A Snowbound Scandal (Dallas Billionaires Club Book 2) Page 14

  “Which is what, in your opinion?” He sounded as angry as he looked.

  She licked her lips and forced out a version of the truth she used to believe. A version before she’d been sealed inside a bubble with a Chase who was both like and unlike the Chase of her memory. He was realer, better, more grown-up. More stable in his life and more solid about his decisions. But she couldn’t trust in what she’d learned over the past few days, could she? She had to trust in the ten years separating them and the lesson she’d learned during that time.

  “Reality is you in your world and me in mine. Separately. It’s you in your political career. It’s me in my position at MCS.” She shrugged, hoping to unshoulder her hectic, confusing emotions. No such luck. “It’s time for me to leave. You know it. I know it.”

  “You don’t know what I know, Mimi.” He returned his hands to her hips, more intimate now that they stood chest to chest.

  “Oh? And what do you think you know?” She shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help herself.

  “My mother was wrong. She thought you were stubborn and headstrong. She said you were blindly in love with the idea of who I would become. She saw a woman who wanted me for my wallet.”

  Even though his mother wasn’t a part of her life, that hurt.

  “I never saw you as any of those things,” he continued, his tone softer. Gentler. “You were carefree. Independent. And not because you were trying to be. You just were. Are,” he corrected.

  Some of the stiffness went out of her shoulders.

  “When I drove you to the airport and put you on a plane back to Bigfork it wasn’t because I agreed with my mother. It was because I agreed with you—agreed that we had a future.”

  “You did?”

  “I did.” His voice was low, like admitting it hurt him as much as it hurt her to hear. “I knew you would’ve moved to Texas, because the stage was set for my future. And because you loved me, you would’ve come with me.”

  “I did come with you.”

  “Don’t hide behind glibness.” He took a breath. “Maybe my mother was right about you being stubborn, but that’s an asset. It was to me...and it is to whomever you choose to share your life with.”

  She sort of hated how well he knew her. But he did know her. It was as inexplicable now as it was then. As if they were a reincarnated couple who’d already lived out this romance in another time. It was like she knew how it was supposed to end...and they weren’t destined to be star-crossed lovers.

  “You’ve grown from an incredibly intelligent, beautiful twenty-three-year-old into an incredibly intelligent, beautiful thirty-three-year-old. Every attribute you possess fits into my life.”

  Wait. What?

  He released her hips and straightened away from her. Away rather than toward, the opposite direction his words had suggested.

  “Years ago, I sent you away not because I didn’t think you were an incredible woman, and not because my mother is a puppet master. I did it to protect you. From all the things you couldn’t protect yourself from. You would’ve done anything for me—to your own detriment. That’s how much you cared.”

  It was as honest a statement as either of them had made since their reunion.

  “I wanted you to know that before you left.” He jutted a thumb toward her bedroom door. “I’m going to eat. Join me?”

  “All I do is eat.” Her teeth found her bottom lip. “Well, not all.”

  “No. Not all.” He smiled from the doorway, but didn’t come to her to seal his comment with a kiss. His distance felt wrong, as wrong as what he said next. “I won’t bother you any more while I’m in Bigfork.”

  “Clean break?” she asked, lobbing his words from ten years ago back at him. She half expected an argument. Or maybe she wanted one.

  “The cleanest.” He dipped his chin in agreement.

  With that, the conversation ended. A conversation so filled with unexplored topics she’d lost count. But one thing was clear.

  Their time was up.

  Nineteen

  “It’s Blake,” Emmett said when he answered his phone.

  “Blake Eastwood? The same guy who Stef—”

  “Yes.” Emmett cut him off like he couldn’t stand to hear the end of that sentence.

  On that count, Emmett and Chase agreed. Chase had always appreciated his best friend’s surge of protectiveness where his sister was concerned. Blake Eastwood had better steer a wide berth around Stefanie if he wanted to live a long, healthy life with his balls still attached to his person.

  “The rat is in-house. One of the campaign interns. Blake targeted her. She’s young, pretty. His type.”

  Chase could practically hear the steam coming out of Emmett’s ears.

  “She broke into your desk, stole the photo and delivered it to Blake, who’s backing your opponent financially,” Emmett said. “I questioned her and she burst into tears and confessed that she’d slept with Blake after meeting him in a bar. She didn’t know who he was and she definitely did not expect him to blackmail her.”

  “What a dick.”

  “He’s not done yet. The intern told me before she quit that he said he was planning on staying on top of your new relationship until he hit pay dirt.”

  Now the steam was mostly coming from Chase’s collar. He felt his face heat.

  “We went through the rest of our staff with a fine-toothed comb. She’s the only defector.”

  “Thanks, Emmett.”

  “Things are...good?” The pronounced pause was a clue that he wasn’t asking about politics.

  “Mimi went home an hour ago. We’re no longer snowed in.” He’d learned that the best answer was an answer that didn’t commit to a direction. Just the facts.

