No Stranger to Scandal - By Rachel Bailey Page 0,39

her this morning, she’d say he’d taken the news very well, all things considered. “No, he’ll still let me help with his investigation. I convinced him I’d be ethical about it.”

Graham grinned as if he thought she’d lied to Hayden, and something inside her withered. Angelica’s ruthlessness had given Lucy pause. But Graham seemed to respect that about his star journalist. And now he’d shown approval at the possibility his own stepdaughter would lie and double-cross someone. She’d known Graham was a hard-nosed businessman, but she’d—probably naively—thought that there were different expectations of the journalists at ANS.

Where did that leave her plans for her own career? If she refused to be like them, to play in a sandbox with loose rules, did she have a future in broadcast journalism? Her stomach hollowed out. She had no answers.

“I need to get back to Hayden,” she said, reaching for her hold-all bag and pushing up out of her chair. “I said I’d help him with some research this afternoon.”

Graham’s brow folded into deep wrinkles, making him resemble Rosie. “You’re not getting too close to Black, are you? Don’t be fooled into sympathizing with your target. Rookie mistake.”

She thought of Hayden stretched naked across her sheets only a few hours ago, smiling lazily at her as she brought them a tray with toast and coffee.

Her hand fluttered up to circle her throat. “No, we’re not too close.”

“Good,” he said with a decisive nod. “I knew I could count on you.”

But Lucy had begun to wonder—just who really could count on her? And just as important, who could she count on? She looked down at the photo of her with Graham and her mother for long moments, then slipped it into her red bag. She rolled her shoulders back and pushed the disloyal thoughts away. Graham could count on her and she could count on him. They were family.

She gave Rosie a final scratch under the chin, hugged Graham quickly and left.

* * *

Hayden stared at the two photos side by side on his laptop screen, a triumphant rush filling his veins. The resemblance was unmistakable. Without taking his eyes from the computer, he reached for his cell and dialed Lucy’s number.

“Can you come over?” he asked when she answered. They’d fallen into a routine over the past few days of taking personal time at her house each day—but at varying times, for discretion’s sake—and her dropping over to his hotel either in the afternoon or evening to touch base on the investigation. But now it was only 7:00 a.m.; Lucy would be on her way to ANS soon and his discovery couldn’t wait a full day.

She didn’t hesitate. “Sure. What’s up?”

Unwilling to say too much on the phone, he simply said, “I’ve found some things you’ll want to see.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

By the time Lucy arrived, Hayden had put together a slideshow of the images his office had sent him and strapped Josh into his high chair for breakfast. As he opened the door, he stole one lingering kiss, then before he drowned in her floral scent and broke their rules by dragging her off to his bed, he led her over to share his discovery.

“What have you got?” she asked, her hazel eyes bright with curiosity. She kissed Josh on the top of his head and slipped into the chair Hayden had pulled over on the other side of his, laying a hand proprietarily over his thigh. At the simple gesture, something moved in his chest.

He froze. This was supposed to be a fling—was he becoming emotionally entangled? No, he wouldn’t let himself. There was no future for a single father from New York with a twenty-two-year-old heiress from D.C. Ignoring her hand and any deeper implications it represented, he turned the laptop screen so she could see the images and gave Josh a spoonful of stewed fruit.

“After a bit of digging, I found a photo of a girl called Madeline Burch.” He clicked the mouse and a picture of a teenager with mousy brown hair, plain features and dishwater-brown eyes appeared. “When I met with Rowena Tate that night at the airport, she said that she and a friend had suspicions about Madeline Burch. She gave me a photo of Madeline from their school days, but the resolution was too low. So I found a better one and sent it to the tech guys at my office. They did some imaging work and came up with these