DARK PARADISE - A Political Romantic Suspense Read online

  My sweet mother lives for the first weekend of every month. For two whole days she gets to step into her old skin, the only one that ever truly gave her purpose and meaning. And for two whole days, I get to forget about politics and sex and the hustle that’s become my life—I get to simply be someone’s daughter.

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  She lingers in my door, her warm smile drowning me in an innocent sweetness before she trots back downstairs.

  I pull the suitcase back out and count the journals.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  My stomach drops when I realize I left one at the apartment. My most recent one is arguably the most important of them all.

  Two deep breaths and I’m halfway to pulling myself together. If I fixate on this all weekend, I’ll never enjoy my time away. The good thing is that Araminta knows nothing about it. Someone would have to go rifling through my things to find it, and the odds of that are slim.

  “Okay.” I breathe out. It’s out of my control, and I’ll be back home tomorrow night.

  A minute later, I take my seat at the breakfast table, listening to my mother hum A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes as she whisks waffle batter and fires up the Mickey waffle iron she bought fifteen years ago during our first and only trip to Disney World. She saved up for years for that trip and it rained the entire time, but it was the most fun I’d ever had in my young, brief life.

  Not even torrential downpours could wash away the magic of that place.

  Even as a child, I couldn’t get over how absolutely perfect everything was. The streets were clean, swept daily. The bushes were shaped like Goofy and Donald Duck. Nightly fireworks made my whole body tickle with each pop and tingle with each crackle. Mickey-shaped pretzels, pineapple soft serve floats, and enchanted rides topped it all off.

  Nobody cares about anything at Disney World, and everyone is smiling.

  “Do you remember when you used to tell me you wanted to work at Disney World when you grew up?” Mom stops humming to ask me a question. Her lips spread wide and she laughs. “It was the cutest thing, Camille. You said you wanted to operate the Tea Cups.”

  I laugh. “It was my favorite ride. And you were so wonderful to let me ride it five times in a row. I don’t think I could do that much spinning right now if I wanted to.”

  She pours a cupful of batter onto the iron and shuts the lid before flashing me a wistful glance. “And I’d do it all over again, sweetheart. Even if it made me sick to my stomach the rest of the day, all I wanted to do was see that beautiful smile of yours. All those parents at Disney World? They’ll empty their life savings to see that smile on their kids’ faces. And let me tell you, it was worth every clipped coupon and Kraft dinner.”

  “Maybe we can go back someday?” I propose. “I could really use some magic in my life. I kind of miss it.”

  “Oh, honey,” she says. “Magic goes away the second you become an adult, and unfortunately it never comes back.”

  I sink back in my chair. “But we could go back anyway. You know, for old times’ sake.”

  “It’s not that I wouldn’t want to,” she says. “I’d love it. But I just don’t have any extra money right now.”

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  Her head whips toward me then shakes back and forth. “You don’t have any money either. A young lady living in DC on a waitress’s wages cannot afford a two-person trip to Disney World.”

  My mother still thinks I’m a waitress, and it’s a sore topic of discussion I’m generally keen on avoiding. But not today.

  “The holiday season is coming up. I usually get huge tips. I’ll save them up and we can go after the first of the year,” I say. “Please? Let’s go. Just us. I want to do this.”

  She clucks her tongue and fights a smile.

  “Please. You’re retired. You should be doing fun things.” A retired schoolteacher’s pension doesn’t exactly allow for Hawaiian vacations or Alaskan cruises. “You never travel. You never leave Oakdale. You’ve always been there for me, Mom. You’ve taken care of me. Let me take care of you for once.”

  I always told myself that someday, when I become famous and my bank account is fat enough, I’m bankrolling my mother. She’s the sweetest, hardest-working woman I’ve ever known, and she sacrificed to give me everything I could ever need. She even took a second job so we could move out of the rat-infested, low-income apartments in the seedy part of town. For years, she worked two jobs and attended school part-time to earn her teaching degree.

  Best of all, her summers were for me.

  And when everyone else was traveling the country with their families, we read to escape. My mother always said books could take us anywhere we wanted to go.

  “Let’s get away,” I urge.

  She smiles, rarely able to say no to her pride and joy. It’s a quality I took advantage of far too many times as a child. In all my life, there was really only one question to which she ever told me no. And still to this day, she refuses to answer it.

  “All right, Camille. You’ve twisted my arm. We’ll go,” she says, forking the waffle and dropping it on a plate.

  If only it were that easy to get her to tell me who my father is.

  There are two facts I know about him. The first? He works in politics. The second? They met in Washington, DC.

  I’ve always wondered if my pull in that direction was because a missing piece of me might still be there.

  FOURTEEN

  “John”

  “Did I not make myself abundantly clear yesterday?” The tension in my jaw is painful as Lydia Darlington stands outside my apartment door Sunday afternoon, a cardboard box in her arms. “Why are you here?”

  “Things were a little rough yesterday morning. We couldn’t really talk.” She bites her lip, staring up at me with puppy dog eyes. It may have worked in the past, when I was a lovesick moron, but not anymore. “Can I come in? I promise I won’t take much of your time.”

