The Kingmaker (Powerplay #1) Read online

  Derek gritted his teeth and wondered how he could have ever been stupid enough to think this jackass was the key to getting him inside the White House. “And you deserve it. Stay put. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll call your staff and tell them what to do, so don’t even answer calls from them.”

  “Okay, but what am I supposed to do about Angela?”

  “Try apologizing, Jason. And keep it up for the next decade or so. Don’t bother me unless she cuts your dick off. I’ll be in touch.”

  He ended the call and flicked to speed dial number one immediately.

  “I just saw,” Kamal answered without preamble.

  “He has no idea how it happened.” Derek paced the bedroom, rubbing his hand on his bare chest where a burning pain was working its way to the surface. “I think I’m having a fucking heart attack.”

  “Remember that game we played against Dartmouth senior year?” Kamal asked, referring to their time on the Cornell soccer team.

  Derek’s scowl deepened. Now was not the time for a walk down memory lane. “Yeah?”

  “You thought you were having a heart attack then too, and you went out and scored two goals and got us the conference championship. You’re not dying.”

  “Says you,” Derek muttered.

  “So what’s the next step?”

  “I’ve got a visit to make to a certain high priced call girl.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea? What if you’re seen?”

  “I’ll be careful. Call Jeff and ask him to get me a tail that can keep anyone else off my ass?”

  “Done,” Kamal responded. “We’ll get them over there in the next thirty. Want me to get someone to talk to Melville’s staffers so they don’t do something stupid like call a press conference?”

  “Please. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve seen her.”

  Kamal huffed out a bitter chuckle. “If she hasn’t already taken your twenty grand and whatever else she got paid for blabbing and skipped the country.”

  “If she has I’ll hunt her down,” Derek said darkly. “I don’t care if I have to go to Siberia in the dead of fucking winter, I’ll find her. And she’ll be damn sorry when I do.”

  Chapter 3

  The pounding was incessant. London rolled over in her bed and groaned. “Stop it already,” she mumbled. It started again—banging so loud it sounded like it might crack the wood in her custom made front door.

  “All right, all right!” she yelled. Who in their right mind would be pounding on her door like that at—she checked the clock on the nightstand—seven thirty in the morning?

  She climbed out of bed and grabbed the sapphire blue silk robe that was draped over the footboard of the bed. After she’d donned it she walked to her dressing table and stooped to check her hair in the mirror. It was a mess, but hell, anyone who’d wake her up this way deserved what they got.

  “I’m coming!” she shouted, as she walked downstairs and across the cool marble tiles of the foyer. In retrospect, slippers would have been a good idea.

  She reached the door and put her eye to the peephole, jerking back as soon as she recognized the very angry-looking Derek Ambrose on the other side. She peeped through again, and saw his cold blue eyes looking right back at her.

  “Open. Up,” he demanded in a voice that wasn’t loud, but still sent shivers down her spine.

  She unlocked and swung open the door but before she could say a word Derek shoved past her, entering the house, then pivoting swiftly. He caught the door with one hand right next to her head, and slammed it shut, rattling the pictures on the walls.

  “What in the world…” London managed to choke out, somewhat breathless from the rage rolling off of him.

  “How much and who?” he snarled, stepping closer to her.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, stiffening her spine so he wouldn’t see how afraid she actually was.

  “Who paid you to rat out Melville and how much did they give you?”

  She stared at him, her mind a blank as she tried to process what he’d just said.

  “What? Rat out…what?”

  He glared down at her, his eyes flashing like chips of frozen seawater. “I have to hand it to you, you work fast. I’m not even sure how you found someone willing to play ball that quickly. But maybe you’ve had this planned for a while, huh? You’ve been seeing Jason for a couple of months. Maybe he slipped and told you he’d be running for the White House, so you decided you could make some extra money. Is that how it happened?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she answered, her voice as steady and cold as she could make it.

  Derek muttered some sort of curse and grabbed her arm, looking around him for a split second before dragging her through the foyer and into the front parlor.

  “Who do you think you are?” she gasped. “You can’t come into my house and start throwing me around like some sort of rag doll. I want you to leave immediately!”

  “Honey, after what you did to me you’ll be lucky if I treat you as well as a rag doll.” Derek reached out and flicked on the TV, punching the channel button until he found WNN.

  London stood, rapt, as Melville’s face flashed across the screen.

  Presidential candidate purported to be with prostitute in Washington hotel hours before announcing his candidacy, the scrolling headline read.

  “Oh my God,” London murmured as she watched in utter horror. The headline went on to describe the reactions of various pundits and the lack of comment from the White House. “How is this possible?”

  Derek stared at her, his face no longer the picture of fury. He paused, cocked an eyebrow, and observed her silently. She glanced at him then her eyes went back to the TV.

  “Tell me they don’t have my name. Please tell me they don’t have my name.”

  “They don’t,” he answered. “But they have footage of you in the elevator at the hotel yesterday. It doesn’t show your face straight on, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t pick you out.”

