Chapter 1

      “I want you to bring me a day in the life of Jacob Covington. He’s hot copy and I want your story to sizzle.” It was an order, and Allison Wakefield knew that Bill Jenkins, editor of The Journal and her boss, meant what he said. The Journal was known for its titillating accounts of the lives of celebrities.

      “You said you wanted a story on a typical day in his life. Are you telling me to dig into the man’s privacy, to snoop? I’m a reporter, Bill, not a private eye, and I’m not interested in digging up anybody’s skeletons.” She’d heard that careers were destroyed hourly in Washington, D.C., and after her own experience, she didn’t doubt it. She brushed her long brown fingers back and forth beneath her chin and straightened her shoulders.

      “I can’t stoop to that, Bill. I won’t.”

      He lifted his shoulders in what appeared to be a careless shrug. “You said you didn’t want any more assignments on the wives of visiting dignitaries; you wanted hard news. Well, this is your chance. You’re after a story, and whatever you find had better go in it.” He paused, allowing a grin to slide over his face. “But if you’re chicken...” He let the thought dangle, but she understood what he didn’t say.

      “Refusing to muckrake is not the same as being cowardly.” She knew she should hold her tongue, because she didn’t want to leave The Journal until she had another job.

      Oblivious to the implied insult, his gaze swept over her. “A reporter has to be tough, Allison. So get used to it. If you don’t, the job’s not for you. Bring me the story.”

      Allison turned away from her editor without thanking him for the chance of a lifetime. She collected her briefcase and pocketbook from her office several doors away and walked out of the building. Pausing in front of the eight-story structure at Fourteenth and H Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C., she breathed deeply of the warm, late June air. She hadn’t regained her status as a top reporter, but she still had her soul. Maybe she should have shown some gratitude, but why thank him for the double-edged gift when she knew it could be her undoing?

      Jacob Covington had an impeccable reputation, or at least that was the opinion of other reporters who had interviewed him since he’d become a bestselling author. Cut him to pieces? She knew her uneasiness was well founded; Bill Jenkins kept The Journal afloat with scandal, searing his subjects, and if she let him, he’d treat this story no differently; he wanted the dirt. Muckraking was what he expected, and she’d need all of her wits to circumvent him. Top-of-the-line editors didn’t hire reporters who built their reputations on sleazy copy, and she wanted another chance at working for one of the best newspapers. But she couldn’t do that until she erased that blot from her record. She meant to show her detractors that she could reestablish herself as a journalist, and she wouldn’t trash Jacob Covington’s reputation to do it.

      * * *

      Warren Jacob “Jake” Covington paused in front of his town house near the Ellington School of the Arts in Georgetown and took a deep breath of warm, dry, early morning air, appreciating the unusually low humidity for the nation’s capital. Returning from the steaming tropics, the type of climate he least liked, he walked into his house and dropped his luggage at the closet door in his bedroom. After hanging up his jacket and kicking off his shoes, he stretched out on his bed and gloried in the feel of his own hard mattress under his back.

      He had just completed his first trip for the department in four years, and the experience increased his appreciation for his current job as the department’s chief policy analyst. He wondered how he ever thought of his former job as an undercover agent as exciting and fascinating. He wanted no more of it.

      An hour later, at the beginning of the working day, he reached for the phone on his night table and dialed his chief. “I got home an hour ago,” he said. As a policy, he didn’t identify himself over the phone. “We can’t expect success with the present strategy. I’ll have to come up with a better plan. I’ve got some ideas.”

      “All right. Glad you’re back,” the chief said. “Get some rest and check in with me tomorrow morning.”

      Jake stretched out again and grasped at sleep, only to have it elude him. As