No Stranger to Scandal - By Rachel Bailey Page 0,6

anyone else. You’re the only one I can trust one hundred percent not to stab me in the back for the notoriety, or whatever-the-hell reason people frame other people for.”

None of it was a question, but he was waiting for her response. She reached over and clasped one of his cold hands between hers. “I’ll start right away.”

“You’re a good girl.” He patted her hands, then released them. “Congress will have vetted him for the job, dug into his past, but we’re better. Find the skeletons in his closet and bring them out to play. We’ll air an exposé as soon as you have enough.”

Her insides fluttered. This wasn’t a style of journalism that she liked or particularly wanted to be involved in. And Hayden Black being the target made her even less comfortable. She shifted in her chair. The discomfort could have been a result of the stirrings of attraction, but she still didn’t like the idea of targeting him.

Then she remembered his closed-off expression when she’d left his suite less than an hour ago—he was going after Graham, already convinced of his guilt. Doing an exposé might leave a bad taste in her mouth, but Hayden Black’s own actions made it necessary. Besides, if he had no skeletons hidden away, there’d be nothing to find.

She nodded, decision made. “You can’t have me on air with this. Everyone knows I’m your stepdaughter. We’ll need someone with a good reputation and a bit more distance from you.”

“We’ll worry about that when we have the content ready to go. You do the research, get the story, and I’ll bring someone in to host then.”

Her mind clicked over into journalist mode and she took out a notebook from her hold-all bag. “Who’s our source at the Sterling Hotel?”

Graham picked up the phone on his desk, dialed, barked an order, then after he had his information, disconnected and looked at Lucy again. “Concierge named Jerry Freethy.”

“Okay.” She dropped the notebook back in her bag and stood. “I’ll keep you up to date.” She blew Rosebud an air kiss and headed for the door.

“Lucy,” Graham said gruffly, and she turned. “Thank you.”

Emotion clogged her throat but she found her voice. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got your back, Graham.”

* * *

The next day, at half past one, Lucy saw her target. The concierge had told her Hayden Black liked to take a walk in the park across from the Sterling Hotel with his son on his lunch break, but that the time of the break varied. So Lucy and Rosebud had been wandering the park since just after eleven. Rosebud was panting from the exertion, but thoroughly enjoying her day out meeting random people who stopped to pat her.

Hayden was striding along a paved path about twenty feet away, talking to an infant he carried in one arm, holding a brown paper bag in the other. The sight of him trapped her breath in her lungs. Wide, strong shoulders that tapered to narrow hips. Long legs that walked with confidence and purpose. The masculine grace in the way he held his son.

She swallowed hard. “Come on, Rosie, I have a little boy I want you to meet.” Rosebud looked up, her curled tongue poking out as she smiled.

Lucy had spent the afternoon and evening before gathering as much information as she could on Hayden Black. There wasn’t a whole lot available on the web, but then, he was a professional investigator, so it made sense that he protected his own information. She’d found New York newspaper articles about his wife’s death a few months earlier in a car crash, leaving Hayden the single father of a nine-month-old baby, Joshua, who would now be one year old. And currently wearing denim overalls, a bright-blue hat and a cheeky grin.

As they came closer, Lucy gazed at the trees, their branches heavy with spring flowers, but kept man and child in her peripheral vision. Hayden had his head bent, talking to his son, not paying a lot of attention to where they were, the people rollerblading past or the joggers making their way along the wide path. The hitch in her lungs had smoothed out and now her breaths were coming a little too fast for comfort, which she told herself was excitement about the story, but she suspected had more to do with seeing Hayden Black again.

When they were only ten feet apart, she heard a squeal, followed by, “Goggie!” Lucy finally glanced up to see