01 - The Heartbreaker (4 page)

She pivoted back to him, shock and confusion evident in her eyes and her open expression. He understood since he felt it all too.

“This is crazy,” she said.

“I agree.” He ran a hand through his hair and waited.

“I’ll stay,” she said at last.

“Good.” He excused himself for a quick trip to the bathroom, and when he returned, he pulled her into his arms.

“Sometimes crazy’s good, I guess.” She laughed and her body vibrated, warm and delicious, against him.

He rested his cheek against her long hair, inhaling the fragrant strands. “I needed crazy tonight. Up till now, my life has always been predictable.” He thought about the same routine he’d followed for the last nineteen years. “Expected,” he continued, recalling raising his siblings and providing the perfect example for them. “And mostly lived for others.”

“Sounds pretty much like my life,” she murmured.

He brushed her unruly hair off his face and let her snuggle deeper into him. He didn’t want to think how bizarre it was that he wanted to spend the night holding on to this soft, willing female. For once, he only wanted to do what felt right for him. “I promised myself tonight was the start of a new life. One I’d live only for me.”

She sighed. “That sounds wonderful.”

“So why don’t you live by my example?” he asked. Chase hadn’t a clue what was bothering her or dragging her down, but like him, she’d obviously allowed herself to be free tonight. She
shouldn’t go back to a life of confinement, or one lived for others.

“I have people relying on me,” she said drowsily. “Even if my entire life has been a lie, I’ll still be expected to do the right thing.” Her voice grew sleepier as she spoke.

His curiosity was aroused. Not just because he was a reporter and ambiguous statements led to questions, but because she intrigued him. Too much. He was just beginning his search for fulfillment. He didn’t need someone else’s problems or needs weighing on him. He’d had too much of that in his life and he was too prone to doing right by others. It seemed to be the Chandler way.

So it was a damn good thing they’d be going their separate ways come the morning, he thought, drifting off himself.

The soft sound of crying woke Chase from a deep, sated sleep. It took him a minute to get his bearings, and when he did, he realized he was in a dark hotel room in D.C. with a woman he’d met the night before. A woman who’d blown him away with an incredible sexual encounter. One he’d begged to stay when she’d tried to leave.

An uncomfortable feeling of guilt and unease tore at him. She’d rolled to the far end of the bed and he reached out to touch her shoulder. “Regrets?” he asked her. Because shockingly, he had none.

“About last night? No. About my life and the way I’ve lived it? Oh yes.”

The vise clamping around his heart loosened. Regrets and recriminations were something he didn’t want to deal with. “There’s not much you can do about the past except put it behind you and go forward.”

She exhaled hard. “Wise words.”

“What can I say? I’m a wise guy.”

“Funny, but you struck me as more of a straight shooter.”

He caught her joke and chuckled. “Think you can get back to sleep?”

“If you rub my back, maybe.”

She wiggled toward him and he did as she asked, massaging the tense muscles in her shoulders.

“Mmm.”

He nuzzled the soft, fragrant skin at her neck. She smelled and tasted delicious. “I was about to say the same thing.”

Pulling himself up, he lay over her, his stomach aligned with her back, his groin settled between her buttocks. She let out a purr of contentment mingled with satisfaction and he hardened in an instant.

“I know what would really help me sleep,” she said, wriggling her hips beneath him, before clenching her legs, capturing his erection between them.

Her desire was obvious. “You want me to exhaust you, huh?”

“Oh yes.”

Chase didn’t need a second invitation. He reached for the condom he’d left on the nightstand earlier, just in case, and quickly sheathed himself before poising himself to enter her. “Like this, okay?” he asked, his face buried in the nape of her neck as he slowly entered her moist femininity.

“Oooh,” she said on a slow moan. “This is perfect.”

And it was. Chase didn’t understand it, this inherent trust and understanding between them, nor did he question it. He figured it had everything to do with his decision to live life for himself, and her decision to do the same, if only for one night.

After they’d sated their desire once more, she fell asleep beside him, hair sprawled on the pillow, completely relaxed. He’d done that for her. Just as she’d done something for him. She’d helped him take his first step in setting himself free of responsibility and constraint.

