Read Online The Magnolia Affair by T. A. Foster - Free Book Online

met someone.”
    “But I thought you and Sarah were college sweethearts.” We didn’t talk about her, but my quick online search the day we met gave me the basic rundown.
    “We were.” He swallowed half the glass of wine. “But there was a time around the holidays when we weren’t sure where things were going.”
    “And you slept with someone else?” I tried to keep the judgment out of my voice. It seeped in through every syllable.
    “It sounds bad. It looks bad. But Sarah wanted to break up and we didn’t spend Christmas together that year. I took a ski trip with some buddies and I hooked up with this girl at the resort. It was over with her before the semester started. Sarah changed her mind, we got back together, and I never told her. I didn’t see the point in hurting her.”
    “And this ski girl is just now coming forward?”
    “She has never contacted me. Never. I don’t know how Hughes’s people dug her up. I don’t even know if it’s her.”
    “And the baby?”
    He shook his head. “That’s the part that’s maddening. They’re claiming I helped pay for her to have an abortion against her family’s wishes. I strong-armed her into keeping quiet and paid her to keep the secret from the press and Sarah. They have pictures of her leaving a clinic.”
    “Oh my God.” I jumped off the counter. “This will destroy your campaign.”
    “The reporter is holding the story for me until the weekend, but then it’s going to be front page news in Sunday’s paper.”
    “You seem awfully calm about this. Shouldn’t you be out digging up proof? Trying to track this woman down?”
    “I have people who do that for me. There’s really nothing I can do. I denied the accusations. Now it’s up to my team to smother the story. I’m lucky my dad owns a large share of the publishing company.”
    “So that’s the reason she’s holding it? Not because she’s giving you a chance to prove your innocence?” I asked. “She owes your family a favor.”
    “There’s always an angle.”
    I don’t know why I was disappointed. I guess I had hoped the reporter believed there was information that would clear Pax’s name and make running the story unethical.
    “If you need to handle this tonight, I understand. We can take a rain check.” There wouldn’t be another night like this anytime soon, but I offered anyway.
    “No.” He planted a kiss on my mouth, the taste of wine lingered on our lips. “I have people. They will take care of it. We need tonight. I need you tonight.” His eyes flared.
    “There isn’t any part of you that wonders if there was a baby? Or is a baby?” I didn’t know why I kept pushing the issue. He should be more upset.
    He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it’s possible, but what am I going to do about it now? I don’t know her name. My family has led a public life. If she needed help, she could have tracked me down years ago. I just don’t buy it.”
    He took my face between his palms. “This is the dirty side of politics. People fabricate stories. They try to tear you down. They don’t stop until you’re destroyed.”
    “Then why are you doing this? Why put yourself through it?”
    “Because I can take it. I don’t have skeletons in my closet.” He stepped away to pour the noodles in a colander in the sink.
    I cleared my throat. It was ironic really. I was in his kitchen, watching him cook a meal for us. Me, a married woman. Him, the widower. And after we finished the meal and drank the last drops of wine, I would put on the scraps of black fabric for him. We probably wouldn’t make it out of the kitchen. I’d let him take me on the table or the counter. My skin prickled thinking about him pressing against me. But he didn’t think of us as an affair. We weren’t a piece of dirty laundry his opponent could unearth. Paxton was either naïve or more arrogant than I admitted.
    “Do you think you’ll seek another office after you win the election?”
    “I plan on it.