No Stranger to Scandal

Three



At four o’clock the next day, Lucy knocked on the door to Hayden’s suite, then rolled her shoulders one at a time to try and ease the bunching tension in them.

Hayden had called her cell an hour ago and asked if she could come by to answer a few more questions, and she’d jumped at the chance to see him again in his suite, maybe find a few more clues for her story. The only other time she’d been to his hotel was before Graham had handed her the assignment of the exposé, so this time she’d pay more attention to the little things. The clues.

But now that she was here, her knees quivered—in fact her whole body was unsteady. She wiped damp palms down her calf-length skirt. This was the first time she’d seen him after saying that if things were different, she’d make a pass at him. And she had no idea how things had changed between them, or if she’d ruined the fragile rapport she’d been building with the man who was her target.

After she’d turned a corner yesterday at the park and was safely out of his line of sight, she’d called herself every type of crazy. Rosie had looked up, worried, and Lucy had explained to the dog that she’d probably just uttered the most reckless, foolish words of her life.

Even if they were true.

But she had to be careful. It wasn’t just that they were in the midst of a congressional investigation. Hayden Black was the last man on the planet she could afford to be involved with. People already judged her for being the daughter of Jonathon Royall and the stepdaughter of Graham Boyle—two wealthy, high-profile, well-connected men. The common opinion was that she’d been handed everything she wanted on a silver platter. That she hadn’t had to work for her own achievements. If she were to be seen with another wealthy, high-profile, well-connected man like Hayden Black, especially given that he was a few years older than she, people would write her off as a woman who was dependent on strong men. Her achievements would again be discounted as not coming from hard work. At just thirteen she’d realized what people assumed about her and it had made her determined to prove to the world that she could achieve anything she wanted on her own.

No, Hayden Black was not for her. She needed an average guy, maybe one just starting out in his career, like her.

With a heavy whoosh, the door swung open and there stood the far-from-average man himself, as broodingly gorgeous as she remembered. “Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice like gravel, as if he hadn’t used it all day.

And there was something new in his expression—his dark coffee eyes were wary as they assessed her. Seemed she’d thrown the great criminal investigator a curveball yesterday. Her taut shoulders relaxed a little. Perhaps, despite it being a crazy thing to say, it had worked in her favor.

“You’re welcome....” She paused as she stepped into the room. “Do I call you Hayden or Mr. Black, since this is an official interview?”

“Hayden is fine.” He closed the door behind her and led her to the desk and chairs where they’d spoken two days ago.

She glanced around, taking note of details that might be useful later. Besides the papers on the wooden desk and the coffee cup on the kitchenette counter, the room was neat, nothing out of place, as if he’d just moved in. Hotel housekeeping would have had something to do with that, but there was more to it—as if he was keeping a firm line between Hayden the father and widower and Hayden the tough, take-no-prisoners investigator. She also spied the recorder sitting on the desk again and approved. Recordings were less likely to be misinterpreted than notes.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

She took her seat and lifted her bag onto the desk. “I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, and she remembered that last time she’d made him go back for water after they’d sat down, then to throw away her paper coffee cup. Her mouth began to curve at the memory, but as their gazes held, heat shimmered between them. Time seemed to stretch; goose bumps erupted across her skin. Then Hayden looked away and gave his head a quick shake.

“I have a bottle of water in my bag,” she said in a voice that was more of a husky whisper.

He folded himself into his chair, as if nothing had just passed between them, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Of course you do.”

She took out her water, notepad and pen and lined them up beside each other, using the extra moments to find her equilibrium.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” he said, opening the laptop that sat on the desk in front of him.

She picked up her pen, wrote the date at the top of a clean page, then pasted a smile on her face. “Ready.”

He nodded, switched the recording equipment on and gave the date, time and her name. “Do you understand what illegal phone hacking entails?” he asked bluntly.

Seemed they were jumping right in. She straightened her spine. That suited her just fine. “Yes, I do.”

“So you’re confident you’d recognize phone hacking if you came across evidence that it had happened,” he asked without hesitation and looking directly at her as if daring her to lie. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was working from a list of questions on his laptop today. Perhaps this interview was more important than the first?

