His Rise to Power: Book 1 Read online

  “That’s why I’m taking a video and not pictures. We’ll get at least one good shot even if he falls flat on his face.”

  If I was hoping that he’d skin his knees, I was going to be sorely disappointed. To my utter shock, Jack wasn’t just familiar with the game. He was good at it. Five of the boys stood back and cheered as he dribbled around Jay and jumped. The ball flew from his hands, bounced off the backboard, and fell into the net.

  “Oh! Look at that! White suit’s got skills!” Jay laughed as he reached out and clasped his hand. “You get rid of those fancy shoes and come play with us sometime.”

  “I’m flattered by your invitation,” Jack mused as he shook his head.

  “Don’t let it go to your head, suit. We want our fridge fixed, and you got money!”

  “Jay,” I warned him. “Make sure you guys take a break and get your sandwiches. Sandra should be here soon, but if some of the kids get here before that—”

  “Don’t worry, Miss B,” one of the other kids called out. “We’ll make sure the kids get fed.”

  Smiling my thanks, I watched as Rachel held out the jacket for Jack. He slung it over his shoulder. “They look out after each other.” He seemed impressed. And surprised.

  “That’s the idea of a community, Congressman Drayson.”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack,” I amended. “The idea of centers like this is that we build a safer foundation for that community. Most of the older kids here think it’s already too late for them. They’ve already taken the first steps to join the gangs, and they’re too scared to break that loyalty. I’m still hoping to change that, but they’re eager to see something better for the younger generation. So they help.”

  “I had no idea,” he murmured.

  We continued the tour and ended up in the small office. Jack stopped and stared at a large picture on the wall. It depicted Mayor Harrelson and me on the day of the opening, surrounded by children and their parents.

  “That must have been quite a day.” His gaze shifted back down to me. “You all look radiant.”

  “Yes, it was.” I smiled at the memory. “People had been calling for a youth center for years. There’d been a small one that burned down about a decade ago. There was never any money to rebuild it.”

  “Burned down? Arson?”

  I shrugged. “I spoke to the arson investigator when I was researching the area. They concluded that it was faulty wiring.”

  Those eyes pierced me as he studied me closely. “You’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not,” I snapped in annoyance. When he didn’t look away, I sighed. “Look, there were rumors, but it’s not what you think. The original owner of the youth center worked as an electrician. He was badly beaten a couple of weeks before the fire. A lot of people think that he wanted revenge. He burned down his own building, took the money from the insurance, and refused to rebuild.”

  “What do you mean he was badly beaten?” Jack demanded, his tone more worried than angry. “I asked you if you were safe here.”

  Gritting my teeth, I whirled around on him. He was acting a little too possessive, and I wasn’t about the stand for that. I wanted his money but not his control. “There is no evidence that his mugging had anything to do with his youth activity. From what I can tell, his youth center had nothing to do with him wanting to help people. There was rampant criminal activity on the grounds. I don’t think he protected the kids. He exploited them. Whether his beating had anything to do with that or not, I don’t know, but that’s not what we do here, so I’m in no danger.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Opening the filing cabinet, I took out a packet of information. “These are all the letters that we’ve received from teachers. They’re reporting personality changes in some of the students. For some, the changes are physical. Because we see that the kids here are able to eat, they’re more alert in school. The exercise helps as well and gives them an outlet for their frustrations, so they’re not taking it out on each other. Some of the changes are mental as well. Grades are improving because we bring in tutors. They’re looking forward to their futures because they’re able to interact with positive members of the community. We’re opening doors for them.”

  “That’s…” he breathed, his hazel eyes moving back up to meet mine, “is simply amazing.”

  I faced him more fully and softened at the expression on his face. He truly did seem impressed with the work we were doing.

  “That’s what the art center is for as well. Not everyone is into sports. More creative types need an outlet as well and a safe place to showcase their work. This is another opportunity for them to work toward scholarships, talk to successful creatives, hone their talents, and give them a safe place to thrive.”

  My little speech was coming out in a rush, and Jack smiled at me. “You and your associates did a wonderful job here, Blythe. I’m looking forward to building something even better with you.” He offered me his hand.

  “Thank you.” When I pressed my palm against his, shivers shot through my body as my fingers were trapped in his strong grip. His touch, even professional, shook me to the core.

  “Thank you for the tour. I’ll be in touch.”

  As he strolled out, I couldn’t help but watch from the window. Rachel practically had her nose pressed to the glass. “He really is like a knight in shining armor, isn’t he?”

  He’s a politician.

  My internal warning system was whispering an urgent plea. I needed to listen. Jack Drayson might have said the right words and given me hope for the future, but a part of me still wasn’t convinced.

  He hadn’t committed to anything. In fact, he seemed to be dancing around giving me any sort of details of what kind of help he could give. And until I saw it in writing, I wasn’t going to relax.

  Six

  Jack

  After the tour, I relaxed in my office and looked through the emails that David had sent me while I was away. Most of them were things that he could have signed off on himself, but I had a feeling he was concerned after I made such a big deal about Blythe’s messages.

