Dirty Defiance (Filthy Series Book 3) Read online

“My dad was guilty, though, and you aren’t,” I remind him.

  “Yeah, but in the court of public opinion, I’m guilty until proven innocent.”

  “One day at a time,” I remind him. “There’s no evidence that you did what she says, but there may be evidence that you didn’t. Let’s let it play out.”

  He tightens his hold on me. “No matter who we bring on for communications and strategy, you and I get the final say on everything. I trust your judgment more than anyone’s.”

  I close my eyes, my lips curving up in a smile. It feels good to hear him say those words, even after all this time together.

  “We’ll be okay,” I say softly. “No matter what happens, we’ll be okay.”

  “I hear you, babe, I really do.” His tone is defeated. “But integrity is everything to me. I don’t care if I lose fairly, as long as I worked my hardest. But this… Fuck, I really don’t want to go down like this.”

  I press my cheek to his chest, wishing I had words of reassurance. But I don’t. If these charges can’t be proven false, Jude won’t recover from being accused of sexual harassment. Even if he wins the race and becomes governor, having his honor questioned will last forever for him.

  16

  Jude

  “In closing, I vehemently deny the allegations against me. I’m a man of my word, and as a Marine, my honor is everything to me. I never touched the woman in question, nor any woman, in a suggestive or inappropriate manner. I may be a senator and running for the governorship, but above all else, I’m a devoted and loyal husband.” I step back from the podium as reporters rise to their feet, hurling questions like they hadn’t heard a word of my official statement.

  This is the dirty side of politics. The reason why so many good people who could really help better our country stay far away. Everyone has a skeleton or two in their closet, but no one wants to risk that indiscretion becoming public knowledge. Then there are the lies that are created to damage a person’s creditability. Planting the seed in any voter’s mind is dangerous.

  The one thing I know is that I never touched that woman or any woman besides my wife in well over five years. I never even thought about having an affair. But that didn’t stop the lies from landing on my doorstep.

  “You were fabulous,” Reagan says as she wraps her arms around my stomach as soon as I make my way backstage, and she hugs me tightly. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  I kiss the top of her head, closing my eyes so I can forget everything around me for just a moment. I try to block out the low murmur of the reporters in the other room as they scramble to get their story submitted for the evening news. Tyson’s on the phone, yelling at someone about something I probably don’t even want to know about.

  “I love you,” I whisper into her hair and take a deep breath, losing myself in her familiar scent. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  There’s nothing but truth in that statement. She’s my other half, the feisty liberal half, but still vital in everything I am and will continue to be.

  She tilts her head back and stares up at me. “You’ll never get rid of me, Jude.”

  In the last five years, I’ve seen marriages end for much less than a simple allegation. Distance spent apart is usually the crushing factor, but I refuse to let any of it do us in. When I said my vows and promised until death do us part, I meant every single word.

  I take a deep breath and utter the words I never wanted to say, “Should I drop out?”

  Her eyes widen as she leans back, staring at me in disbelief. “You will do no such thing. That’s admitting defeat, and in a way, proving to the world you’re guilty. You will not drop out of this race. Do you understand?”

  I nod and somehow manage a smile. “I don’t want to drop out, but I would for you, Reagan. Only for you.”

  There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my wife, including giving up my career in politics if I knew it would make her happy. If there were any chance my career would destroy our marriage, I’d give my resignation and never look back without a single thought or regret.

  She slides her hands to my front, placing her palms against my chest. “I can take the heat, especially when I know they’re lies. You fight and don’t stop until you’re sitting in the governor’s office.”

  “We’re sitting in the governor’s office,” I remind her.

  This isn’t a one-man show. To the public, it may be, but I value Reagan’s advice even though I don’t always take it. We may be polar opposites on almost every issue, but she helps me understand the other side of the argument. She’s the biggest asset to my political career even if the people around me don’t see it that way.

  “Have faith that it’ll all work out.”

  She’s always so upbeat and somehow believes in the good. But I’ve seen too much of the bad win in this world, including her father, to allow myself to buy into any fairy tales.

  Tyson stalks across the backstage area, clutching his phone in his hands. “We may have gotten a break.”

  “What?” My fingers tighten on Reagan’s side as I gaze over her head. “How?”

  “There’s a lot of video footage from the event in question. My people are scouring every moment, trying to find the few moments you spent with her. If we can show proof, people can no longer take her claim seriously, and we can move forward.”

  Of course. I hadn’t even thought about the dozens of reporters and the hundreds of supporters in attendance, all taking video and photos from every angle possible. There’s never a moment of a rally that isn’t on tape in some shape or form. There has to be something to prove my innocence, or at least, I hope there is… God, I hope there is.

  “Good work, Tyson.” Reagan turns in my arms and smiles at him. Their new respect for each other is nice but unsettling at the same time.

  “Hopefully, they’ll find something on the tapes,” I say.

  “If you met her, it’ll be on them. I had cameras everywhere. Plus, your supporters all had their phones out. If it happened, someone would’ve taken a photo or video,” Tyson tells us.