She leaned forward in her chair, her hands laced together and resting on the desk. “I believe I would.”

“We already have evidence that ANS has been involved in illegal phone hacking. The evidence against former reporters Brandon Ames and Troy Hall is indisputable—they were caught on camera hiring hackers to record the phone and computer activity of Ted Morrow’s and Eleanor Albert’s families and friends. The only questions that remain are who else was involved, and who knew about it.” There was something vaguely intimidating about the intelligence in his eyes, the determined jut of his chin, the perfect Windsor knot of his pale blue tie. This man would be a formidable adversary.

She arched an eyebrow. “Assuming someone else was involved or knew about it.”

Not acknowledging her comment, his eyes flicked back to the laptop. “Do you work much with Angelica Pierce?”

Lucy kept her face neutral despite the distaste that rolled through her. There was a woman who was capable of something immoral, like phone hacking, if her treatment of her underlings was any gauge of her moral character. Angelica was mean, vain and selfish. But she wasn’t here to talk about whom she personally did and didn’t like, so she simply said, “I do a fair bit of background and preparation work for her.”

“What about Mitch Davis?” Hayden flicked his pen over and under his fingers as he watched her. The man had an intensity in his gaze that was mesmerizing.

“Mitch has his own show, and he’s a star at ANS. I rarely have a chance to speak to him directly.” Mitch had been the one to announce the news of the president’s illegitimate daughter at an inauguration gala, but Brandon and Troy had uncovered the information and given it to Mitch to reveal in a very public toast that put the new president on the spot. Those guys had given ambition a bad name with their slimy tactics, and they deserved the full force of the law—which they were now receiving. But as far as she was aware, they’d acted alone—other than blaming a casual researcher who’d already left ANS—and this witch hunt to try to implicate others in the pair’s crimes was dangerous for everybody.

“Did you work with Brandon Ames or Troy Hall on their story about the president’s daughter?”

She unscrewed the cap on her water bottle and took a sip, putting the cap back on before replying. He may have been asking the questions, but she was retaining a smidgeon of control over the process. “As I said when you asked the question two days ago, no, I didn’t.”

Barely acknowledging her reply, he pushed forward. “What about Marnie Salloway?”

“Marnie is an ANS producer and has the authority to assign me tasks,” she said, making a list in her notebook of the names he was asking about. She wanted the record for when she reported back to Graham, but also to gain a little power in this meeting.

“Has she ever asked you to do anything illegal?”

“No.”

“Anything involving phone hacking?”

“That would be illegal—” she smiled sweetly “—so my reply stands. No.”

“Did you know that your stepfather and the president attended the same college at the same time?”

“Yes,” she said. It was hardly a secret.

“Are you aware of any bad blood between them?”

Not apart from Graham thinking Ted Morrow had strutted around campus as if he owned it. “They didn’t move in the same circles.”

For another twenty minutes he grilled her, trying to trip her up, asking questions in different ways, expertly circling back over the line of questioning again and again. She had to admire his technique, but since she had nothing to hide, it was easy not to stumble.

When he paused to take a sip of water, she asked, “Hayden, do you honestly think someone else at ANS was involved in the hacking with Brandon and Troy, or are you fishing?”

“Someone else was involved,” he said, his voice dropping a notch. His dark brown eyes burned with the intensity of his conviction.

Her fingers tightened around her pen. “Why are you so sure?”

“To start with, neither of them understood the process well enough to have masterminded it. They were pawns, used by someone bigger.”

She frowned as she followed his investigative reasoning. “I’m not someone bigger.”

“No,” he said slowly. His gaze locked on hers, taking on a speculative gleam and, as she understood his meaning, her stomach fell away.

“You’re using me to get to Graham.” She swallowed past an uncomfortable constriction in her throat. “I’m not here for routine questioning like the others. You think Graham ordered those goofballs to do it and that I know something that will implicate him.”

One broad shoulder lifted, then dropped, as if this was a casual conversation, yet the intensity in his eyes didn’t waver. “It’s one theory.”

