Caught by the Chief of Staff (A Presidential Affair Book 2) Page 7

  “No!” I cry. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Leave her alone. Please. Just leave her alone.”

  “Have you?” the voice prompts. “Have you really done everything I asked you to? Or are you connected to Donovan again? If memory serves me, he was the price you so happily paid. Well now the stakes have been raised.”

  I am. Rick is back in my life, and now we are more intertwined than ever, even more so than when we were married. Something told me when Rick crashed back into my life that I was dancing with the devil himself, but I had stupidly ignored the feeling. I left Rick years ago to protect him, and now I’d have to leave him again to protect our daughter. And I will.

  I have always loved Rick, and it’s been physically painful being near him and not having him completely, but I would give it all up again to protect Rachel. Rachel is my everything. She is the best of both of us and has her whole life ahead of her. What happens to me no longer matters; my pain is no longer relevant, and neither is my joy, because she is everything.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I made a mistake.”

  “You know what to do.” And then the line disconnects.

  My stomach roils at the thought of a creep watching my baby. I have to get to her now. I can’t be away from her any longer. Every second that ticks by is another that could mean total devastation. It’s the middle of the school day, but I don’t care. I’ll check her out and take her home to hunker down for movies and Chinese food. She’ll love it. I have to keep her safe. And hopefully, she will never know the wolf was knocking at our door.

  I scoop my keys up off the desk and log out of the computer I was using. My heart is pounding so fast it feels like it will beat right out of my chest. My palms are slick with sweat, and my brain is swirling a mile a minute. My thoughts are racing with so many what-if scenarios, and I can’t make it stop. I sling my pocketbook over my shoulder and run out the office door and right into a hard body. Thick arms banded with heavy muscle close around me, and full lips brush my ear.

  “Hey, baby, I was just looking for you,” he purrs in my ear.

  What I wouldn’t give to go back and be able to lose myself in his body. To be ignorant in the unfairness of our situation, of the rules of the game and the die that had been cast against us.

  God, how I would have loved to hear those words spoken like this a month, a day, an hour ago even, but now, I can’t. I can’t have anything to do with Rick Donovan, because it could very well cost our daughter her life. Oh how I would trade places with her in a heartbeat. A life for a life. Mine for hers. I would do it too. Without hesitation. She would be safe and happy living with Rick, and I would be gone.

  Whatever monsters I brought into their lives would be gone forever with me.

  “I have to go,” I whisper, and my voice sounds wrong to my own ears. His body stiffens in response, and I know he hears it too.

  “Cara?” Rick asks. I can hear he’s on alert, looking for the threat and where it might come from. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just have to go.” I try to push away from him, but he tightens his arms around me. No. Why can’t he let me go? I just need to go.

  “Tell me what has you spooked,” he pushes. “I need to know what happened.”

  “Nothing happened,” I lie, even as my voice shakes and we both know it’s not true. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

  “I told you that I was done letting you run,” he growls in my ear. “Whatever shit you’ve spun up in your head, you better tell me now, and we can work through it, fuck it out, whatever you need to get the fuck over it.”

  “Thank you for reminding me we’re better off apart,” I say tartly. Somehow, Rick always manages to bring out the worst in me. I know that’s not fair to put it all on him, but holy fuck, I need to get out of here, and he chooses now to fight this out? This is why we shouldn’t be together!

  “We are not,” he growls, sending shivers up my spine. I knew better than to poke the bear, and I did it anyway. Some days, I wonder if I will ever learn.

  “We are,” I reply. “Can you honestly think this is the way loving parents should treat each other? That we’re setting a good example for our daughter by engaging in this toxic of a relationship?” When he’s silent, I press on. “You can’t, can you? Because there is nothing healthy about this. I don’t want to be treated this way.”

  “You didn’t seem to be complaining when I was dick-deep inside you Saturday night,” he growls.

  “You’re good at it.” I shrug. “Can you blame me? But that doesn’t mean we should carry on the way we are.”

