A Conflict of Interest

“We don’t know,” said Lynn, pushing open her office door.

Cara followed her inside. “Barry didn’t ask him?”

Chief of Staff Barry Westmore knew the president better than anyone.

As press secretary, Lynn’s office was the largest in the communications section. It housed a wide oak desk, a long credenza, a cream-colored couch and three television screens mounted along one wall playing news shows from three different continents. In English, German and Russian, reporters were speculating on the president’s personal life.

Lynn plopped down in her high-backed leather chair, twisting her large, topaz ring around and around the finger of her right hand. Lights from the garden broke the darkness outside the window before her. “Even if it’s true, the president wasn’t aware that he had a daughter.”

“That’s good.” From a communications perspective, deniability was key in this situation.

Lynn didn’t look as relieved as Cara felt. “There’s more than one possible woman.”

Cara’s eyebrows shot up.

“Barry and I did the math,” said Lynn. “Accounting for possible variations in gestation period. Since the baby might have been premature, there are three possible mothers.”

“Three?” Despite the gravity of the situation, Cara found herself fighting a smile. “Go, Mr. President.”

Lynn frowned at her impertinence. “It was senior year in high school. The man was a football star.”

“Sorry,” Cara quickly put in, lowering herself into one of the guest chairs opposite the desk.

Her boss waved away the apology. “He’s refusing to give us the names.”

“He has to give us the names.”

“First, he wants to know if Ariella is his daughter. If and only if she is his daughter, then we can look at the ex-girlfriends.”

“The press will find them first,” Cara warned, her mind flitting to Max. The networks and newspapers would pull out all the stops to find Ariella’s mother. They wouldn’t wait on a DNA test. This was the story of the century.

“Yes, they will,” Lynn agreed. “But the president is unwilling to ruin innocent lives.”

In Cara’s opinion, the women’s lives were already ruined. Anyone who’d had the misfortune to sleep with President Morrow in high school would be fair game. It wouldn’t even matter whether the lovemaking squared up with Ariella’s birth date; they’d still be hunted down and hounded with questions.

Lynn twisted her ring again. “It’s always that thing that you don’t see coming. And it’s always sex. Next time, remind me to back a nerdy candidate. Maybe president of the chess club or something.”

“These days, nerds are hot,” Cara pointed out.

“That’s because we expect them to grow up rich.”

“That’s why I hang out at the local internet café looking for dates.”

Lynn grinned, putting a little life into her exhausted expression. “I should have married a nerd in high school.”

“Instead of a smoking-hot navy captain?”

Lynn gave a self-conscious shrug, but her eyes took on a secretive glow. “It was spring break. And he rocked those dress whites.”

“You didn’t even look twice at the nerds,” Cara accused.

“The hormones want what the hormones want.”

Cara’s brain conjured up a picture of Max, but she quickly shook it away. “Have you spoken to Ariella?”

“Nobody can find her.”

“Can’t blame her for that.” If it had been Cara, she’d have crossed the Canadian border by now.

“Think you can find her?” Lynn asked.

Cara would love nothing better than to find Ariella and make sure she was okay. But she wasn’t going to abandon Lynn to go on a wild-goose chase. “You need me here.”

“We can live without you.”

“Just what every woman wants to hear. You’re going to have to give a statement to the press today. And you need me to write it. You need to get some sleep.”

Cara wished she’d had more than three hours’ sleep herself. She knew she had to pay more attention to things like eating and sleeping now that she was pregnant. But time for sleep and time to prepare nutritious meals were pretty hard to come by while working for the president. Especially during this crisis.

“I will get some sleep,” Lynn agreed. “Barry’s working on a statement, and we’ll put the press off until the afternoon. Do you think you’d be able to find Ariella?”

Cara got to her feet. She had to believe her womb was a safe place for the first few weeks of gestation no matter what chaos was going on outside it. She reassured herself that many women wouldn’t even know they were pregnant this early.

“I can try,” she told her boss.

“Then go. Get out of here.”

Cara headed for her own office, quickly retrieving her coat and purse. If she could find Ariella, at the very least they could offer her Secret Service protection. She wrapped the scarf around her neck before heading out into the snow.

If the story was true, Ariella would need protection for the rest of her life, and that would only be the start of the chaos. Merely being a member of the White House staff had sent Cara’s personal life into a tailspin. She couldn’t imagine what Ariella was going through.

Two

After combing the city for countless hours, looking everywhere she could think to find Ariella, Cara gave up. It was nearly nine in the evening, and she’d left dozens of messages and asked everyone who might know anything. She was exhausted when she finally took the elevator back to her loft. Maybe Ariella really had fled to Canada.

Cara twisted her key in the dead bolt, then unlocked the knob below, pushing open the solid oak door.

As soon as she stepped inside, she knew something was wrong. A light was on upstairs and someone was playing music.

Her hand reflexively went to her purse, where she’d stashed Max’s watch. If he’d used it as an excuse to come back, if the superintendent had actually let him into her apartment, well, there was going to be hell to pay for both of them. Max might be a famous television personality, trusted and admired by most of D.C., but that didn’t give him the right to con the super, break into her apartment and make himself at home.

She tossed her coat and scarf on the corner bench in the entry hall and pulled off her boots, not even bothering to put them in the closet. She paced her way up the spiral staircase, working up her outrage, planning to hit him with both barrels before he had a chance to start the smooth talk.

Then she realized Beyoncé was playing. And it smelled like someone was baking. She made it to the top of the stairs and stopped dead.

Ariella stood in the middle of her kitchen, surrounded by flour-sprinkled chaos. She had one of Cara’s T-shirts pulled over her short dress and a pair of red calico oven mitts on her hands. Midstep between the oven and the island counter, she held a pan of chocolate cupcakes.

“I hope you don’t mind.” She blinked her big, blue eyes. “I didn’t know where else to go.”