No Stranger to Scandal - By Rachel Bailey Page 0,54

as if it came from the bottom of his soul. “Look, I don’t want to talk about all that rubbish. Not when I’ve just found you again.”

“And you were so obviously desperate to find me,” Angelica said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Maybe not at first. When your mother told me she was pregnant, it threw me. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“And then there were sixteen years of you still being thrown?”

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “But at least I’m not like our jerk of a president, who completely abandoned his baby, pretending she didn’t exist. I paid child support. Paid for everything you needed.”

“Paid?” Her voice turned malicious. “Oh, you’re paying, all right. Good luck with that.”

“Angelica—” Graham said, clearly confused, but he was cut off.

“Goodbye, Daddy dear.” The staccato tap-tap of Angelica’s heels sounded as she headed down the hallway.

Lucy flung herself from Hayden’s arms, out from under the desk, around the partition and into Angelica’s office, where Graham was standing as if struck by lightning. He looked up and his face drained of its last remnants of color. She stopped a few feet from him, not sure what to say now that she was here. They stood in silence, not even the sounds of other workers to disguise the emptiness that now stretched between them.

Finally Graham slumped back to sit on Angelica’s desk. “So you heard.”

“I heard,” she said softly, everything inside her breaking apart.

“Lucy, I’m sorry. Of everyone who’s been hurt or will be hurt through this mess, I’m most sorry about you.” He looked down at his shoes. “I love you more than anyone on earth.”

Part of her wanted to hug him and tell him it would be okay, but she’d be lying. And she couldn’t make her feet take those last few steps to his side. “You knew,” she said. “All this time I’ve been defending you, believing in you, and you’ve been authorizing Angelica’s corrupt scheme.”

He recoiled from the accusation, but didn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”

“How about you start by saying you’re sorry to Ariella Winthrop for letting her find out about her father’s identity live on national television?”

He waved a wrist in the air. “That was an unfortunate side effect.”

Her stomach dipped as she realized how little remorse he had. “Was it unfortunate that Ted Morrow had his name dragged through the mud, too?”

“No,” he said, his jaw jutting.

She’d heard him rant about the president before, about everything from his policies, to his speeches, to how arrogant he’d been back when they went to school together, but she’d never paid much attention. This time she took him seriously, wanted to understand. “You hate him that much?”

“The truth of the matter is,” he said, looking out the dark window, “I’ve been in love twice in my life. Once was your mother. The other was Darla Sanders, back in college. I thought she loved me, too, that we had a future, but one look from Ted Morrow and she left me without a backward glance. The bastard didn’t even marry her.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again, unable to believe what she’d heard. “All this has been over a thirty-year-old grudge?”

“Most of it was about good news broadcasting,” he said, sounding more like his old self. “People have a right to know about the man who acts on their behalf as their president.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “People also have a right to expect that their laws will be followed, no matter whose privacy is involved.”

One side of his mouth hitched up. “You’re your mother’s daughter, Lucy. I’m proud of that.”

The warm glow she would normally have felt at such a comment couldn’t break through the tumult of other emotions filling her body to the bursting point. She rubbed her temples, trying to keep herself from falling into pieces on the floor of Angelica’s office. There would be time enough for falling apart later, after she had some answers.

“And Angelica?” she asked. “Whose daughter is she?”

He heaved out a sigh. “She was raised by her mother, but it seems she’s ended up with my ruthlessness anyway.”

Hayden stepped into the room and all the breath left Lucy’s body. She’d forgotten he was outside the door, listening to everything she and Graham said. She ran the conversation back through her mind, praying she hadn’t led Graham deeper into trouble.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Graham boomed.

Hayden drove his hands in his pockets, a picture of immovability. “I came with