  Chase had walked her into the garage and held her truck’s door for her while she climbed in. Before he could think better of it, and before she could stop him from doing it, he leaned in and kissed her goodbye. Her eyelids were still closed when he backed away and it took everything in him to honor her request for a “clean break” and not make love to her on the front seat of her truck. It was too soon for a goodbye. He’d just found her again, dammit.

  “Are you staying in Bigfork?”

  “Just until things settle down. Mimi doesn’t believe this will disrupt her life. She’s wrong.”

  “Uh-huh.” His best friend’s tone took on the rare quality of amused. “Not because you wanna stay close?”

  More that than the other, but Chase didn’t admit as much. He ended the conversation with, “Call me if anything changes” and received Emmett’s typical sign-off.

  “You got it, boss.”

  * * *

  When Miriam had returned home yesterday, there were no waiting paparazzi on her front stoop. And when she drove to work the next morning, she hadn’t been chased by a dark car with a long camera lens aimed out the window. Either Chase had overestimated her importance in his opponent’s smear campaign, or he’d simply overreacted. Either worked for her. She would prefer to avoid any more drama if possible.

  Yesterday she’d driven away from his mansion, his kiss still burning her lips. If he hadn’t pulled away—if he hadn’t been the one to shut her truck door, she might’ve been tempted to leap out and pin him to the nearest wall.

  That was the effect he had on her. Beyond attraction, his pull was more like gravity. She was the anvil dropped off a cliff. And like gravity wouldn’t bear the brunt force of that fall, neither had Chase when she’d followed him home to Dallas ten years ago.

  She’d do well remembering that.

  On the way to her office inside the main MCS building, she encountered Darren, a fifteen-year-old smarty-pants who practically lived there. He’d started volunteering last summer and had quickly taken a shine to her. She could tell by the way he stuttered her name and watched his shoes whenever he talked t
o her.

  He fidgeted, one tennis shoe scuffing the side of the other as she approached her office.

  “Hey, Dare.”

  “Hi M-Miss Andrix.” His smile flinched. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I have a few minutes.” She unlocked her door and pushed it open, gesturing for him to go in. “About what?”

  “You’re in the news.”

  She dropped her purse and bag onto the desktop. He was talking about the article that’d run about her. Chase had sent her the link yesterday and she’d read it, both unimpressed by how little the author knew about her and frustrated that their relationship had been scandalized.

  Flirting with disaster? the tag line had read.

  If Chase could ignore it, so could she.

  “It’s not the news, Darren,” she said, but accepted his cell phone anyway. She frowned. The article on the screen wasn’t the one she’d read.

  “What is this?” she asked rhetorically. The blogger called herself The Dallas Duchess. It seemed the so-called duchess had been granted access to those sneakily snapped photos in Chase’s driveway. There were three, one of Chase outside on the phone and glaring, and since he was in protective mode over Mimi, she found that glare disturbingly sexy. Another photo showed him pulling her away from the door. The lead photo captured her own wide eyes and slackened jaw—easily misconstrued as guilt—while Chase stood behind her, jaw set and eyes narrowed.

  Mayor Chase Ferguson Stokes an Old Flame.

  She wedged her teeth together, uncomfortable with the adjective old but she refused to give this the reaction that was warranted. Which, by Miriam’s estimations, involved writing a lengthy letter of response to the so-called duchess with explicitly detailed instructions on how to extract her head from her backside.

  Miriam handed back the phone and gave Darren an amiable smile. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Don’t you want to read the article, M-Miss Andrix?”

  “No, thank you, Darren. I’m sure it’s packed with lies. You shouldn’t give them the hits on their website.” She winked to let him know she wasn’t upset, even though she was. What an antiquated idea to blame the woman for a man’s demise.

  “It says that you and Chase had a wild affair ten years ago and that you’re pulling him into your clutches again.” Darren cleared his throat and read from the article. “‘Her sights set on Chase’s billions to forward her own causes, Miriam—’” he glanced up briefly “—sorry, I mean, M-Miss Andrix ‘plans on keeping our mayor on the hook until she bends him to her will. The duchess has always been a fan of the Fergusons, and in this egregious case I’m firmly Team Chase. Miriam—’” Darren mumbled another apology for using her first name “‘—if you’re reading, leave our beloved mayor alone and find someone in your own hometown to manipulate.’”

  “What the hell?” Losing her facade of calm, she snatched Darren’s phone and scanned the article for more damning accusations. She found plenty. It went on about how Chase was “unbribable” when it came to money but Miriam wasn’t above “using sexual favors to ensnare him.” There was even mention of ten years ago and how she’d tried to fit into his life in Dallas but it hadn’t worked out.

  So. Not an article pitting Chase and Miriam against the world, but rather one in his defense, against the trollop who had “ensnared” him. This blog wasn’t antiquated. It was prehistoric.

  Numb, Miriam returned his phone and mumbled an apology. Darren offered to avenge her honor by leaving a firmly worded comment on the blog, which was sweet, but she declined.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” she repeated, this time walking him to her office door. She spared a smile through the crack before shutting him out.

  Okay, so Chase hadn’t been overreacting. She palmed her own cell phone and shakily dialed his number.

  “Mimi.”

  “Our photos are on the Dallas Duchess’s blog.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes. Emmett called me this morning. I didn’t think word would reach you so soon.”

