Dirty Little Secrets (7 page)

She ran faster, her bare feet striking the hard ground. With each stride the concrete bit into the flesh of her bare soles. She picked up her pace, running at a speed she rarely achieved. She just needed to be home to speak to Ben. Her lungs were on fire but it felt good to feel the cool air on her skin, sobering, comforting.

Megan sprinted through her front door and into Ben’s room.

“I messed up,” she said as she collapsed beside him on his bed. “Wake up, Ben. I need to talk to you. I made a mistake.”

“What time it is?” Ben groaned, rolling over to face her, a crease from his pillowcase marring his otherwise perfect features.

“I had sex with James Emerson.”

Ben sat upright in bed, wiping his eyes. He blinked a few times to clear his vision.

“Seriously, Megan? Is that your idea of a joke? Go back to sleep.” He pulled the duvet over her.

“I am not kidding. I had sex with him. I really messed up. Talk about poor judgement. I guess I’m more like my mom than I thought.” She curled in beside Ben, seeking comfort.

“The Australian journalist?”

She nodded—who else would she be talking about?

“Try again. You’re not really his type.”

He was referring to the models James was usually seen with. Megan had a good ten years and 40lbs on most of them. “Fuck you and yes I had sex with him.”

Ben eyed her dubiously. “Where?”

“What do you mean, where? On the kitchen counter, against a wall, in his bed. You know, the usual places people make pisspoor decisions.”

“You’re serious.”

“Yes I am serious. Why is it so hard to believe I had sex? We both know I’ve had plenty of it.”

“Yeah but it has been a while and he is…shit, he is hot. Sorry Megan, you know I love you, but you were punching out of your league with that one.”

She shook her head. “Go to hell, Ben.” She stood up to get out of bed but he pulled her back.

“Don’t be like that, Megan. You know what I mean. Only women can date down. It’s biology. He is a ten and you are a seven and a half, eight with make-up.”

“Fuck you. I don’t need this right now. I want you to be kind-and-supportive Ben, not bitchy-but-call-it-honest Ben.”

Ben pulled her into a tight embrace. His body was smaller than James’; Ben was lean and sinewy, while James was hard muscle. “Did you really have sex?”

Megan sighed in exasperation. Why was it so hard for Ben to believe she had had sex? When they first met, Megan had gone through several men, the encounters were too brief to be considered relationships. “Yes. I slept with James Emerson and if you ask again I will leave. Honestly Ben, you are not the only one who’s entitled to a sex life.”

She was stepping into uncharted waters by mentioning Ben’s sex life, but she was too upset to dance around the issue. Ben had a special
friend
, if he could have sex, so could she.

“Love, you are more than entitled, you just never partake. But well done you for getting back in the game. And with such a gorgeous man, the interview must have gone really well.”

“No, it was an unmitigated disaster. I’m not sure what happened. One minute I was getting a salad ready and the next I was up against the wall.” Her cheeks warmed at the memory. “Are you mad?”

“Should I be mad?” Ben asked.

“I had sex with a reporter.”

“And?” Ben pressed.

“And what? That is bad enough. I don’t need an ‘and’, do I?”

“He’s unlikely to say anything. There is no story there. He wants to keeps his nose clean as much as anyone else. After the senate hearings on the wire-tapping debacle, he wants to stay out of the spotlight as much as you. Trust me.”

She bit down on her lower lip as she contemplated Ben’s logic. “Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely. He is the perfect one-night stand.”

“Really?” she asked dubiously. “Someone could find out,” she pressed, still not convinced.

“I’m not suggesting you go out and sleep with a different man every night, but if you are going to have sex, he is a good choice. He’s hardly going to sell a story on himself. And if he does print anything, you deny it, we threaten to sue and we force him to relive the wire-tapping scandal.” Ben wrapped a protective arm around her and gave her a reassuring smile.

He looked happy, so different to the despondent man she had left last night. “Did you…?” She did not know precisely how to phrase it. “You don’t seem as upset about—”

“We worked it out,” Ben interrupted her before she could say his name. “He came over and we talked things out.”