Tomorrow they’d part ways, but not before he ordered them
room service, shared breakfast, and feasted with her, and on her, one last time.

But when he awoke, courtesy of the sun streaming through the windows, bathing the room in light, his visitor was gone. Chase rubbed a hand over his eyes, wondering if he’d imagined the entire affair.

But her scent lingered in the air and he’d woken up aroused, ready to reach for her again. He hadn’t imagined her or the incredible night they’d shared. She’d left him with a damn good memory to take with him as he went after his dreams and started his new life.

But a part of him was disappointed they didn’t have more time. That same part of him wished they’d met at a different point in his life, under other circumstances. If he were a different person and hadn’t had to raise his brothers, he wondered if they would have stood a chance. He pinched the bridge of his nose, lost in ridiculous thoughts.

“Snap out of it,” he muttered. As he rose and headed for a hot shower, he couldn’t shake her from his mind.

Recalling the first time she’d tried to slip out on him, Chase forced himself to laugh now. She’d managed to avoid the awkward morning after, after all.

S
loane returned home to her apartment around seven
A
.
M
. A quick shower and change and she was on her way back to the hotel where her life had been altered so drastically. And not just because she’d discovered Michael Carlisle wasn’t her father, but because she’d finally begun freeing herself from the constraints in her life. She’d allowed herself to act on her own impulse and desire. And in doing so, she’d found Chase.

A man with whom she’d spent just one night, but one she’d never forget. Sloane wasn’t into one-night stands. She didn’t have sex for sex’s sake. And she hadn’t planned to pick up a man at the bar last night, at least not until she’d looked into Chase’s slumberous blue eyes. With a glance, he’d compelled her to disregard her usual reserve. By ordering the same drink she had, despite the fact that he had a full beer sitting in front of him, he’d intrigued her. By offering to listen, he’d won her over. Whether or not that had been his intent, she didn’t care. He hadn’t struck her as a guy on the make, and after spending the night in his arms, she knew her first impression had been right.

Not only was he gorgeous, but he had an innate understanding of her needs. How else could she explain the champagne they’d never drunk? The way he hadn’t let her leave? And then there was the Karma involved. Fate had paired her with a man who, by his own admission, had always done the predictable thing. Lived his life for others. Like she had. Even not knowing
more details, Sloane realized they had more in common than she’d have expected from a one-night stand.

But it
was
a one-night stand, and though she’d have her memories and fantasies to relive later, for now she had to put him behind her. More pressing family matters called to her now. But she wished Chase well on the start of his new life and knew she’d think of him often as she forged ahead, trying to decipher hers.

She paused at her parents’ hotel room door, unsure how to handle this confrontation. Her father would be in last-minute meetings and reviewing his speech, but Madeline would be inside.

Her stepmother was a beautiful woman, both inside and out, and with her normally calm demeanor, she was the perfect politician’s wife. She’d also been a wonderful mother, stepping in upon Jacqueline’s death, when Sloane was eight. To Madeline’s credit, she’d never treated Sloane any differently than her real daughters—Sloane’s twin sisters, Eden and Dawne—and Sloane adored her in return.

Which made the lie even more difficult for Sloane to understand. She shook her head and shored up her courage, knocking on the door, which swung open within seconds.

“Where have you been?” Madeline grabbed Sloane’s hand and pulled her into a motherly hug. “When you didn’t show up for dinner last night, your father and I were worried sick.”

So much for her stepmother’s calm demeanor, Sloane thought as she squeezed her back. Although Madeline was dressed for the press conference, looking very Jacqueline Kennedyesque with her dark bobbed hair and beautifully made-up face, her concern was etched in the lines around her eyes.

Despite having good reason for ditching last night’s family dinner, Sloane felt guilty for making her worry. “I’m sorry.” She twisted her fingers together, searching for the right words. “But I needed to be alone. To think.”

“About?” Madeline brushed Sloane’s hair off her shoulder, the
way she used to do when Sloane was a little girl. “You can talk to me.”

Sloane nodded. “I think we’d better sit.” She followed her stepmother to the sofa in the outer area of the suite, the same room in which she’d heard Frank and Robert talking last night. “Are we alone?”

