A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(36)

I know I can’t trust Drew, and yet here I am, relying on him to give me information no one else will. That is how screwed up my life is here back home.

“I have no idea, Lindsay. If I knew, I would tell you.”

“Liar.”

Heat pours over my front as a very angry wall of Drew comes within inches of my face. “I am many things, Lindsay, but I am not a liar.”

“You’re just a coward, then. I’ll cross liar off my list of words I assign to you, Drew.”

He pales. “You think I’m a coward.” Eyes narrowing into chocolate triangles, he leans so close I think he’s going to kiss me. Or bite me. It’s about fifty-fifty which he’ll actually do.

I open my mouth to say yes, but something in his eyes makes me stop.





Chapter 27





“You really think that?”

His voice cracks, then goes low, right at the end, like a dying twig snapping in an ice storm, burdened too much to hang on and remain where it belongs. The heat from his hushed tones covers my nose and cheekbones, rushing down the rest of my skin like a dry wheat field set ablaze by a lone spark of flint.

Before I can answer—and what would be my answer?—Anya appears in the hallway, hurried and a bit horrified, judging from the look on her face.

“What are you two doing?” she hisses, plainly aware that something’s gone awry between us.

“Catching up on old times,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Your father is a busy man. We have forty-two minutes left for this damage control meeting, and—”

Daddy’s busyness has absolutely nothing to do with why she’s here, and we all know it. But this is a ruse. An important one.

“Damage control?” I bark, just as a wall of bright blonde hair comes into hallway. Mom. Great. Everyone’s angry. Angry at me, and coming to see what all the fuss is about.

Drew takes a step back and goes stone faced.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Mom asks me, her mouth tight with displeasure, thinned-out nostrils trying to flare.

“Drew and I needed a moment to talk,” I say smoothly, ignoring the samba beat my heart has taken as its anthem.

“Save the kissy face for later, Drew,” Mom says coldly.

He doesn’t twitch. Doesn’t react. Silas comes through the doorway, brow downturned in a perplexed expression, his body halting comically as the scene registers. Unlike Drew, he hasn’t learned to bury his emotions. To make his face resemble a grey granite rock.

He will.

The political security guys always do.

Or they just disappear one day, replaced by another interchangeable part.

A chill runs through me. If people could be cloned, I think Daddy and Mom would find that appealing right now.

Replace me with the “right” Lindsay.

“Lindsay had a question for me about Internet protocol that related to an earlier problem with her smartphone, Mrs. Bosworth. I have answered it.” Drew’s eyes flick to me for a nanosecond. “We’re done here.”

“We sure are,” I assure her.

“Good. Get back in there and listen to the consultants. Do what they say.” Her cold, dry palm caresses my cheek. Damn me for leaning into it, soaking up the affection. Her eyes harden. “Do exactly what they say, Lindsay.”

The or else is implied.

I follow her, eyes on the back of one perfectly-arranged wave of hair, ignoring the stare from Drew behind me.

Exactly thirty-eight minutes later, the basics have been covered:



1. I was drunk and high and asked three men to have rough sex with me.

2. The videotaping of the event was not my fault.

3. They were never prosecuted because no one can see their faces.

4. My friends went public and claimed I asked for it.

5. Reputation management has been a nightmare, but Daddy won his election four years ago, so:

6. I am to be tightly controlled for the next two years, until he’s elected.



Two years.

Anya’s sharp intake of breath at that announcement morphs into a fake yawn, the movement so smooth you wouldn’t know she’s doing it on purpose if you hadn’t been coached to do the same. Mom hires a slew of public speaking professionals every year, though fewer as the years have passed. When Daddy decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives when I was eight, my after-school fun wasn’t Brownies or soccer or swimming lessons.

It was etiquette tutoring.

Years of devoting themselves to this passionate desire to serve the public in national office has given me an appreciation for positioning. How people say one thing but mean another. The subtle ways you can make a point without being able to be confronted about it.

Passive-aggressive? Not quite. More like covert aggression, a stealth version of communication that is designed to be understood only by certain parties, and that is never, ever openly discussed.

I never did learn how to build a good campfire or drop kick from the goal, but I can suppress a laugh or an itch, and curtsy in nine different ways to meet cultural norms.

None of this was my fault! I want to shout, imagining the scenario in my beleaguered mind. Shouldn’t someone say it? Why isn’t anyone saying it? Not Mom. Not Daddy. Not Anya or Drew and certainly not Silas, Marshall, or the two women whose names I can’t remember in the haze.