Ice Cold (An MMA Stepbrother Romance) (32 page)

“Oh, shit.”

“Yes, exactly. My people are finding that it’s actually really negatively affecting my campaign. I still need to win the nomination, and while I’m the frontrunner, once I’ve got the party nomination I still need to win the actual campaign.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“It’d be great if you could come out and tell everyone that Tina and you are just coworkers, that there’s nothing going on between you two. And of course, then if you could fire her, just to definitely get rid of any doubts, that would be perfect.”

My blood ran cold when I heard Kiegan’s uncle speak about me and my job so coldly. What a fucking asshole.

“See, the problem is Uncle, is Tina’s pretty good publicity fodder. Plus on top of that, I kind of like her. She’s got a tight body, you know?”

“Oh, I do know Kiegan, I do.” Puke. I literally had to leave the room for a minute to gather myself. I wanted to throw up. “The thing is though, this isn’t some sort of normal celebrity thing. I’m running for President. Do you know what I could do, as the leader of this country? I could make you more famous than you could possibly imagine. More powerful. You’re a member of the Hunt family, you’re better than being celebrity gossip magazine material, you belong on the cover of Time.”

“Fine. You’re right, of course. But listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about, first.”

“Yes?”

“You have to understand just how much me breaking off this relationship with Tina is going to cost me. I mean, I don’t care about her at all, of course, but it’s such good publicity. The thing is, she told me about how you touched her when she was seventeen, and I think it would make a pretty good deal if you threw in some cash to compensate me for the future earning power I’ll be losing by getting rid of my paparazzi magnet.”

I held my breath. This was it. Kiegan had to get him to admit on the tape that he had touched me. This was the whole point of this. What he said next could make or break the entire plan.

The pause before Edward Hunt replied only lasted about five seconds. But in my head, it was an eternity. I could practically feel time slowing down as my breathing stopped and every ounce of my being concentrated on the tinny, metallic voice coming through the speaker on the other end of the phone.

“I… I don’t know where you got that idea from,” Edward Hunt replied. Still, he sounded rattled. I closed my eyes and tried not to relive what had happened. I focused on Kiegan’s reply.

“Tina told me.”

“Well, you know, people like that, they make things up.” Fuck, he wasn’t going for the bait. Kiegan shot me a look, as if to say ‘don’t worry, it’s ok’, but I knew it wasn’t. Everything hinged on him admitting on tape that he had touched me.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Besides, you didn’t miss much anyway. She’s pretty frigid, you know.”

“Oh really? I would have figured someone like that, from that kind of family, she would have been all over you, hot for you and your money.”

“Nah, not at all. Cold as a dead fish. But you know, she has the cutest little birthmark, a little heart right on her hip.”

“Oh does she now?”

“Yeah. Still, that’s basically it. Anyway, I figured you’d have denied it, since I imagine that’s the last thing you want to have come out, but Tina gave me proof, so there’s no point in denying it.”

There was a laugh on the other end, but I could tell it was forced. This was good. Kiegan was good.

“Proof? What kind of proof?”

“I’m not going to tell you that. But let’s just say it involves her Macbook’s camera recording, and it doesn’t lie.”

There was silence on the other end of the line again. This time, it lasted a lot longer.

“Fine. Name your price, and I’ll pay it. But I want all the copies of that tape. I swear to God Kiegan, if you try and fuck me over with this, you’re going to be sorry.”

“Tell me, Uncle Ed. Was she frigid with you too, or was it just me?”

“She didn’t move at all. It was like she was frozen. I think she was scared. But to be honest, I liked it that way. Now, when and where are we meeting?”

Kiegan looked at me. I knew we were both thinking the same thing.
Holy shit, it worked! It actually worked!

“Fuck you, Ed. There is no tape. Well, there wasn’t, anyway. But I’m recording this conversation, so consider your political career over you fucking creep.”

Kiegan had pressed the “end call” button before waiting for a reply from his Uncle. He pressed stop on the tape recorder, then replayed the conversation, just to be sure.

“Oh my God, you did it,” I muttered as his Uncle’s voice came over the speaker.

“We did it, Tina. I would have never known, never been able to do this without you.”

“Ok, well now we have the tape, now what?”

