Gabe shook his head, clearly incapable of grasping the concept.

"C'mon. Get it together. We have bigger fish to fry-like the fact that we all may be jobless come election time-or sooner-if this leaks."

"We won't be. This is all a lie," Gabe said. "I have plenty of gay friends-family members even-and Jo just doesn't fit the bill."

"Denial is all very well, Gabe. We need to find out for sure. How do we go about that?"

"Maybe the two of us should just go and ask them," he suggested. "I could go to Jo's house, and you could try Madeline's hotel."

"No," she said. "Only one of us needs to go. If we go together, it'll look like an ambush."

He nodded his head. She was about to let him volunteer, when she remembered the last time she had handed off a task like this. Jo Carson had stepped up to the plate, and now look where they were.

"I'll go," she said. "I'll be the one to ask."

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Since the phone call with Maddie earlier in the afternoon, Natalie had been a bundle of nerves. Which outfit should she wear? She had flipped through her closet, dismissing each choice. Too s.l.u.tty. Too grungy. Too casual. Too dressy. Finally, she had slipped into a pair of jeans and a tight-fitting s.h.i.+rt. She wanted to stay away from clothing that would remind Maddie that Natalie had slept with John, but she also wanted to remind Maddie of the great s.e.x they used to have.

It was a lifetime ago, but she wanted Maddie to remember the good times as well as the bad. She hoped it would help open her to Natalie's apologies.

On the drive over to Maddie's hotel room, all Natalie could think was how out of line she was acting. She had been the one to screw up and the one threatening to go to the press. That was only a tactic to get John to get in touch with Maddie, though. She had promised Maddie during their phone call that she wouldn't go to the press if she would meet with her, and she meant it.

Wouldn't want to mess up John's scheme, after all. He wanted to have the power to go to the press, and she was content to give it to him. As long as she could get what she wanted by dangling her threats over his head. Early on, that had been money-now it was Maddie.

She pulled into the parking lot and sighed. For a brief second, she considered peeling out of the lot, pointing the wheels west, and not stopping until she was a world away in California. Instead, she steadied herself.

"It's now or never," she said, giving herself a little pep talk.

She checked her reflection in the vanity mirror one last time. For an aging mistress, she didn't look too bad, she thought. She got out of the car and walked toward the hotel. It was time to face her past and her future all in one evening.

Madeline paced back and forth in front of the couch in the living room of her suite. Perhaps they should have chosen a different meeting place, she thought as she looked around. This place was tiny. Panic engulfed her. There would be no way to escape Natalie-or the rush of memories-once she got here.

There was a knock on the door, and she thought her heart might explode. Jo took her hand to keep her calm. She was thankful that Jo had come back, but it was a little unnerving to have her past and her present colliding in such dramatic form.

Jo kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be in the bathroom if you need anything, but for now I'll give you two some time alone." She looked as if she was torn between doing that and staying to fight Natalie, but after a pause she turned and walked away, leaving Madeline more nervous than ever.

She walked cautiously to the door, aware that behind it stood a threat to all the happiness she had so recently found. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

That is one beautiful threat, she thought. Even after all these years, Natalie Longworth was a knockout.

A knockout who slept with my husband, Madeline reminded herself.

For a moment she didn't speak, and neither did Natalie. It was like seeing a ghost. Until the moment pa.s.sed Madeline allowed herself to relive every bit of their shared history.

"Do you want to come inside?" Madeline asked, breaking the silence.

"If that is okay with you."

Madeline stepped aside, allowing her to enter, careful to maintain as much distance from her as the room would allow.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" Madeline asked, suddenly regretting inviting this woman into her room. Natalie was not some innocent bystander. She was someone who had wrecked Madeline's life not once but twice. The bitterness that rose in her heart must have shown on her face, because Natalie took a step back.

"You have every right to hate me and never want to see me again," Natalie began. "But I wanted to see you-to apologize to you in person."

"Apology not accepted. Is there anything else?" It wasn't the smart response, Madeline knew, but the unresolved feelings, the fear of being exposed, the plan to mollify Natalie and convince her to remain silent-they had all evaporated. It was clear to Madeline that she had all she needed now and that Natalie was nothing more than a distraction.

"I wanted to set the record straight," Natalie said.

Madeline waited. Natalie would try to sugarcoat it, but she couldn't change the facts. During college, she had wanted to live wild and free. She had "explored her options," unbeknownst to Madeline, and in the process shattered her heart. And now she had destroyed her marriage. She had to have known who John was-everyone in the state did-yet she had slept with him anyway.

Natalie cleared her throat. "I didn't sleep with John to get back at you. It wasn't for revenge or anything."

"Revenge?" Madeline laughed bitterly. "Why on earth would you need to get revenge on me? You were the one who felt the need to sleep around, remember? If anyone was left shattered by our past, it was me. I would have been the one seeking revenge."

"Okay, well, what I'm saying is that I didn't seek him out," Natalie tried again.