  “So that’s it?” he snarls. “You’re scared, so you’re going to run again?”

  “Yes,” I answer him, because this needs to be over sooner rather than later, so I can get to Rachel as soon as possible.

  “You don’t need to run anymore,” he pleads, and I can’t bear to see the look in his eye while he lays himself emotionally bare at my feet. “I’ll protect you from whatever has you running scared. Even if it’s your own damn self.”

  “We can’t keep doing this,” I tell him. “It will only hurt Rachel in the end.”

  “Two parents who love each other and love her won’t ever hurt her. And you know it.”

  “You don’t know that,” I snap. Fuck! Can’t he see I have to go? This is wasting time I don’t have.

  “Cara—” Rick starts, but I don’t let him finish it.

  “I have to go,” I tell him one more time as I push away, and this time, he lets me. Thank God.

  “This isn’t over,” Rick warns me.

  “Just stay away, Rick.”

  I walk away from him, and as I move down the halls, I hear the spoken word “Never” bounce around me.

  And oh if only that was how it could be. But girls like me don’t get the fairy-tale endings.

  “White House Chief of Staff Had Secret Daughter”

  Chapter 8

  Mu shu cluster fuck

  “Mom?” Rachel asks when she walks through the doors to the front office of her school.

  “Hey, honey,” I say, pasting a fake smile on my face. If anything, I can’t let her feel how hysterical I am on the inside.

  “They said I have a dentist appointment?”

  “I got done with work early and thought we could play hooky for an afternoon,” I whisper my lie in a conspiratorial fashion.

  After I left the offices like a bat out of hell, I knew I raised more than a few eyebrows. Tomorrow, I’ll tell them all I started my period and had to leave quickly. Nothing like getting photographed by the paparazzi with blood-stained clothes. That should explain away my strange behavior. I jumped in my car and raced all the way to Rachel’s school. It felt like it took forever to get here, but really it was just shy of twenty minutes.

  I walked into the office and told them I thought with all the recent changes that had been made to Rachel’s life, she could probably use an afternoon to decompress and have a little fun with her mom. I told them to tell her she had a dentist appointment until I revealed our plans for the rest of the day. The ladies in the front office of this school are the best, so they were more than happy to play along.

  “Are we going to get into trouble?” she asks.

  “Of course not, darlin’,” the older lady who works the front desk says with a happy smile. If only she knew the thoughts that drove me to come here and spirit away my only child; she might have more reservations about the situation.

  “Oh okay.” She slings her backpack high up on her shoulders and follows me through the parking lot and to my car. I do my best to hide the fact that I keep looking over my shoulder like a teenaged shoplifter. I feel a nervous tingle up the back of my neck, but when I look for signs of anyone watching us, I see none.

  “How does Chinese sound?” I ask when I slide behind the wheel of my little Jeep.

  “Mu shu chicken?” she asks, looking so hopeful I know what’s coming next. “And ice cream sundaes after? Pretty please
? With a cherry on top?”

  “Yes.” I laugh as I pull out into traffic. “Dial up the Golden Dragon and order. We’ll swing through the grocery store on our way, so it’ll be ready when we get there.”

  “On it!” she cheers as she jumps into action. I love that my girl is such a happy child. Her zest for life is amazing. “Should I text Dad and ask him to come?”

  “Oh… uhh,” I start to panic all over again. The way I left things with Rick this afternoon was not a happy one. And I need him to stay away in order to keep Rachel safe. “I think I remember something about him having a late meeting tonight.”

  “Oh okay,” she says, sounding sadder than before as we pull into the grocery store’s parking lot.

  “Let’s go get all the candy,” I tell her with a big fake smile.

  “And whipped cream and cherries!” she says, catching on to my subject change.

  “Absolutely!”

  I beep the locks of the car behind us, and Rachel grabs a cart from the rack by the front door on our way in. We like to pretend we’re on Supermarket Sweep when we come in for snacks and junk food. It’s weird, but it’s fun. It’s just our thing.