  “Oh God.” London collapsed on the sofa, while Derek finally released her arm. She held a hand to her forehead. “Oh my God. How did this happen?”

  “My question exactly. But I’m starting to get the feeling I won’t find any answers here.”

  She gazed up at him, her distress replaced with rage. “I can not believe you think I’d do this. I’m an escort, so automatically I’m untrustworthy? I’ll have you know that the measly twenty grand you gave me yesterday is chump change in my world. You see this house? I paid for it. In cash. I have a vacation condo in Vail for God’s sake. I don’t sell out clients for a few thousand dollars. Or even for tens of thousands. I’m a businesswoman.”

  Derek looked at her and she watched as myriad emotions crossed his face—surprise, admiration, and something else that made her throat go dry and her palms sweat. She felt her face heat and her pulse rate picked up.

  He continued to look at her, his head cocked to the side, his eyes pinned to hers. “You didn’t do it,” he said quietly.

  “No,” she answered, her voice just as soft.

  He broke the gaze and took a step closer, then seemed to reconsider. “Well with a condo in Vail you’ve surely got a coffee maker as well,” he proclaimed suddenly, turning on his heel and striding toward her kitchen.

  Ten minutes later she faced him across her kitchen island, a cup of coffee in hand. “You’ve got your coffee, now how are you going to fix this?”

  He laughed, a deep, raspy chuckle that sent vibrations down to her very center. His smile made tiny crinkles break out around his pale eyes, softening them and warming his whole face. Combined with the light scruff that sprinkled his jaw and the mess of blonde hair drifting across his brow, the smile sent him from attractive to breathtaking and she sighed, struggling to mask her reactions and regain control over her traitorous hormones.

  “What exactly is so funny?” she grumbled, taking a sip of coffee to cover her involuntary response to him.

>   He winked at her. Bastard. “Ah, you’re funny. Really.” He took a sip of his coffee. She wished she’d poisoned it before she gave it to him.

  “I mean it, Mr. Ambrose. How are you going to fix this? I can’t believe I don’t have friends calling me already asking why they didn’t know I was a prostitute.”

  “I hate being called Mr. anything by the way, and I thought you were an escort,” he chided.

  “That’s not how they’ll see it, and you know it.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, his expression sobering. “I’m thinking.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him in anger. “Your idiot client got me into this. You didn’t have him on a tight enough leash. This could ruin me.”

  He slammed his coffee cup down on the countertop. “And you think it’s going to do what for me? Make me a great catch for the next presidential candidate? Who the hell will hire the guy who’s forever associated with the shortest presidential campaign in the history of U.S. politics?”

  She sighed. “It seems to me we’re both victims of whoever leaked this information. Do you have any other ideas as to who it could be?”

  He prowled around the kitchen like a big jungle cat, obviously deep in thought. Even with her substantial experience with men of all shapes and sizes, she was held captive, watching his muscles bunch under his dress shirt, the way his broad shoulders dwarfed her cozy kitchen, the way his long legs covered the length of the room in two steps.

  Finally he stopped. “I have no idea who it is, but ask me again in twenty-four hours. They won’t get away with it.”

  “And what do we do until then?” she asked, tossing her hair back over her shoulder, determined to shake off the attraction that grew the longer he stayed in her house.

  He planted his hands on the kitchen island, and leaned forward. His gaze raked over her, obviously taking in the cleavage that peeked out of the neckline of her silk robe.

  He breathed deeply, almost as if he was inhaling her. Her tongue darted out between her lips and she knew trouble was coming, could feel it circling the room, making her breasts heavy and her heart race.

  “We’re going to date,” he said, the ends of his mouth tipping up in a devilish grin.

  Damn she was gorgeous. No wonder men paid a grand an hour to be with her. He was about ready to empty his stock portfolio if she’d only open the sash on that jewel-toned robe she wore.

  He’d been sporting a semi since he stormed in the door and took one look at her lush breasts and smoking hot ass all wrapped in shiny silk, her hair a tumbled mass of waves around her exotic eyes. Even in his rage he’d wanted to grab her, pin her against the wall, fuck her senseless, and hear her scream his name.

  That had to explain why he’d concocted the hare-brained scheme that he was currently explaining while she stood, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, and foot tapping.

  “No.” Her voice was flat, her face a blank wall.

  “I could let you and Melville take the fall. I’d claim ignorance, you can’t prove otherwise. The two of you would be done forever. He’d never get elected to anything again, and you’d be the notorious D.C. escort—not sure it did much for Heidi Fleiss but who knows.” He shrugged, and she glared. He was being an asshole, but the point needed to be made. They had very few options here. The sooner she realized that the better.

  He paced to the other end of the kitchen, trying not to breathe too deeply when he passed her. She still had that exotic spicy scent wafting around her. It made him hungry in the worst possible way.

  “I’ve put over eighteen months into grooming Melville, I have a lot riding on this, and I’m not ready to go down without a fight. You should be grateful, because it’s going to help you as well.”

  She snorted, and even that was sexy.

  “How is dating you going to help me? I’ve seen pictures of some of the women you take to functions—“ she rolled her eyes—“it’s not really the kind of company I want to be in.”

