No Rules, Ridge King [the snowy day read aloud TXT] 📗

in from Tokyo. Bedelia and Sam had both sworn themselves to secrecy so they wouldn’t break Toth’s heart. He was such a proud man. And they swore it would never happen again, but it did happen, again and again and again—whenever they could find the time, they slept with each other. They were both guilty, yes, but their guilt didn’t stop them from conducting what could have been a ruinous affair for both of them.

It went on for years, up until the time Sam met Sofia, and Sam put an end to it. He knew Bedelia was furious, but Sam had decided it was time to get on with his life. He’d had one son, Jack, with his first wife, the elusively cool cucumber from Boston, but Sam wanted more kids.

Bedelia was not pleased when Sam married Sofia. Sam knew it, especially as Sam naturally asked Toth to be his best man.

Bedelia seemed all right to Sam at the wedding in Washington’s National Cathedral, even whispering to him as they danced at the reception in Horizon’s ballroom later that day how happy she was for him. But Sam didn’t believe her, not deep down. The thought flitted through his mind that Bedelia might rise in a rage—“hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”—but he knew she was much too level-headed for those kind of histrionics. Toth and Sam were very close both personally and in business. She’d just be making more trouble for herself if she blew the whistle and revealed the truth to her husband.

Her manner changed three months later when Toth died suddenly in a boating accident trying to reel in a marlin off Bimini. He’d been pulled overboard by the strong fish and got caught up in the line, which strangled him.

Sam had been on the boat. Bedelia was back at Flagler Hall with Sofia. Sam was the one to break the news to her. He remembered the look in her eyes that moment—he’d always remember it. Her eyes said, We could've been together. But it was too late. He was already taken. Sam always thought Sofia suspected something was up between them, or had been, or something, but he was sure she didn’t know quite simply because she’d never asked Sam anything about Bedelia.

Bedelia went back to Washington. Their son Jonathan inherited a vast fortune, but so had Bedelia. She moved out of Horizon into another equally lavish mansion, not wanting to be in the house she shared for so many happy years with Toth, leaving it to Jonathan to live in and maintain.

“We’re on approach, Governor,” came Gargrave’s voice through Sam’s headset.

“Thanks, Gargrave.”

Sam looked out and saw several attendants come out to greet them at the helipad next to Flagler Hall.

Sam found it odd that on the whole trip down from Washington, first on the plane and then here in the chopper, he hadn’t once thought about his fight to win the vote in the House that would determine if he’d be the next President. Not once. Just now as they were landing he thought about it. It was almost as if he was such a long shot to win that he might just as well not think about it at all. But of course they were winning over one state at a time and now stood within striking distance of getting a winning majority of 26 states.

What am I going do if I win? he thought. More precisely, he mused, for this was what really consumed him: Who’s going to be my First Lady?

* * *

“So what’s the story with our nasty little Derek?” Ramona asked, drawing Jack quickly out of his reverie.

“Yes, there’s been some activity,” he said.

It seemed almost impossible that Ramona’s almost casual request a few weeks ago for Jack and his agency to look into Derek’s activities with Howard Rothberg and Dade International Bank had led him to a sunken narco-sub in shallow waters an hour out of Key West where he’d recovered over $60 million in cold hard cash, but it was true.

“What are you smirking at?” she asked as the waiter came up.

“I was just thinking of your bill with my agency,” he laughed.

“I know it’s been expensive following him around and all that, but I don’t want to expose the law firm any more than I have to.” She turned to the waiter without picking up the menu. “I’ll have the chicken salad. It’s so good here.”

Jack thought under the circumstances it would be comedic to send Ramona a bill for the $30,000 or so it’d cost his agency so far to follow all the characters involved in this little heist story, but he’d have to bill her something just for the sake of appearances.

“The pulled pork sliders and another Stella,” said Jack, draining his first bottle.

The waiter poured another glass of Chardonnay for Ramona and left.

“Have you gotten everything you need from Lucy?”

When Gargrave, tailing Lucy Azzinaro around town on a hunch, discovered her meeting with Derek in a fleabag hotel where they had sex, Jack decided not to include their surveillance of Lucy in his report to Ramona.

All Ramona had asked Jack to do was find out what Derek was up to with some suspicious wire transfers running through her law firm to Howard Rothberg at DIB. Since Ramona’s husband Héctor had died suddenly and mentioned something about Derek on his deathbed, Ramona had had to resign her Federal judgeship and return to manage their prestigious law firm. And because she wasn’t sure what to do about Derek, she’d called Jack in to investigate. She’d given him full access to one of the paralegals in her finance department, Lucy Azzinaro, who had been briefing Jack on the wire transfer activity.

“Yes, Lucy’s been very informative, given us lots of helpful information,” Jack said. He’d already decided not to tell