  One notice caught my attention, and I sent him off a quick text. When he arrived, he already knew what I was going to say. “I didn’t answer him,” he said immediately.

  “How exactly does Hirsh know that I had a meeting with Blythe a couple of days ago?” I demanded. “I haven’t advertised that I’m considering giving her my support.”

  “Considering?” David snorted as he sat down in the chair. “You’ve spent all of your spare time trying to find money for her, and we both know that you don’t have a lot of spare time. It’s cutting into your sleep, and you can be a dick when you’re tired.”

  “Your opinion is noted,” I muttered dryly. Hirsh had apparently fired off two emails and three different phone calls enquiring about my support for Humane Miami. There was a personal connection there. “What’s your opinion on Hirsh?”

  “She probably slept with him, and it didn’t end well.”

  Jealousy surged inside of me. It was true that I didn’t know much about Blythe, but I certainly didn’t think she’d get in bed with someone old enough to be her father. From the gleam in David’s eye, I knew he’d assumed she slept with him for money, and that didn’t sound like the woman who’d gone toe-to-toe with me.

  Of course, there was a note of passion and excitement in her voice when she’d spoken during her tour. The sports complex was her baby. This art center was her second baby. What would she do to make sure they both were successful?

  “I’m not asking about the relationship between them. I’m asking about the man himself. I don’t know much about him except that he certainly didn’t support either of my campaigns. Staunch Republican,” I said with a little disgust. I’d learned a long time ago not to take rejection personally.

  “On paper, Hirsh is a smart businessman, an excellent boss, and a philanthropist. There are rumors that his eyes linger a little too long on pretty f
aces and curvy bodies, but no one has come forward to accuse him of anything. He’s got a close relationship with Kadir Al-Latif, which explains his rapid rise to success outside his family circle. They’re both from money, and I don’t mean your kind of money. Al-Latif is the sole heir to a billion-dollar inheritance, and he’s like a frat brother to Hirsh. Considering Al-Latif’s reputation for throwing money to cover up his many scandals, it’s hard to believe that Hirsh is so clean.”

  I didn’t care about the Arab billionaire or his friendship with Miami’s most successful businessman. “Hirsh funded the fundraisers for Blythe’s sports complex and then matched whatever she made. He apparently agreed to support her art center as well but pulled out at the last minute. Now, he’s curious about my relationship with her.”

  “Sounds like a jealous jilted lover who wants to see her fail.” David shrugged. “In any case, since Hirsh didn’t support you, you’re in no danger of giving her your support, although you can’t even begin to give her the financial support that he did.”

  “Do you think any of the local state agencies can help?”

  “I’m not sure.” David shrugged. “With the right amount of pressure, some of them might, but I can’t make any promises. It’s a long shot. You know that. Despite her success, she’s still a fledgling. Housing helpers, PTSD Vets, and medical charities are raking in most of the money.”

  And most of the money was lining the pockets of the top administrators. I hated that. “If they can’t, I’d like to tap into the office’s discretionary budget.” I pulled those mental numbers into my head and nodded. “I think it’s time I used it.”

  “Hmmm…” A wicked smile formed on his face. “Why do I get a feeling it’s not the only thing you intend to tap?”

  “Say anything like that again, and you will regret it,” I growled with heat. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone implying that someone could manipulate Blythe like that, even me. I might not know much about the woman, but I knew she wasn’t one to sleep with a man for money.

  And I certainly didn’t intend to use her like that.

  “My bad,” David said with a small smile. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you act like that. In any case, you can’t possibly offer her what Hirsh did. You can lend your face and your support to the program, and we can offer her grants to help pay for fundraiser events.”

  Would it be enough? Blythe was a driven woman. I had a feeling that she could turn a thousand dollars into ten thousand dollars in no time, but six weeks wasn’t much time for the money she needed to secure that building.

  David leaned forward. “You know who you could ask, right?”

  I stared at him, knowing immediately what he was thinking. I held up a hand like a shield. “No.” When he just raised an eyebrow, I repeated it louder. “No!”

  “But—”

  I pointed at him. “I don’t want to ask my father for anything, you know that.” My father and I were never on solid footing. We weren’t close. After my mother pulled her disappearing act, he did his best to try and raise me, but he wasn’t the hands-on type. He saw me as his heir, and he groomed me to take over the business. When I decided to go into politics instead, he supported me. I thought it was because he was proud.

  But over the last few years, he’d slowly been getting more and more involved with my work. Every now and then, he’d quietly ask me about certain bills and where my support lay. He’s never pressured me into anything, but since he funded a lot of money into my reelection campaign, I’d been avoiding him.

  Maybe I was a cynical man, but I kept waiting for the call to tell me what he wanted in return for his support.

  “If you want to give her the kind of help that Hirsh gave her, that’s what you have to do,” David said with yet another shrug. “He hasn’t tried to manipulate you into anything, Jack.”

  “Yet.”

  “Damn, you are a cold man.” Shaking his head, he stood. “I can instruct the staff to keep ducking Hirsh, but if you do give her your support, you’ll probably need to have a conversation with him. You may not like what you hear.”