A shiver ran down her spine. She’d known there was suspicion, of course. They all had. But if it was certain that someone else was involved, then ANS was in more trouble than she’d thought. They still had a bad seed in the company, and if Congress couldn’t find who it was, they’d keep their focus on Graham. The exposé alone wouldn’t save her stepfather. She had to do more.

She tapped a beat with the end of her pen on the desk as fragments of ideas flitted through her mind until one coherent plan formed.

She rested her forearms on the desk and leaned forward. “Hayden, I have a proposal for you.”

He stilled. “I’m listening.”

“If there truly is someone else in ANS who was involved in the hacking, and they were pulling Brandon and Troy’s strings, then I want to know who they are, too. I can tell you now, it’s not Graham. I know that man, and I know what he’s capable of—he’s not your guy. But the only way to prove that is to find the real culprit.”

Hayden leaned back and folded his arms over his wide chest. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m going to help you with your investigation,” she said, mind made up. “I can be your person on the inside. But I won’t be involved in a witch hunt—this has to be evidence-based.” She wouldn’t be manipulated into finding circumstantial or misleading evidence against Graham.

“So you’ll gather information for me?” He spoke slowly, as if testing the idea as he said it.

“Within reason. We have agree to some parameters first.”

He cocked his head, brown eyes curious. “Your stepfather will be okay with you doing this?”

“I won’t tell him just yet. It’s possible he trusts someone he shouldn’t, so for the time being, no one at ANS will know I’m assisting you.” She felt a little queasy at the thought of keeping something of this magnitude from Graham, but in this case, the ends justified the means. The most important thing was that she was working in Graham’s best interests.

Hayden rubbed a hand across a jaw darkened by five-o’clock shadow. “You believe in Boyle that much?”

“More.”

He tapped one finger heavily on the desk three times, then blew out a breath. “Okay, I’m willing to give it a go and see how it pans out. But I have to warn you that I still think Boyle was involved, and I won’t be dropping that line of inquiry just because you’re helping.”

“Noted.” As soon as she found the person behind Troy and Brandon’s crimes, Hayden’s theory about Graham would be moot.

There was a sharp knock at the door. Hayden glanced down at his watch. “Excuse me,” he said, closing his laptop and striding across the room.

A neatly dressed woman in her thirties stood in the doorway behind a stroller containing a squirming Josh. Lucy felt her mouth curve into an unstoppable grin at the sight of the boy. He was gorgeous—Hayden’s mini-me—and his expression was full of joy and delight.

“Daddy!” Josh squealed and reached out to his father.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t realize you were still busy. Would you like me to keep him longer?”

Hayden reached down and lifted his son high, planting a kiss on top of his head. “No, we’re almost done. I’ll take him.”

“Okay.” The nanny leaned forward and said goodbye to her charge. The image of the three of them was so beautiful in that moment that Lucy felt an aching hollowness spread through her middle. They looked like a family.

After closing the door behind the nanny, Hayden wheeled the empty stroller across the room with Josh in one arm. When Josh saw Lucy, his face lit up, then he looked frantically around the room. “Goggie!” he demanded.

“Hello, Josh,” she said on a laugh. “Rosebud is asleep in her basket at home.”

Josh’s little bottom lip pushed out for a split second—until he noticed how close his father’s face was, and began to pat his cheeks. Despite flinching at one of the pats that hit his eye, Hayden pushed the stroller into a corner. “If you can give me five minutes, I’ll set Josh up in his playpen with a few toys and we can continue,” he called over his shoulder.

“Sure,” she said. He opened the door to one of the suite’s bedrooms and Lucy slipped out of her chair to follow—partly because it was a great chance to look for more clues for the assignment Graham had given her on Hayden, and partly out of curiosity.

At the park yesterday, she’d carried Josh most of the time and played with him, so she hadn’t had much of a chance to observe father and son together. This evening, with Hayden setting his son up in the playpen, asking him which toys he’d like, she could see more clearly. And there was something a little...awkward about the interaction. Her gaze drifted around the room. Sitting on top of an end table was a haphazard pile of baby manuals, one thick tome perched on the top, open and spine up, its pages dog-eared. Perhaps Hayden was floundering now that he was a single father? She glanced back to man and son, her heart clenching tight for them both, for all they’d lost. For all they were dealing with now.