  “No.”

  She takes a step forward and freezes. “I wanted to give you some things.”

  I take the box from her arm, and her hands smooth the front of her blouse. She’s dressed to the nines, with full hair and makeup, her outfit strategically coordinated to show off her best assets: long legs, perky tits, and an hourglass shape. If she weren’t so busy being a blue blood, she could easily slap on angel wings and walk a runway in a lace bustier.

  “Bye, Lydia.”

  I attempt to shut the door in her face, but she slaps her palm across the wood and presses against it.

  “Wait,” she says.

  “No.”

  Upon first glance, the box in my arms appears to contain an assortment of mementos. An old tie she gifted me that once belonged to an actor from the 1930s. A leather-strapped watch I thought I lost years ago. Movie ticket stubs. A postcard I sent to her from Sudan when I accompanied my father to Africa for the first time. Framed pictures of the two of us throughout the years, starting from the summer we first met at seventeen. A stack of love letters bound together with a red rubber band.

  I chuckle. This is all comical to me. To think, I once wrote love letters. Me.

  I know Lydia, and this is nothing but another manipulative stall tactic of hers.

  “What am I supposed to do with all of this?” I shove the box back toward her.

  “These are all the things that remind me of you. Things I was keeping around for our future children and grandchildren.” Her voice floats higher, gentler, as if she’s trying to be sweet. “If you don’t want to be with me again, then I don’t want this clutter taking up space in my closet.”

  “Right. We wouldn’t want your Birkin bag feeling displaced.”

  “Come on.” She pouts, her brows narrowing. “I’m trying to be sincere.”

  “No, you’re trying to manipulate me. And I’m telling you right now, it’s not working.”

  “Let me be real with you for a moment,” she says.

  “Firs
t time for everything.”

  “What do you see when you look at me?” Her green eyes soften, examining mine. “Do you see a desperate woman who’s trying everything she can to get back in the good graces of her lost love? Because that’s what I am. It’s all that I am.”

  “I see a girl who was given the keys to a very exclusive kingdom and threw them away, and she now has the audacity to demand another set.”

  “You were my first love.” She sighs, reaching out to place her hand on my chest. “Like it or not, I’m always going to be pulled to you. And deny it all you want, you’re always going to be pulled to me. Why don’t we stop playing around and make it real this time? Get married. Settle down. Stop playing games.”

  “I’d sooner spend my life alone than live it with you as my wife.” I glance down at her shoes, which are crossing the threshold to my apartment. “Now, if you’ll please step back. I know how you are about scuffs on calfskin.”

  Her expression reddens, contrasting against her ice blonde mane. “You don’t want to be with me? Fine. I’ll promise you one thing. I’m going to destroy every bit of happiness you find. I’ll personally see to it.”

  “You’re pathetic, now go.” I push the door, causing her to jump backward.

  FIFTEEN

  Camille

  A blocked number calls my phone the second I collapse on my apartment bed Sunday evening.

  “You’re not wasting any time, are you?” I say when I answer. “Just got home.”

  “Good,” he says. “Meet me at the apartment in an hour.”

  “Give me two,” I say. Traveling makes me feel dirty. I want to shower and freshen up, and I want to do my hair for him, even if it’ll be all kinds of messed up by the time he’s done with me.

  “Fine. See you in two.”

  He hangs up, never giving me much to work with. Just once, I’d like to take a tiny little peek behind that curtain and see what I’m dealing with. Then again, curiosity almost always kills the cat.

  Before I forget, I pull out my phone and Google Vivacorp one more time. I checked it the night I left the apartment last week, but came up with nothing beyond some weird website that claimed it was registered to Vivacorp, LLC. Not a single name or address was attached to this company, and I wonder if it’s some kind of pass-through entity. I suppose it would make sense. John wouldn’t take me somewhere that might be traced back to him with a simple Internet search of the address.

  I strip off my travel clothes and step into a hot shower. By the time I’m done, I’m shaved, polished, and moisturized, and my skin is butter-soft beneath my fingertips. I bought a new lotion from some boutique back in Oakdale over the weekend that claims to be some kind of miracle product, and if John’s going to worship every square inch of my body, it may as well be soft as silk.

  Midway through blow-drying my hair, I remember the journal. I switch the dryer off and run to my room to lift up my mattress.

  There’s nothing.

  I blink, rubbing my eyes as if this is all a hallucination. It has to be. No one knows about this.

  I lift my mattress higher, summoning some kind of superhero strength I never knew I had until now. Still nothing. The mattress falls with one big whoosh, and I climb across my bed to scan the perimeter, thinking maybe it had fallen between the bed and the wall.

  Nothing.

  This can’t be happening.

  I’m sucking in hair, but I still can’t breathe. Glancing around my room, I see nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing is remotely out of place. It certainly doesn’t appear that someone came into our apartment over the weekend and ransacked the place. Even my laptop is resting on my desk, connected to the charger exactly the way I left it Friday.

  Araminta doesn’t know about my journal, and even if she did, she wouldn’t want it. Secrets can be deadly, she always says. And at times, we’ve vowed never to share too much with one another just to be safe.

