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

  “So…” he starts as he leans his ass against the front of his desk with his arms folded over his chest. “You wanted to talk.”

  “Yes,” I say as I reach into my huge tote bag of a purse. “I know the other day was a shock to you.”

  “You can say that again,” he mumbles.

  “And I know you don’t understand—”

  “I don’t.”

  “But I brought you these,” I say as I hand him a small pink photo album I made throughout the years for him and a small envelope. He opens the envelope and stares at the paper.

  “My name is on her birth certificate?” he asks, clearly surprised.

  “It always was,” I say after I clear my throat.

  “Why?”

  “You’re her father,” I explain.

  “No,” he says, studying me, “I mean why did you run?”

  “That’s an official copy. I have one as well,” I tell him, trying to change the subject. “That’s your book as well. I’ve been putting it together for you over the years, just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?”

  “In case we ever ran into you,” I explain.

  “Were you ever going to try to find me?” he asks quietly. I watch him carefully before deciding he deserves the truth, even if it ruins any hope I might have had for a copacetic situation.

  “No.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” I say, batting the thought away. “It’s in the past.”

  “It doesn’t feel like the past.”

  “Just let it go,” I quietly plead.

  Rick watches me. He’s deciding something but I don’t know what. His face is so carefully blank. “All right,” he says. “For now.”

  “Thank you.” I breathe a small sigh of relief.

  “I want to meet her,” he says firmly after a moment.

  “She wants to meet you too.” That seems to take him off guard.

  “She knows about me?”

  “She does,” I answer him honestly. I feel my heart soften just a bit toward him. Somewhere deep down is my sweet sailor. “I never kept you from her.”

  “Only her from me?” he asks, his voice hard again. “I want to be in her life.”

  “We want you to be in her life too.” And it’s the truth he can never know about. I had always wanted them to be together. I never wanted things to play out the way that they had, but I can’t go back. I can’t second guess the decisions I have made to protect my family now. I can only continue to put one foot in front of the other.

  “I just don’t understand why,” he tries again, and I have to put a stop to it before I start crying in the middle of his office and admit everything that ever happened.

  “I won’t ask you for money,” I state, changing the subject again. “I only ask that you don’t make life-altering decisions about her life without me.”

  “You mean like you did?”

  I let out a frustrated breath. “I had my reasons.”

  “But you won’t share them?” he asks again. Rick clearly missed his true calling as a hostage negotiator. Or a terrorist interrogator.

  “No, I won’t.”

  He looks away at something out one of the windows for a minute as he mulls over something in his mind. I’m sure it has to do with me and our daughter and what we’re going to have to do to move forward from here. When he turns his head back to face me, I know he has made some decisions.

  “I’d like to take you both out to dinner,” he says, making me gasp. I’m surprised he would include me in his plans. “She doesn’t know me yet, and I want you both to be sure she is safe with me.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “How does she feel about pizza?” he asks, making me smile.

  “She’s eight and lives in Jersey,” I tell him.

  “So, in other words, she takes her pie as seriously as her mother always did.” He smirks at me. It was a running joke between us that I was particular about my pizza.

  “I still am,” I say, smiling.

  “I guess not everything changes,” he replies, effectively wiping the smile from my face.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “I’ll pick you both up at five.”

  “Maybe we should meet you at the restaurant,” I try, because the thought of having Rick in my space has me on edge.

  “I said I’ll pick you up at five,” he states firmly, ending our conversation.

  I’m being dismissed. The glimpse of my funny sailor is long gone.

  “I’ll tell Rachel when I pick her up from school,” I say as I stand from the chair. “She’ll be pleased.”

  And then I run away like the scared little rabbit I am.

  • • •

  “Serious question,” Rick begins after we sit down in a booth at a small, family-owned pizza place just a couple of blocks from my apartment. How Rick knew it was there, I will never know.

  “What’s that?” Rachel replies.

  “Anchovies or no anchovies?” he asks, making her nose scrunch up.

  “Ew, gross!”

  “What?” he gasps, clutching his chest. “You mean to tell me you’re not firmly in your mom’s ‘anchovies are life’ camp?”

  “No way!” She laughs at his joke, and it’s the sweetest sound in the world. By the look on his face, Rick feels the same way.

  “What kind of Jersey girl are you?”

  “A bad one.” She laughs. “I was born in Nevada.”

  “Nevada?” he prompts, even though I know he knows just about everything about her, since I delivered the baby book, her birth certificate, and a letter telling him all about our beautiful daughter this morning. He knows she loves soccer and hates the color pink. She’s read an entire series on dragons in the last month and is allergic to penicillin. And that she’s known about him and who he is her entire life. “So you deal blackjack?”

  “No, silly. I’m a kid.”

  “You are? I thought you were thirty-five,” he replies.

  “No way!” She laughs again. “I’m eight.”

  “Well then, what do eight-year-olds do for fun?”

  “I like video games and dragon books, and I play soccer.”

  “Soccer?” he practically shouts. “I love soccer! What position do you play?”

  “Defender!”

