Capital Lies (Their First Lady Book 3) Read online

  I jerked my head up. My blurry eyes tried to focus. “Mmm hmm?” I mumbled, reaching to my cheek to see if I had drooled.

  “Mrs. James, we’ll be landing shortly. Mr. Fitzgerald—”

  “Oh my god,” I cut her off, sitting up straight. I realized I had fallen asleep on his shoulder. In front of someone. I was married. What would she think? Or say?

  “Ma’am?” she asked, looking confused.

  “I’m sorry, I just didn’t realize I had fallen asleep,” I said sheepishly.

  She smiled warmly. “It’s okay. You were both pretty tired.” She didn’t at all seem suspicious or judgmental.

  “Yeah . . . um, thank you. I’ll wake him up.” I smiled and she turned away from us.

  I jostled Preston awake to tell him we were landing. Another fog of drowsiness took me as we descended to land. The white noise of the plane lulling me back to a near dream state.

  Upon arrival, a secret service team and two sleepy passengers climbed into the back of a limo in the middle of the night at a small airstrip in Tennessee.

  The limo rolled to a stop in front of a luxurious hotel with white columns, a long front porch, and a large splashing water fountain out front. I couldn’t see much in the dark of night, but I loved what I did see.

  I roused from my sleep. Preston noticed me looking at the building.

  “You like it?” Preston asked as we waited for Secret Service to give us the go-ahead.

  “It’s so . . . southern.”

  Preston huffed a laugh. “Well, when in Rome . . .”

  “I thought we were in Tennessee,” I retorted.

  The lightness of a quick-witted moment between us was all it took. Preston reached across the void between us and cupped my cheek in his hand. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch, not realizing how much I needed it until he offered it.

  The limo door opened then and pulled us apart. Preston and I were ushered inside the spacious hotel. The lobby was empty because of the hour and I was thankful for that. I just wanted to drag myself up to the room and call it a night.

  We walked on sluggish feet to the elevator at the back of the room. The ride felt slow, but eventually we made it to the top floor.

  A member of our team stood at the end of the hall holding open the door.

  “This one mine or yours?” I asked.

  “Both,” Preston answered.

  My heart fluttered at the idea of staying with him. But I shoved the excitement down, quickly chastising myself for thinking that way. I twisted the diamond ring on my finger and tried to keep my inappropriate thoughts at bay.

  I think he sensed some form of hesitancy from me. He quickly added, “The suite has several bedrooms.” I nodded and smiled, continuing on.

  Once we got into the room and security had left us, I collapsed onto the couch in the center of the living area. There were huge windows, but the drapes were already drawn. There was a gift basket on the coffee table filled with wine, fresh fruit, nuts, and candies. I’d have thought it was a generic basket, but I knew the choices and brands were both favorites of mine and Preston’s. I wasn’t sure how someone managed to throw those things together so last minute, but the staff made sure it happened.

  I took a deep breath and inhaled the sweet smell of honeysuckle, but I had yet to find the source. I looked around, searching for a candle or an air freshener. I noticed there were two separate bedrooms, one-off to my left and the other the right. Preston plopped down beside me and interrupted my musings.

  “I’m too tired to go to bed. I don’t even know how that’s possible right now.”

  “We both slept some, but I think we’re both wired even though we’re emotionally exhausted,” I offered. Preston nodded and stretched his arm out behind the couch. I leaned back and rested my head on it.

  We sat in comfortable silence for a while. I thought about how this all came to pass only hours ago. And then I realized that Cal wasn’t around to shoot me looks when I was asking questions.

  “So,” I said, after working up the courage to pry, “you’re a dad.”

  Preston nodded. “I am.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  A small part of me was hurt he hadn’t shared that with me. Hadn’t he said he was willing to give up everything for me? But he didn’t bother to share that secret. And in feeling that, I also felt guilty. As though I shouldn’t have those thoughts. This wasn’t about me, and I knew it. But I still felt a little hurt.

