Molly O'Keefe - The Scandal and Carter O'Neill

ZOE MADISON HAD MADE a lot of mistakes in her life. Big ones, small ones, forest-fire-size ones that had burned her life to the ground.

If there were an authority on mistakes, she was it.

And she knew—from the backseat of Carter O’Neill’s expensive car, with its leather seats and fake wood—she knew that what she’d just done, the lie and the drama of it all, was not a mistake.

First of all, Carter O’Neill was going to be fine. A guy like that was born fine. He was simply too good-looking, too cool and calm, to not be fine. He was like James Bond or something. Though, she thought with a smile, James Bond had gotten batted around like a cat toy by that wily Tootie Vogler.

He was actually far more handsome when he was frazzled, which was saying something, because it wasn’t like the guy was ever hard to look at.

That little scene she’d caused in there would simply blow over.

And if she felt any doubt, any little wormhole of guilt, it was because of the reporter-guy asking the questions. She hadn’t counted on a reporter, and that might take some repair work. Maybe she’d write a letter to the editor or something, tell the whole world she was off her meds. Or stalking the handsome deputy mayor with the lips so perfect they should be bronzed.

More likely, though, she’d just be explained away in some kind of press release issued by the mayor’s office.

Yeah, she nodded, liking that one the best. They’d take care of it.

The second reason that what she’d done was not a mistake was that the guy was planning on tearing down the heart of this community as if it was nothing; as if a year without day care and senior bingo nights or after-school dance programs was all just an afterthought. A footnote on some memo.

Beauregard had clawed its way out of the gutters and the programs offered at Jimmie Simpson had been part of that. She was part of that. And pretty damn proud.

And third, and most important, she had a thousand dollars in her pocket. Like a roll of hope, heavy and dense. She tucked her hand in her pocket, just to feel the thickness, the tension in the rubber band.

A thousand dollars.

She had no insurance, and her savings were going to be eaten up by the hospital birth, so a thousand dollars could buy a lot of diapers. A little bit of security.

And for that—she put a hand under her belly, where she could feel her little guppy doing a soft-shoe number—she would cause any number of scenes.

For the baby, she’d do anything.

The woman, Amanda, stood outside Zoe’s door, with a cell phone attached to her ear, a distracted guard.

Zoe rubbed her hands over the smooth leather and the slick wood panel on the door. Was it real, that wood? Who knew, but fake or real wood in a car was weird. Seriously, did the world need such a thing?

Yeah, she thought, sliding over to the other side of the car, her mind made up. She didn’t need to feel bad. Carter would be fine. Money made a lot of things go away, and Carter had money. He had money and shine and polish. Hell, he had a staff.

Watching Amanda’s back, she silently opened the door and slowly crept out of the car. Amanda didn’t even twitch.

Zoe ran off into the side streets.

“I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN Dad getting arrested would make you surface. What are you doing, Mom?” Carter asked, dimly wondering why he still called her Mom. After all she’d done, the years of screwing with their lives, he still couldn’t just call her Vanessa. It was a little sick.

“Let me see you, Carter,” his mother said, her voice gruff with the appropriate amount of manufactured emotion.

He turned, thinking he was prepared, but he wasn’t. Could never be. Her presence was a punch in the gut and a slap in the face. A pain and an offense all at the same time. She was lovely, of course. Looking at her, shrouded in cool elegance, you’d never guess she was one step up from being a grifter. A common thief.

Despite her presence in a dirty Baton Rouge alleyway, she looked like Princess Grace.

She looked, actually exactly like Carter’s sister, Savannah.

Her smile, a sharp little slash in her face, was like opening a door to a burning room, and he was suddenly filled with anger and fury. Smoke and fire.

“I can’t come see—”

“No,” he said quickly. “You can’t. That was our deal. I testified and you were supposed to stay away from me. From all of us.” He stepped toward her, gratified when she flinched, one foot sliding backward.

That’s right, he thought, something primal roaring to life, you’d better be scared of me.

But then she stopped herself, stiffening her thin shoulders as if facing a firing squad. “You’re my son,” she said.

He paused and barked out a bitter laugh.

“I understand you’re mad, Carter, but there are things we need to talk about.”

“Sure there are,” he said. “Like why you broke into Savannah’s house a few months ago. Twice. That broke our deal, too, Mom.” He sneered the last word, because one shouldn’t have dirty deals with their mothers, bargains made to keep the distance between them permanent. “You’re supposed to stay away from all of us. I should send you to jail.”

She blinked the beautiful blue eyes that he and both his siblings had inherited. In the past few years it had gotten so bad he could barely look at Tyler and Savannah and not see his mother. Not see all the ways he’d failed his siblings. The ways he’d let them down.

“We need to talk about the ruby,” she said.

“You want to talk about where you hid it, after you stole those gems seven years ago?”

“I didn’t steal the gems,” she said.

“Dad may go to jail, but I know somehow, you’re at the bottom of this. So take your story somewhere else. I’m not buying.”

He had a pregnant liar to deal with. A public image that was going to take the beating of a lifetime if Jim Blackwell had his way.

“It’s not a story, Carter. I just…is it so wrong to want to see you? To want someone in this family to know the truth?”

It had been twenty years since Vanessa had dropped him, along with his brother, Tyler and sister, Savannah, off with their grandmother, Margot. Ten years since she’d resurfaced to bribe him into lying for her on the stand. And now, suddenly, she thought she deserved a chance to tell her side of the story?

“This family wouldn’t know the truth if we sat on it,” he snapped. He turned to leave, walking up the slight hill toward the end of the alley.

“I didn’t steal the gems and I didn’t plant them in the house. You’re right. I was looking for them months ago, but I didn’t find them. But now that the diamond has surfaced, everyone is going to come looking for that ruby and it could get ugly. For all of us. If they’re not at The Manor, there’s a chance Margot has them on her.”

“Margot?”

“She could be in danger, Carter.”

“I can’t believe this,” Carter sighed. “You’re trying to convince me you care? About us? Or someone else getting their hands on the ruby.”

“Do you think I would be here if I wasn’t worried? If I wasn’t serious?”

“Yes.”

She sighed, exasperated. “I paid that girl a thousand dollars, Carter.”

Right. Money. Not something Mom parted ways with easily.

Vanessa opened her mouth, but from the end of the alley, he heard Jim Blackwell’s voice talking to Amanda.

“I don’t know where he is,” Amanda was saying, very loud.

“You know,” Jim said, “for a PR gal, you’re a shit liar.”

“Monday night,” he said to Vanessa, resigning himself to the fact that he needed to manage his family, because out of his control, they could ruin everything. “At 8 p.m., outside of my office. Anyone asks who you are, you lie.”