  As he left, I realized that there was quite a bit that I didn’t like. I didn’t like that the owner of the charitable foundation was a hot head. I didn’t like that her history with other donors was murky. And I didn’t like the way I felt about her whenever she was near.

  Like I wanted to bend her over a desk.

  Just the thought of her stirred my cock, and her touch heated my blood. The damn woman haunted me. If I were smart, I’d throw my support her way and do the rest of the work from behind a desk where I couldn’t get into trouble. The PR alone would be worth it.

  But she tempted my control, and that was something that I couldn’t abide. If I wanted to be free from her, I needed to prove to myself that she was nothing more than just a passing fancy.

  Seven

  Blythe

  My phone rang just as I was hustling into the office the next afternoon. I’d already been up for way too long, and I was due at the sports complex just before noon for an open-house lunch I was preparing for the parents and kids. Normally, I didn’t even come into the office on the weekend, but I wanted to get a little more information together for Jack to help push him over the fence that he was straddling.

  And I was running late.

  Rachel was already there with coffee waiting for me. She was about the best assistant that a woman could ask for. “Is that what you’re wearing today?” she asked as she stared at my skirt and blouse.

  “No. No.” I hefted my bag on the desk. “I brought jeans and a t-shirt, but I had to meet with the warehouse owner this morning, and I wanted to look competent as I assured him that I was doing everything that I can to get the money together for him. He’s getting nervous.”

  “Okay, well you know how the kids reacted last time they saw you all gussied up,” she reminded me as she handed me my coffee.

  I knew it all too well. I’d lost some of the street cred I’d apparently accrued. They’d forgiven me for it, but I knew why they were concerned. Social workers appeared in nice suits. They didn’t want to see me as someone who might want to take them away from their parents.

  Of course, some of them would be much better off if they were far, far, far away from their toxic families.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m changing now.” I took my first sip of coffee for the day and closed my eyes to enjoy it warm my belly. Caffeine. I couldn’t live without it.

  Quickly unbuttoning my shirt, I listened to Rachel as she pulled out the packets of information I’d asked her to organize. Somewhere in there was going to be the evidence that I needed to get Jack on my side.

  “You’ve got circles under your eyes. Are you forgetting to sleep again?”

  “You can’t forget to sleep,” I muttered resentfully. Her questions meant I looked just as tired as I felt. There were more important things to do than get eight hours of sleep anyway. Seriously, what adult had that kind of time?

  Besides, when I did sleep, it wasn’t exactly restful.

  “You forget to eat.” She studied me intently before her eyes suddenly lit up. “You’re losing sleep because you’re having yummy dreams about the congressman.”

  “That sounds dirty, and I don’t mean in a good way.” I would have had a hard time putting yummy dreams and congressmen in the same sentence except that it matched Jack Drayson to a T, and she wasn’t wrong. Every time that I closed my eyes, I thought about his fingers stroking over my knuckles and wondered how it would feel if his body was pressed up against mine.

  Damn, damn, damn. I could not afford to let my questionably placed desire for the control freak get in the way of the art center. The kids were counting on me.

  My cell phone rang just as I reached into my bag for my t-shirt. “Can you grab that?” I asked breathlessly as I pulled out the clothes.

  Rachel pulled it out, smiled wickedly, and answered the phone. To my surprise, instead of answering it as my assistant, she put i
t on speaker and held it up to me. “Hello?” I asked with a frown as I unfolded the shirt. What was she up to?

  “Blythe. It’s Jack.”

  His sensual voice hit me right in the gut, and I inhaled sharply as I glared at Rachel. “Jack. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you on a weekend.”

  “I apologize. Am I interrupting something?” he asked smoothly.

  Damn it, my nipples were reacting to that voice. It felt even more wrong that I was standing here half-naked while I spoke to him. Quickly, I jerked the shirt over my head. “I’m actually at the office. I’m getting some information together for you, and then I need to head to the sports complex.”

  “I won’t take much of your time then. We’d talked about meeting for dinner to discuss things further. Are you available tonight? You can bring that packet of information you told me about.”

  A dinner on a Saturday night sounded more like a date than a meeting. Plus, didn’t he say that his assistant would arrange this? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him to reschedule, but Rachel shook her head violently. “Tonight should be fine,” I said finally. It was best to get the ball rolling, right?

  “Alessandro’s, eight o’clock tonight. Do you know where it is?”

  Rachel’s eyes widened at the mention of the swanky restaurant. Mine did as well, but I tried to act like I held business dinners at expensive restaurants all the time. “Yes, I’m familiar. It’s on Miracle Mile.”

  “Exactly. Shall I pick you up?”

  Oh, no. That was a terrible idea. That would put him squarely at my apartment, plus I’d be alone with him in his car. Not professional. Needed to keep things professional. I was starting to sound like a broken record.

  “No but thank you. I think it would be best if I met you there.”

  “Why?”

  His question threw me for a moment, and I frowned. “Why what?”

  “Why do you think that it would be best if you met me? We could speak more if we traveled in the same car, and it would save you some time. You seem to be a busy woman.”