The Scandal and Carter O'Neill

“Don’t talk,” he said. “Don’t say one more word.”

“Okay,” she said quickly. “Right. I’ll shut up.” The silence lasted for all of ten seconds, in which Carter recognized the delicious smell coming off the woman. Ginger cookies. Weird. “Hey, sorry, I know I’m supposed to keep quiet, but could you just ease up on the grip?” she muttered. “And slow down—you’re like ten feet taller than me.”

It was true. She barely came up to his shoulder and Carter realized he was practically dragging the woman. He didn’t even want to imagine what kind of headline that would create, so he slowed down.

He even managed to wave at Mrs. Vogler as if this were all normal, all part of the plan, but she wasn’t buying it—she watched, slack-jawed.

He punched open the door to the pool and led her into the giant cavern. As soon as the door shut he dropped her arm, still walking toward the side door onto the alley. Trying to control his suddenly rampaging anger.

“This place really is in bad shape,” she said, staring into the empty tiled hole that used to be a pool. “You sure it’s going to cost less to rebuild? That seems counterintuitive.”

He turned back and looked at her, the pregnant pixie who might have just created the worst scandal to hit this administration, and she was gazing into the deep end.

She must have caught a whiff of his fury because she straightened and managed to look like a very contrite pregnant pixie. Her hands fiddled with the edges of her coat. “I’m sorry,” she said, waving her hand behind her. “About all that.”

“Why the hell did you lie?” he asked. “Do you even know what you’ve done?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Try to explain it,” he breathed, barely keeping it together.

“Let’s go outside,” she said, stepping by him. She gave him a wide, nervous berth, but he still smelled ginger and sugar. Sweet and spicy.

He hit the doors under the unlit and cracked exit sign and led her into the bright warmth of midday. He yanked at his tie.

“Is this a medical situation?” he asked. “Are you off your medication, or escaped from the psych ward?”

The woman was silent, scanning the alley as if searching for someone.

“Do I need to call the cops?” he asked, and that got her attention.

“No,” she said quickly. “No cops. I was told—” She blinked big green eyes, and then shut up.

“Told what? By who?” he asked, his voice hard.

“Whom,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry?”

“By…ah…whom? It’s an object-subject…” She blinked again, the pretty green eyes like pine trees in sunlight. “I’ll shut up.”

He stepped up to her and looked down at her glossy black hair. “Unless you give me one reasonable answer right now, there will be cops and you will be in more trouble than you can possibly handle.”

“A woman gave me a thousand dollars to get you out here alone,” she blurted.

Carter blinked, speechless.

“But I don’t know where she is.” Pixie looked around again.

“What woman?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know her name,” she said. “She was blond. Pretty.”

Carter stepped back. No, he thought. This can’t be happening.

Amanda came barreling out the door they’d just come through.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“Take her,” Carter said, gesturing toward the pregnant woman. He didn’t even know her name, which was crazy considering the story she’d just started. “Put her in my car and don’t let her leave.”

“You can’t do that,” she said, her little face all screwed up with outrage.

He leaned in, close enough to see the freckles across her nose, the thickness of her black eyelashes. “You can wait for me in my car or you can wait for the cops in my car, it’s your call.”

She took her full bottom lip between her teeth, biting until the pink went white. “Fine,” she said, and whirled, her pretty coat sweeping out behind her.

“Who is she?” Amanda asked.

“I have no idea,” he said. “But don’t let her leave.”

Amanda followed the woman through the gray doors, and Carter was left alone in the alleyway.

He stared up at the clouds stretched thin across the slice of blue sky between the buildings. All he ever wanted was to do the right thing. Something good. And somehow it always got screwed up.

“Hello, Carter,” a voice behind him said. A voice so familiar, despite its ten-year absence from his life, it made something small and forgotten inside him twist in fear and love. He didn’t even have to turn to see her, the perfect blond hair, the thin body no doubt impeccably dressed, the cold, ice pick eyes.

Of course, he thought, she would show up now.

“Hello, Mother,” he said.

CHAPTER TWO

ZOE MADISON HAD MADE a lot of mistakes in her life. Big ones, small ones, forest-fire-size ones that had burned her life to the ground.

If there were an authority on mistakes, she was it.

And she knew—from the backseat of Carter O’Neill’s expensive car, with its leather seats and fake wood—she knew that what she’d just done, the lie and the drama of it all, was not a mistake.

First of all, Carter O’Neill was going to be fine. A guy like that was born fine. He was simply too good-looking, too cool and calm, to not be fine. He was like James Bond or something. Though, she thought with a smile, James Bond had gotten batted around like a cat toy by that wily Tootie Vogler.

He was actually far more handsome when he was frazzled, which was saying something, because it wasn’t like the guy was ever hard to look at.

That little scene she’d caused in there would simply blow over.

And if she felt any doubt, any little wormhole of guilt, it was because of the reporter-guy asking the questions. She hadn’t counted on a reporter, and that might take some repair work. Maybe she’d write a letter to the editor or something, tell the whole world she was off her meds. Or stalking the handsome deputy mayor with the lips so perfect they should be bronzed.

More likely, though, she’d just be explained away in some kind of press release issued by the mayor’s office.