A Conflict of Interest
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Barbara Dunlop
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11
One
It was inauguration night in Washington, D.C., and Cara Cranshaw had to choose between her president and her lover. One strode triumphantly though the arches of the Worthington Hotel ballroom to the uplifting strains of “Hail to the Chief” and the cheers of eight hundred well-wishers. The other stared boldly at her from across the ballroom, a shock of unruly, dark hair curling across his forehead, his bow tie slightly askew and his eyes telegraphing the message that he wanted her naked.
For the moment, it was investigative reporter Max Gray who held her attention. Despite her resolve to turn the page on their relationship, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his, nor could she stop her hand from reflexively moving to her abdomen. But Max was off-limits now that Ted Morrow had been sworn in as president.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried the master of ceremonies above the music and enthusiastic clapping that was spreading like a wave across the hall. “The President of the United States.” His voice rang out from the microphone onstage at the opposite end of the massive, high-ceilinged room.
The cheers grew to a roar. The band’s volume increased. And the crowd shifted, separating to form a pathway in front of President Morrow. Cara automatically moved with them, but she still couldn’t tear her gaze from Max as he took a few steps backward on the other side of the divide.
She schooled her features, struggling to transmit her resolve. She couldn’t let him see the confusion and alarm she’d been feeling since her doctor’s visit that afternoon. Resolve, she ruthlessly reminded herself, not hesitation and definitely not fear.
“He’s running late.” Sandy Haniford’s shout sounded shrill in Cara’s ear.
Sandy was a junior staffer in the White House press office, where Cara worked as a public relations specialist. While Cara was moving from ball to ball tonight with the president’s entourage, Sandy was stationed here as liaison to the American News Service event.
“Only by a few minutes,” Cara shouted back, her eyes still on Max.
Resolve, she repeated to herself. The unexpected pregnancy might have tipped her world on its axis, but it didn’t change her job tonight. And it didn’t alter her responsibility to the president.
“I was hoping the president would get here a little early,” Sandy continued, her voice still raised. “We have a last-minute addition to the speaker lineup.”
Cara twisted her head; Sandy’s words had instantly broken Max’s psychological hold on her. “Come again?”
“Another speaker.”
“You can’t do that.”
“It’s done,” said Sandy.
“Well, undo it.”
The speakers, especially those at the events hosted by organizations less than friendly to the president, had been vetted weeks in advance. American News Service was no friend of President Morrow, but the cable network’s ball was a tradition, so he’d had no choice but to show up.
It was a tightly scripted appearance, with only thirty minutes in the Worthington ballroom. He would arrive at ten forty-five—well, ten fifty-two as it turned out—then he was to leave at eleven-fifteen. The Military Inaugural Ball was next on the schedule, and the president had made it clear he wanted to be on time to greet the troops.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Sandy. “Should I tackle the guy when he steps up to the microphone?” Sarcasm came through her raised voice.
“You should have solved the problem before it came to that.” Cara lifted her phone to contact her boss, White House Press Secretary Lynn Larson.
“Don’t you think I tried?”
“Obviously not hard enough. How could you give them permission to add a new speaker?”
“They didn’t ask,” Sandy pointed out with a frown. “Graham Boyle himself put Mitch Davis on the agenda for a toast. Two minutes, they say, tops.”
Mitch Davis was a star reporter for ANS. Graham Boyle might be the billionaire owner of the network, and the sponsor of this ball, but even he didn’t get to dictate to the president.
Cara couldn’t help an errant glance at Max. As the most popular investigative reporter at ANS’s rival, National Cable News, he was a mover and shaker himself. He might have some insight into what was up. But Cara couldn’t ask him about this or anything else to do with her job, not now and not ever again.
Cara pressed a speed-dial button for her boss.
It rang but then went to voice mail.
She hung up and tried again.
She could see that the president had arrived at the head table, in front of and below the stage. He was accepting the congratulations of the smartly dressed guests. The men wore Savile Row tuxedos, while the woman were draped in designer fabrics that shimmered under the refracted light of several dozen crystal chandeliers.