  I let Rachel get a little carried away as she tosses in different kinds of ice cream, frozen pizzas, cold cereal, and candy. Chips and juice as well. I wouldn’t usually let her choose all the things, but I throw in fruit and vegetables when she’s not looking. This will keep us covered if we have to hunker down for a while, while I figure out our next moves.

  “Having a party?” the cashier asks as we load up our haul on the conveyor belt.

  “Yeah, something like that,” I mumble while Rachel happily chirps about her favorite boy band on the cover of People Magazine.

  “So do you, Mom?” she asks me.

  “Huh? What did you say?” I ask, shaking my head from side to side like that will clear my thoughts. My daughter shoots me a look that says she is not amused I wasn’t paying attention to her, and I hate that I wasn’t.

  “I said, ‘Do you think Uncle Jake will invite Sudden Drop to the White House, and then I can meet them?’” she asks me, making me laugh.

  “You know you can’t use your connections to the president for your own personal gain, right?” I ask, taking over loading the groceries into the cart before I pay the cashier and start pushing it out into the lot.

  “Ugh,” she whines. “You’re no fun. I’ll ask Dad.” And the thought of the terrifying Rick Donovan being the fun parent makes me laugh.

  I unlock the car before handing her the keys. “Why don’t you get in the car and lock the doors while I load the groceries.”

  “Why?” she asks, scrunching her brow while she works out the pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit. She’s just like her dad that way.

  “Just to be safe,” I answer a little too quickly. “This isn’t the best neighborhood. I’ll be done in a second.”

  “Okay,” she says, eyeing me suspiciously before taking my keys and climbing in the car. I breathe a small sigh of relief when I hear the locks click and then toss the groceries in the back as fast as I can.

  I knock on the window, signaling for her to unlock the doors, which she does with a “You’re so weird” muttered just loud enough for me to hear. I slide behind the wheel and quickly relock the doors before taking my keys from her.

  I drive to the Golden Dragon, a restaurant Rachel and I found and fell in love with when we first moved here, largely because of their crispy wonton noodles and red eggroll sauce they give you in massive quantities with your order. I take a few more turns than were necessary, and I know Rachel notices. She could do this drive in her sleep if she wasn’t only eight years old.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “Where are you going?” she asks me.

  “To the Golden Dragon.”

  “But why are you going this way?”

  “Oh, I just thought I’d try something different,” I lie.

  “Oh okay.”

  I pull into the parking lot and cut the engine. Rachel and I jump out of the car right as it begins to rain, even though it was sunny two minutes ago. Weather on the east coast is so weird. I may never get used to it.

  She grabs my hand in the parking lot like she does in every lot, and I secretly love that she still does. I hate and love equally every rite of passage she meets. We race into the restaurant where we are greeted with smiles and hugs by the owners, an older Chinese couple who have adopted Rachel and me. I wonder if Rick is treated the same here or if he’s just another patron.

  I slip her my credit card while her son, who has been asking me out for over a month now, carries our bags out from the kitchen for us. Rachel and I take them quickly, and I make excuses about groceries in the trunk, so he won’t ask me out again. He’s good-looking and funny and so sweet. But I am so still in love with my ex-husband. Maybe my life would be easier if I just dated someone like Aaron, but that’s not fair to him, to me, to Rick. So I will just be alone until Rick moves on.

  We grab our bags of takeout and rush back out to the parking lot where we climb in and buckle up. I start the car and we head home. Rush hour hasn’t quite started yet, so the roads are not very busy, and it doesn’t take us long before we’re pulling into the garage.

  “Why don’t you go inside and pick a movie while I get these groceries?” I ask her. “And take dinner in with you and put it on the coffee table.”

  “Okay, Mom!”

  I grab as many bags as I can from the trunk and follow her inside before dumping them all on the island in the kitchen. I head back out to the garage and grab the last load. When I get into the kitchen, the groceries from the first load have already been put away, and I can hear my daughter puttering around upstairs.

