Flirting with Scandal

Book 1: Capital Confessions

by Chanel Cleeton

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

The author of I See London sets her sights on Washington, DC, with a sexy new series about three sisters, the secrets they keep, and a powerful blog with a knack for exposing scandals …

Jackie Gardner knows all about dirty little secrets. The illegitimate daughter of one of the most influential senators in Washington, DC, she grew up surrounded by the scandals and shadows of politics. Now that she’s landed an internship with a powerful political consulting firm, she’s determined to launch her career and take this city by storm.

William Andrew Clayton was born for politics. He knows the drill: work hard, play discreetly, and at all costs, avoid scandal. At twenty-six, his campaign for the Virginia State Senate is the first step to cementing his future. It’s time for him to settle down, to find the perfect political spouse. He needs a Jackie Kennedy, not a Marilyn …

When Jackie meets Will in the bar of the Hay-Adams Hotel, sparks fly. But the last thing Will needs is to be caught in a compromising position, and an affair with a political candidate could cost Jackie her career. When what began as one steamy night, becomes a passion neither one of them can walk way from, they must decide if what they have is really love, or just another dirty little secret …

Release date: May 19, 2015

Publisher: InterMix

Print pages: 267

Sample

Chapter One

Bachelor Alert! William Andrew Clayton is running for the Virginia Senate. While this blogger hasn’t had the pleasure of debating politics with him, I’ve heard he’s seriously fine. Ladies, hurry while he’s still single . . .

—Capital Confessions blog

Jackie

When I was a kid, my mother used to take me to brunch at the Hay-Adams Hotel. When I got older, our outings usually involved a slinky dress and the bar. But when I was younger, before the slinky dresses and overpriced drinks, I thought the Hay-Adams was magic.

We would sit at a corner table, and my mother—perfect hair and makeup, elegant dress that cost more than our monthly food bill—would point out the powerful men who walked through the D.C. hotel’s hallowed halls.

I was too young to understand that the tall man with the funny-looking hair was a senator, or that his companion was a congressman, but I knew there was something about them. Something that made my mother sit up in her seat and take notice when they walked by. Something special.

When I asked her who they were, she would smile and say, “They’re kings and princes—like in your books.”

She would tell me stories about them—some were good, some not so good, but they were all powerful. And by the reverence in her voice, seven-year-old me realized that was the something special, the thing that made them different.

I was eight when I first saw my father—at brunch at the Hay-Adams.

We were sitting at my favorite table, right near the chandelier. When I looked up, the light reflected off the ceiling in dazzling sparks. In my best dress and shiny black Mary Janes, I felt like a princess.

Suddenly my mother’s head jerked up, her lips pursed in a tight line, her gaze trained on a table across from ours.

“Who is that?” I waited for her to tell me one of her stories—how he was a bad king or something scandalous. But what she said instead stunned me into silence.

“That’s your father.”

Other people had fathers. Mine had been more of a myth. I knew he’d existed at one point, but then he’d left, never to return again. Except here he was, in my hotel. Eating brunch a few tables away. I’d found him.

I stood up and headed toward him, my Mary Janes clicking against the hardwood floors. Behind me I heard my mother’s voice—urgent and shrill—“Jacqueline”—calling me back. I ignored her.

My father sat at the table with three other people. They all stopped eating as I approached, and four pairs of eyes stared at me.

There were two girls—one had pretty brown hair, she looked to be a few years older than me; the other girl was blonde like me, her hair a few shades darker than mine. She looked about my age. A woman sat at the table with them. Her hair was cut in a sharp bob, so different from my mother’s long tumble of waves. Her gaze traveled over me and dismissed me, but it didn’t matter. Not when all of my attention was focused on him.

Like most of the men who came here, my father wore a fancy suit. He was tan, his teeth a bright white. He had my hair, blond, and my eyes, blue. Or maybe I had his. Because staring into his face, I saw myself.

His gaze flickered from me to my mother. I waited for him to speak, for him to acknowledge me somehow, for him to realize who I was—that I was a part of him—but he didn’t do any of those things. Instead he turned, looking away, his attention back on the two beautiful little girls at his table.

