Private Justice. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ realization cut through her like a knife.

      The phone on his desk rang again for the umpteenth time. It had been ringing off the hook all morning, ever since the story had broken about the senator having to go to the L.A. courthouse regarding an investigation into his campaign funds, and suddenly mistresses—mistresses of all things!—had begun crawling out of the woodwork.

      Ever since that bulletin had burst on her, her tiny, optimistic visions of this world the senator inhabited and she was working toward promoting had been crushed.

      God knew she had few enough optimistic things to cling to. Her private life, well, that was a complete washout, but she had clung to her professional life, viewing it as her one saving grace, telling herself that at least what she was doing had merit for the country and she was going to have to find comfort—and ultimately validation—in that. She sure knew she wasn’t going to find it on the home front, not with the bastard in designer suits she’d had the misfortune to fall in love with and marry.

      No, she hadn’t fallen in love with him, she’d fallen in love with the image he’d projected. Fallen in love with a man who didn’t exist. The one who did exist had had a foul temper and swinging fists. Fists that, she was ashamed to admit even to herself, had made contact. And she had taken it. In the beginning.

      But after a spate of time when she’d blamed herself for causing his outbursts—just as he blamed her—she’d come to her senses. She’d realized that none of this—his outbursts, his out-of-control temper, his reasons for losing it—none of it was her fault. That was when, with the senator’s support, she had called the police.

      It had been the first step in reclaiming her life, her very soul. And except for the curve she’d discovered she’d been thrown, a curve she now lived with every day, she pretty much had reclaimed it. Reclaimed it by throwing herself into her work, striving to make Senator Henry William Kelley the next popular candidate for the presidency of the United States.

      It had seemed only right, because he’d been there to take her side, to encourage her not to allow her ex, Dean, to mistreat her. The senator had been the father she’d never really known.

      And now this.

      It was safe to say that the senator’s chances of gaining the presidency had pretty much been blown to hell. Much the way her faith in him had been.

      Damn, it just wasn’t fair! Just how blind could she have been to miss this red flag? How deluded was her state of mind to see a hero where an old-fashioned scoundrel stood?

      How could he? How could he?

      “This can’t take away from what he’s accomplished, Cindy, it can’t,” she told herself fiercely, conducting an argument that was mostly in her head.

      The man was still a good senator, still a man who had the interest of his country foremost in his heart, if not his mind. Still the man who had helped her. She had to remember that. Moreover, she had to do her best to remind the public of all his good points.

      Just because it had been discovered that the senator had the personal morals of an alley cat didn’t mean that he couldn’t do great things for the people who voted for him.

      “But it sure does rock the boat,” she ground out angrily.

      The next moment she jumped as the door opened. She’d left orders not to be disturbed because she had damage control to do.

      Who was ignoring her instructions?

      And then she had her answer. Kind of.

      A tall, well-groomed and quite handsome man who looked to be in his early thirties walked into the senator’s office. His chiseled features were complemented by straight, dark hair, worn slightly long, and his piercing, intelligent blue eyes.

      Here was a man who got by on his looks first, then made use of anything he had in his arsenal—if necessary, she thought.

      Well, whatever he did, he could do it somewhere else. He was trespassing as far as she was concerned.

      “You’re not supposed to be here,” she snapped at him angrily, recovering from her initial surprise.

      Dylan looked around. Was she the only one in the office?

      “I heard you talking to someone,” he said.

      She stared at him. It almost sounded like an accusation, Cindy thought. Who the hell did he think he was?

      “Even if I were, that doesn’t give you an excuse for barging in,” she informed him, expecting him to offer some apology and then leave.

      He did neither. Instead, he remained standing where he was, looking around the office again, as if he expected someone to pop out of the shadows.

      Dylan scanned the office more slowly this time, taking in what he’d missed at first glance. The pretty young woman with the pinned-back, golden-brown hair and the damning dark-brown eyes was still the only one here.

      “Where is he?” Dylan asked the attractive watchdog. “The senator,” he clarified, even though he had a feeling there was no need to.

      Her hands were on her hips, the picture of barely suppressed fury. “He’s not here.”

      “But you were just talking to him.” She hadn’t been on the phone when he walked in, so he couldn’t have interrupted a phone conversation. That meant that the woman had been talking to someone in the room. Since this was his father’s office, where had he gone?

      Her eyes—rather attractive eyes, he noted—narrowed into piercing slits. “I was talking to myself, if it’s any business of yours,” she said curtly.

      Nodding, he accepted the explanation. But he had a pressing question that needed answering. “Okay, where is he?”

      Well, that gave her the identity of the mystery stranger, or at least told her his occupation. Her hackles went up.

      “Can’t you damn reporters leave him alone? Aren’t you going to be satisfied until you’re chewing on his bones? Even if I knew,” she ended defiantly, “I wouldn’t tell you.”

      She was lying, Dylan thought. There was something in her eyes that told him she knew exactly where the “good senator” was. She was covering for his father. Was there more than just professional loyalty at play here? He looked at her more closely.

      His eyes swept over her and he took a really good look at the woman standing before him like a member of the emperor’s royal guard.

      The woman wasn’t just pretty, she was damn attractive, bordering on downright gorgeous. She wasn’t his father’s usual type—the woman had honey-brown hair, not blond, and her eyes, instead of the usual blue, were the color of an inviting, cool root beer on a hot day. But who knew? Maybe the old man was branching out in his lechery. He certainly wouldn’t put it—or anything else—past his father. Not after that news story had knocked the pins out from under him, Dylan thought.

      “Are you one of my father’s … friends?” he asked the woman tactfully.

      There’d been a long, significant pause between the last two words. Pregnant enough to СКАЧАТЬ