  Jesus. What was wrong with the women he dated? They were always attractive, polished, well-bred. He chose them carefully to insure they didn’t overshadow him in the press, but also didn’t embarrass him.

  “What the hell’s wrong with my dates?” he asked, truly irked she’d criticized his taste in women.

  “Don’t get me started,” she answered, turning to the sink to rinse out their coffee cups.

  He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Stay focused his inner disciplinarian told him.

  “Look, let’s stick to the issue at hand. We’re going to hold a press conference. I’m going to say that you’re my girlfriend and that’s why you were visiting me in Melville’s suite. We can’t hide the fact that you’ve worked as an escort, but we can spin it that since you’ve been seeing me you quit. You’re reformed, the love of a good man and all that. It’ll go a long way toward damage control for your reputation. We could turn you into a media darling with this. We can talk about stronger laws to protect victims of human trafficking, have you do a couple of sympathetic interviews describing why and how you ended up in that life.”

  He could feel her wavering, but her jaw was still set, steel under silk. She wasn’t a pushover. He could see that she didn’t like to do anything others told her to, and he had to stifle a grin imagining what a failure she must be with some of her more domineering clients.

  “You really think I want to spill my life story to the press like that?”

  “No, but I also think you’re going to be getting a hell of a lot of attention in the next few weeks no matter what you do. Wouldn’t you rather it be sympathetic attention?”

  He could almost see the wheels turning inside her head. He wasn’t even spinning it at this point, it was the fact of the matter. She’d been outed and there was no going back.

  “I’ll think about it,” she finally answered.

  He nodded, knowing that he shouldn’t push her harder. If there was one thing Derek Ambrose knew it was how to conduct negotiations, and a fiery, sexy as hell escort was no different than a righteous, portly politician in the end. Some situations called for an iron fist, but others a kid glove.

  “Tell me who knows what about your job,” he said, propping a hip against her kitchen counter.

  She gestured for him to follow her back into the parlor. He watched in fascination as her ass swayed under the soft fabric of her robe as she walked, and his dick twitched for the tenth time in the last twenty minutes.

  After they were seated at opposite ends of her brocade and mahogany sofa, she sighed. “No one knows—knew—anything,” she answered softly.

  He stared at her in astonishment. “No one? You’ve been an escort for eight years and you’ve never told anyone?”

  “Well, the clients obviously know, and the agency, but other than them? No one.”

  “Family?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any family,” she corrected quickly, her tone indicating it wasn’t a topic open for discussion.

  He watched her for a moment, remembering the suspicions the Powerplay members had about her late teens. He tried to slough it off, but it brought back that sinking feeling of nausea.

  “What if you run into a client,” the word was shockingly distasteful on his tongue, “out somewhere? How do you keep people from recognizing you?”

  “I’ve kept a very low profile on both sides of my life. Once I started the more lucrative side of escort work I stopped going to public events with clients, and I’ve avoided the types of gatherings where my clients might be attendees on the private side of my life. It’s driven my best friend to distraction. I refuse to attend political gatherings or large fundraisers with her.”

  He shook his head, amazed at the whole thing. Eight years she’d kept this secret. Eight long years. She obviously wasn’t proud of what she did for a living. She obviously didn’t want it to define her. So why did she do it? For money? He couldn’t believe that was her only motivation. Her townhouse, while not ostentatious, was lovely, stylish and cla
ssy like her. She had a vacation property in Vail, her clothes alone could have paid the rent for several months. She could have quit the escort business and found something else long ago.

  “And your friends—how do they think you support yourself? What kind of people are they?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not that you have any right to be digging around in my personal life any more than you obviously already have, but my friends think I have inherited money. I lead the quiet life of a single woman of means. I lunch, I volunteer, I travel. The only difference with me is that I also fuck wealthy men for cash. It all worked very well until this morning.”

  Derek’s blood pressure rose with the cavalier way she described her business. He knew he had no right to judge, but he couldn’t help the visceral response he had at the memory of her with Melville. Her beautiful soft body up against the wall as that asshole manhandled her. He shivered, trying to dispel the picture from his mind.

  “Well, for the time being that difference will cease. We’ll announce that we’re dating, and that you realized as soon as you met me that you couldn’t continue working at the job you had been. You’ll tell your friends that you were keeping me under wraps because you wanted to see where it was going—that’s perfectly reasonable considering my track record as a boyfriend is pretty non-existent.”

  “So is mine as a girlfriend,” she muttered.

  He stood and strode to the window, not wanting her to see his face while he spoke.

  “We’ll need to keep up the pretense until the whole thing dies down. Be seen out in public a few times—eating dinner, going to a function or two. I’ll pay you for the lost income of course.”

  He knew he’d have to kiss the Jag goodbye for the rest of the year if he was going to pay her that much money, but if it meant getting his candidate into the White House he’d do it in a heartbeat. The added benefit that it would keep her out of those men’s beds was nearly as enticing an incentive. It wasn’t logical, but nothing about this whole thing was.