I stood there, struggling to find the words, trying to tell him I was his daughter, that I’d found him, but my voice failed me. A slow heat spread across my face, tears filling my eyes as embarrassment rushed through me like a wave carrying me away.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” my mother hissed in my ear, pulling me back. “He’s a very important man. No one can ever know he’s your father. Ever.”

“But I found him,” I whispered, through tears. “He was lost and I found him.”

“He has his own family. He didn’t want to be found.”

That was the day I stopped believing in bullshit about kings and princes.

•   •   •

“You want another?”

I stared down at the nearly empty Jack and Diet Coke. “Sure. Why not?”

“It can’t be that bad, love.”

“I fucked up.”

Hank grinned. “You and everybody else in this town. Just spin it. Isn’t that what you do best?”

I downed the rest of my drink, offering him a weak smile. Hank was my favorite bartender at the Hay-Adams. I didn’t come here a lot, the drinks way too overpriced for my college student budget, but I liked to come once in a while. Hank had been serving me drinks going back to the days when I drank Shirley Temples. In a fucked-up way, this place felt like home.

I needed to come tonight. Needed to remind myself of why I wanted to get into politics in the first place. Needed to drink off the epically bad day.

If a senior staffer had made the mistake I did, they would have been given a serious warning. For a college senior—a lowly intern—to make the mistake, well, let’s just say I was terrified I’d be fired tomorrow. My big D.C. career, over before it even started. Let’s not even add in the sad embarrassment of potentially being fired from a job I wasn’t even getting paid for.

“Haven’t seen your mom in here in a while,” Hank commented.

“She’s in the Caribbean with a congressman.”

There were few secrets in D.C., and my mother was basically a legend. She was a groupie’s groupie, except politicians were her rock stars, and elections her sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden.

“He’s a good guy.”

I smirked, not surprised Hank already knew who I was talking about. Discretion wasn’t exactly Janie Gardner’s forte.

“Sure.” We both knew my mom wasn’t with him because he was a “good guy.”

I leaned over the bar top. “Give me something good, Hank. Anything. I’m desperate here.”

You wanted to know the real D.C. dirt? Bartenders saw it all.

“Let me think.” He grinned, leaning closer, my coconspirator in scandal. “Guess who’s having an affair with a page?”

“Senator Michaelson. Old news.”

“There are rumors of an inquiry on campaign finance.”

I laughed. “Brian at Yellow Bar already told me that one.”

It was pretty hard to stump a girl who’d grown up on political scandals as bedtime stories.

Will

Seriously fine?

Who wrote this trash? A high school girl? It was supposed to be a political blog. Sure, it tended to focus on the scandalous and occasionally steamy, but reducing my campaign to a few words about my looks pissed me off. Nothing about the issues or the good I could do my district in Virginia.

It was bad enough that I wasn’t a native son, my ties to the state limited to my grandfather’s legacy. I’d spent months trying to convince my prospective constituents that they could trust me to represent them, and in a few sentences, some blogger had diminished me to little more than a candidate on a reality TV dating show.

Fuck.

The blog had been a thorn in my side from the beginning. Not that I was alone in that. Half of D.C. had been caught with their pants down in Capital Confessions over the past few months. It was just another headache in a long line of them. I needed a drink and a moment of peace where I didn’t have to hear the words, “polls,” or “demographics,” or “election.”

I glanced down the length of the bar, struggling to catch the bartender’s attention. It was busy tonight, even for a Monday. Busy enough that bartenders were slammed filling drink orders. One guy on the end was engaged in conversation with a girl—

Okay, fair enough, I would be, too.

To borrow a phrase from Capital Confessions, the girl was seriously fine. More than seriously fine. If I were going to use my own words to describe her, I would have gone with totally fuckable.

She was tall—legs for days, showcased by a black skirt short enough to show them off. She was tan, her skin the perfect canvas to highlight shockingly blue eyes, and long, straight blonde hair. She leaned across the bar, and her tits thrust forward in her shirt, and my mouth went dry, my tongue all but hanging out.

