"It's just work. One of my co-workers," she said.

"Why the big smile then?"

"Oh, it's nothing." Jo glanced back down at her phone and began typing a reply. "Sure thing." She clicked the send b.u.t.ton and set it down on the table.

"Jo, don't leave that phone on the table," Martha reprimanded.

"Sorry," she said, putting it in her lap. "They are having some trouble locating one of the files they need to reference, and I have it. They're looking for it but are going to call if they need me to come back in to find it for them."

"You work too hard and spend too much time on that thing," Martha said. "Shouldn't a girl like you be less worried about running back into the office and more worried about sitting here, having lunch with your mother?"

"What do you mean 'a girl like me'?" Jo questioned, hating the fact her mother still regarded as her a child-and one of a certain type, no less.

"I just mean a girl who has so little in her personal life. You should be focused on finding a suitable husband or at least seeing your family from time to time."

"I don't want a husband," Jo shot back.

Martha Carson looked as if she had been slapped across the face.

"And why not?" she asked incredulously.

Jo reached into her purse under the table and pulled out her personal phone. Using a trick she had learned a long time ago, she used it to speed-dial her BlackBerry number. When that rang, she grabbed it with the other hand and hung up the phone so that it didn't echo. Saved by the bell, she thought, breathing a sigh of relief.

She glanced down at the screen immediately. "It's my boss, Mom. Hold that thought," she added, even though she wanted Martha to think about anything else than why she might not want a husband.

"h.e.l.lo?" Jo answered.

She paused a moment, pretending to listen.

"Uh, yes. I have it on my computer. Were you not able to find it?" she asked, improvising her end of the conversation.

With one more believable pause, she added, "I understand. I'll be there as soon as possible."

She hung up the phone. "I'm sorry, Mom. I've got to go. I'll visit soon." It was a lie, but hopefully it would get her mother off her back.

Quickly, she stood, dropped cash on the table for her half of the check and hugged her mother. She ignored her mother's urging her to pick up the money and let her treat her to lunch. "I do love you, Mom, even if we don't always agree." She kissed her on the top of the head and left. For a moment, she felt guilty, but her fight-or-flight instincts were too strong to allow her to stick around Martha any longer than she had to.

On the drive back to the office, she put on some angry rock music, letting the sounds of Five Finger Death Punch take her into another dimension, where she could think more quickly, sort through what she was feeling and bang her head to the music a bit. Her thoughts raced to the beat of the music. What was she doing in this situation? Was staying in this job worth continually being thrown onto an emotional roller coaster every time Madeline glanced in her direction? She had never fallen for anyone the way she had for Madeline. Was it simply because it was all too taboo to be real?

She prided herself on being independent, on steering clear of tied-down relations.h.i.+ps of the sort that tended to choke the life out of people. Growing up, she had witnessed the way her father controlled her mother, the ways he held his job, his money, his power over her head. Had seen how, out of duty and out of overwhelming love for the man, her mother had stayed.

The way Jo saw it, her mother was trapped. Trapped by love and, given the tenets of her faith, trapped forever. It was one of the reasons Jo had so carefully avoided commitment herself.

That was not the real issue now, of course. The issue was that she wanted-more than anything-to give into love. For as long as she had been running from commitment, she had known-or hoped, at least-that someday someone would come along and stop her in her tracks. Someone who would make doing so worth it.

Madeline could not-would not-be that one. Jo steeled herself, gripping the steering wheel tighter. It was wrong, and she admired Madeline for putting a stop to it. At the same time, she hated herself for wanting it so badly, for spending so many nights fantasizing about Madeline's touch.

Her BlackBerry rang.

"h.e.l.lo?" Jo answered.

"Hey. Where are you at?" Gabe asked.

"s.h.i.+t," Jo answered. "Sorry. I forgot about lunch. I'll stop and grab her something and be back in just a few."

"No worries," he added. "I have to hustle off to a meeting off site, but she should be free in about twenty minutes if you want to run it into her office for me."

Jo swallowed and let out a sigh. "Sounds good. Thanks, Gabe."

"No, thank you, Jo. I appreciate it," he said before hanging up.

The last thing she wanted to do at this point, fantasies aside, was to waltz into Madeline's office and put herself through more torture. Still, if she was going to continue working there, she would have to face the music at some point.

She pulled into a Wendy's drive-through and ordered Madeline a chicken wrap. Not the most dignified lunch for the mayor, but it would have to suffice.