"So you wanted to see me in person to tell me that my husband was the filthy cheater, and you were just a poor girl who fell prey to his charms?" Madeline retorted.

"No," Natalie lowered her gaze so she didn't have to meet Madeline's stare. "I am at fault here. I just-well, I did it for the money."

"He paid you?" If Natalie thought that this meeting was helping, she was dead wrong. With every sentence out of her mouth, she was making a bad situation worse.

"No, well, yes..." She hung her head again, searching for the right words. "He didn't pay me for s.e.x. None of them do, but when my career as an artist fell through, I didn't have a whole lot going for me. I had an art degree and a failed dream. What do you do with that?"

When she didn't continue, Madeline threw out, "f.u.c.k for money?"

"Maddie, please let me finish," Natalie said.

"Don't call me Maddie. I hate being called that. My name is Madeline. Maddie was the name of a stupid college girl who was mistaken in thinking that s.e.x meant love. Madeline is a woman who knows what real love is."

"Okay, Madeline." Natalie p.r.o.nounced each syllable carefully. "What I'm saying is that I made some poor choices. I started sleeping with rich men. Some would pay me to keep quiet, some would pay to keep me around for a while. John paid me to keep my mouth quiet about you and me."

"Yeah, he wanted to keep that secret all to himself so he could blackmail me for my money," Madeline said, irritated at both of them. "Maybe you should just stay with him. You make a good little, deceitful couple." She wanted to drive the knife a little deeper. "You're both wh.o.r.es who would rather f.u.c.k someone new and exciting than stick around and hold onto something real."

Natalie reached out and placed her hand on Madeline's shoulder.

"Don't f.u.c.king touch me," Madeline said. "I think it's time for you to go. I never want to see you again."

"Wait," Natalie said. "I'm not done."

"Yes. You are. You have nothing to say to me that I want to hear. Whatever you came here for, you can forget it. I want nothing to do with you."

Natalie didn't move.

"Get the h.e.l.l out of here," Madeline screamed, her body shaking from years of pent-up anger and resentment.

"Why?" Natalie shot back, her frustration showing-and something else Madeline couldn't quite identify. "Do you have someplace to be? That's the way it always was. Little Miss Popular, with all the money and the promising future. You've still got better things to do than sit around and listen to me. Is that it?" Bitterness shone through every word, as she too brought up unsettled fights from decades ago. "Or is there someone else? You've always moved on pretty fast, haven't you? Do you have some new, hot little number waiting to come over?"

Madeline tried to hide the surprise on her face. No one knew about Jo-at least she didn't think there was any way they could. Maybe Natalie was just calling her bluff.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Madeline said.

Natalie smiled a wicked grin. The world had definitely changed Natalie for the worst.

"Oh, I don't doubt that you understand precisely what I'm saying. John said you had a staff member named Josephine-Jo-when he and I talked on the phone the other night. He said she was a preacher's daughter in her twenties. Said he had a hunch there was something going on between the two of you. And whether or not it's true, it would make one juicy story, wouldn't it?"

"He has no idea what the h.e.l.l he's saying!" Madeline's anger and fear collided. How could he know anything?

As if reading her mind, Natalie answered, "Your reaction told me all I needed to know."

Her eyes narrowed. "I hoped there might still be something...but I guess I'm not young enough for you now. Maybe I wasn't just a fling after all-an 'experiment' is what you called it when you left. Perhaps you are into women after all, and it might be that I was never good enough for you. That had to have been why you always paraded around-with all of the things I could never have-and didn't stick around to fight for us when I had one night of bad decisions. It doesn't matter, though. It never really did. And John wasn't interesting enough, just like I wasn't. At least that's what he told me," she said, turning on her heels.

"Neither of you knows what you're talking about," Madeline said, hoping Natalie didn't notice the quiver in her voice.

"Let's let the press decide for themselves who they want to believe then," Natalie shouted, slamming the door in Madeline's face as she left.

Jo emerged from the bathroom, wide-eyed. Swallowing deeply, she took Madeline in her arms.

"What do we do now?" Madeline asked, shaken from the whole ordeal.

Jo stroked Madeline's hair. "We come clean-with the senior staff at least. Maybe the whole office. We can't hide out here forever. Not if she's going to be out spreading rumors and prompting more questioning."

"How did John know?" Madeline asked.

"I don't know," Jo answered, shaken by the same mystery.

Madeline's brow furrowed until she hung her head. "The parking garage where we first kissed," she said. "The one we hid in when the press was chasing us. It didn't hit me until just now, but it was the parking garage at his office complex. Maybe he-or someone else-saw something. Or maybe he's just out to cause some trouble and picked up on the tension between us."

"All the more reason to come clean," Jo said, squeezing her hand.

Madeline wanted to argue, but the words just wouldn't come. Jo was right. With a ticking bomb like Natalie around, they couldn't just go back into their world of sweet oblivion.