Danger.

She laughed at something the bartender said, the sound low and sultry, winding its way through me like a siren’s call, breaking through all of the D.C. noise.

She was the kind of girl you noticed, and by the smile on her lips, she knew it. She raised her glass to her mouth, draining the liquid in one gulp, and then she turned and our gazes collided. Everything around me disappeared except for her.

She didn’t shy away. I liked that. Liked the challenge that flickered in her eyes as she met my gaze head-on. She looked young, younger than I’d expected, and there was something vaguely familiar about her—like I’d seen her around before, and yet if I had, I would have remembered.

Her lips curved slowly, widening into a blinding, megawatt smile. Christ. Her eyes sparkled with the kind of mischief I’d been warned about my entire life, and I could practically hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me, “This one looks like trouble.”

I couldn’t afford this shit, not with an election in a few months. Girls who looked like they could chew you up and spit you out—and make you like it—were to be avoided at all costs. Especially during an election year.

And yet I moved down the bar, my feet carrying me toward her. At the end of the day, I was running for the Virginia Senate, not dead.

Jackie

“Incoming,” Hank whispered, stepping back with a wink.

I barely heard him.

The guy walking toward me had all of my attention now. I’d noticed him across the bar; it had been impossible not to, but he was something else in motion.

I loved men. Strange for a girl who’d grown up without a father and with a revolving door of “uncles.” But I did. I loved the way they moved, the sound of their voices, the touch of their hands. This one moved with a casual grace that suggested an athletic background—lacrosse, maybe, or hockey—something preppy and something with a stick.

He was tall, six feet or so, dressed in a navy suit and a crisp white dress shirt. He was impeccable and yet . . . his silver tie was just a bit askew, as if he’d been tugging at the knot. His dark blond hair was a bit tousled, like he’d been running his hands through it. He looked older than me, mid-twenties maybe, and then our gazes locked and I stared into the most shockingly green eyes I’d ever seen, and stick a fork in me, I was done.

Maybe today was starting to look up.

He stopped in front of me, forcing me to tilt my head up to meet his gaze. For a moment we just stared, sizing each other up. He grinned and suddenly his whole face transformed. It was an endearing, blinding, “trust me” kind of smile, and I was pretty sure with a smile like that he could have anything he wanted. Even me. Especially me.

“Hi.”

Wow. His voice matched the total package. It was crisp and cool, with a touch of New England that made me think of summers in the Hamptons, and polo matches, and things that never seemed sexy until now. Somehow he made “hi” sound like an invitation. Or maybe it was the way his gaze traveled down my body and back again like a hot caress.

I took another sip of my drink before giving him my full attention. I needed the moment to calm the fuck down. I was just tipsy enough to feel flustered and reckless enough to want to play. Dangerous combination.

I turned in my seat, re-crossing my long legs. My skirt hem crept up and his gaze trailed back down.

I flashed him another smile like a one-two punch. “Hi.”

He leaned forward, his arm propped on the empty seat next to me. “I’m Will.”

He looked like a Will, or perhaps more accurately, a William. He was the kind of guy who should have Roman numerals after his name. Everything about him screamed old money, prep schools and yachts, and aunts with nicknames like “Bitsy.”

“I’m Jackie.”

I didn’t offer a last name, liked him better for doing the same. Thanks to my mother’s legacy, my last name was one I hesitated to drop in this town. But then again, something about him didn’t quite fit here. He didn’t look like he was from D.C., like he’d been raised on political intrigue and scandal like I’d been. He was still shiny and new. I liked that.

His eyes narrowed, the easygoing expression wiped from his face, covered by something shrewd, and I wondered if I’d misjudged him after all. There was more there—more than just a nice face and a hot body.

“You look familiar.”

Years of practice kept my smile from slipping even a notch. “Familiar” could mean a lot of things.

“Really?” I affected a bored drawl. If I’d learned anything from my mother, it was how to make men work for it.