The way he was smiling led her to believe that they had done more than talk. “I am glad you’re friends again,” she said softly. She wished for Ben’s sake that she could say lovers or partners or any other word that would acknowledge the depth of the two men’s relationship. But she wouldn’t. Those were words that were left unsaid. She had never even met the man Ben loved. Ben and Megan shared everything, apart from that. That was a secret that Ben kept just for himself. She did not press the issue because she knew about those kinds of secrets too.

Megan leaned over and kissed Ben on the cheek before she slid off the bed. “Good night, Ben. I’m going to go sleep off the shame.”

“Wait, are you done with your story? You sleep with the most eligible man in DC and you don’t give details?” Ben grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards him.

“No, I’m going to pretend it never happened.”

“That bad?”

No, that good. Megan said nothing. She did not want to think about it. She did not want to remember the way he felt or the way he smelled. She certainly did not want to remember the way her stomach went into free fall when he kissed her. She was going to curl into her soft warm bed and sleep for the entire weekend. On Monday she would worry about things like gorgeous journalists, and domestic violence cases that were never as straightforward as they should be.

Chapter Six

Megan was going to firebomb the cherry tree in front of her window. She folded her down pillow in half and pressed it into her ears, but it still did not drown out the incessant chirping of the birds. The tree was going to have to go. It was harbouring auditory terrorists in the form of small winged creatures.

“It’s Sunday!” she shouted into the darkness. The sun had not even risen enough to give her room any light, but yet the avian choir was practising. She knew from experience that once she was up she was up for good. There was no point in even trying to go back to sleep. So much for her weekend of relaxation, she may as well make a start on her closing arguments. They weren’t going to write themselves, and she still had to make an effort even though Dixon would be walking on the rape and battery charges. She wasn’t even angry about it any more because she was going to make sure he did a good long time for his assault on James Emerson.

Megan closed her eyes and groaned as she collapsed back into her bed. She needed to stop beating herself up for Friday night; no harm no foul, and it wasn’t like she ever had to see James again, other than in a strictly professional capacity. She would have to see him when she prepped him for trial, if it came to that. In a perfect world Dixon would plead guilty and Megan could move swiftly on to the next wife-beating rapist.

Megan slipped into her fluffy pink dressing gown and went downstairs to make coffee. She turned on the coffee maker and went for the paper. There was a crossword with her name on it. Possibly the only part about getting up at the crack of dawn was getting to the paper before Ben had the chance to pull it apart and scatter it across the kitchen table. She loved him dearly, but that was an annoying habit.

Megan stifled a yawn as she opened the front door. She was momentarily stunned by a flash. She blinked her eyes and then there was another, and another, and then seemingly out of nowhere, people began calling her name. Their voices were loud and shrill as they shouted out questions.

She squinted to see through the bright flashes. Her heart jumped into her mouth. She had to remind herself to breathe. There was an army of people on her front lawn. No, that wasn’t the right word, they were journalists. It was an insult to the rest of the population to call them people.

Dozens of cameras were trained on her. Instinctively, her hands flew to the opening of her robe, gathering it tight around her neck.

She closed her eyes and took in a slow calming breath. She stared directly into the crowd, her back straight, her gaze never faltering. She could not make out what they were shouting at her, past her name and “Is it true?”
Is what true?
She counted to five, allowing the photographers to snap away. She was not going to run, that would give them the power.

She forced a smile. Her muscles rebelled against the simple action, but she was determined not to show any emotion. Her feelings were not for public consumption. Slowly she bent down and picked up the newspaper and then closed the door behind her.

Her fingers shook as she bolted the door. She pressed her back against the cold wooden panel and slid to the floor, her breath leaving her in a quick whoosh. She closed her eyes and concentrated on slowly filling her lungs. If everything went to plan, this time next year, she would be married to the Vice President of the United States of America. She needed to get used to journalists on her doorstop. But did prey ever become comfortable with their predators?