The MC, popular ANS talk show host David Batten, returned to the microphone. He offered a brief but hearty welcome and congratulations to the president before handing the microphone over to Graham Boyle. According to the schedule, Graham had three minutes to speak. Then the president would have one dance with the female chair of a local hospital charity and a second with Shelley Michaels, another popular ANS celebrity. That was to be followed by seven minutes at his table with ANS board members before taking his leave.
Cara gave up on her cell phone and started making her way toward the stage. There was a staircase at either end, nothing up the middle. So she knew she had a fifty-fifty chance of stopping Mitch Davis before he made it to the microphone. Too bad she wasn’t a little larger, a little brawnier, maybe a little more male.
Once again, her thoughts turned to Max. The man dodged bullets in war-torn cities, scaled mountains to reach rebel camps and fought his way through crocodiles and hippos for stories on the struggles of indigenous people. If Max Gray didn’t want a person up onstage, that person was not getting up onstage. Too bad she couldn’t enlist his help and would have to rely on her own wits.
She chose the stairs at stage right, wending her way through the packed crowd.
Graham Boyle was waxing poetic about ANS’s role in the presidential election. He’d taken a couple of jabs at President Morrow’s alma mater and its unfortunate choice of mascot given current relations with Brazil. But that was all fair game.
Cara wished she was taller. At five foot five, she couldn’t see the stairs to know if Mitch was waiting to go up on the right-hand side. She regretted having gone for the comfortable two-inch heels instead of the flashy four-inch spikes that her sister, Gillian, had given her for Christmas. She could have used the height.
“Where are you going?” It was Max’s voice in her ear.
“None of your business,” she retorted, attempting to speed up and put some distance between them.
“You have that determined look in your eyes.”
“Go away.”
He tucked in close beside her. “Maybe I can help.”
“Not now, Max.” She was working. Why did he have to do this to her?
“Your destination can’t possibly be a state secret.”
She relented. “I’m trying to get to the stage. Okay? Are you happy?”
“Follow me.” He stepped in front of her.
His six-foot-two-inch height and broad shoulders made him an imposing figure. She supposed it didn’t hurt any that he was famous, either. Last month, he’d been voted one of the ten hottest men in D.C. The upshot was he could move through a crowd far faster than she could. Resigned, she stuck to his coattails.
Even with Max clearing the way, they eventually got stuck behind a crowd of people.
“Why do you want to get to the stage?” He turned to ask her.
“For the record,” she responded, “I don’t know any state secrets. I don’t have that kind of job.”
“And since I’m not a foreign spy, we should be able to carry on a conversation without compromising national security.”
An unmistakable voice came over the sound system. “Good evening, Mr. President,” drawled Mitch Davis.
A murmur of surprise moved across the room, since Mitch was a known detractor of President Morrow. Cara rocked back on her heels. She’d failed to stop him.
“First, let me say, on behalf of American News Service, congratulations, sir, on your election as President of the United States.”
The applause came up on cue, though perhaps not as strong as usual.
“Your friends,” Mitch continued with a hearty game-show-host smile, “your supporters and your mother and father must all be very proud.”
Cara strained to catch the president’s expression, wondering if he would be angry or merely annoyed by the deviation from the program. But there was no way to see through the dense crowd.
“The president is smiling,” Max offered, obviously guessing her concern. “It looks a little strained though.”
“Davis is not on the program,” Cara ground out.
“No kidding,” Max returned, as if only an idiot would think otherwise.
She glared at him, then elbowed her way past, maneuvering through the crowd toward the president’s table below the stage. Lynn Larson was going to be furious. It wasn’t exactly Cara’s responsibility to ensure that this specific ball went smoothly, but she had been working closely with the staffers coordinating each one. She was partly to blame for this.
Thankfully, Max didn’t follow her.
“I expect nobody is prouder than your daughter,” said Mitch, just as Cara reached a place where she could see Mitch on stage.
There was a confused silence in the room, because the president was single and didn’t have any children. Confused herself, Cara rocked to a halt a few feet from Lynn at the president’s table. Lynn glanced toward the stairs at the end of the stage, as if she was gauging how long it would take her to get there.
