2. Spencer

CHAPTER 2

SPENCER

Present Day

"Send me a text if Andy Bennett calls, will you? I'd like to explain myself to him since he supported me early in the campaign season by attending a few events. I'm sure he's pissed at me, but he's a good friend, and I owe him the truth," I requested as Mario turned down Edgewood Terrace. Thankfully, the traffic was light so we wouldn't be spotted.

"Have you talked to Andy since the pictures hit the papers?"

Sadly, no. I hadn't spoken to Andy since the scandal broke. He'd clerked for my father and had acted as a mentor to me when I was beginning my legal career. I could only imagine what he must have thought of my complete career implosion.

I needed to try to explain the situation to Andy without tromping on Vanessa's privacy. It was a fucking no-win proposition, really.

Mario stopped at the corner of the Edgewood Terrace and Woodmont Road in Alexandria to let me out near Blaire's townhouse. It was midnight, but I doubted the man was asleep because the hood of his car, which was parked on the street in front of his home, was warm. The house was dark, which wasn't a good sign that I'd be welcomed inside.

The sliding door in the kitchen was unlocked, so I quietly stepped inside and closed it, locking it behind me. "In the living room." His voice was quiet.

I walked into Blaire's living room, squinting in the darkness to find him. The floor lamp suddenly illuminated in the corner of the room, but the bulb only offered a dim glow, so I couldn't make out Blaire's expression.

The nerves coursing through my body had to be palpable in the room. "Are you okay?"

Two beats of silence before he spoke. "No, as a matter of fact, I don't think I am. Imagine this—I got fired today, which wasn't expected. I was identified in a photo of the two of us in the infinity pool in Jumby Bay. Someone had a telephoto lens and took pictures of us all week.

"They were sent to my boss during last night's broadcast, and when you lost the election, it didn't go unnoticed I'd fumbled the announcement. I got called into his office first thing this morning."

"I'm sor—" Oh, he wasn't done.

" You've compromised your objectivity as a journalist, and when the country finds out you've been fucking a well-respected, married , Senator, you'll lose all credibility with the public. NBS has no desire to allow you to ride out the storm at a desk and then attempt to salvage your career when the country has moved on to the next scandal. "

I tried again. "Look, Blaire, I'm real?—"

"My epitaph will read, ‘Here lies a man with many possibilities but one weakness—a big dick.' I assume Vanessa has filed for divorce since she saw the story and sent the link to you?"

I'd never explained to Blaire the intricacies of my marriage because I couldn't fully trust him with the details. He was a journalist, ruled by his ambition, so while I was pretty certain he wouldn't out himself and me in the process, I didn't want Vanessa compromised in any way.

"Uh, not yet, but I told her that she should, and I'd give her everything. She's really a wonderful woman, and she's loyal to a fault, which is more than I can say for ninety-nine percent of the people in the DC area." I put my hands on my hips, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Blaire drained the crystal glass in his hand before walking back to the kitchen. The lights over the kitchen peninsula were flipped on, and the tinkling of ice into glasses echoed through the room. I followed him. I could damn well use a drink if he was pouring.

I took off my baseball cap and tossed it on the floor next to a stool where I plopped my ass. Seeing Blaire in the harsh light of the kitchen showed how much the whole mess was affecting him—his hair, which was usually smoothed neatly, was standing on end, and the worry lines around his eyes made him look considerably older than his thirty-five years. It was yet another smack in the face to remind me regarding how my poor decisions had damaged others in my orbit.

I hadn't seen Blaire, except on the news, since the scandal broke, not for my lack of trying. He'd refused to take my calls, even though I used a burner cell to contact him, not willing to tie us together by using my official cell. I knew the speculation around town regarding the identity of my sex partner had been bandied about in living rooms, bars, and offices all over the city, which brought another question.

"Why now? Why was your identity just now disclosed and only to your boss? This happened back in August, so if someone knew it was you, why did they wait to tell anyone?" I was thinking out loud, which was a bad habit I'd developed back in law school.

Blaire reached into the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Glenlivet, my drink of choice, pouring it over a large ball of ice, just as I preferred. I'd bought him the mold to make the larger cubes when we started spending more time together, and he'd become accustomed to using them as well. It was the same mold we had at the house in Great Falls.

"Oh, I don't know? Maybe someone thought it would be funny to prolong the agony of discovery. I've been waiting for this exact moment for months. I think I have the start of a goddamn ulcer." Blaire took a seat next to me at the counter.

I tentatively reached out a hand, placing it in the middle of his back as I kissed his temple. "I'm so sorry about this, Blaire. I never intended for you to get hurt."

Blaire chuckled ironically. "I was starting to fall in love with you, you know. I knew you were married, which broke my rule of never fucking a straight guy, but I don't think you're exactly straight, are you?"

It was a crossroads: Accept and finally embrace who I was or pull the closet door tightly and nail that fucker shut from the inside. I glanced at my companion and saw the pain of his current predicament—one I'd put him in—and I couldn't help but give him some truth. "No, I'm not straight."

"Bisexual, maybe? That makes the most sense to me. Your wife is a stunning woman, and the two of you have been married for years, so there must be chemistry between you, but everyone gets bored. I guess I'm just a new plaything, which, at my age, isn't a boost to my confidence as it might have been when I was younger."

I sighed heavily. "Not Bi. I'm gay. I've been gay my whole life, and Vani knows. She's known since we met in high school," I admitted.

Vanessa Hawkins Brady was a small-town girl at heart. We'd been best friends since her family had moved down the road from us in Portsmouth. By her family, I meant her mother, Velma, grandfather, Roy, and grandmother, Patsy. Her father was never in the picture, and to add insult to injury, Vani was raped by one of her mother's boyfriend's when she was seventeen. Her mother, that harping shrew, didn't believe her and blamed Vani that the guy took off on her.

At the time, I was in my first year of college at UVA, and when Vani found out she was pregnant by the man, she called me, her best friend. She didn't know what to do, especially with her mother's guilt trip being heaped on her every day. I, being a bumbling idiot with my head up my ass, decided I knew how to fix it.

I went back to Portsmouth, taking her away from that awful mess, and we got married, planning to tell everyone the baby was mine and we'd been undercover lovers since she was sixteen. Sadly, she lost the baby a week after the wedding, and with it, any ability to have children in the future. She'd had her sights set on being a mother, so we adopted Jay years later.

Vani and I never consummated our marriage, though that shouldn't surprise anyone, really. She had PTSD from the violent rape she'd endured, and hell, I was gay. We loved each other more like siblings than anything else, and we made a life together. She looked the other way when I found a lover. There was one rule: not in our home. In turn, Vani worked hard to make herself into someone other than the sweet, shy girl I knew from Portsmouth.

She took night classes to get a liberal arts degree in design, followed by classes to become a Realtor in Virginia, DC, and Maryland. I was proud of her and encouraged her every step of the way. She was an unbelievable woman who had me in awe.

Blaire touched my arm, bringing me back to the shitstorm at hand. "Who do you suspect followed you to Antigua, Spencer? This isn't just happenstance."

I was caught off guard for a moment by his comment, but he was right. It wasn't dumb luck that someone stumbled upon us at such an out-of-the-way, gated resort on a small, private island. For the first time since my blurry ass appeared on the front page of every paper across the country, I realized it was a targeted attack on me .

"You think someone followed me intentionally?" Blaire nodded, and I felt the rug being pulled out from under me.