“He’s a beautiful boy, Hayden.” An acknowledgment of that truth wasn’t much, but it was all she could offer him. “So precious.”

Hayden looked down at Josh, who chose that moment to give a wide, toothless grin. “Yeah, he is,” he said softly.

A bright, sparkling idea formed in her mind—a way to get more time with Hayden and his son. She squeezed her hands together and told herself she needed that time because Hayden had his guard down more when his son was there, so her subtle digging for information for the exposé was easier. But she was uneasily aware that she wanted to spend more time with the males in the Black family. She just hoped to high heaven that it wouldn’t influence her professional judgment.

“I know a park that’s the best place to feed the ducks,” she said. “I was thinking, since you’re not from D.C., you might be looking for places to take Josh. Rosebud and I could show you on the weekend if you want.”

His fingers stilled against the top of the playpen, where they’d been tapping. “Lucy, I don’t—”

“No problem if you’d rather not. I just thought Josh might get a kick out of seeing the ducks. There’s a great playground there, too. And I’ll be taking Rosie on the weekend anyway, so it’s no bother,” she said, aware she was babbling now.

He wrapped a hand around the back of his neck as he watched his son for endless moments. The expression on his face was so tender, so filled with love, it was heartbreaking. Eyelashes of darkest brown lay in a fan, almost resting on his cheeks as he gazed down.

He shook his head slowly. “Lucy, it’s inappropriate to socialize with you.”

“What if we use the time to plan what I’ll be looking for at ANS?” she said as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “A briefing for your spy, so to speak, and Josh gets an outing as a bonus.”

He scrubbed his hands through his hair, then let them rest low on his hips. “Okay, sure. But bring pen and paper, because we will be working.”

A burst of nervous anticipation skittered up her spine. He’d agreed. Part of her hadn’t believed he would—the same part that wondered now if she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Wondered if spending a day in a social setting with Hayden—and all his brooding testosterone—was akin to playing with fire.

She bit down on her lip. No, this would be fine. It was still a good plan. The best plan she had. Plan A.

She drew in a full breath and tried to calm her racing heart. “You can pick me up Sunday morning. Say, ten?”

“Ten’s fine.” A faint frown line formed between his brows, showing he wasn’t convinced he should have accepted. He wasn’t alone.

She glanced around for a piece of paper. “I’ll write down my address for you. It’s not far from—”

“I know where you live,” he said, his voice a low, solemn rumble.

“Of course you do,” she said wryly—he probably knew more about her than many of her friends did. Having spent her first eleven years living with her media magnet of a father in something of a fishbowl, she preferred now to be the one controlling the news story—the journalist instead of the target. So it was surprising that Hayden doing background research on her didn’t worry her as much as she would have predicted. There was something strangely safe, something honorable and decent about Hayden Black, despite his investigation’s potential for disaster for her family.

He guided her out of the bedroom with its playpen, toward the desk where he’d been grilling her just a few minutes ago. “We’ll wrap it up here for today.”

She gathered her things and tucked them in her bag, glad to have a task to hide how restless her hands suddenly were. “I’ll see you Sunday,” she said and looked back at Hayden. His forehead was lined and she felt cold apprehension filling her veins. She hesitated, and he opened his mouth to say something, but before he could cancel, she turned and slipped out the door.

* * *

Two days later, Lucy sat with Hayden on the shady banks of the Potomac River, a sleeping boy on a blanket between them. They’d fed the ducks, strolled around and now, as Josh was recouping his energy, Lucy and Hayden had fallen into an almost comfortable silence. From the moment he’d picked her up, it was as if they’d both been warily circling the social component of the day. Hayden had been unfailingly polite, if distant, and she’d followed suit. In the past, her social skills had been strong enough to cope with conversing with the rich, the royal, the famous and the powerful. But those same social skills faltered with Hayden Black. They’d mainly talked to, or about, Josh.