Mitch waited a beat, microphone in one hand, glass of champagne in the other. “Your long-lost daughter, Ariella Winthrop, who is with us here tonight to celebrate.”
It took half a second for the crowd to react. Maybe they were trying to figure out if it was a sick joke. Cara certainly was.
But she quickly realized it was something far more sinister than a joke, and her gaze flew to the corner of the stage, where she’d glimpsed her friend Ariella, whose event-planning company had been hired to throw the ANS ball. When Cara focused on Ariella, her stomach sank like a stone. As soon as it was pointed out, the resemblance between Ariella and the president was quite striking. And Cara had known for years that Ariella was adopted. Ariella didn’t know her birth parents.
The crowd’s murmurs rose in volume, everyone asking each other what they knew, had heard, had thought or had speculated. Cara could only imagine at least a thousand text messages had gone out already.
She took a half step toward Ariella, but the woman turned on her heel, disappearing behind the stage. There were at least a dozen doorways back there, most cordoned off from the guests by security. Hopefully, Ariella would make a quick getaway.
Mitch raised his glass. “To the president.”
Everyone ignored him.
Cara moved toward Lynn as the crowd’s questions turned to shouts and the press descended on the table.
“If you would direct your questions to me,” Lynn called, standing up from her chair and drawing, at least for a moment, the attention of the reporters away from President Morrow.
The man looked shell-shocked.
“We obviously take any accusation of this nature very seriously,” Lynn began. She looked to Cara, subtly jerking her head toward the stage.
Cara reacted immediately, skirting around the impromptu press conference to get to the microphone onstage. Damage Control 101—get ahead of the story.
She quickly noted that the security detail had surrounded the president, moving him toward the nearest exit. She knew the drill. The limos would be waiting at the curb before the president even got out the door.
She had no idea if the accusation was true or if Mitch Davis had simply exploited the resemblance between Ariella and the president. But it didn’t matter. The texts, tweets and blogs had likely made it to California and Seattle, probably all the way across the Atlantic by now.
Cara scooted up the stairs and crossed the stage, staring Mitch Davis down as she went for the microphone.
He relinquished it. His work was obviously completed.
Mitch’s gaze darted to the crowd. His confident expression faltered, and she saw Max, his eyes thunderous as he moved along below the stage, keeping pace with Mitch as the man made his way to the stairs.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cara began, composing a speech inside her head on the fly. “The White House would like to thank you all for joining the president tonight to celebrate. The president appreciates your support and invites you all to enjoy yourselves for the rest of the party. For members of the press, we’ll provide a statement and follow-up on your questions at tomorrow’s regular briefing.”
Cara turned to applaud the band. “For now, the Sea Shoals have a lot of great songs left to play tonight.” She gave a signal to the bandleader, which he thankfully picked up on, and the energetic strains of a jazz tune filled the room.
Covered by the music, Cara quickly slipped from the stage.
Max was standing at the bottom of the stairs to meet her, but her warning glare kept him back—which was probably the first time that had ever happened. But then he mouthed the word “later,” and she knew they weren’t done.
* * *
There were times when being a recognizable television personality was frustrating and inconvenient. But for Max Gray, tonight wasn’t one of them. He’d only been to Cara’s Logan Circle apartment a handful of times, but the doorman remembered him from his national news show, After Dark, and let him straight into the elevator without calling upstairs for Cara’s permission.
That was very convenient for Max, because there was a better than even chance Cara would have refused to let him come up. And he needed to see her.
The ANS inaugural ball debacle had been a huge blow to the White House, particularly to the press office. Cara and Lynn had handled it professionally, but even Cara had to be rattled. And she had to be worried about what happened next. The scandal whipping its way through D.C. tonight had the potential to derail the White House agenda for months to come. Max needed to see for himself that Cara was all right.
He exited the aging elevator into a small, short hallway. Her apartment building had once been an urban school, but it now housed a dozen loft apartments, characterized by high ceilings, large windows and wide-open spaces. Cara’s had a small foyer hall off the public hallway. From there, a winding staircase led to a light-filled, loft-style grand room with bright walls and gleaming hardwood floors. The single room had a marble-countered kitchen area in one corner, with a sleeping area separated by freestanding latticework wood screens.