  “It didn’t happen,” I repeat because, for some reason, I feel like Tyson hasn’t believed me.

  “I know. I know.” He nods slowly before pursing his lips. “We’re going to crush that bitch.”

  “Tyson,” I hiss. “Don’t ever use that demeaning language with me and especially not in front of my wife.”

  “No.” Reagan turns her face toward me. “She is a bitch.”

  “Okay. Okay. So now we wait and hope we have something to vindicate me.”

  “Yeah,” Tyson says with a sigh. “This should all be over in forty-eight hours.”

  From his mouth to God’s ears.

  “Let’s get lost for the evening,” Reagan says to me, running her palms up my bare forearms. “What do you say?”

  I glance over at Tyson, waiting for him to object, but he waves me off. “I thought you’d never ask,” I tell her and move toward the doorway, holding her hand, without so much as a backward glance.

  My hands are over her eyes as we enter the hotel room. During dinner, I slipped away and had everything set up in the penthouse I rented for the night. I didn’t want Tyson to be able to find us, and I wanted the evening to be more special than it would’ve been in our normal hotel suite.

  “Why won’t you let me see?” she asks as the door closes behind us, sealing us away from any prying eyes and the world outside.

  “One second,” I tell her with my mouth next to her ear. My eyes sweep across the room, making sure everything is perfect. I’m actually surprised the concierge was able to pull everything off so quickly down to the last detail. “Now that we’re here, no more talking about anything except us. Are we clear?”

  She shivers in my arms as my breath skids across her skin. “Yes, Jude,” she replies in a small, soft voice. “I understand.”

  “This is about us. About pleasure. About nothing more than a husband and wife. There’s nothing but
this moment. This room. The feeling of your skin against mine. No sounds other than moans of pleasure.”

  Her lips are parted as she listens to me speak, but she nods, understanding every bit of what I mean. This is how I unwind, how I close myself away and forget that I’m anything more than a hungry man in love with my wife.

  I move my hands away from her face, showing her the room with the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the town in the swankiest hotel money could buy in this part of Illinois.

  She looks around, her eyes moving from the windows to the hundreds of flickering candles around the room. “It’s beautiful,” she whispers as I stroke the soft skin on her bare shoulders.

  “No one can find us. I made sure of it,” I tell her, slowly easing down the straps of her dress.

  The material falls away, pooling on the carpet around her feet. I run my fingers up her arms, causing goose bumps to break out across her flesh.

  “Tonight’s mine, Reagan. You’re mine. I want to lose myself in you.” I press my lips to her neck, placing them over her pulse. “Use you every way I can until my body and yours can’t take any more.”

  17

  Reagan

  Tonight, there are no worries about the accusations against my husband. I’m not thinking about the loss of my job or Andrea’s offer.

  There’s nothing on my mind right now but pleasure. Jude’s mouth is making its second pass up and down my legs, a nip on my inner thigh causing me to moan in response.

  We haven’t spoken since falling into this bed together. Unless my fragmented cries of pleasure count, that is. Jude spent at least thirty minutes bringing me to the edge of release with his mouth between my legs, deliberately slowing when I was almost there.

  When he finally let me come, tears pricked at the corners of my eyes from the intensity.

  He only gave me a minute to recover before he pinned my hands to the mattress over my head, one of his hands easily trapping both of mine. He cupped my ass and fucked me fast and hard, his groan vibrating against my skin as he came.

  We lay with our legs wrapped around each other for a while after that, just tracing invisible lines on each other’s sweaty skin, basking in the quiet and calm.

  Jude and I get very little peaceful time together. Our schedules are usually frenzied, and lately, we’ve both been exhausted as soon as it’s time to sleep.

  Tonight is reminding me what matters most in my life—not politics or parties, not jobs or poll numbers—my husband.

  We never got a blissful, storybook beginning to our marriage. With Jude being a senator, we only took enough time to get married and escape for a quick honeymoon.

  After that, we both got to work proving to voters and supporters that we weren’t crazy for falling in love. We felt an obligation to prove ourselves, and I don’t know that we’ve ever really stopped.

  “Mmm, I don’t think I can handle any more of that,” I murmur as Jude’s warm breath brushes across the apex of my thighs.

  He lets out a deep note of amusement before running the tip of his tongue between my lips, opening them just enough to elicit a ragged moan from me.

  “Sure you can,” he says, his dark eyes meeting mine.

  The sight of him staring intensely at me from between my thighs sends a tingle of arousal from the top to the base of my spine.

  “Um…maybe,” I manage.

  Jude bites the sensitive skin of my inner thigh gently. “I’ll hold you down if I have to, Mrs. Titan.”

  His tongue delves deeper, and I sigh with pleasure as he explores every spot still sensitive from the last freight train orgasm he gave me.

  This night is turning out to be everything I didn’t even know I needed. Jude knew, though. It’s heaven having a man who sometimes knows me better than I know myself.

  A couple hours later, we slip out of bed to order room service. While we’re waiting, Jude cracks open the curtains, and we look out over the small city, many of the night lights already dark.

