Page 39 of Reckless Seduction
“What do you want to know?”
“There aren’t any adoption records on you.” I lean back on my elbows. My cock is still rock hard beneath her, but that isn’t going away anytime soon. Not until those pretty lips are wrapped around it, and even then, I doubt it will be satiated. Pushing back my primal need to claim the vixen on her stomach in front of me, I focus on the task at hand.
Getting answers and her cooperation.
Bailey shrugs, but I can see the frisson of anxiety running through her. “Can’t adopt a blood daughter.”
Kiernan eyes me.
“Elaborate, Bailey.” Not that much elaboration is needed. If she is about to confirm what we think she is, this is our smoking gun.
The minx rolls her eyes. “Richard Crowe is my biological father. He had a one-night stand when he was younger and boom. Me.”
“Who was she?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“You never met your biological mother? Or tried to find out more about her?”
“I lived with her until I was three or four. I can’t remember. She was a no-good junkie who left me in a room filled with needles on the floor and used condoms in the corners.” Bailey’s jaw clenches tightly. “I don’t care about who she was. She lived like a junkie and died like a junkie. That’s all I need to know.”
Fair point.
“Still doesn’t explain the secrecy, lass.”
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Her tone becomes exasperated. She doesn’t like dredging this up. There is deep-rooted pain she is holding on to. One she doesn’t want to confront. Too bad. “My father was the DA when I was adopted. Do you know what a scandal like that would do to his career path? So, when he learned of me, he told the media that they adopted me after seeing me in the hospital during one of Sarah’s fertility treatments. They told everyone they were struggling to conceive after my sister was born. Made a big heartbreak, boo-hoo about it, and the media lapped it up like the good little dogs they are.”
“Is that why you became a journalist?” Kiernan asks. “So you didn’t become a simpering fool like them?”
“No.” She sniffs haughtily, her little nose in the air in stiff indignation. “I want to be a fiction author, but my father won’t hear of it. Journalism is the next best thing.”
“How did you become involved with your fiancé?”
“Ex-fiancé,” she growls before sighing. “Drew and his father came to mine. I was sixteen. Magnus wanted an alliance. He knew of my father’s political aspiration, and he wanted a seat at the table.”
“Why did your father offer up an arranged marriage?” I wonder. There are several ways to go about alliances these days in the political world. Not just marriage. It isn’t mutually beneficial in my opinion. What did Richard gain from selling his daughter? And why her and not her socialite sister?
Bailey shakes her head. “It was Magnus’s idea,” she contradicts. “He wanted the political alliance, and marriage is the option he thought best. I was not his first choice, but Sarah, my stepmother, refused my older sister’s involvement. Plus, Sarah had lined up a match of her own for Dalia with the son of the current DA.”
“What does your father gain from an alliance with Magnus?”
“Power,” Bailey says simply. She makes it seem as if it is the only obvious answer. “My father may be a senator, but Magnus has far greater reach and sway in DC, and with his current political track, he is looking at campaigning for president during the next election.”
“President?”
Fuck. So that is why the old man is campaigning so hard to clean up the city. Taking down the Seattle underground and the mafia families who run it will put him so far ahead of his opponents they won’t stand a chance.
THIRTEEN
Seamus is staringat me like I lost my marbles.
My father’s bid for president shouldn’t surprise them. He is an ambitious man.
“That’s pretty ambitious for a man with skeletons in his closet,” Seamus sneers.
“My father isn’t who you say he is,” I argue. “He may not be winning any father of the year awards, but he isn’t a bad man.”
Kiernan scoffs. “Your father makes mine look like a saint.”