  Preston looked at me when he answered. “I didn’t tell anyone about her, Tessa.”

  “I guess I just don’t understand why Anabelle and Libby are a secret. I was hoping you would tell me.”

  Preston gave me a sad smile. “It’s complicated.”

  Ouch. I pressed my lips together and looked at my hands in my lap. “I suppose I deserve that.”

  “I’m sorry, Tess. I’m just not used to talking about them. That’s not your fault.” He blew out a long breath before talking again. “Not that I’d expect you to be throwing dishes at me or something, but you’re handling the fact that I kept a monumental secret from you much better than I did. Not only the revelation, but you’re preparing for the fallout.” He looked to me for some sort of response, but I just stared at him waiting for him to finish. “You’re even here with me now.”

  I smiled at him. “Look,” I sighed. “I’m not mad that you didn’t tell me. I’m a little hurt that you didn’t, but not for the reasons you may think. It’s expected that you would have a past before me. I can’t be upset that you did. My family is the mafia, Preston. It’s all secrets, and I’m good with secrets. I get it. The less people know, the better. The less people know, the less it can hurt you or the people you love. We’re not that different in that sense, you and me. Everyone has a past. You can be a good person and still have your skeletons in the closet.”

  Preston stared at me for a while, taking in what I had said to him. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He took a deep breath as though he was readying himself. I felt like I was in a state of suspense. “Annabelle was the girl I started seeing in my last year of graduate school.”

  “Oh . . . this was no—” I cleared my throat. “Annabelle was your girlfriend.”

  “She was, yes. We left Tennessee together and moved to D.C.” He closed his eyes for just a few moments as if he were remembering her. “She was wholesome, smart, honest, beautiful, and down-to-earth. She was the kind of person that could light up a room just by being in it. She didn’t care about money or fame or attention. She was just happy with herself and with life and . . . with me.”

  I sat up and moved away from him, but only enough to face him on the couch.

  “Wow . . . she sounds like she was a lovely person.” I felt a ball of emotion in my throat. It was heartbreaking to hear him talk about her that way. Not in a jealous way. Not in a girl-in-the-red-dress way. In the way that he wouldn’t see this woman again. And I could hear the pain in his voice. I finally broke through it and asked, “What happened?”

  Preston scoffed. “My parents.”

  “Your parents?” I asked, confused.

  “They wanted nothing to do with her because of her upbringing. She was in the foster system most of her life. Didn’t have parents. She was poor. And, well, we’re the Fitzgeralds. Our name lines history books and shipyards, buildings, and a university. None of her history mattered to me, but it did to them. I wanted to marry her. But my family intervened. She wasn’t ‘good enough to carry our family name.’ They thought she was trash. They threatened to take away everything. My education, my inheritance—all of it. I didn’t care. I would have left it all for her.”

  My mouth went dry as I realized how much he must have loved her. He had once been willing to give up everything for me, and I had no doubt that he loved me. Even if he wasn’t supposed to.

  “Then why didn’t you? Give it all up and marry her?”

  “My family blackmailed me.”

  When
he said he didn’t like his family, I believed him, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I just thought he had pretentious asshole-snobs for parents.

  “What do you mean they blackmailed you?”

  “They dug around to find out more about her. You can do a lot of things when you pay the right people. Even unseal records.” His jaw tightened for a moment, obviously angry at the memory he was sharing. “They discovered who her parents were. And they were rather famous for having been on a Bonnie and Clyde type killing spree. You’d know them if you looked up the story. It was nationwide news. Something passed on and retold on late night drama shows. At any rate, they were caught and sent to prison. But her mother was pregnant with her during the trial. And Annabelle was born in prison. She went into the foster system as a newborn. Family wouldn’t take her. Not when she came from two serial killers.”

  “I . . . I don’t even know what to say.” I got up from the couch, sleep suddenly the last thing on my mind, and sat across from him on the bulky wooden coffee table. “This doesn’t even sound like real life.”