  I slip on a white silk robe and wrap my arms around his waist, closing my eyes as I soak in his warm, solid presence.

  “I love you,” I say, pressing a soft kiss to his chest.

  “I love you too.” He wraps his arms around me. “Thanks for being my rock through all of this.”

  “Anytime. For better or worse, right?”

  He kisses the top of my head. “You really think it’s all gonna be worth it? All the time apart? Not having a regular life in our home? That’s all I ever wanted when I was in the service, you know. A person and a place to be my home.”

  “Well, you have the person.” I kiss his chest again. “And we have the place. We’re just away from it right now.”

  “Yeah, but…” He sighs softly. “If I win, we’ll have to move in to the governor’s mansion. Chicago’s our home, though.”

  “We’ll split our time.”

  He leans back and looks down into my eyes.

  “Tell me you’ll be content being a governor’s wife. Is that enough for you?”

  “Who says that’s all I’ll be? I’ve got options.”

  “I know, babe, but having you gone all the time…” He turns to look out the window. “I just wonder if it’s the right thing for us. I don’t want to keep moving in to a bigger and better office if it costs us our life together. If our kids will be splitting time between homes and not having the life we want for them. Always under scrutiny like we are.”

  “You get used to it,” I say softly. “I did.”

  “Do you ever wish we had a…simpler life? Where we could just go have a drink or dinner without photographers chasing us?”

  “Sure,” I admit. “But with great privilege comes great responsibility.”

  I follow Jude’s gaze out to the few twinkling lights left. We stay like that, lost in our own thoughts, until the room service knock sounds on the door.

  And as we eat, sadness about the night ending sets in. After this, we’ll go back to bed, and I’ll be asleep soon. Then when we wake up, it’ll be back to the campaign trail grind.

  I needed this night to remind me what matters most. And I wish we could have more nights like this. But for now, it’s a luxury.

  The next afternoon, I’m finishing up lunch with a member of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board when my phone rings.

  “Talk soon,” Elaine Hammond says, hugging me quickly and excusing herself so I can take the call.

  I slide my finger across the screen to answer. “Hey, Mom. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m okay. How’s campaign life?”

  “Oh, you know. Busy.”

  There’s an awkward pause, because she does know. My mom spent more than thirty years as the dutiful, smiling wife of a senator before being crushed by news of my father’s affair and secret family.

  “You’re doing okay with it, though, right?” she asks.

  “Oh, yeah.” I look from side to side, weighing whether it’s safe to speak frankly in a restaurant full of people, and think better of it. “I just finished a lunch, so I’m at a restaurant.”

  “Ah. I understand.”

  I get up and sling my bag over my shoulder, heading for the restaurant’s entrance. “Mom, are you okay? You sound nasal, like you’ve been crying.”

  I furrow my brow with concern. My mom and I are always open with each other, and I can tell she’s not okay.

  “What’s going on? Tell me.”

  She sighs heavily. “You know, it’s probably nothing.”

  “What’s probably nothing?”

  “I had my routine mammogram, and I had to go back for a follow-up. They want to do a biopsy of a lump in my breast.”

  I reach out for something to stabilize myself as light-headedness sets in. My hand lands on the rim of a huge indoor planter inside the restaurant’s lobby.

  “A lump? There’s for sure a lump?”

  “Yes. I thought about waiting to tell you until the results are in, but—”

  “Mom, no. Why didn’t y
ou tell me when you had to go back for a second scan?”

  “It may be nothing, Reagan. The doctor will know more after the biopsy.”

  I can’t cry, though it’s all I want to do right now. I’ve never even considered anything bad happening to my mom. The poor woman’s been through so much already thanks to my father.

  “I want to be there with you.” I sink down onto the wooden bench next to the plant, swallowing against the knot in my throat.

  “Honey, I’m okay. You and Jude have your hands full right now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” My tone is outraged because I can’t give in to what I’m really feeling, or I’ll burst into tears. “Who’s there with you? Is Abby there?”

  “Your sister is still on assignment in Europe. I don’t need anyone here with me.”

  “Well, I’m coming anyway. When is the biopsy?”

  After a pause, she says, “Wednesday.”

  Two days away. I close my eyes and steady myself.

  “I’m booking the soonest flight out. I’ll text you my landing time. Can you pick me up?”

  “Of course.”

  “I love you, Mom. I’ll be there soon.”

  “I love you too, you headstrong girl.”

  I end the call and log on to a travel site, finding a flight that leaves in two hours. It’s nonstop to Miami, where my mom lives by herself in a modest beach house.

  As soon as my travel is booked, I text Jude, telling him I’m going. I don’t really even have time to go back to the campaign bus and pack a bag. I can borrow clothes from my mom or pick a few things up when I get there, though.

  All I care about right now is getting to my mom as soon as possible. I walk outside and hail a cab, steeling myself.

  I can’t fall apart. My mom needs me.

  Jude texts back.

  Jude: Babe, I’m so sorry. What can I do?

  Me: I don’t think there’s anything, but thanks for offering. I don’t know when I’ll be back. I won’t be able to do that luncheon thing Thursday.