Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set Read Online Free Page B

the first ring. “Hello?”
    “Rebecca, it’s Jasmine. I was just calling to let
you know I won’t be back in the office today.”
    “What? Why?” Rebecca sounded alarmed.
    “I just finished meeting with Rodney Doyle, and he
wants to have dinner with me tonight to discuss the—ahhh, Senator
Grayle situation. I need to spend the rest of the afternoon getting
ready.”
    “No!” Rebecca cried. “You can’t do that! All hell
has broken loose over here since you left!”
    I stopped short, nearly breaking the heel off my
shoe. “What do you mean?”
    “There’s a media circus camped outside the office. I
can’t even go outside the front door without getting attacked. And
Senator Grayle needs me to go over to the jail to bail him
out!”
    “Can’t you send one of the interns over to do that?
That’s what the interns are for, after all.”
    “Jasmine, that’s not going to work—“
    I started over. “I mean, the interns are there to do
all the crummy errands we don’t want to do, not necessarily bail
the senator out of jail, per se—“
    “Jasmine, all the interns quit right after
you left the office. They didn’t want to risk putting Senator
Grayle’s name on their resumes after what’s happened.”
    “Oh dear,” I said, feeling my crotch suddenly go
cold. That was going to put a damper on my plans in a hurry.
    “Jasmine, what should I do?”
    I stopped to think. “Just sit tight for now. Don’t
worry about bailing Senator Grayle out just yet. I might be able to
pull some strings to get him out of there incognito . And
I’ll see what I can do to get the media circus out of the way,
too.”
    “How long will that take?” Rebecca sounded
desperate. In fact, she was hyperventilating into the phone, making
static. “I can’t spend the night here, you know.”
    “You won’t, don’t worry,” I said, trying my best to
sound soothing. “I’ll do everything within my power to take the
media heat off of this, believe me. My meeting with Rodney Doyle
went very well, by the way.” Not exactly the truth, but not exactly
a lie, either. “We have a dinner date set up tonight
to—ahem—discuss things.”
    This seemed to calm Rebecca down a bit; the
hyperventilating moderated to a low hum. “Really? Is he going to
help us?”
    “He might. But only if I go to dinner with him
tonight dressed to kill.”
    Rebecca laughed at this. “Dressed to kill, huh? How
are you going to pull that off when all you own are a bunch of drab
gray power suits?”
    “I have to go shopping. That’s why I can’t get back
to the office just now.” By then I had just passed the Capitol
Green and was heading for the Metro Center Mall. “Say Rebecca,
you’re a snappy dresser. Where can I go to find a drop-dead-red,
sexy cocktail dress, preferably strapless? In my size?”
    A pause. “Well, Jasmine, I know where you can get
red cocktail dresses in my size, but—hmm. Let me think.
Normally I’d suggest Frederick’s of Hollywood for something like
that, but they only go up to size 12. So that isn’t going to work
for you.”
    “I can squeeze into a 12 if I suck in my stomach and
wear a girdle,” I pleaded.
    “I wouldn’t try it,” Rebecca said. “If I were you
I’d try Nordstrom’s. Get something revealing, but classy. Go to the
eveningwear department, ask for Rhonda, and tell her I sent you.
She does—or did , rather—all of Mrs. Grayle’s fittings for
social occasion dresses. Mrs. Grayle’s a size sixteen, but you’d
never know it to look at her because Rhonda does such a good job
with custom fittings. She’ll get you looking great.”
    “All right, thanks.”
    “I gotta go, Jasmine. The reporters are practically
breaking down the door.”
    “Give them my cell number and tell them they can
call me for an official statement,” I suggested. “That might get
them to leave you alone for a little while, at least.”
    “Are you sure you want me to do that? There’s an
awful lot of them.”
    “Don’t