Natalie seethed as she sat in the parking lot. How dare she talk to her that way?

Madeline hadn't been wrong about some of the things she had said. But she hadn't even given Natalie a chance to explain. There had been no softness, no chance of forgiveness.

John must have been right about the new girlfriend. She must have been the one who answered when she called that night. After Natalie had hung up, she realized that though the person on the other end of the line had sounded shaken when she gave her name, as Madeline might have been, it hadn't sounded like Madeline. She figured out she had the wrong number when it went to voice mail. That's where she had gotten Jo's name. When she'd asked John he told her that the girl was a member of the staff. He had also triumphantly-as if privy to secret information-let on that Jo was the girl who'd been with Madeline when the press cornered her at the house, the one who'd cut off their inquiries and whisked her away to safety.

Natalie had not planned on broaching the subject, but when things had headed south, she figured she had nothing to lose. The flicker of fear and shock that had pa.s.sed over Maddie's face when she mentioned Jo's name had sealed the deal. There definitely was a new girl in Madeline Stratton's life, and clearly Madeline did not want Natalie to interfere with that budding relations.h.i.+p any more than she wanted to accept her apologies.

So be it, Natalie thought. She'll regret this.

There was nothing that Natalie hated more than rejection. She had gone to Madeline's room and laid her heart bare, only to have it trampled on, and now she was only seeing red. Nothing had changed. Madeline was still as unforgiving as ever. She would pay for it-this time at least.

She fumbled with her cell phone, intending to call John, when she noticed the changing shadows from the third window on the top floor-Madeline's room. There were two figures now where she and Madeline had stood. In the dim light, she could only make out the fact that both shapes were female and one was holding the other in her arms.

"b.i.t.c.h," Natalie muttered under her breath, wondering why they didn't even have the decency to close the curtains.

The girl had been there the whole time. She screamed in anger, put the car in reverse and sped away, phoning John as she drove. When he answered, she didn't even offer him a greeting.

"That b.i.t.c.h of a wife you have didn't even give me the time of day," she ranted. "And she's got her new little girlfriend there with her at her hotel."

"What did you expect, Natalie?" John asked.

What an a.s.shole. Why was he choosing now to be reasonable?

"f.u.c.k you, John. You know what? I shouldn't have even bothered calling you. I've got other things to take care of." She spewed her words like venom.

"Don't do anything stupid. We had an agreement, remember?" John warned.

"f.u.c.k you and our agreement. I don't give a d.a.m.n about the money. I already told you that. I wanted Maddie, wanted to talk with her and resolve this whole d.a.m.n thing. She wouldn't listen, though, because that Jo girl has her under her thumb. I'm going to make both of them pay."

She clicked the phone off, plotting what to do next. She'd had no intention of going public earlier in the evening, but after how she had been treated, she saw no need to cut Maddie a break. Mayor Stratton was going to go down in flames and very publicly.

Her little girlfriend would too. A Google search earlier in the day had revealed most of what she needed to know about Jo Carson. She was, in fact, a preacher's daughter. And not just any preacher-but the high and mighty Michael Carson, a man who regularly condemned the same-s.e.x lifestyle from the pulpit, calling it one of the evils of this world. He would be pretty surprised to hear that his daughter liked to eat p.u.s.s.y and that Madeline Stratton did as well. The rest of the state-h.e.l.l, the whole country-would be surprised to hear that too.

Using the Google search on her phone, she found the number for Michael Carson's church office. Unfortunately, his home number was not listed, but a call to the church could be equally dramatic and effective, she decided. She tapped the number into her cell phone and saved it. She would give Michael a call shortly, but she had something to do first.

Pulling to the side of the road, she put her car in park. This could not wait even another minute. It had to happen tonight! Before Madeline could figure out some way to talk her way out of it.

She reached into her purse. All of the news stations had given her business cards in case she had anything to add to her story, and now she did. She fished out the first business card she could find. The name on the card was Isaac Williams with Channel 4 News.

Here goes nothing, she thought, dialing the number.

"Channel 4, this is Isaac." His voice came across the line, obviously tired.

"Hi, Isaac. I'm not sure if you remember me, but this is Natalie Longworth."

His voice noticeably perked up. "Of course I remember you, Natalie. What can I do for you?"

Ever since his discussion with Jacquelyn earlier in the day, Isaac had been waiting to hear about the story she thought was coming his way. He felt now like a dog that had been handed a bone. He wanted to call her and let her know, but he could not just give this information away.

He had the mistress in John Stratton's affair on record saying that she had known Mayor Stratton for years. That they had been old college roommates-and lovers. There was a slew of other information as well, including an allegation of a relations.h.i.+p with a staffer. Apparently, if Natalie was correct, Madeline Stratton was sleeping with the daughter of mega-church pastor, Michael Carson.

The story was huge-if true. Michael Carson had written books, had a live telecast of each Sunday's sermon. He was a huge antigay activist-as was Madeline Stratton, supposedly.