It wasn’t just the investigation—though that was enough to make things less than comfortable between them—it was the unfailing awareness she had of him as a man. She could feel where he was, and when he’d been close she could smell the masculine musk of his skin. She’d lost the trail of something Josh had been saying more than once because she was paying more attention to his father at her side. And there were still those unguarded words she’d said the last time they’d been in a park together that were hanging between them—she was no closer to knowing what he thought about them.

Though there were a few things she did know more about now. The digging she’d done for the exposé in the past two days had focused on his company—it seemed working in the security business was lucrative. Or it was if you were as good as Hayden Black. The company he’d started only a few years ago now took in several million dollars in fees a year, and his personal wealth was estimated to be in the millions and growing. He’d come a long way from the boy who’d put himself through law school on a military scholarship and worked as an investigative lawyer in the military police until his time in the armed forces was up. Now he was a wealthy single father of a one-year-old.

She looked down at the sleeping boy, his face flushed a faint pink, remembering the trace of awkwardness she’d seen the night Hayden had set him up in the playpen. That image had worried at the edges of her mind. She moistened her lips and dared a personal question. “Has it been hard becoming his sole parent?”

Hayden’s head snapped up, surprise in his eyes. Then he leaned back on his hands and nodded wearily. “The hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

If they were going to get into a deeper conversation, she should be looking for clues to skeletons in his professional career for her exposé, or evidence of bias, yet she couldn’t help prodding a little further into his relationship with Josh. “Did your wife do most of the care before she died?”

He coughed out a bitter laugh. “Brooke didn’t do much with him at all. Besides buy him designer clothes and show him off when she thought it would grant her social cachet.” He pulled a cotton cover over his son and placed a hand protectively on the sleeping boy’s back.

“So you looked after him?” She folded her legs up beneath her, turning to face Hayden more. This was the most personal information he’d disclosed and she was hungry for every detail, every expression.

“No,” he said, wincing. “Brooke had staff for everything, including Josh. She—” He hesitated, obviously weighing how much information to share. She waited, letting the decision be completely his, though wishing she could ease the tension that bound his body tight. “She was a socialite from a very wealthy family who expected to be pampered. When we were first together, I was happy to oblige, but it turned out that she needed more pampering than a husband alone could give.” His expression was wry, but it obviously veiled deeper emotions. “She had staff to clean the house, a chef, a personal trainer and from the day he was born, two live-in nannies for Josh, so they could work round the clock. He rarely saw his mother.”

“Oh, Hayden.” One of her father’s sisters, Evelyn, lived like that, but she could imagine nothing worse than outsourcing her life, her son, so completely.

“I should have done something, been more involved.” His voice was thick with self-recrimination, his face twisted with regret. “But Brooke said that children were her domain and she’d handle them the way she wanted. The way she’d been raised. And I hate to admit it, but I was sick of the arguments, so I let her have her way for some peace. For all our sakes, including Josh’s. Besides, I was out of my depth—I’d never been a father before—how did I know the way she’d been raised was wrong?”

“I’m assuming that was quite different from the way you were raised,” she said gently.

“You can say that again.” He gazed down at Josh for a long moment before reaching out to smooth the hair back from his son’s face. “I spent time with him when I could. Played with him at night, did things when I had a day off, but I guess part of me must have been okay with the way Brooke wanted things done or I would have changed them. Insisted.” He rubbed two fingers across the deep lines on his forehead. “I was stupid.”

“You seem to be making up for it now,” she said.

He shook his head dismissively. “There’s a long way to go before I become the type of father I want to be.”

“I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself.” She reached over and laid a hand on the warm cotton covering his forearm, wanting to bring any comfort she could. “Josh clearly loves you, and he’s happy. You’re doing something right.”

“Thanks,” he said with a half smile and glanced away. His expression was usually so serious that even a half smile seemed bright, drew her in till all she could see was him. His gaze dropped to the hand that still lay on his arm. When he looked back up to her, his coffee-brown eyes darkened, and his chest rose and fell too fast. She knew how he felt—suddenly this open park didn’t contain enough oxygen. The strong muscles under her fingers burned with heat and held her hand trapped as if by magnetic force.