“I’ve seen you around.” He rattled off a list of events, half of which I’d been to, while I used the opportunity to size him up. I realized I’d seen him around, too—at parties, a lecture at Georgetown. He was familiar and yet he wasn’t—I’d seen pieces of him—an elbow here, his face in profile there, a laugh heard across the room, a smile meant for someone standing behind me, perhaps.

Given the events he’d listed off, he was somehow peripherally involved in politics, although given the nature of D.C. that wasn’t surprising. Still. It should have been enough to warn me off. There was a reason I usually gravitated toward musicians and artists.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

I flashed him a smile, upping the wattage to lessen the sting. “I buy my own drinks.”

He looked thrown. They always were, but on him it was kind of cute.

“You can sit, though.” I gestured at the seat next to me.

He hesitated. “Is the buying-your-own-drinks thing what you use to give guys the polite brush-off, and now you’re just offering me the seat because you feel sorry for me, or do I actually have a chance here?”

I laughed. The buying-my-own-drinks thing went hand-in-hand with the paying-for-my-own-meals thing. I knew guys thought it was weird, but if they had a mother who lived her life having her way paid by men, they’d understand.

“Why don’t you sit and see?”

Chapter Two

Looking for the perfect place to meet your next boyfriend? The bar at the Hay-Adams has been particularly popular lately, especially for a handsome state senate candidate.

—Capital Confessions blog

Will

Smooth, really smooth.

Admittedly, I wasn’t at my best tonight. I didn’t pick up strange girls in bars. I wasn’t even sure this was a pick-up. All I knew was one moment I saw her, and the next my feet carried me toward her. My brain lagged behind.

I sat down in the chair next to hers and ordered a martini. I could practically feel the bartender’s amusement as he took my order, his gaze darting back and forth between us before he left to make my drink.

“So where are you from?” I asked, struggling to take charge of the situation.

“I was born here. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“That seems rare.” I didn’t mention . . . and kind of depressing. I barely tolerated D.C. I viewed it as a means to an end, a place where I was forced to get my hands dirty from time to time.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“Connecticut.”

She grinned. “I figured. You have the northeastern preppy vibe going on.”

Awesome. My campaign staff was working on erasing that.

“Let me guess, Yale? And you played lacrosse?”

I winced. There was something in her tone, something fairly mocking. Maybe I was predictable, what-you-see-is-what-you-get. But there was nothing wrong with predictable. Predictable was dependable, and it was going to get me elected. Some perverse part of me wanted to tell her I went to a state school in the Midwest and played football.

“Harvard, actually.”

I’d always been honest to a fault.

She grinned. “Was I right about the lacrosse? What position did you play? Center?”

The bartender set my martini on the bar in front of me, sending me a pitying look before walking away. I was beginning to think this wasn’t the first time he’d watched this happen.

I took a long swig of my drink before setting it down, needing the burst of liquid courage. Today had been a bitch, and this girl needling me wasn’t doing a ton for my ego. And yet some masochistic part of me liked her screwing with me. It wasn’t a game I got to play very often . . . ever.

“Midfielder.”

Her gaze traveled down my body, a mischievous glint in her eye, and my dick responded instantly, not giving a shit about my humiliation.

“You look like an athlete.”

“Really?” I drawled.

“I figured it would be a sport with a stick.” Her tone faintly purred with sex and innuendo.

I choked on my martini, the alcohol burning its way down my throat. Jesus. I couldn’t remember the last time a girl made a dirty joke—albeit a terrible one—to me. College, maybe? Years ago.

“That’s a horrible line,” I sputtered.

Her grin widened. “True, but you’d be surprised how often it works.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” I let my gaze roam down her body leisurely, taking in the tight little curves and the long legs. I needed to get the upper hand here. Somehow. My voice dropped, my tone husky. “I think we both know you could have any man in this bar.”

“Even you?” Her tone was teasing, but there was a dare behind her words.

And fuck if I could ever back away from a challenge.