All the way back to the office, she reminded herself that she was simply an employee, doing her job and making sure that her boss's needs were met. Unfortunately, that's what had gotten her into this mess. As she approached Madeline's door, she felt like a nervous schoolgirl having to confront someone who had rejected her invitation to the school dance. She took a steadying breath and knocked on the door.

"Come in," Madeline replied.

Jo opened the door with a newfound confidence. She would drop off lunch and return to her cubicle. The surprise on Madeline's face when she saw her was evident, and Jo's confidence drained away as quickly as it had arisen. It was one of their unspoken rules. Jo had not pa.s.sed the threshold of Madeline's door since she had been asked to keep her distance. But now, here she stood, chicken wrap in hand.

The fire in Madeline's eyes was hard to disguise. Jo stood wrapped in it, unable to move, chills running up and down her spine.

"What can I do for you, Josephine?" Madeline asked finally.

"Uh...sorry," Jo said, pulling herself together. "Gabe said you needed lunch."

Madeline's mouth curved into a half smile, but it did little to curb the intensity that still showed in her eyes. "Thank you."

Jo nodded and set the wrap on Madeline's desk. "Enjoy," she said, awkwardly, wanting to stay. Wanting to do so many things that were not permissible.

"I will," Madeline answered, her eyes never wavering from Jo's.

Jo decided to take a chance. "Can we talk sometime?" she asked quietly.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Madeline replied.

Why does her voice have to be so d.a.m.n sultry? Jo wondered. "Okay, then," she said with a sigh and turned from the office.

Back at her cubicle, she found it impossible to focus. It was ridiculous how Madeline unnerved her. She couldn't take this anymore. There was a reason she was n.o.body's girl; she refused to act like some d.a.m.n lost puppy, begging to be let into a house.

The pa.s.sion she had felt minutes before turned to a burning anger. She hadn't been the one to kiss Madeline. She hadn't done anything wrong, but she was the one being punished. Without second-guessing her newly discovered bitterness, she opened up the word processing software on her office computer and began typing furiously.

It was time to take a stand.

Chapter Eighteen.

Natalie Longworth took a drag of her cigarette. Glancing down at her bright red nails, she shuddered. When had she become this person? She was all dolled up, hoping to meet a nice, rich man to take her home for the night. "Sugar daddy bait," she called it.

That was what it had been with John. Of course, she had known who he was. Anyone with a f.u.c.king television knew who he was, knew who his wife was.

Natalie knew a little bit more about his little wifey than most, though-at least she thought she did. Maddie hadn't broadcast the s.h.i.+t she had done in college. If she had, she'd have never been elected mayor, for one thing, and for another the media already would have caught wind of the connection between Maddie and her.

As it was, John would be paying her to keep their secrets. She'd told him if he didn't pay up, she'd go to the press with the fact that she used to share a bed with the high and mighty mayor. She meant Maddie no harm, but she needed the money. And John had been more than willing to pay up.

"That's my secret to tell," he had said. She didn't know what the h.e.l.l he had meant by that, but it had put a few thousand bucks in her pocket, so she wasn't complaining.

Part of her had felt guilty when she had seen Maddie on the news. She just appeared frazzled-until they thrust the picture of Natalie into her face.

"Do you know this woman?" the TV reporter had asked, desperate for a story.

Maddie had said nothing, but the look on her face spoke volumes. It was a mix of fresh heartache and bitterness.

Good, conservative Maddie had never been big on threesomes, so Natalie was pretty sure it was the first time she had to deal with the fact that someone she had f.u.c.ked had been f.u.c.ked by her husband. Maybe that's why she had done it, Natalie thought. Because after everything they had together, Maddie had turned ultraconservative and thrown the book at the gay community. Sure, Natalie had cheated back in the day. It had only happened once, at a drunken party, but Natalie's apologies were met with nothing but an inability to forgive. As she remembered it, they had broken each other's hearts. Her fleeting infidelity had apparently turned Maddie cold and bitter.

Natalie, on the other hand, had continued to live it up every chance she got. She smiled, thinking about the women she had dated, the men she had dated, all the fun she had enjoyed in the past twenty years. She wasn't getting any younger, and her insatiable appet.i.te for thrills seemed to increase with every pa.s.sing year.

Maddie had needed out of that marriage, of that there was no doubt. And Natalie had needed the money, so she let John Stratton f.u.c.k her brains out. It was as simple as that.

Still she couldn't help the emptiness that nagged at her heart as she thought about the questions Maddie would have to answer at some point. Sooner or later, the truth was bound to surface, and when it did, when people learned that Maddie knew her and how, all h.e.l.l would break loose.