Max had loved it at first sight. It reminded him of Cara herself, unpretentious, breezy and fun. She was practical, yet unselfconsciously beautiful, from her short, wispy, sandy-brown hair to her intense blue eyes, from her full, kissable lips to her compact, healthy body. She never seemed to run out of energy, and life didn’t faze her in the least.
The short public hallway had four suite doors. The last time Max had been here was mid-December. Cara had kept him at arm’s length after Ted Morrow won the election in November. But he’d bought her a present while he was in Australia, pink diamond earrings from the Argyle Mine. He’d selected the raw stones himself, them had them cut and set in eighteen-karat gold, especially for her.
She’d let him in that night, and they’d made love for what was likely the last time—at least the last time during this administration. Cara had been adamant that they keep their distance, since he was a television news host, and she was on the president’s staff. Max shuddered at the thought. He really didn’t want to wait four years to hold her in his arms again.
He knocked on Cara’s door, then waited as her footsteps sounded on the spiral wrought-iron staircase.
He heard her stop in front of the door and knew she was looking through the peephole. There were a limited number of people who could get through the lobby without the doorman announcing them. So she probably expected it was Max. That she’d come down the stairs at all was a good sign.
“Go away,” she called through the door.
“That seems unlikely,” he responded, touching his fist to the door panel.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
He moved closer to the door to keep from having to raise his voice and alert her neighbors. “Are you okay, Cara?”
“Just peachy.”
“I need to talk to you.”
She didn’t respond.
“Do you really want me to talk from out here?” he challenged.
“I really want you to leave.”
“Not until I make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m over twenty-one, Max. I can take care of myself.”
“I know that.”
“So, why are you here?”
“Open up, and I’ll tell you.”
“Nice try.”
“Five minutes,” he pledged.
She didn’t answer.
“Ten if I have to do it from the hallway.”
A few seconds later he heard the locks slide open. The door yawned to reveal Cara wearing a baggy, gray T-shirt and a pair of black yoga pants. Her feet were bare, her hair was slightly mussed and her face was free of makeup, showing the few light freckles that made her that much cuter.
“Hey,” he said softly, resisting an urge to reach out and touch her.
“I’m really doing fine,” she told him, lips compressed, jaw tight, her knuckles straining where she held the door.
He nodded as he moved inside, easing the door from her hands to close it behind himself. He looked meaningfully at the spiral staircase.
“Five minutes,” she repeated.
“I can finish a soft drink in less than five minutes.”
She shook her head in disgust but headed up the stairs anyway. Max followed, resisting once again the urge to reach out and touch. There was a time, a very short time in the scheme of things, when he’d felt free to do that.
“Cola or beer?” she asked, coming to the top of the stairs and padding across the smooth floor to the kitchen area.
“Beer,” Max decided, shrugging out of his tux jacket and releasing his bow tie.
He moved to the furniture grouping of two low, hunter-green leather couches, a pair of matching armchairs and low tables with lamps, all tastefully accented by a rust, gold and brown patterned rug. Her view of the city was expansive. The night had turned clear, with a new blanket of snow freshening up the buildings and the trees, reflecting the lights in the park across the street.
Cara returned with a can of beer for him and a cola for her. She handed the can to Max and then curled into one of the armchairs, popping the top on her own drink.
“Four minutes,” she warned him.
He opened his beer and eased onto the corner of a couch. He pulled off his wristwatch and set it on the coffee table, faceup where he could see it.
He caught her slight, involuntary smile at the gesture.
“You okay?” he asked in a soft voice.
“I’m fine,” she assured him one more time.
“Did you know?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“You know I can’t answer that.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I was counting on being able to read your expression when you told me to back off.”
She lifted her brows. “And did you?”
“You’re as inscrutable as ever.”
“Thank you. It helps in my business.” She took a sip.
He followed suit. Then he set the can down on a coaster. “You know I’ll have to go after the story.”
“I know you will.”