Several minutes passed before her legs could support her. Megan stood up and walked back to the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down with the paper. She was not going to let anyone ruin what was left of her weekend. She was going to do the crossword like she did every Sunday before Ben got up and dragged her to church. Politicians had to be seen to go to church, even the closet atheist ones.

She sat the paper down and began skimming the headlines. She blinked. That couldn’t be right. She read the headline again and then her eyes went to the picture of her house. Her heart stopped with a painful thud.

She screamed. “Ben. Oh god, Ben wake up.” She put down her coffee and ran up the stairs to the master bedroom. Her heart was beating frantically against her ribs. “Ben, wake up!”

Ben moaned before he rolled over. He opened one eye, the other still clinging to sleep.

“Look at this.” She thrust the paper at his face. “Is that him?” she demanded as she pointed to the full-page picture of a thin blond man in front of her house. She had never seen Ben’s boyfriend before. She didn’t know what she expected him to look like, but this wasn’t it. He looked young and almost waiflike in his proportions, not a man she would pair with her husband.

Ben sat up, rubbing his eyes. He took the paper from her and peered at the cover. His face went ashen. “Oh shit.” His voice was calm, frighteningly so.

“Is that him?” she asked again.

Ben ran a hand through his hair. “Yes.”

“Someone took a picture of him leaving our house in the middle of the night. God, Ben. They’re going to figure it out.” She had been so worried about her blowing their cover that she had not considered the possibility that Ben would do it himself. He had always been so careful, only ever meeting out of state, far away from the media spotlight of DC. Until last night…

Ben’s jaw tightened, the muscles along his neck growing taut under his tan skin. His eyes narrowed. He was calm, too calm, and it was scaring her. Wordlessly he reached over for his smartphone on the bedside table and dialled. “Booker, we have a problem.”

Ben was silent as he listened to the presidential candidate on the other end of the phone. “Yes. Correct…I see…today?...fine…yes…no, I’ll tell her.”

Megan held her breath as she listened.

“What? What’s going on?” Megan demanded when he put down the phone. Ben was too calm. Something was wrong. She could feel it. The other shoe had yet to drop.

“Megan, I need your help,” Ben said. He stood up and slipped into a pair of black suit trousers. His body was perfectly groomed, the hair on his chest, trimmed. He looked so different to James.

The thought of James brought her crashing back to reality.

She nodded at Ben. Anything, she would do anything for him.

“Yes, that’s Chad.” The name sounded odd on his lips. Ben usually only referred to his lover as his friend. It was almost like giving him a name made it real. Ben held her hands in his, his deep brown eyes focused on her. She could not contain her anxiety but Ben was cool, sanguine, and even confident. Something wasn’t right, things were not adding up. Did he not realise this was the end for him? His career was in tatters. There was no way the ultrareligious right wing was going to stand by him through this.

“I need you to say he is your lover,” Ben said. His voice was calm and utterly devoid of any of the despair she had coursing through her.

She shook her head. Ben didn’t understand. It was over, the jig was up. “No one will believe that,” she said softly. It was time for Ben to except the truth about his career…and himself.

“Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like you have always honoured our marriage vows now is it?” Ben asked pointedly. “I think there is a certain James Emerson who can attest to that.”

Megan shook her head. “There is one small problem. Chad is gay.” Ben had lost the plot. There was no way they could pull it off.

Ben visually cringed at the word. “No one knows that. He’s just a civil servant with a keen interest in politics. No one will ever put this back on me. Unless you tell them,” Ben said pointedly. The gaze from his dark brown eyes pinned her in place. “It makes sense that he was here to see you. Given your history with men…” He left the rest unsaid. He was using her past against her, the secrets she had told him, the confidences they had shared. They both knew what he was implying: once a slut always a slut.

Confusion slammed up against anger as pieces began to slide into place. He was prepared to use her past against her. Megan’s hands began to shake. She clenched them into angry fists to control the jerky movement. “Have you always intended to use me as a scapegoat if you were caught?” She already knew the answer but she needed to hear it from his mouth. She willed him to tell her she was wrong.