Courting Gossip. Kimberly Dean

this was a media ambush. They weren’t being threatened physically. They were threatening his career and his reputation.

      It was a career he’d primped for, smiled for, kissed babies and butts for…

      Genieve blinked in surprise when he followed her lead and threw a shoe across the room. The light from the camera bounced again as the reporter got out of the way, but the impact against the wall was loud. The senator shocked her even more when he threw another shoe, this time hers, and followed it across the room.

      ‘Ow! Hey! Oh, shit.’

      ‘Get out,’ Samuel roared as he stalked towards them, buck-naked.

      The light from the camera bounced as bodies jostled. ‘Senator, what do you…Whoa, would you look at that?’

      ‘Get out!’

      ‘Lance, he only has one ball. Get that in the shot!’

      Genieve felt along the floor for her dress or any clothes she could put on. The scene was too loud. More people would be coming. She couldn’t be caught like this.

      ‘Is that why you have to pay for prostitutes, Senator?’

      She needed to get out of here fast. She needed that camera. How much had they caught? Did they have a clear shot of her face? She winced. It didn’t matter. With her hair, they’d know who she was. She was the redhead who’d been seen all over DC with the silver-haired senator.

      Thuds and grunts filled the air. Without the glare of the camera shining against the blanket, she risked a glance over the covers. She was surprised to see Samuel actually winning the battle and pushing the two much younger men from the room. They didn’t seem to have expected a fight, but the senator was putting his time at the gym to good use.

      Spotting her chance, Genieve sprang from the bed and ran to the bathroom. The only clothing she saw on the way was Samuel’s pants. They wouldn’t help her much. Her phone would. She swiped it off the dresser without breaking stride, then skidded into the bathroom on bare feet, slammed the door behind her and locked it. She looked around for anything she could use. The bathrobes. She grabbed one, quickly undid the fancy folding and pulled it around her shoulders. The fabric overwhelmed her, but she tugged it closed and belted it tight. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she looked for a window or balcony. There was no way out. Even if there was, they were seven floors up.

      She started to call the security team at Luxxor, but stopped before the call could connect.

      ‘Damn it.’ The contract she’d signed with the senator had stipulated she call another number first, and it belonged to someone she really, really didn’t want to see right now.

      But if anybody could get them out of this mess, it was Brody Haynes.

      She pulled up his number in her address book. It was late, but it was Haynes’s job to extricate his clients from bad situations. He was a fixer, a spin doctor. She’d had to call him before when Samuel had had too much to drink and another time when the senator was involved in a fender-bender with an off-duty cop. She dreaded the political operative’s reaction, though, to finding the two of them in a situation like this. He didn’t like her being around Samuel in the first place.

      Still, it was in the contract. If she called anyone, it had to be him.

      She punched the speed dial with a shaky finger and held onto the sink as she waited for an answer. Adrenalin pumped through her veins. The fear was still sharp, but queasiness had hit her stomach. She’d been scared for her life. Now she was fearful of so many other things.

      ‘Hello?’

      The voice on the other end of the line was groggy, and it took her aback. She’d rarely heard Haynes be anything other than sharp and terse. Had she dialled the right number? ‘Brody?’

      ‘Genieve?’ There it was. Not terse, but quick and alert to the fact that something must be wrong if she was calling.

      ‘I…we need you. Room 740 of the Emissary Hotel. Two men just broke into our hotel room.’

      ‘What?’ There was the sound of creaking furniture and then a thud. ‘Are you OK?’

      More loud voices had joined the ones outside the bedroom door, and the light in the bedroom had been turned on. Hotel security must have arrived. She could hear people moving around, but the scuffling and crashes had stopped. At least Samuel wasn’t out there fighting against them alone any more.

      Should she have left him like that? She rubbed her forehead. Haynes would surely let her know what she’d done wrong. There was always something.

      ‘Jenny, are you OK?’ he barked.

      Jenny. She ground her teeth. She hated when he condescended to her like that. ‘I’m fine. I locked myself in the bathroom, but Samuel is still out there fighting with them. You’ve got to get here fast, Brody. They’re reporters.’

      ‘They broke into your hotel room for a story?’

      Her stomach turned. ‘They had a camera.’ Her voice faltered into a whisper. ‘They caught us together in bed.’

      She didn’t get an answer. He didn’t even let out a curse, yet the chill that came across the line was so frigid, she nearly dropped the phone.

      ‘Brody?’

      ‘Who was it? Which channel?’

      ‘Channel? What does that matter?’

      ‘It matters. Who are they?’

      ‘You think I took time to ask? I don’t know — Wait. They said it, but I didn’t recognise it. MTI? TMI?’

      ‘Don’t say a word to anyone until I get there. Do not come out of that bathroom. Don’t let them catch you on camera any more than they have.’

      ‘I’m not stupid but, Brody, you’ve got to get here fast. They…they know what I do for a living.’

      The chill in the fixer’s voice nearly left frost. ‘Don’t let anyone touch you. I’m coming.’

      The line went dead without so much as a goodbye, but for some reason Genieve’s breaths came a bit easier. Her stomach was still knotted, and she knew this was going to be a really bad night. Brody was stoic and cold as Siberia, but he was solid. She just had to hold on until he could get here.

      Yet, before she could even make a call to Luxxor, someone was knocking on the bathroom door.

      ‘Ma’am, this is hotel security. All you all right? Can you come out of the bathroom?’

      After what she’d just promised the ice man? ‘No.’

      ‘We need to talk to you so we can figure this whole thing out.’

      ‘So talk.’ She held fast, refusing to budge.

      Things only went from bad to worse when Metro PD arrived on the scene. That was when she started considering the smoke detector on the ceiling as a viable distraction. If she set it off, could she slip out of the hotel with the rest of the crowd without anyone noticing?

      Her toes curled into the bath rug. Despite what the reporters kept saying, she wasn’t a whore. She was an escort, albeit one with an exclusive client…who paid her for sex…She doubted the police would care to split hairs, but she’d never been picked up before. She’d never even come close. She couldn’t be arrested for prostitution. She couldn’t bring down Luxxor. She was with a US senator!

      ‘Ma’am, you need to come out of the bathroom.’

      There was the sound of a key in the lock. She stepped back and bumped up against the shower as a policeman stepped inside. He was a young cop, handsome and wary. His jaw dropped a notch when he saw her. She rubbed her bare feet together. Sometimes the attention she got for her looks was fun, but other times it was a problem.

      ‘Ma’am, are you OK? Are you hurt?’

      ‘I’m scared.’