“I don’t want to hurt you. And I respect the hell out of this president. But a secret daughter?”
“We don’t know for sure she’s his daughter.”
Max stilled. He was surprised Cara had offered even that much insight. “We will soon enough.”
She nodded.
“Have you talked to Ariella?” He knew the two women were friends. Cara had casually introduced Max to Ariella at a fundraising event right before the election.
Cara set her cola down on a table beside her. “Do you honestly think that would be in anyone’s best interest?”
“That’s neither a yes nor a no.”
Cara’s expression remained completely neutral.
“You’re very good,” he allowed.
She sat forward. “I know you have to go after this, Max. But can you at least be fair about it? Can you please take into account all the facts before you help ramp up the public hysteria?”
Max leaned forward, bringing them close enough that he could feel her faint breath, inhale the coconut scent of her shampoo, close enough that it was hard to keep from kissing her.
“I always take all the facts into account.”
“You know what I mean.”
He reached for her hand.
But at his faintest touch, she snapped it away. “This is going to get ugly.”
He knew that was an understatement. The press, not to mention the opposition, smelled blood in the water, and they were already circling. “Are you going back to work tonight?”
“Lynn’s taking the night shift. I’ll go in early tomorrow morning.”
“It’s going to be a long haul,” Max noted, wishing there was something he could do to help her. But he had a very different job from Cara, a job that was certain to be at odds with hers.
“Yes, it is.” She sounded tired already.
“I’ll be fair, Cara.”
“Thank you.” There was a wistful note to her voice. For a moment, her blue eyes went soft and her expression became less guarded.
He reached for her hand again, this time squeezing before she had a chance to pull away.
She glanced at their joined hands. Her voice turned to a strained whisper. “You know all the reasons.”
“I disagree with them.”
“I can’t date you, Max.”
“I can’t stop wanting you, Cara.”
She lifted her long lashes, and her crystal-blue eyes looked directly into his. “Try, Max. Summon up some of your famous fortitude and try.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. “I’m not here for inside information. I was genuinely concerned about you.”
“As I said—”
“You’re fine. I get it.”
That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Her skin was creamy and smooth, her lips dark, soft and slightly parted. He imagined their feel, her taste, her scent, and instinct took over. He tipped his head, leaning in.
But she pulled abruptly away, turning and dipping her head before he could kiss her. “Your five minutes are up.”
He heaved a sigh, giving up, letting her small hand slip from between his fingers. “Yeah. I guess they are.”
* * *
Max had left his watch behind in Cara’s apartment. She had no way to know if he’d done it on purpose. It was a Rolex—platinum, with baguette-cut emeralds on the face. She couldn’t even imagine the price. Being a popular television personality definitely had its perks.
When she’d gone to bed, Cara had set the watch on the table beside her. She’d used its alarm as a backup, since she’d had to get up at three-thirty.
Then she’d put it in her purse before heading for her West Wing office at the White House. If Max called about it, she’d drop it off for him on her way home. She had no intention of letting him use it as an excuse to come back to her apartment again.
She flashed her ID tag through the scanner in the White House lobby, and passed through security in the predawn hours. A cleaner was vacuuming, while deliverymen made their way along the main hall. It was quiet out front, but closer to the press office, the activity level increased. Movers were lugging furniture and boxes into the newly appointed offices. She passed several people on her way to her small office.
“Morning, Cara.” Her boss, Lynn, fell into step with her.
Cara unbuttoned her coat and unwrapped her plaid scarf from around her neck as they walked. “Did you get a chance to talk to the president?”
Lynn shook her head, shifting a file folder to her opposite hand. “The Secret Service was with him for an hour. Then Barry went in for a while. And after that, he went back to the residence.”
“Is it true?”
One of the communications assistants appeared to take Cara’s scarf and purse. Cara shrugged out of her coat and added it to the pile in the woman’s arms.
“We don’t know,” said Lynn, pushing open her office door.
Cara followed her inside. “Barry didn’t ask him?”
Chief of Staff Barry Westmore knew the president better than anyone.