I leaned forward, invading some of her space, much as she’d done to me. I was close enough to make out a hint of her perfume—floral and spicy. Close enough that if I’d leaned forward an inch farther I could have captured her full, pink, fuck-me lips. Some girls might have blushed or backed away, but she did neither. Her stare was unblinking, the same challenge in her voice evident in her gaze.

Her eyes looked like they’d seen too much, lived too much, and yet underneath the hard edge she was younger than I’d originally thought—all barely contained exuberance and energy. Yet another reason this had the potential to be a spectacularly bad idea.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

Shit. She was young.

“Are you still in college?”

She nodded. “You?”

“I graduated ages ago.”

Her smile deepened, a hint of a dimple flashing at the corner of her mouth. “How old are you, Harvard?”

“Twenty-six.”

Twenty-one-year-old girls who looked like she did were pretty much kryptonite for soon-to-be state senators. If my brain were in charge I would have thrown some money on the bar for my drink and gotten the hell out of there. But I didn’t. There was something about her, something that felt like a burst of color in a sea of gray.

And then she leaned forward, her arm brushing against me. Her fingers curled around the edge of the pick of olives in my martini. I watched, mesmerized, as one by one, she slipped the martini olives into her mouth, her eyes on mine the entire time.

Fuck me.

Jackie

I wasn’t sure what possessed me to go for the olive trick. Maybe it was the Jack; maybe it was the fact that he was hot and I desperately needed a distraction. Or maybe it was just that he looked a little uptight, sitting there in his three-thousand-dollar suit, and I couldn’t resist the urge to rumple him a bit.

At first glance he seemed like your average rich, preppy boy. Cute in an All-American way. Vanilla. I tended toward motorcycles, lean muscles, and tats, as far from vanilla as you could get. But this guy—this guy had “nice guy” written all over him. He was the kind of guy you would bring home to mom and dad—well mannered, classy, definitely not my type. But he took the shit I handed out with a grace that impressed me. I was in full-on bitch mode and he wasn’t backing away. So I upped the stakes a bit, waiting to see his reaction.

Silence hung between us as anticipation filled my body. I was playing with him; he knew it, and I knew it, and I fucking loved the game. His move.

But he didn’t make a move. He didn’t do anything. He just sat there, his gaze intent, speculative almost. His smile had been blinding, but his stare was equally unsettling. He looked at me like he was trying to make out all of my secrets, and for a girl like me that was a dangerous game to play.

I’d had just enough Jack to put this evening firmly into the category of not one of my best ideas. I didn’t do one-night stands. I didn’t do relationships, either, but stranger sex was so not on the menu. He could be an ax-murderer, or a pervert, or really bad in bed. It was time to call it a day.

I reached for my bag, pulled out a twenty, and slid it across the bar top.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Harvard—”

He moved forward, just an inch, but enough that his hand reached out, circling my wrist. We both froze the instant he touched me. His eyes widened, almost as if he were surprised by his own actions.

We both looked down at the same time, our gazes glued to the spot where our flesh met.

His hand was tanner than mine. It was easy to imagine him outdoors—sailing, maybe. Maybe he still played lacrosse. He looked so masculine, and physical, and something about the sight of his hand—long, tapered fingers, neatly trimmed nails—was enough to make my breath catch. His hands, like everything else about his body, were big. With him arched over my chair, it was impossible to not feel like he dominated me.

We didn’t look at each other, instead we both watched as he turned my hand over, palm up. For a second I forgot to breathe. Everything around us, the sounds of glasses clinking and deals being made, fell away. I forgot that I was at the Hay-Adams, forgot everything but the image of his hand, so male, so strong, so capable, encircling mine.

I waited. It must have been only seconds, and yet it felt like an eternity. Waited until I felt it, the brush of his finger, featherlight, on the inside of my wrist—stroking, teasing, tempting—unraveling me with the slightest touch.

I went completely still, my body anchored by his. The fire alarm could have gone off and I wouldn’t have moved an inch. My eyes closed, savoring the feel of his hand on my bare skin.

It was the kind of touch that was nothing and everything at the same time. It was an invitation, a proposition, a claiming, possession. With one finger, the power completely shifted.

