THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER BY SARAH ZOLTON ARTHUR
☆ Seton ☆
Jealousy drove me to it.
The petty feelings of loss for a woman that I didn’t love but couldn’t let one-up me.
My father is Johnston Rockwood a senator from the great state of Virginia. He was also the front runner in the most important election of his life—the man who would be president.
He’d been grooming us our whole lives–preparing for the day he would take over as commander and chief of the United States of America. We, my siblings and I, spent our childhoods at the best schools, majored in only approved courses at Harvard, my father’s alma mater, and took spouses approved by my father and his people.
My older brother married the woman he’d been directed to marry. Their partnership had produced those 2.5 kids. They were paraded around at every campaign stop to wave and give the country an example of strong family values.
Now it was my turn. I’d been seeing Lisa since sophomore year at Harvard. We graduated last spring. Our fathers golfed together. But while I was away on the campaign trail with my family, she found herself pregnant with another man’s child–the campaign chair for the incumbent, the man my father was running against.
This brought a whole level of shame and scandal to our family. Scandal we couldn’t afford. Fuming, I found myself in D.C. to confront Lisa, which didn’t exactly go as planned.
As I waited at a local tavern for Lisa to show, what I found instead was the headstrong daughter of President Anderson–my father’s rival. Jordyn Anderson. She was smart as a whip, sexy as hell, and currently fighting with the campaign chair for her father, the man running against my father.
How convenient.
I held back and listen intently as they hashed out their issues where she found herself in a scandal that would make my situation look like it had been blessed by angels. One that had been going on for quite some time. One that brought the three of them, she, Lisa, and this loser, together on several steamy nights. One where he had video that he was happy to leak to the press if she didn’t pay him a million dollars to set him and his new family up with if her father lost the election.
I came from one of the wealthiest families in America. My trust fund opened up to me when I’d turned 21. Since then, I’d amassed a fortune in my own right. It took money to make money and I’d done precisely that, taking my trust fund to buy a struggling communication network and turning it into the largest network in the world.
An idea formed. This one had the potential to solve all my father’s problems and allow me to one-up Lisa. Once the man left Jordyn to take a phone call outside, I struck.
Jordyn Anderson would be mine.
☆ Jordyn ☆
It was never love. It was fun, excitement, and stress relief. Period. I was stupid to think that John wouldn’t end up screwing me over. I didn’t know he’d videoed us. I never would have consented to that. And now he wanted a million dollars in exchange for that tape. But how did I know that he’d live up to his end of the deal? How could I expect that his extortion wouldn’t last the rest of my life?
I could go to my father’s lawyers and ask them for help, but those men were cutthroat. They’d hold this over me just as easily as John. I had no one to turn to for help. And I didn’t have access to a million dollars. My trust fund didn’t open to me until I hit 25. That was two years away.
When he got up to take a call, someone glided onto the stool next to me. The tavern was practically empty. When I turned to tell the person not now, I realized my worst nightmare had just come to pass.
Seton Rockwood sat next to me, smiling. Nothing good could come from that smile.
He’d heard. Everything. And the woman John and I had both been with on several nights was supposed to be his fiance.
To take care of my problem, Seton was prepared to pony up the one million dollars and provide an iron-clad contract for John to sign that if he ever thought to expose me with a copy of that video to the press or come at me for more money, he would live to regret it for the rest of his days.
What did he want in return?
I had to pretend to be madly in love with the man, fake an engagement, and help his father beat mine in the election. As much as I hated Seton for even suggesting this ruse, John’s extortion had the potential to haunt me–ruin me–for the rest of my life.
What choice did I have?