As press secretary, Lynn’s office was the largest in the communications section. It housed a wide oak desk, a long credenza, a cream-colored couch and three television screens mounted along one wall playing news shows from three different continents. In English, German and Russian, reporters were speculating on the president’s personal life.
Lynn plopped down in her high-backed leather chair, twisting her large, topaz ring around and around the finger of her right hand. Lights from the garden broke the darkness outside the window before her. “Even if it’s true, the president wasn’t aware that he had a daughter.”
“That’s good.” From a communications perspective, deniability was key in this situation.
Lynn didn’t look as relieved as Cara felt. “There’s more than one possible woman.”
Cara’s eyebrows shot up.
“Barry and I did the math,” said Lynn. “Accounting for possible variations in gestation period. Since the baby might have been premature, there are three possible mothers.”
“Three?” Despite the gravity of the situation, Cara found herself fighting a smile. “Go, Mr. President.”
Lynn frowned at her impertinence. “It was senior year in high school. The man was a football star.”
“Sorry,” Cara quickly put in, lowering herself into one of the guest chairs opposite the desk.
Her boss waved away the apology. “He’s refusing to give us the names.”
“He has to give us the names.”
“First, he wants to know if Ariella is his daughter. If and only if she is his daughter, then we can look at the ex-girlfriends.”
“The press will find them first,” Cara warned, her mind flitting to Max. The networks and newspapers would pull out all the stops to find Ariella’s mother. They wouldn’t wait on a DNA test. This was the story of the century.
“Yes, they will,” Lynn agreed. “But the president is unwilling to ruin innocent lives.”
In Cara’s opinion, the women’s lives were already ruined. Anyone who’d had the misfortune to sleep with President Morrow in high school would be fair game. It wouldn’t even matter whether the lovemaking squared up with Ariella’s birth date; they’d still be hunted down and hounded with questions.
Lynn twisted her ring again. “It’s always that thing that you don’t see coming. And it’s always sex. Next time, remind me to back a nerdy candidate. Maybe president of the chess club or something.”
“These days, nerds are hot,” Cara pointed out.
“That’s because we expect them to grow up rich.”
“That’s why I hang out at the local internet café looking for dates.”
Lynn grinned, putting a little life into her exhausted expression. “I should have married a nerd in high school.”
“Instead of a smoking-hot navy captain?”
Lynn gave a self-conscious shrug, but her eyes took on a secretive glow. “It was spring break. And he rocked those dress whites.”
“You didn’t even look twice at the nerds,” Cara accused.
“The hormones want what the hormones want.”
Cara’s brain conjured up a picture of Max, but she quickly shook it away. “Have you spoken to Ariella?”
“Nobody can find her.”
“Can’t blame her for that.” If it had been Cara, she’d have crossed the Canadian border by now.
“Think you can find her?” Lynn asked.
Cara would love nothing better than to find Ariella and make sure she was okay. But she wasn’t going to abandon Lynn to go on a wild-goose chase. “You need me here.”
“We can live without you.”
“Just what every woman wants to hear. You’re going to have to give a statement to the press today. And you need me to write it. You need to get some sleep.”
Cara wished she’d had more than three hours’ sleep herself. She knew she had to pay more attention to things like eating and sleeping now that she was pregnant. But time for sleep and time to prepare nutritious meals were pretty hard to come by while working for the president. Especially during this crisis.
“I will get some sleep,” Lynn agreed. “Barry’s working on a statement, and we’ll put the press off until the afternoon. Do you think you’d be able to find Ariella?”
Cara got to her feet. She had to believe her womb was a safe place for the first few weeks of gestation no matter what chaos was going on outside it. She reassured herself that many women wouldn’t even know they were pregnant this early.
“I can try,” she told her boss.
“Then go. Get out of here.”
Cara headed for her own office, quickly retrieving her coat and purse. If she could find Ariella, at the very least they could offer her Secret Service protection. She wrapped the scarf around her neck before heading out into the snow.
If the story was true, Ariella would need protection for the rest of her life, and that would only be the start of the chaos. Merely being a member of the White House staff had sent Cara’s personal life into a tailspin. She couldn’t imagine what Ariella was going through.