  “I know. It’s like a soap opera. It’s crazy. But you know it happens all the time. Kids born to women in prison. Hers just happened to be one of the absolute worst kind.”

  I nodded. That was an understatement. “So what? They were going to out her?”

  “Basically. It got out eventually, her name—even though they weren’t supposed to print the name of a minor. An aunt released it to the media. It was published. All of it. People get nosy and excited over that kind of drama. Like they have some right to the story and information. Annabelle didn’t know about it until then either. She found out her own history at the same time everyone else did, and she was harassed for it. She was just a kid. Her caseworker fought to get her name changed. Seal her records. She wanted her to have a clean slate. Have a fighting chance. She always described her caseworker as a beautiful woman, inside and out. She fought for Annabelle in every way. Made sure to remind her she had a choice in who she became, and that her parentage didn’t determine it.

  So, when they threatened to release what they found . . . it would have destroyed her. She fought so hard to not be the product of her parents. To be a statistic. She was a success story, you know? She had so much loss and trauma, no stability, no family support system. She had good homes and bad homes, but mostly good. Still. She did it all herself. She put herself through school. She was a kindergarten teacher. She loved it. She worked so hard and she knew her happiness was a choice. I couldn’t let them drag her through the mud. They would have. And it would have been brutal.”

  “Jesus, Preston . . .what did she say? What about Libby?”

  “They didn’t care. It all happened in one fell swoop. I had just found out she was pregnant. I begged my family to let it go. They refused. They wanted her to disappear. We may have been able to fight it on our own. But they were playing dirty, and I wouldn’t let them ruin my child.” Preston’s voice cracked and my heart broke.

  I didn’t know what to say because there were no words that I could offer to make it better. So, instead, I patted his hand for comfort, reminding him I was there for him, no matter what.

  “So, I negotiated with my family. If I walked away from them—Annabelle and my baby—they would be taken care of. For life. A trust, with more than enough money for anything they could ever need. That would be the only way. They’d get all the privilege of being a Fitzgerald, as long as they completely denied it. My parents agreed.”

  “What if they hadn’t taken the deal?”

  “I never had to worry that they wouldn’t. Buying them off with money is just a tradition in any wealthy family. They didn’t care about the cost. They just wanted to be rid of them. They wanted her out of my life. They didn’t care how it happened. They got what they wanted, and in the end, that’s all that mattered to them. Her name didn’t get anywhere near ours.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Your family is disgusting. I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t say it, but I can’t help it.” I shook my head, trying to get the thought of those ugly, horrible people out of my head. “What was your plan? How did she take it?”

  “A part of me wanted to lie to her. But I couldn’t do that. I told her the truth. I couldn’t break her heart. I couldn’t let her think I didn’t love her. Everything I was doing was for them.”

  Preston went to the bar in the corner and got out a couple of glasses and a decanter of a light golden liquid I could only assume was scotch. I stood up from the table and got back on the couch and curled my legs underneath me.

  “What did she do when you told her?” I asked.

  “She was furious. I’d never seen her cry like that. I’d never seen her so angry. We debated it. Running off. Trying to make a life on our own, far away from them. But she knew my family would be spiteful. She knew they’d look for us, they’d find us, and they’d do whatever they could to hurt her. They’d wait and drag our child through it too. And neither of us wanted that. This was the only way to make sure Libby wouldn’t suffer.”

  He handed me the glass and sat snugly next to me. Without any communication or need to explain, we tapped our glasses together in silent acknowledgement of the shitstorm story he was sharing with me. We both took long swigs.

  I winced at the initial bite of the liquor. “I’m guessing you didn’t just leave it, did you? I mean, you left. But you kept contact with them.”

  Preston gave me a sad smile. “I kept in touch with her. But because of my family, we had to be extremely careful. We used old-fashioned, snail mail. It’s much harder to hack.”

