No Stranger to Scandal

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“Anything involving phone hacking?”

“That would be illegal—” she smiled sweetly “—so my reply stands. No.”

“Did you know that your stepfather and the president attended the same college at the same time?”

“Yes,” she said. It was hardly a secret.

“Are you aware of any bad blood between them?”

Not apart from Graham thinking Ted Morrow had strutted around campus as if he owned it. “They didn’t move in the same circles.”

For another twenty minutes he grilled her, trying to trip her up, asking questions in different ways, expertly circling back over the line of questioning again and again. She had to admire his technique, but since she had nothing to hide, it was easy not to stumble.

When he paused to take a sip of water, she asked, “Hayden, do you honestly think someone else at ANS was involved in the hacking with Brandon and Troy, or are you fishing?”

“Someone else was involved,” he said, his voice dropping a notch. His dark brown eyes burned with the intensity of his conviction.

Her fingers tightened around her pen. “Why are you so sure?”

“To start with, neither of them understood the process well enough to have masterminded it. They were pawns, used by someone bigger.”

She frowned as she followed his investigative reasoning. “I’m not someone bigger.”

“No,” he said slowly. His gaze locked on hers, taking on a speculative gleam and, as she understood his meaning, her stomach fell away.

“You’re using me to get to Graham.” She swallowed past an uncomfortable constriction in her throat. “I’m not here for routine questioning like the others. You think Graham ordered those goofballs to do it and that I know something that will implicate him.”

One broad shoulder lifted, then dropped, as if this was a casual conversation, yet the intensity in his eyes didn’t waver. “It’s one theory.”

A shiver ran down her spine. She’d known there was suspicion, of course. They all had. But if it was certain that someone else was involved, then ANS was in more trouble than she’d thought. They still had a bad seed in the company, and if Congress couldn’t find who it was, they’d keep their focus on Graham. The exposé alone wouldn’t save her stepfather. She had to do more.

She tapped a beat with the end of her pen on the desk as fragments of ideas flitted through her mind until one coherent plan formed.

She rested her forearms on the desk and leaned forward. “Hayden, I have a proposal for you.”

He stilled. “I’m listening.”

“If there truly is someone else in ANS who was involved in the hacking, and they were pulling Brandon and Troy’s strings, then I want to know who they are, too. I can tell you now, it’s not Graham. I know that man, and I know what he’s capable of—he’s not your guy. But the only way to prove that is to find the real culprit.”

Hayden leaned back and folded his arms over his wide chest. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m going to help you with your investigation,” she said, mind made up. “I can be your person on the inside. But I won’t be involved in a witch hunt—this has to be evidence-based.” She wouldn’t be manipulated into finding circumstantial or misleading evidence against Graham.

“So you’ll gather information for me?” He spoke slowly, as if testing the idea as he said it.

“Within reason. We have agree to some parameters first.”

He cocked his head, brown eyes curious. “Your stepfather will be okay with you doing this?”

“I won’t tell him just yet. It’s possible he trusts someone he shouldn’t, so for the time being, no one at ANS will know I’m assisting you.” She felt a little queasy at the thought of keeping something of this magnitude from Graham, but in this case, the ends justified the means. The most important thing was that she was working in Graham’s best interests.

Hayden rubbed a hand across a jaw darkened by five-o’clock shadow. “You believe in Boyle that much?”

“More.”

He tapped one finger heavily on the desk three times, then blew out a breath. “Okay, I’m willing to give it a go and see how it pans out. But I have to warn you that I still think Boyle was involved, and I won’t be dropping that line of inquiry just because you’re helping.”

“Noted.” As soon as she found the person behind Troy and Brandon’s crimes, Hayden’s theory about Graham would be moot.

There was a sharp knock at the door. Hayden glanced down at his watch. “Excuse me,” he said, closing his laptop and striding across the room.

A neatly dressed woman in her thirties stood in the doorway behind a stroller containing a squirming Josh. Lucy felt her mouth curve into an unstoppable grin at the sight of the boy. He was gorgeous—Hayden’s mini-me—and his expression was full of joy and delight.

“Daddy!” Josh squealed and reached out to his father.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t realize you were still busy. Would you like me to keep him longer?”

Hayden reached down and lifted his son high, planting a kiss on top of his head. “No, we’re almost done. I’ll take him.”

“Okay.” The nanny leaned forward and said goodbye to her charge. The image of the three of them was so beautiful in that moment that Lucy felt an aching hollowness spread through her middle. They looked like a family.

After closing the door behind the nanny, Hayden wheeled the empty stroller across the room with Josh in one arm. When Josh saw Lucy, his face lit up, then he looked frantically around the room. “Goggie!” he demanded.

“Hello, Josh,” she said on a laugh. “Rosebud is asleep in her basket at home.”

Josh’s little bottom lip pushed out for a split second—until he noticed how close his father’s face was, and began to pat his cheeks. Despite flinching at one of the pats that hit his eye, Hayden pushed the stroller into a corner. “If you can give me five minutes, I’ll set Josh up in his playpen with a few toys and we can continue,” he called over his shoulder.

“Sure,” she said. He opened the door to one of the suite’s bedrooms and Lucy slipped out of her chair to follow—partly because it was a great chance to look for more clues for the assignment Graham had given her on Hayden, and partly out of curiosity.

At the park yesterday, she’d carried Josh most of the time and played with him, so she hadn’t had much of a chance to observe father and son together. This evening, with Hayden setting his son up in the playpen, asking him which toys he’d like, she could see more clearly. And there was something a little … awkward about the interaction. Her gaze drifted around the room. Sitting on top of an end table was a haphazard pile of baby manuals, one thick tome perched on the top, open and spine up, its pages dog-eared. Perhaps Hayden was floundering now that he was a single father? She glanced back to man and son, her heart clenching tight for them both, for all they’d lost. For all they were dealing with now.

“He’s a beautiful boy, Hayden.” An acknowledgment of that truth wasn’t much, but it was all she could offer him. “So precious.”

Hayden looked down at Josh, who chose that moment to give a wide, toothless grin. “Yeah, he is,” he said softly.

A bright, sparkling idea formed in her mind—a way to get more time with Hayden and his son. She squeezed her hands together and told herself she needed that time because Hayden had his guard down more when his son was there, so her subtle digging for information for the exposé was easier. But she was uneasily aware that she wanted to spend more time with the males in the Black family. She just hoped to high heaven that it wouldn’t influence her professional judgment.