  “Sweet! I was a goalkeeper when I was in school.”

  “No way! I hate that position,” she shouts, making Rick laugh.

  “What can I get you tonight?” a young server in jeans and a T-shirt with the restaurant logo on the front asks as he steps up to the table.

  “I think we need a medium—” Rick starts to say, but Rachel shakes her head. “A large pepperoni pizza, and a medium pepperoni and anchovies for the Jersey girl.”

  “Thank you,” I mumble.

  “And to drink?”

  “Cokes all around?” Rick asks.

  I smile when Rachel yells a “Woohoo!”

  “So soccer, huh?” Rick prompts when the server walks away. “Mom didn’t get you in a tutu and tap shoes?”

  “Ugh,” Rachel says, sounding very put out for an eight-year-old. “Don’t remind me!”

  “Oh come on!” I protest. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “It was terrible!” Rachel pouts. “I could have died.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. You were three.”

  “I was traumatized.”

  “Well I could send you to therapy or I can give you all my cash to play some video games. What will it be?” I ask her.

  “Video games,” she answers, holding out her little hand. “The SeaWolf will heal my soul.”

  “Oh it will, will it?”

  “Yes.” She nods with all the seriousness in the world.

  “Here.” I laugh as I hand her a couple bucks. “That should tide you over until the pizza is done.”

  “Thanks, Mama,” she says sweetly before she places a kiss on my cheek. “I love you.”
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  “I love you too, sunshine girl.”

  “She’s something else,” Rick says as he watches her hop away, and I can’t help the pang I feel in my heart for all he’s missed out on.

  “She is.”

  The waiter drops off our drinks, and we both busy ourselves with unwrapping paper from straws and drinking more soda than is necessary just to avoid heavy conversation topics.

  “I think we should buy two houses next to each other,” he says after a moment. Unfortunately, that moment was right after I had taken a big sip of soda, and I choke on it.

  “Absolutely not,” I tell him. Even if I could afford a house—which I cannot—watching him date other women would gut me. I’ve been lucky so far, and it’s selfish to say, but with him being out of our lives, I haven’t had to watch him settle down with someone who was not me.

  “Why not?” he asks. Oh, God, he’s serious. I was hoping he was kidding.

  “Well, for one, I can’t afford a house,” I answer honestly, even though my pride smarts at the spoken truth.

  “That’s an easy fix,” he says. “I make plenty of money. I’ll buy both.”

  “Not so fast,” I say, holding up a hand to slow this train down before it crashes at heartbreak station. “I can’t let you buy me a house.”

  “Sure you can,” he says confidently. “I haven’t paid child support in eight years. I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I tell him. “But still, no.”

  “Why not?”

  I let out a frustrated breath before answering. “Sure, now it seems like a good idea. But what about when you’re dating or when you bring a woman home? And when you settle down and start a family? Rachel won’t understand why she’s not part of that.” I have to look away, because the thought of Rick with his own family is physically painful.

  “Are you worried about your feelings or Rachel’s?” he asks quietly, and I hate that he could always read me so well, and apparently, he still can.

  “Rachel’s, of course.”

  “Of course,” Rick parrots. “How many lovers have you had since me?”

  “None,” I answer. “But maybe it’s time I get back out there. I don’t want your parade of women in front of my daughter.”

  “Our daughter,” he corrects.

  “I don’t want your parade of women in front of our daughter.” Or me. But mostly Rachel. I haven’t dated at all, so she wouldn’t understand. She’s not a baby anymore, but she’s also still a child.

  “Do you know what they called me in the Navy?” he asks after an awkward moment of us sitting across from each other, neither willing to break the silence. “What they still call me?”

  “No,” I answer softly.

  “Monk. Do you know why?”

  “No.”

  “Because the last woman I fucked was my wife before she ran out on me nine years ago,” he says calmly, like he didn’t just rock me down to my very foundation. “Now, I’m going to go show my daughter what a badass I am at the SeaWolf game. Someone told me it’s soul healing, and I think we could all use a little of that tonight.”

  And then he’s gone, chasing after the beautiful little girl we made together in a time when there was nothing but love.

  “House Underdogs Propose New Controversial Bill”

  Chapter 4

  Can’t stop

  Present Day

  “I hate how much I want you.”

  A hard body presses into mine from behind. The anger in the voice should make me want to run, but I can’t, and never could where this man is concerned. I want him more now than ever.

  I just had a meeting with Grace, the First Lady. She’s adorably pregnant, and everything she wears goes flying off the shelves hours later. Most recently, a pair of maternity skinny jeans and a blouse from Target, of all places. She’s since had to trade in her signature Louboutins for a pair of eco-friendly Rothy’s flats, but she digs them, and so do shoppers everywhere.

  I was walking through the offices when a firm hand grabbed me by my upper arm and pulled me into a dark office. He pressed my front against the dark wall and growled in my ear, “I hate how much I want you.”

  “I know,” I tell him as I press my thighs together. I’m wet and wanting, and we both know it. I shouldn’t want him, but I do, and I probably always will.