  He smiled at the memories, but it quickly faded.

  “She never told me she was sick,” he whispered.

  “Sick?” I echoed.

  “Cancer.” He shook his head and took another drink. “That’s what my mother said when she called. I knew she had ups and downs over the past couple of years. Nothing out of the ordinary, I thought. Her replies to my letters were further apart, but she never said anything about being ill. Not once.”

  “Maybe because she knew what you’d do if she had told you . . .”

  Preston shrugged. “Maybe. Either way, it should’ve been my choice on how to react, not hers.”

  “It was also her choice whether or not she wanted to share her medical history with you or anyone else. She didn’t owe anyone an explanation, Preston. Even if it hurts.” I saw the look on his face as though I’d just slapped him. I added, “Just like you didn’t owe me an explanation just because my feelings were hurt.”

  “This”—he finished his drink, set it aside, and then took my glass from my hand and finished it too—“is why I brought you here. You’re keeping me levelheaded.”

  “Yeah, well, I can only do so much. Keep knocking those back and I won’t be able to help at all.”

  Despite my words, I rose from my couch, my tired legs cracking as I did. I refilled his glass and brought it back over to him.

  “Thanks.”

  “Tell me about Libby.” I rejoined him on the couch.

  “She’s so damn smart. Scary smart.” He smiled and it was the first one that reached his eyes all night. Libby brought him joy. “She loves soccer. She’s goalie, but she doesn’t think she’s fast enough. And she adores animals. She has so much empathy. I have a feeling we might be introducing several pets into our lives. She’s the little girl wearing a dress and playing rough, covered in mud. She loves things that sparkle and glitter, and she lights up a room. Just like her mom.”

  I knew the circumstances were horrible, but there was a strange and unexplainable part of me that was looking forward to the next morning. If another piece of Preston existed in the world, I wanted to meet her.

  Chapter 7

  We stood on an expansive wooden porch with white painted rocking chairs to my right, and a matching porch swing big enough for three to my left. The house was everything a northern girl imagined a southern house would look like with its plantation shutters and white-columned
wood siding.

  The air was warm, and the sun was bright—even for late December.

  “Okay,” Preston said mostly to himself. “I can do this.”

  I patted his back for quiet support, his maroon t-shirt soft under my hand. We were both more comfortably dressed than we had been in ages. I may have been wearing jeans, but the First Lady appropriate casual styling was starting to stick. The press had not found us yet, and with any luck, we’d manage to get back home before they knew what happened.

  Preston squared his shoulders, raised his fist to the wide, bright yellow door, and knocked.

  Suddenly, my heart started racing. I nervously bit at my bottom lip and used my thumb to crack the knuckles of my fingers. I couldn’t recall the last time I was this nervous. And I was only meeting a little girl.

  After a few long moments of no one coming to the door, Preston and I looked at each other and then he knocked again.

  Then, there was mumbling from behind the door and just a second later it swung open.

  “I’m a little busy. I can’t just instantly open the door.”

  “Hi, Jolene,” Preston said.

  “Hi? All I get is a hi?”

  Jolene—the nanny—was younger than I expected. I pegged her at maybe thirty-one or two despite the dark circles under her eyes. Her long brown hair looked like it hadn’t been done in days. She wore black leggings and an oversized tie-dyed tunic that made her sun-kissed skin glow.

  “I just got here,” he said. “I said hi, and—”

  “Yes,” she narrowed her honey-colored eyes at him, “you just got here. But Secret Service has been here for much longer. All these strange men are sitting in and outside our house, and you weren’t here, Preston.”

  “I’m sorry, Jolene. For everything. For more than I can say. But I got here as soon as I could, and I’d really, really like to see my daughter.”

  Jolene glanced from me to Preston and then back again. It was clear she was a woman who didn’t take any shit, but she didn’t seem cruel. She was protective and fierce. I liked her immediately.