“Now we absolutely, completely and totally destroy the Hunt name. We send it to the media.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. I know my father, and you know your mother. Will either one of them believe us, or care, if we just tell them privately?”

“No. Besides, I want to destroy his dream. I could have gone to fucking Harvard. Instead I worked at a grocery store for minimum wage wondering how I was going to pay my rent. All because that fucker couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

Angry didn’t even begin to describe how I was starting to feel about Kiegan’s uncle. I knew we had him, and I wanted him to pay. Maybe destroying a man’s dream and livelihood is a bit too much, but whatever, I was pissed. And I knew Kiegan wasn’t going to stop me. Hell, he was the bad boy out of the two of us. This had been his plan, he was the one who tricked his uncle, and he was definitely on board with ruining his uncle’s chances to become President.

“Do you have any direct contacts in the news desks at any of the major networks?” Kiegan asked. I shook my head. “No, everyone I know is in entertainment. But Leanne will have all of the news people’s names and numbers.”

“Good thinking,” Kiegan replied. “I’ll ask her to email them to me now.”

Five minutes later we had a huge list with names, phone numbers (both cell and office landline) and email addresses for what looked like every single anchor and producer for every news show in America.

“Wow, Leanne is nothing if not efficient,” I muttered as I looked at the list.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. Don’t tell her that though, she’ll ask for a huge raise,” he continued, and I laughed.

We uploaded the audio file onto the computer and sent out an email to all the major news anchors.

“And now, we turn on the TV and wait,” Kiegan told me, grabbing the box of cupcakes and offering me one. I took it and sat down next to him, his arm wrapped around me, as we turned on CNN and waited to see how long it would take for Kiegan’s file to make national headlines.

It turned out the answer was ‘just under eight minutes’.

I was just finishing off the last bite of one of the tiramisu cupcakes when a “Breaking News” banner flashed across the screen, and the anchor was obviously getting some new information through her earpiece, but maintaining a professional composure while multitasking that I always imagined I would never, ever be able to pull off.

“I’m sorry for the interruption, but we’re going to have to come back to the story about the Measles outbreak in California. Here at CNN, we have just received some incredible news. We have audio footage of a conversation between Presidential nominee Edward Hunt and his nephew, reality TV star Kiegan Hunt, which implicates the Senator in a scandal involving Kiegan Hunt’s stepsister, Tina, whom he is reportedly dating. The recording clearly has Senator Hunt admitting to having touched Tina inappropriately when she was a teenager. We’re now going to play an excerpt of the tape.”

“Wow, they sure authenticated that one pretty quickly.” I muttered.

“Yeah, I guess they
really
wanted to be the first ones to go live with that story,” Kiegan replied. “Plus, news these days, they don’t care that much about whether or not something is true.”

“That’s a good point, it’s more about what gets them ratings.”

Kiegan grabbed the remote and started flipping through all the major networks’ news channels. Sure enough, they were all going nuts over the tape.

Kiegan’s phone began to ring a second later, and then mine as well. We looked at each other.

“They’re not going to stop ringing for a while, are they?” I asked, and Kiegan shook his head.

“Nope. What do you say we go out and grab some dinner, and just happen to forget our phones here?”

“Sounds good to me,” I replied, getting up off the couch.

Our plan had worked. Now we just had to see what the fallout was going to be.

The whole time at dinner all I could think about was what we had just done. We had literally ruined a man’s chances to be President, possibly even ruined his life completely. I mean, he deserved it, of course.

  “Here’s to us,” Kiegan toasted as he held up his beer to me. I clinked with my Long Island Iced Tea. “We just brought down one of the most powerful families in America. No amount of damage control my father can do now is going to rescue the Hunt name.”

“Are you ok with it? I mean, I know my mom made me change my name to Hunt when she married your dad, but I was never really a Hunt. But still, it is your family.”

“Of course I’m ok with it. My aunt Isabella is the only person in the family I respect. Everyone else is just out for themselves, and I want nothing to do with that.”

I smiled at him. “We sure have come a long way from high school.”

“Yeah, we have,” he answered, looking at me with an intensity I hadn’t expected. “I love you, Tina.”

Hearing him say those words was so unexpected, so crazy that my breath caught in my throat. Had he really just said that? He had.

“I love you too,” I heard myself reply, and I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that they were true. I did love him. This man I spent years hating was actually my soulmate.

