Private Justice. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ She came to a sudden, skidding halt as her eyes widened and she stared at him. “Did you just say ‘my father?’”

      “Actually, I said ‘my father’s,’“ he corrected glibly. “But, for the record, you got the general gist of it.”

      For the moment, she took no note of the sarcasm. “You’re the senator’s son,” she said incredulously.

      “Yes.” Why did the woman look so surprised at that? Though they were estranged, it wasn’t as if his father kept his family a secret.

      Not like his mistresses, Dylan’s mind added tersely.

      How did she even know that this was the senator’s son? Cindy thought. For all she knew, this tall man in a designer suit was a reporter—apparently a good one if the cut of his expensive clothes was any indication. And the man was trying to talk—to lie, she amended—his way in here.

      “Why haven’t I seen you before?” she challenged.

      “Maybe because the good senator’s not being very fatherly these days now that he doesn’t need his wife and family for photo ops.” He fixed the woman with a look that he’d used to take witnesses—and courtroom opponents—down a peg. “I haven’t seen you, either, and yet I’m willing to believe that you’re his—what was it you called it again? Chief Staff Assistant?”

      She didn’t like the way his mouth curved when he said that. Didn’t like his tone and she definitely didn’t like the way his eyes swept over her, as if he was taking the measure of a thing, not an actual person. She’d had more than enough of that kind of treatment from her ex-may-he-roast-on-a-flaming-spit-husband.

      Her chin went up in an automatic, reflexive move at the same time that her eyes narrowed again.

      “Yes,” she ground out. “I’m Senator Henry Thomas Kelley’s Chief Staff Assistant, and if you are actually the senator’s son, I’d like some proof, please.”

      His father obviously liked them feisty, Dylan thought, taking out his wallet, not doubting for a moment that while this woman might really be what she claimed to be, she was also one of the growing number of mistresses. In his opinion, she was an infinitely better choice than the three women whose faces had been flashed across the screen during the unsettling news story.

      He flipped his wallet open to his driver’s license and held it out to her.

      Waiting a beat for her to read it, he asked, “Proof enough? Or would you also like to fingerprint me?” As she pushed back his wallet, he flipped it closed again and slipped it back into his pocket. “You can check my prints against the ones on file with the California Bar Association if you really want to be thorough.” Straightening his jacket, he added, “I could also leave you a sample of my blood if it suits your fancy.”

      “No need to get sarcastic,” she informed him stiffly. He was the man’s son all right. Now that she thought of it, she should have seen the family resemblance in his features. It was just that she was too angry to think clearly right now. “It’s been completely insane here the last couple of days.”

      As if to back up her point, the phone abruptly started ringing again. She picked up the receiver and then dropped it back into the cradle without stopping to see who was on the other end or even breaking her verbal stride.

      “I’ve had reporters all but climbing up the side of the building to gain access to the senator’s office. They’re like vultures circling, looking for a way to swoop by and get their piece of flesh.”

      “Sounds like you have your hands full,” he commented with a trace of sympathy.

      “This isn’t—” Another call came in and she repeated her movements from a moment ago, lifting and then dropping the receiver into the phone’s cradle, this time a little more sharply than the last. “—what I signed on for,” she concluded.

      It did sound like a zoo in here, he thought. The sooner he got his information, the sooner he would be able to leave. “Do you know where my father is?” Dylan asked again.

      “If the two of you have been so out of touch,” Cindy pointed out, “why do you want to know where he is?” Another phone call had her losing her temper and she disconnected the phone from the jack in the wall.

      Decisive woman, he thought. “Because the senator needs help, and right now, I might be one of the few people interested in actually getting him out of this hole he’s dug for himself.”

      She wasn’t buying this so easily, Cindy thought. “Because you love him so much.”

      “So pretty and yet so cynical.” He laughed, shaking his head. “No, not because I love him so much. Because he’s my father, and the bottom line is, much as I might think he deserves it, I don’t want to see him torn apart in public. If anyone’s going to tear him apart, it’ll be me and it’ll be in private,” he concluded. “Now, do you or don’t you know where my father is hiding out?” he asked one last time, looking at her pointedly.

       Chapter 2

      Cindy looked at the senator’s son for a long moment, not saying anything, not volunteering the information he was asking for. But there was a reason for that. She was not one to be cowed by an authoritative voice, at least, not anymore. And not ever again.

      “How do I know you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do, Mr. Kelley?” she challenged.

      Miss Warmth-and-Charm had lost him. He wondered if everyone who worked in the realm of politics eventually became proficient in a form of double-talk through diligent practice, or if it just came naturally to some, that in turn led them to believe they had a future in the political arena.

      “Run that by me again,” Dylan requested.

      Okay, she’d approach it differently, Cindy thought. “You’re saying you want to help the senator.”

      Wasn’t that what he’d just told her? “Yes, that’s the general idea.”

      And he wasn’t going to do it by standing around in his father’s Beverly Hills office if the man wasn’t to be found in it as well, Dylan thought impatiently. At this point, it would take very little for him to throw his hands up and walk away from the whole thing. He hadn’t wanted to be involved in the first place, and if he had to jump through hoops, well, that was asking a bit too much in his opinion.

      Rather than immediately volunteering an address, his father’s petite guard dog engaged him in another annoying round of rhetoric.

      “How do I know that’s true? How do I know you’re not going to take the information I give you and sell it to the highest tabloid bidder just to get even with the senator?” she wanted to know, assuming, for the sake of argument, that this man was in a bad way when it came to finances and was doing it for the money. For all she knew, the designer suit he was wearing could have been a gift—or borrowed. “By your own admission, your father-son relationship is far from the kind of stuff that they like to immortalize in myopic memoirs.”

      He stared at her. Well, that certainly was a mouthful. There was no way anyone would get her confused with an empty-headed bimbo, which, he’d come to learn extremely quickly, was what his father’s mistresses all had in common. Beyond their glamorous, carbon-copy СКАЧАТЬ