From what felt like miles away, Josh sighed in his sleep and curled his teddy in closer. Hayden stiffened and looked down at his son before jerking his arm away from her. Lucy blinked and blinked again, trying to reorient herself to the world around them. To the park. To the reality that she’d almost fallen under the spell of a man she needed to keep at arm’s length. Of a man who would likely feel betrayed if he knew her real agenda in meeting him today.

Hayden cleared his throat. “Tell me why you’re so good with Josh. You don’t have any brothers or sisters, no young cousins or nieces or nephews. Is it just a natural thing with babies for you?”

She looked down at Josh, still holding his teddy close as he slept. If Hayden didn’t already know her involvement with babies, his research would soon unearth it, especially as he already knew about the lack of children in her family. There was no reason not to tell him—it wasn’t a secret, it was just something she normally didn’t discuss. Yet...something deep inside her wanted him to understand this part of her.

“Before my father died,” she began, still watching Josh, “he used to take me to volunteer at a residential home for people with disabilities that he’d established. He believed strongly that the wealth we’d been born to was a privilege, and it was our responsibility to help others. He also wanted me to stay in touch with how other people live.”

“Sounds like he was a wise man.”

She looked up to see if there was any other meaning behind his words—people occasionally grabbed the opportunity to take a sarcastic swipe about her father and his family, a consequence of their wealth and high profile. But Hayden’s eyes held only interest in the story she was telling, and she was more grateful for that simple acceptance than she would have expected. She stretched her legs out in front of her, relaxing a fraction.

“After he died, my mother wanted to continue his mission with me. But she said I could choose my own charity—the residential home had been my father’s passion.”

“And being a typical ten-year-old girl, you chose babies,” he said, stretching his legs out beside hers.

She bit down on her smile. “It was almost kittens.”

He chuckled. “What did you do?”

“We set up a free clinic in North Carolina for mothers who are having a hard time with their new babies. It’s staffed mainly by professionals—nurses, social workers and consulting doctors—and the moms and babies can stay a few nights, up to a week, to get help with feeding or getting their babies to sleep or whatever the problem is.”

He tilted his head to the side as he regarded her. “That sounds like a great service.”

“It is,” she said, feeling a soft glow of pride filling her chest—those midwives were doing fabulous work. “When we moved to D.C., we set up another one here. I go in and hang around most weekends, just being an extra pair of hands. Sometimes it’s babysitting while the new mom gets some rest, sometimes it’s manning the phones.”

Though helping out in person wasn’t an act of charity—she loved those times. Being part of a team and helping to make a real difference in people’s lives. She’d always thought of journalism as making a difference, too, but since the phone-hacking scandal had broken, she’d started to wonder.

Hayden reached into the picnic basket and offered her a strawberry. “Do you fund it on your own?”

She took the shiny red berry—her fingers practically sparking when they grazed Hayden’s—and twirled it on its small stem. “It started with just me, but I’m working on getting Royall Department Stores involved and building more clinics throughout the country. Aunt Judith is already eager to help—I went to see her in Montana last year to discuss it, and we’ll take the plan to the whole board soon.”

“That’s amazing,” he said with simple but genuine respect in his voice, in his eyes. “You’ve created something that’s made the world a better place.”

A warm flush spread across her skin, and she smiled at him, basking in his approval, letting it soak through her. Then, with a start, she realized she’d let his opinion matter more than it should. She forced herself to look away. A harmless flirtation with Hayden was one thing. Melting inside because he’d approved of her charity work was quite another. This man was still running an investigation into ANS, and believed Graham was guilty. The last thing she needed was to become emotionally involved with Hayden Black.

She pulled her legs up and tucked them underneath her, and reminded herself of the rules.

Flirting, okay.

Emotional attachment, not okay.

She would just have to try harder to keep the line where it needed to be. Still, if she didn’t remember, then Hayden probably would. He seemed to have a very firm grasp on where the lines should be.

And why did that thought rankle so much?