My eyes fluttered open, unable to resist the urge to watch. His fingers stroked the inside of my wrist, lazy patterns and swirls that somehow looked like art. Each touch sent a shiver through me, my nipples tightening, heat flooding my body. I’d never been so turned on in my life, and all he’d touched was the inside of my wrist.

Will

I thought I knew my fair share about sex. Lust. Desire. Ever since I lost my virginity to Allison Daniels in the eleventh grade, I’d enjoyed sex. But as soon as I touched this girl, I realized—

I hadn’t been doing it right.

Somehow stroking this girl’s wrist felt like the most sexual thing I’d ever done, which was both sad and electrifying, and made me want to touch a whole lot more than just her wrist. There was something about her. Something that made you stop what you were doing and stare. She looked like trouble—the kind you couldn’t wait to get into.

She closed her eyes, her lips parting, and I knew I wanted those lips—on me, around me, covering me in her warmth. I wanted to see her face when she came, to hear the moans that would escape from her mouth. Somewhere between the martini olives and my fingers teasing her flesh, I’d stopped caring about my reputation.

I moved forward, my arm brushing against hers, our bodies just barely touching. I had to fight the urge to not press against her. I was drowning in her scent, in the feel of her skin against mine. I was drowning, and I held on to her like she was my lifeline, when ironically she would be my undoing.

My mouth hovered against her ear, just barely grazing the sensitive flesh. She shivered, a soft sigh escaping her lips. Whatever tenuous grip I had on my sanity fled.

“I want you.”

I pulled back, waiting to see her reaction, lust and need pumping through my veins. I felt like the first time I’d asked a girl out on a date—nervous, edgy, afraid she was going to turn me down flat. I could just see it now in Capital Confessions—which state senate candidate was turned down by a mysterious blonde?

Her eyes fluttered open, a shocking blue framed by a fan of lashes. Her head tilted to the side, her expression inscrutable as she studied me. I prayed that whatever she saw in my face and in my eyes met with her approval.

Did I look the way I felt? Tired, a little strung out from too much caffeine and too many months of celibacy, a little worn-out from the Washington machine. She was so vibrant, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was old and boring, and standing here with my dick in my hands thinking, please pick me.

She stood up from her chair, my hand still wrapped around her wrist. For a moment we just stared at each other, and then she tugged me forward, and god help me, I let her.

Jackie

I didn’t know what I was doing. I walked through the bar at the Hay-Adams, Will trailing behind me. He released my hand as we made our way through the crowd, which was fine with me. I didn’t need people gossiping about me, assuming I was just like my mother, looking for the next wealthy man to take care of me. I needed this to be completely unremarkable, especially when it felt like it was anything but.

He followed me through the lobby, silent. His head was ducked, and it occurred to me that I knew next-to-nothing about him. What if he was married? I hadn’t seen a ring on his hand at the bar, and yet I was living proof of how many men failed to keep their marital vows.

“Are you married?”

He blinked. “No. Are you?”

“No.”

I studied him, searching his eyes. He had a trustworthy face, but I’d been around politicians enough to know how little that meant.

I grabbed his left hand, staring at his ring finger, looking for a tan line, something to prove he was lying.

He shook his head, his tone wry. “I’m not married. No girlfriend. I haven’t had a girlfriend in months, almost a year. You?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend, either,” I joked.

“I’m serious. Boyfriend?”

“No boyfriend.”

“Not recently?”

“Not ever.”

His jaw dropped. “You’ve never had a boyfriend?”

I didn’t know why people had this reaction. I was twenty-one, hardly a spinster. Their reaction was even more comical when I explained I didn’t want one.

“Are you a virgin?” The word came out in a strangled gasp.

I laughed. “No.” My voice dropped to a mock whisper. “Are you?”

He shot me a look.

I shrugged. “That settles it then. Neither one of us is a virgin.”

“Wait a second.” He tugged on my hand, bringing me against his side.

I stared up at him. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “I need a minute. I came here for a drink, and it’s like we went from zero-to-sixty in no time at all.”

“Is that