Behind her, she heard a loud whistle. "Hey there, gorgeous."

She turned, feigning disinterest, all the while wondering if this was going to be tonight's payout. She wasn't a prost.i.tute, she told herself time and time again, but sometimes it felt like it. After all, men never actually paid to have s.e.x with her. They paid later-to keep her from going to their wives, to keep her around because she was one h.e.l.l of a lay or to keep their secrets for themselves, as John Stratton had.

The man who had let out the catcall approached her. "Oh, hey, you're that girl."

Dammit. John Stratton might not have been worth it, after all.

"What are you talking about?" Natalie asked innocently.

"The one that Mayor Stratton's husband was seen with. It's you, isn't it?"

She sighed and turned away. Although part of her wanted to tell this jacka.s.s he was wrong, she decided it wasn't worth the fight.

As she walked the five blocks back to her rundown apartment complex, she tried to remember the last time life had seemed worth the fight. As if she were watching them on a television screen, memories played back in her mind. She loved to party, but she always ended up with the same old empty feelings inside the next morning. So it couldn't have been her party days. She went further back in time, until she saw a genuine smile on her face. She had been an artist with promise back in the day. She had genuine talent. Her art professors had said so, and she had won awards.

But none of that had mattered as much as the praise she received from Maddie. "I believe in you. You're going to take the world by storm, babe," Maddie had said, planting a sweet kiss on Natalie's lips.

She recalled the night she had drawn Maddie, sketching every inch of that amazing body. The result had been a masterpiece-not because of her talent, but because of Maddie's sheer perfection.

"Oh, Maddie," she whispered, as tears streaked her face. What had she done?

Reality did not become less real in dim light. That was unfortunate, John thought, as he scratched the stubble on his face. He stumbled around the big, empty house, wis.h.i.+ng the divorce proceedings would hurry themselves along so they could sell it and he'd get his half. At least when he had returned to it, he'd found that the news cameras no longer gave a d.a.m.n about him. That was happy news.

When the news first had come out, for a few days anyway, he had felt like a stud-like Tiger Woods had to have felt when the whole world knew that he could get laid any day he wanted. Now he felt more like a leper. Women around the state seemed to be making him the target of their anger-at least that's how it felt when they shot him go-to-h.e.l.l looks and scurried by him on the streets as if he were a piece of garbage. As soon as the divorce came through, he was going get the h.e.l.l out of town-out of the state even. Then when he walked down the street, women wouldn't point and stare as though he had the plague.

In the meantime, clearly, he wasn't going to be getting laid any time soon, not unless he was willing to sh.e.l.l out some money. In the shape he was in, that might not be a bad idea, he thought. As he stretched out in his recliner to mull the possibility over, his phone rang.

Natalie calling, the screen read.

Maybe he wouldn't have to hire a professional, since he was already paying one. Sure, she was a blood-sucking scoundrel, but since he had already paid her off, he wouldn't mind f.u.c.king her again. He laughed and answered.

"Miss me already?"

"f.u.c.k you, John." Her tone told him two things-she was drunk, and she didn't want to deal with any bulls.h.i.+t.

He cleared his throat. "What's going on, Natalie?"

"I need to get in touch with Maddie."

"You should have tried that before you slept with her husband. I doubt she wants anything to do with you now." John knew it was the truth. More importantly, he couldn't let her get in the way of his plans.

"John, I'll go to the press with this if you don't give me her number," Natalie threatened.

"No, you won't. I paid you, remember that, you lying wh.o.r.e?" John's blood boiled as he spoke the words.

"It's about more than the money." Natalie's voice trembled, but John could tell she wasn't backing down any time soon.

"What do you want? You want more money?"

"No," Natalie paused as if thinking the question over and then continued. "No. I don't want more money. I want to talk to Maddie."

John resisted the urge to hang up the phone. He needed to have Natalie's word that she wouldn't spill the beans. If Madeline wasn't trying to cover up a secret, she had no reason to pay him off. "What's it going to take for me to get you to drop this whole thing?" John finally asked.

"I want her phone number. That's all."

"No deal. What else?"

There was an angry sigh on the other end of the line. "I've got in my hand the number of the guy who interviewed me from Channel 4."

John's heart rate quickened as she read the number aloud.

"You tell me what it's going to be, John. I can call this number, or you can give me Maddie's."

He had no choice, and if there was anything John hated, it was being trapped.

"Fine. Don't expect her to answer," he said, reluctantly reciting from memory the number of Madeline's work Blackberry.

"That'll be all," Natalie said.