  “I can’t see you walk the halls and not feel my cock get hard,” he growls.

  “I know,” I whisper, feeling his hardness press against the small of my back.

  “I hate that I need you so much.” He skates his hands up the back of my thighs, bringing the hem of my skirt with him. “Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me like I want you.”

  “I want you,” I whine as he pulls my panties aside, and I feel his fingertips brush against my opening. There is no denying how wet I am for him.

  “That’s my girl,” he praises, but I’m not his girl, and I never will be again. I hear the clank of his belt buckle as he undoes the front of his pants and the tear of the foil packet as he protects himself. It’s another tragic reminder I can’t be trusted to bear his offspring.

  I feel the tip of his cock against my pussy, and I arch my hips back to meet him as he thrusts deep inside. I press the palms of my hands flat against the wall and brace against the sting as my body stretches to accommodate him. I bite my lip to keep from calling out and revel in the low groan Rick lets out as it rumbles up my spine.

  He places his hands over mine, holding me against the wall as he begins to move. The push and pull of his body in mine has the air seizing in my lungs. Gone is all semblance of tender emotions; there is no room for them here as Rick fucks me against a wall in a dark office in the White House.

  I shouldn’t let him. I shouldn’t be here at all, with him, but where Rick is concerned, I’m weak. I’ll take any scraps he can throw me, even when I know I shouldn’t. I should walk away like I did nine years ago. It was better for everyone then, but now I can’t stop wanting him.

  “I want to hate you,” he says, his mouth just barely touching the shell of my ear as he drives deep only to pull back and do it again and again. “Fuck. I want to hate you so much.”

  “I know,” I repeat, my nails scraping against the wall as he pushes me closer and closer.

  “But I can’t.”

  “I know.”

  “Make me,” he pleads as he plunges faster and faster. “Make me hate you, so I don’t want you so much.”

  “I can’t!” I cry out. I tip my head forward so my face presses against the wall.

  His movements become wilder as he loses his tight grip on his control. Each plunge and pull of his cock take me closer and closer to the edge. Just when I think I won’t be able to stop the scream that’s building with my climax, burning so far out of control that I can’t silence it, Rick clamps his palm over my mouth, muffling me as I come.

  He drives deep once… twice… before pulling out as he comes.

  The loss of him, his cock, his nearness, all serve to sever any connection we made, not matter how fleeting or how toxic. This is clearly a lesson in not having what you want. I want Rick and can’t have him. He wants answers I can’t give. And somewhere in the middle, we’re both left with nothing but wanting what can never be.

  I keep my face pressed to the wall, unable to look at him as he slips off the condom and ties it in a knot before tossing it in a wastebasket in the corner. I hear the snick of his zipper as he does up his pants, and then he walks away.

  But like I said, I’m weak, so I turn my head, my cheek still pressed against the wall and the back of my skirt tucked up over my hips. All while I watch his back as he walks away from me. That is, until he stops at the door just before he pulls it open, his hand on the doorknob. But he doesn’t turn back to face me while he speaks, even as he shatters both my heart and his to pieces.

  “I hate how much I want you, and I want to hate you. And I can’t seem to stop doing either.”

  And then he’s gone
.

  “Rumors are Circling About White House Chief of Staff and Estranged Wife. Could the Political Mercenary Have Soft Underbelly?”

  Chapter 5

  I’ll find you

  “Mom!” Rachel shouts from her room at the top of the stairs. “Where is my uniform?”

  “It’s on top of your dresser!” I call back, knowing it’s exactly where I laid it out for her last night when Becky’s mom called to ask if Rachel could stay the night and then ride to the game with them Saturday morning.

  “Thanks, Mom!” I can hear the excitement ringing in my girl’s voice. I know it’s been hard for her being the new girl in town. But in true Rachel form, she dove headfirst into our new life in D.C., where she would finally get to know her dad.

  “Don’t forget your cleats!” I call.

  “Oh right!” she shouts, making me laugh. While my girl might dive headfirst into life, she forgets half of what she needs to remember along the way. I pick up her backpack and jacket and hang them in the hall closet before continuing through the house, picking up after my beautiful little tornado.

  “Becky and her mom are here,” I shout after the doorbell rings.

  “Be right there, Mom!”

  “Don’t forget your toothbrush. No one wants to be the stinky kid!”

  “Mooom!”

  “Hey, Amber.” I smile as I pull open the door, but it isn’t Amber and Becky on the front porch; it’s Rick.

  “Dad!” Rachel screeches like excited little girls do. She’s obviously happy to see him like always. And as always, she has no idea what tension lies between her dad and me.

  “Hey, wild child.” He smiles, coming in and closing the door. “Going somewhere?”

  “Sleepover!” she shouts again.

  “Ooh, that reminds me,” I say, snapping my fingers. “Let me see your bag before Amber and Becky get here. Did you remember your toothbrush?”

  “Yes, Mooom,” she drawls, handing me her bag just as a car double backfires outside, making her jump. My kid has been raised in cities her whole life, and somehow she’s never heard the glorious sound of a car that is about to die.