Shattered (Anderson Special Ops #4) - Melody Anne Page 0,112

. . where was I? Oh, we were talking almost every day. I learned he had a very successful business. If you haven’t dug into him, maybe you should. I’m confident he’s laundering money, or at the very least, hiding millions,” Anna said, raising her eyebrows, indicating that she wanted Courtney to write that part down.

The woman immediately made a note. Anna was a bit irritated Courtney hadn’t done it sooner. She’d better follow up on Damien if she knew what was good for her. Anna still had connections in the real world — dangerous connections. Just because she hadn’t heard from them in a while didn’t mean anything.

“Damien made some significant contributions to my campaign, and the feeling from my team, and myself admittedly, was that he was a great asset for what we were trying to do politically, as well as for the people of Washington. Damn it all if he didn’t ruin all of that for us,” Anna said with an air of factuality.

Now that she was talking to a reporter, her brain was shaking off the dust from not being used for quite some time, and in doing so it started building up her own line of defense that her lawyers were being lackadaisical about.

“It was probably another two or three months until the first time he hit on me. We were attending a black-tie gala, the two of us were in the elevator alone, dressed to the nines. During a pause in our conversation, he looked at me and said that I looked absolutely stunning. At first I brushed it off as a simple compliment. I knew he was married and had a daughter. I believe in traditional relationships and that was never a line I’d cross. A married man is off limits,” Anna said. She needed to come off as innocent to the female jury members. The longer she spoke to the reporter, the more Anna’s haughty self-importance became evident.

In reality Anna had a pretty great sex life and enjoyed a varying number of sexual endeavors. The real truth was that Damien had never attempted to woo her at any point in their respective platonic relationship. She really didn’t believe he was doing anything unlawful either. The man was too damn ethical for that. But if she could make him appear guilty, the public would believe what she wanted them to. Who cared about honesty when you had an easy press to manipulate?

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that, Ms. Miller. How did you get through it?” Courtney asked with empathetic eyes.

“Thank you, Courtney. I tried to ignore it, then tried to brush it off, but when he stood in front of me, only inches from my face, I became a statue. He leaned in and almost kissed me but by sheer luck the elevator stopped, and people got on with us. That night he asked me to dance at least a dozen times. I agreed only once, as I felt it would be appropriate, and I’d be able to handle him for one song. Unfortunately, I was wrong. When we began dancing he pulled me in close, so close I could feel the excitement he wasn’t even trying to hide from me. It made me sick, but I couldn’t make a scene in front of everyone. I didn’t want to put a stain on my reputation that I might’ve been leading on a married man,” Anna said, putting on a show of how difficult it was reliving those memories.

Courtney made a note to look at any video evidence of that gala. Anna was happy with the notes the woman was taking so far. She felt this was a very wise interview indeed for her to accept. This woman seemed to be damn gullible — her favorite kind of reporter.

“I don’t know how you got through it,” Courtney said.

“It wasn’t easy. Things just seemed to get worse from there. If he wasn’t taking me out to dinner, or texting non-stop, it was expensive gifts showing up at my office and home. I asked him to stop, to think of his family, but he said he and his wife hadn’t made love in years and his daughter was actually the product of his wife having an affair. They stayed together because it was easier to maintain that image of a perfect life, but he was incredibly unhappy. Things started getting really bizarre with him after I announced I was running for President. I remember