Madeline nodded. “Your father’s meeting with Frank in his room and the twins went shopping.”

“I hope you gave them a money limit,” Sloane said, laughing. Typical seventeen-year-old girls, her sisters loved to shop, and when they were at home in upstate New York, they constantly grumbled about the lack of decent malls.

“I gave them cash and confiscated the credit cards.” Madeline’s eyes twinkled with laughter but sobered quickly. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

The facade of joking fell away. Butterflies rose in Sloane’s stomach and she drew a deep breath. “I showed up for dinner last night. I was half an hour early and you and Dad weren’t back from shopping yet.” She clenched and unclenched her fists, fighting the nausea and the fear. “Frank was with Robert and they were arguing about a threat to Dad’s campaign.”

Madeline sat up straighter, her eyes wide and focused. “What kind of threat?”

“The worst kind. A personal one.” Sloane bit down on the inside of her cheek. It was harder to repeat the words than she’d thought. “A man named Samson claims to be my biological father.”

“Oh damn.”

Sloane’s eyes opened wide. Madeline Carlisle didn’t curse. Sloane did. So did her dad, as did Eden and Dawne, but Madeline believed someone in the family had to set a proper example. Her cursing wasn’t a good sign.

“So it’s true?” Sloane asked in a small voice.

Madeline grasped onto Sloane’s clenched hands and held on tight. “Yes, honey. It’s true.”

Sloane hadn’t realized it, but in her heart, she’d held out hope that Madeline would deny the claim. Instead, she’d acknowledged her worst fears. She fought back the lump in her throat, determined to get through this without falling apart.

Madeline met her gaze, and despite everything, Sloane felt the love her stepmother had always shown her.

“You need an explanation.” Madeline’s voice cracked, but she didn’t pause. “Your mother and I were best friends. I would have done anything for her. You know that. In fact, I did. I married your father so I could raise you the way your mother would have wanted.”

Sloane squeezed her stepmother’s hand. “You couldn’t have done any more.” Except tell her the truth, Sloane thought, but this conversation was difficult and even Madeline seemed to need reassurance. “You never made me feel like you loved me any less than Eden and Dawne. I love you for that.”

Madeline blinked back tears. “I love you too. And I love your father. Although, I didn’t fall in love with him until long after we’d married.”

Sloane smiled. She already knew the story of Michael and Madeline’s marriage. They often told people how they’d come to love one another as they jointly raised Sloane. But that didn’t explain the rest of the missing pieces. “How was lying best for me?”

Madeline raised steepled fingers to her lips and paused in thought. “Your mother was born and raised in Yorkshire Falls. It’s about twenty minutes from our home in Newtonville. She had been in college and was home on summer break when she fell in love with a man named Samson Humphrey.”

So that was his last name. Her head hurt and she inhaled slowly, trying to ease the pain with no success.

“What happened between my mother and . . . Samson?” She forced herself to say the name, as if speaking would help her accept the painful truth.

Madeline shook her head. “It’s a long story. But Jacqueline’s
father, your grandfather, was a politician who thought his blood was bluer than it really was. He didn’t think Samson was good enough for his daughter, and worried about him hindering his career.”

“Because Grandfather Jack was a senator too.” She didn’t know the older man because he’d died when she was a child.

Madeline nodded. “Your grandfather did some digging and came up with some dirt on Samson’s family and used it to bribe the man into staying away from your mother.”

Sloane shook her head in disbelief, trying to absorb all this information that had been hidden from her for years.

“Presumably, Samson felt he had no choice.”

“Or he was weak,” Sloane muttered.

“Not if your mother loved him, honey. And she did. So there must have been something good in him.” Madeline met Sloane’s gaze.

The older woman’s eyes shimmered with tears and emotion. Sadness? Regret? Guilt? Sloane couldn’t be certain.

“Of course he was a good man,” Madeline insisted in a forceful tone. “After all, look at all the good in you.”

Sloane swallowed hard. She wasn’t about to think about herself now. If she did, she’d fall apart, and she wanted to hear the end of this story first.