the spell is broken by my ex-husband shouting the house down for the doorway.

  I had a job styling my friend and powerful attorney to the fancy people of New York, Grace Sanders. Often, Grace would call me when she had a formal function and needed an extra hand making sure she looked absolutely perfect. For over a year now, I have been dressing Grace, and somewhere along the way, she became one of my closest friends—or as close as anyone can get to me. It’s not that I don’t trust her; it’s that I have to protect my daughter. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Rachel safe and happy.

  I haven’t laid eyes on him in ten years, and even as his face is twisted in confused rage, he’s still the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?” he roars as our eyes lock in the mirror.

  “What?” Grace asks as I see she looks to Jake, who looks just as confused as she does. We never met when they were both in the service, so he shouldn’t recognize me, but who knows how much those two have shared in the last decade. But it’s when she looks at my face and sees it frozen in fear that the puzzle pieces all start to click into place. “Oh no.”

  Oh yes.

  Unfortunately, Rachel chooses that moment to slide into the room on two wheels, totally unaware that one could cut the tension in the room with a knife. Oh fuck. I thought I could protect my baby girl from this for the rest of my life. Sure, she asks questions, but I’ve been able to evade them so far. I don’t need to protect her from him but from the life he leads.

  “Hey, Mom!” she calls out happily. She has big headphones over her ears that she asked for this past Christmas and probably can’t hear anything. “Can I have a new game on my phone?”

  I just stand there stunned. I don’t know what to do. Do I pretend like nothing is wrong? Do I grab my daughter, who so obviously has her father’s eyes, and run like hell? Do I hide her behind me? Throw my body on top of hers like we’re awaiting a nuclear blast? I don’t know what to do! What is the protocol here?