  I finish tossing the pizzas and ice cream in the freezer before running upstairs to change into a pair of yoga leggings and a tank top. When I make it back downstairs, Rachel is dressed in her own brand of comfort clothes—a pair of running shorts and an old oversized T-shirt she stole from the back of my closet. It’s faded gray from too many washes, but you can still see the bold letters across the front that spell out NAVY. She had jacked it from me, and I had stolen it from her father. The irony is not lost on me.

  “What’s all this?” I ask when I see her laying out a feast fit for a king. “There’s no way we’ll eat all this. Did we get someone else’s order?”

  “Uhh…” she hedges just as there’s a knock at the front door.

  “I wonder who that could be.”

  “I… uhh… I kind of invited Dad,” she admits, and I look back at her, noticing the table is covered with not only our favorites but Rick’s too. “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” I say just as Rick lets himself in.

  “Everybody decent?” he calls out.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “We’re right here.”

  “I see that,” he says. “I thought this was dinner. Is someone dying?”

  “Very funny.” I roll my eyes.

  “Oh, God,” he whispers before eyeing me nervously and then his daughter like she’s a live bomb. “Did she uhh…. Did she start?”

  “Start what?” I ask, not understanding what he’s trying to ask me. There are too many things on my mind right now to focus.

  “Her period,” he whispers harshly.

  “Oh! No, this isn’t that. We just like to gorge on takeout and watch movies from time to time,” I answer. “I thought it was just going to be us. She kind of sprung you on me.”

  “I would apologize if I was sorry, but I’m not,” he says, making me smile.

  “I know.”

  “Are you mad?” he asks me.

  “No,” I answer honestly, even though I’m freaking the fuck out.

  Maybe there’s another solution to my problems. Maybe Rachel and I could move back to New Jersey, and then Rick would only be in our lives from time to time. But his words from last night ring in my ears. I know that if I try to run again, I won’t
get very far. Nine years ago, we were young and dumb, and Rick was fairly newly minted to the teams with only a few missions under his belt. Now, he has the resources of the most powerful man in the world accessible to him at his very fingertips. I have no doubt that if Rick asked, Jake would rain hell on me to get his friend’s daughter back for him. And to be honest, if I were in his shoes, I would do the same fucking thing.

  “I love this movie!” Rachel says like it’s a war cry as she queues up the Trolls movie.

  “I can’t wait,” Rick says with a gentle smile for his only child, and the moment is so tender and sweet, but I still can’t help the smirk that curls up the right corner of my mouth, because this poor man has no idea what he has just gotten himself into.

  “Great choice, sunshine girl.” It was also the only choice. Since the movie came out, we’ve been listening to the soundtrack in the car and singing at the top of our lungs whenever humanly possible. She also watches the movie on repeat.

  “What’s that look for?” Rick asks me suspiciously.

  “Oh no reason.”

  I grab my plate and load it up with mu shu chicken roll up in the little dumpling wrappers, fried rice, and crispy wontons. I scoop up my chopsticks and sit back so I can watch Rick enjoy his evening.

  Rachel scoops up a paper carton of orange chicken and a pair of chopsticks to dive in. She spins them around her fingers like a drummer in a hardcore marching band and then dives in. I smile proudly, because I taught her that move, and it’s nice to see her enjoy it.

  “Those are some slick moves, princess,” Rick compliments her.

  “Thanks.” She beams at her father. “Mom taught me.”

  “I know,” he replies before turning a pointed look on me. “I remember the move well.”

  I shouldn’t love that he remembers all the little things about me that he does, but I do. A shiver wracks up my spine as his dark-hazel eyes heat just a little. And I love it all. So I curl up in the corner of the sofa and pick at my dinner, wondering if I’ll have any heart left when I walk away from him one last time, because I have to. Whether he lets me or not, for Rachel’s safety, I have to find a way.