Page 73 of Seductive Scoundrel

I click on the attachment. My stomach sinks into my toes as I watch my mouth close around Kyle’s dick. The camera is set back far enough to make out both of us.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse.

Mia: WTF!!! You told me you deleted everything!!!

Kyle: I couldn’t. But they were only on my personal phone. No one else has access. The opposition must have hacked my account somehow. It’s an election year, anything goes. I’m also sorry about the picture. I never should have touched you earlier today.

Mia: What picture?

I press the link that appears. It takes me to a seedy news page and the headline reads, “Senator Wentworth hits the campaign trail with ex-girlfriend.” It’s a picture of us at the pumpkin patch, Kyle’s arms wrapped around me and my hands on his wrists with a grin on my face. It must have been taken the second before I pushed the bastard away.

I forgot how awful it is to date someone who’s constantly in the limelight, and Kyle is a celebrity in Kansas. It’s one of the many things I love about Dean – he’s private. He’s no more interested in preening for the paparazzi than marrying someone like Gwynne. The man has way more depth than he lets on.

Kyle: Don’t worry, my people are working on pulling the story. They’re also working on burying the video. With any luck, everything will be taken care of by Monday morning.

Mia: Are there other videos or pictures? Why, why, why didn’t you delete them when I told you to?!

Kyle: I just couldn’t. Sorry. Again. There’s nothing left now. Everything has been deleted. Don’t worry M, I’ll take care of everything.

Mia: You better! It’ll kill my family if the video gets released.

I sit there staring at my phone, paralyzed, hating myself for ever letting him record us. It was fun and sexy at the time and, of course, I never imagined we’d break up. We were in love and supposed to get married.

I never should have believed him – about anything.

If my shame ends up being released, I’ll survive. I’m a virtual nobody, especially in the sea of people in NYC. But my family will suffer. Kansas City might not be a town, but it still has a very small-town mentality. My family will be ostracized for something they never even did.

I can’t let that happen.

My brain searches for options in case Kyle’s team can’t contain the scandal and immediately lands on Dean.

He has the intelligence and resources to stop this mistake from seeing the light of day. But considering we’re already on shaky ground, I can’t ask him for help. It’s not his problem, and if I’m being honest, I don’t want him to know or see that video. The devastation in his eyes would eat me alive.

I’ll have to come up with another way to deal with it if Kyle can’t.

The first step is to find out who sent that video to his opponent. Is it someone close to him who has access to his phone – maybe someone from his office or a pseudo friend? Or perhaps someone hacked into his phone remotely? I’m not completely sure that’s possible, but in this day and age, I can’t count it out.

I finish the report I’m working on, and then send it to GI Jane. “At least that’s one thing off my plate. Now to do a little digging into the senator’s life,” I say to Leo, the stuffed lion Tim O’Hara won for me at the fair in tenth grade. I got rid of the guy, but kept the lion. Considering Tim’s currently serving time for embezzlement, I made the right decision for once.

Thinking back, my choice in men has always been questionable. Maybe that’s why I’m so horrible at relationships. I always pick the wrong guy – until Dean. I’m so filled with doubts and mistrust that I don’t even know how to have a good relationship.

Maybe I should just accept being single, transfer west like I’ve been dreaming about, get a couple of cats, and spend my free time reading romance novels while eating ice cream.

It doesn’t sound completely awful.

“Mia,” Mom calls, “there’s someone here to see you.”

It can’t be Kyle because he doesn’t have the guts to show his face at my parents’ house. And aside from him, no one knows I’m here.

“Who is it?” I shout as the door to my bedroom opens and my jaw hits the floor.

“I thought we could go on that date tonight instead,” Mr. Big says.

Chapter Twenty-One

Dean

Mia screams.It isn’t quite the reaction I was going for.

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