  “You can thank my secret admirer.”

  “Who’s that?” His stiff tone made her smile.

  “He’s fifteen. Has asthma. Stutters my name.” She liked that Chase sounded slightly jealous, even though she shouldn’t. “Did you read it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How does anyone other than our friends and families know we were together that summer?”

  “Hard to say. Someone could have called your acquaintances, or your former workplace. It’s not as hard to uncover paychecks and flight records as you’d think.”

  Apparently not.

  “Did you...stay in Bigfork?” She sat in her chair in case his answer was yes. Somehow it was easier to stomach if he wasn’t close by.

  “I stayed.” There was a pause during which her heart skipped a beat. “Try not to let the blog bother you. My team is handling it. We’ll have this buried soon enough.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  An hour later, a sharp knock at her office door preceded her boss Nancy walking in. “Miriam, we need to talk.”

  Nancy’s iPad was in her hand and when she flashed Miriam the screen, on it was the purple-and-gold Dallas Duchess banner.

  * * *

  Chase hadn’t lied when he’d told Miriam that his staff was handling things, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved.

  As calm as he’d tried to sound to Mimi, he wasn’t. He was beyond pissed.

  At Blake fucking Eastwood for bullying the women in Chase’s life. At the Dallas Duchess for stooping to such gossipy lows and making Mimi out to be the enemy.

  The first phone call he’d made when he found out was to Zach’s wife, Penelope, PR guru.

  “I thought the duchess was a friend of yours,” he grumbled after she answered.

  “I saw it. It’s ugly.”

  His niece cooed in the background and Pen shushed her.

  “Sorry.” In his rage over Mimi being attacked, he’d checked his manners at the door. Pen was his sister-in-law, the mother of his niece Olivia first. He had no right to bark at her like one of his staff no matter how sour his mood. “I can call at a better time.”

  “No, it’s fine. The nanny is here. I’m just kissing Livvie goodbye before I step into my office.” There was a brief conversation with her sitter and then Pen said, “I’m firing up my computer as we speak. Stay on the line.” She talked while she typed, outlining a plan to swing the spotlight away from Mimi and over to him.

  “Maybe I’ll pay Blake a visit,” he said, practically spitting his name. “Break a kneecap or two.”

  “No.” Pen laughed. “Absolutely not.”

  He had to smile. Penelope handled a great many powerful clients with ease. She routinely put billionaires in their places. It was why Chase had entrusted her to untangle Stef and Blake after that mess a year ago. This wasn’t the same situation, but it felt eerily similar. A woman he cared about was being manipulated by a douchebag who was chasing his own personal and political gains.

  “I was kidding about the knees. Calling him and letting him know I’m onto him would be satisfying.”

  “He’ll record it and then we’ll have a bigger mess on our hands.” He liked the way she’d said we, including herself in the equation. It’s what made her remarkable at her job. Pen cared enough to jump in and get her hands dirty with her clients.

  “Won’t that help?” he asked. “I’ll make sure to point out that Mimi’s a victim of his hapless plan.”

  “That’d be great,” Pen’s voice resonated with sarcasm. “The press would love to spin that as you, a powerful political figure, taking advantage of her like the misogynistic chauvinist you are.”

  He frowned. He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Not to
mention the Twitter explosion to follow.”

  “Twitter?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Women accusing you of mansplaining to them how the world should work, when you’re not arguing how women are too unstable to be involved in politics.”

  “Man-whatting?” What the hell? “I don’t think any of those things.”

  “I know.” Her tone was patient. “Trust me, Chase. It’s going to get uglier if you defend her.”

  “I can’t let him do this to her.” He wouldn’t allow her to be harassed. What if this incident put her job in jeopardy? For all he knew, her coworkers might see this as her bedding the enemy. That was the tack the duchess had taken, only in his favor.

  “They’re already doing it, Chase. If they found more ammunition to use against her, they’ll likely sit on it and wait for the perfect moment to drop the bomb. This isn’t your first term. You know this.”

  “It’s a looming issue until the election,” he agreed miserably.

  “Is your fear that her reputation will suffer...” A pause. “Or that you won’t win her back now that she’s seen the cost of staying with you?”

  Was he that transparent?

  “I want what’s best for her. I’m not it.” So much silence came from the other end of the phone that he added, “Hello?”

  “You don’t think you’re good enough for her?” Pen asked.

  “I didn’t exactly say that.”

  “What happened in that mansion? What happened between you and Mimi? How much of what the Dallas Duchess reported is true?”

  “None of what she said is true. The exact opposite is true.”

  “Meaning?” Pen wasn’t letting this go.

  “She’s not trying to get her hooks into me. If it was up to me, I’d keep her as close as possible. She’s...not interested. In me. Long-term.” And who could blame her? Mimi had already received a small dose of what it was like to be with Mayor Chase Ferguson.

  “You’re interested in a future with her.” It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t answer.

  “An upcoming political campaign is not the time to start a new relationship. Or rekindle an old one,” he mumbled, hoping Pen’s pragmatism would have her agreeing with him.