  I fly out of my room like I’m looking for a ticking time bomb that could detonate at any minute. Our place is spotless, everything in its place. Nothing out of the ordinary. I pull sofa cushions and check behind throw pillows. I even enter Araminta’s room, which I’ve never done without her permission unless it was to retrieve a borrowed dress.

  Nothing.

  SIXTEEN

  “John”

  My fingers knot in her hair, and I bring her mouth to mine. I’ve waited all weekend for this moment. Camille Buchanan is the only escape I have, and I treasure our meetings more than I could ever explain to anyone. Nothing else exists when I’m with her, and within the confines of these four walls, I’m not inflicted with Montgomery burdens. I’m just a man like any other, the kind of life I could only ever dream up in some sort of frivolous fantasy.

  She kisses me back, but her hands aren’t searching my body and her breath isn’t labored. Camille goes through the motions, but her mind is elsewhere.

  I stop.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Nothing.” Her mouth searches blindly for mine, but I pull away.

  “Don’t lie to me, Camille.”

  Her lips purse, and she sinks back on her bent knees in the center of the mattress. Her palms lie flat across her thighs, and her lower back is arched. I get the feeling she’s attempting to keep her composure for the sake of what we came here for tonight.

  “Something’s bothering you. I can see it,” I say.

  “Just kiss me, John. Please?”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on.” A million scenarios rake my mind.

  Camille’s chin dips, and she exhales slowly. “Someone took something of mine while I was out of town this weekend.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did they take?”

  “I . . . I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?” My hands clench, and a large part of me feels entitled to this information.

  “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “You can.”

  She huffs, adding a tension-breaking smile as she tugs her blindfold into a better position. “How can I trust a man who won’t let me look into his eyes?”

  She has a point.

  “Because you have no other choice.” I offer my counterpoint. “Now, Camille, tell me what was taken from you so that I can help you get it back.”

  “Let me take off the blindfold. I want to see you.”

  I take her wrists in case she gets any funny ideas. “It’s not a good idea.”

  I stare at the beautiful girl I saw at a ball not quite a year ago, the one I was dying to have for myself. The one I selfishly stole so I could create my own little paradise. And I’m well aware that I’ve given her no reason to trust me. Every word that leaves my mouth in her presence is filtered as to not give her as much as a single clue as to who I am.

  Ripping off the blindfold would make it all for naught.

  “This item that was stolen,” I say. “It wasn’t a piece of jewelry or something like that, was it?”

  “No,” she says.

  “Was it a computer? A flash drive?”

  “John.” She sighs.

  It’s blacker than midnight outside, and the room darkening blinds lie behind room darkening curtains. I can hardly make out Camille’s face in here, but I see the edges and outlines when she moves. Even in the dark, she’s recognizable to me. Then again, I’ve studied her face enough that my mind fills in the blanks.

  I’m not sure she’d be able to recognize me.

  Her fingertips reach toward my face, running the length of my jaw and stopping at my mouth. She leans in, taking it upon herself to steal a kiss.

  “Let me see you.” She sighs, her lips pressed on mine. “Let me see the man who makes my body lose control.”

  I taste her lips—sweet mint and perfection. In the short time Camille has belonged exclusively to me, I’ve made her body mine. I’ve mastered her hot buttons and reveled in the way her body responds to all the places my mouth want
s to travel.

  But the one thing I never anticipated, the one thing impeding us from taking our torrid little affair to the next level . . . is an emotional connection. And it’s the one thing we can never have.

  The first time I looked into her eyes, I didn’t know her name. And I didn’t know that one passing glance from a stranger could make a man feel everything he could possibly feel all at once.

  Entertaining that possibility could be dangerous for the both of us.

  “Come on,” she whispers, lifting my fingers to her blindfold. “Let me see you.”

  I need to know what was taken from her.

  With one swift tug, I lift her blindfold. Camille blinks in the dark, the whites of her eyes coming into focus. She runs a pinky below her bottom lashes and smiles.

  “Wow,” she says.

  My heart stops, and for a moment I second-guess my decision on the off-chance she can see more of me than I initially assumed.

  Her fingers find my hair in the dark, and she combs it across with nails raking against my scalp. I swallow the hard ball in my throat when her palms drag down the sides of my face and along my jaw.

  “You’re just as handsome as I thought you’d be,” she says.

  My heart hammers.

  “I mean, I can’t really see you that well.” Her voice is a half-whispered smile. “But I can tell.”

  Our eyes meet in the dark.

  “Why’s an attractive man like you paying for sex anyway?”

  I can’t answer her question. I can’t explain to her how exhilarating it feels to find a way to have something I’ve been told my entire life is off limits. And I sure as hell can’t tell her the last thing the son of the POTUS needs is to be caught red-handed with a woman known in powerful circles as one of the most sought-after, highly paid escorts.

  “It’s complicated.” I circle her waist and rise up on my knees before pressing her against me. My hand travels between her thighs, slicking a finger along her wet seam before pushing it inside her. She moans, burying her head into my shoulder.