He took my hand and we looked into each other’s eyes. This was perfect.

After eating we went back to the hotel and decided to deal with the fallout that was bound to happen from what we’d released.

Kiegan’s phone had eighteen missed calls from Washington, and twenty two from our parents. Mine was full of calls from New York and LA, no doubt news and entertainment shows wanting to book Kiegan (and maybe even me!) on their programs as soon as possible. I also had a text from Leanne.

Congrats
was all she said.

Thanks. It feels weird feeling good about destroying a man’s life, but fuck him.

Absolutely. Your mom is never going to speak to you again though.

I don’t care. As long as she keeps her daughter away from that pervert, which she will if the family have no power anymore.

True. Nice work, anyway.

“Split up and deal with these calls?” Kiegan asked, and I nodded. Going into the bedroom, I grabbed my work folder, opened up a new blank page and got ready to check my voicemail.

An hour later Kiegan was booked on about a dozen different shows. Everyone wanted me, but I refused to be interviewed. I didn’t want to talk about it at all, let alone on TV. I returned the next call, one of the most popular daytime TV shows in America.

“Hi, it’s Tina Hunt here, returning your call,” I greeted Katy, the producer in charge of booking guests.

“Oh hi Tina, thanks for getting back to me so quickly!” I heard her reply, then some shuffling as if she was quickly grabbing a notepad. “I’m wondering if it would be possible to book Kiegan and yourself onto the show for later on in the week.”

“Well Kiegan is in LA starting tomorrow, we’re flying out to start doing interviews then. So anytime on Wednesday is fine. I’m definitely staying off camera though.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I got permission from the network bosses to make you a
very
generous offer of compensation.”

“Thanks, Katy, but I’m really not interested.”

“Seven million dollars for your side of the story.”

“What?”

“You’d have to be exclusive to us for that price, of course.”

“Umm… I don’t think… I can,” I replied.

“We’ll make sure that you’re well and truly prepared, you’ll be given the questions in advance, and don’t worry, we have tons of experience in making sure people who have gone through something traumatic have the best possible experience on our show.”

“Look, Katy. Can I call you back? In like, an hour?”

“Sure. Anytime. Think about my offer.”

“I will. Thanks.”

I hung up the phone and stared at the floor for a while. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to do the interview. At least, I didn’t think I did. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.

So I did what was quickly become natural: I went out to talk to Kiegan about it.

He got off his phone and asked me what was up. When I was done explaining the conversation, he asked me one question:

“Do you want to do it?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I mean, no, I don’t. Not really. But it’s so much money.”

“Do you think you would benefit from the interview?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. It would involve a live studio audience hearing my story, and then having it broadcasted to the whole country. It could be cleansing, in a way, I supposed. But I could also go to a therapist. That would be private. I would also be asked about Kiegan and my relationship, I’d be judged. If I almost cried when a woman called me a whore in a cupcake shop, this was going to be even worse.

“No. I don’t think I would.”

“Then call her back and tell her no.”

“It’s just so much money.”

Kiegan smiled. “Tina. I promise you, I absolutely promise you that I’m going to take care of you. You’re never going to need that much money, because we have so much money that’ll seem like pennies. But I understand your nerves. You’re worried that we’ll break up and you could have used the money. So let’s go get married tomorrow. At the courthouse. It won’t be fancy, it won’t be an awesome party, but maybe we can do that some other time, after all this drama ends.”

“Did you just propose to me?” I asked, not hearing what Kiegan was saying.

“Yup. What do you say?” he asked, opening his arms wide and grinning.

“Sure. Yeah, let’s do it,” I replied, as what we were just saying started to actually sink in. We were going to get married!

I called Katy back and booked Kiegan on, and told her I wasn’t going to do it, and Kiegan ordered room service champagne to celebrate.

We clinked glasses and looked at each other.

“Our parents are pissed,” he told me after our first sip.

“Figures.”

“They’re cutting Edward off though. He’s been ostracized by the family completely. We did it. Our sister’s not going to grow up in a world with him in it.”

We toasted that thought as well, then went to bed.

This had been one hell of a day. We’d ruined a Presidential candidate’s life, ruined the entire Hunt family name in public, decided to get married the next day, and saved our sister from a pervert. All in a day’s work.