A Political Affair (28 page)

“No! Of course not. I can’t believe you’d even ask me. I’d never do that to Anne, nor do I have any desire to.”

“Cut to the chase, then. Besides having to stare at her boobs, what happened?”

He relayed the entire tawdry tale, focusing on the fact Helen was determined to discover Anne.
 

As soon as he finished, Patty announced, “I’m calling Phillip. I want a private investigator put on her tomorrow.”

“You want a P.I.? What? No. There’s no reason for anything like that.”
 

“Like hell I’m not. We can’t be caught unprepared. Somehow, someway, she’s going to put two and two together about you and Anne, and she’ll leak it. I want some ammunition to keep her quiet. She’s such a slut. I’m sure there’s some nice dirt we can use against her. Let’s keep up this game of—what do you two call it? Mutually assured destruction?”

“Well, I know one of the men she’s been with lately,” he said as he tugged at his tie in frustration. “It’s Senator Anderson. I don’t like him, but I’m not sure if even he deserves to be caught up in a mess with her.”
 

“Anderson? Whatever. I couldn’t care less about him. This is great because two Republican seats could be in trouble if this got out.”

“Wait. This isn’t the way
we
treat innocent people. I can’t believe you. We’re not like that. Dad would never have approved of this.”

“Are you nuts?” Patty exclaimed. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Dad would have stopped at nothing to protect us. Helen is out to get you. Do you think that for one second Helen would do anything differently if she was in your situation? Do you think the Republican Party would act any differently? Don’t be naïve.”

A few moments passed before Stephen responded, his voice full of regret. “Talk to Grayson. He probably knows something.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice filled with self-satisfaction. She waited a moment and ventured, “So, are you going to tell Anne?”

“Of course,” he grumbled as dread overcame him.

Chapter 20

The following night, Stephen was so grumpy Anne could tell something was wrong. His cranky behavior was like none she’d seen, and when he brought her into the library to be alone, she was worried.
 

   
“Anne, I have to tell you about a predicament we’re in,” he said as he reached for her hand.
 

“What’s that?”

“I just want you to know it’s entirely my fault due to my past mistakes.”

“Okay . . .”

Stephen’s expression was full of regret. “They’re mistakes that are now haunting me. I’m sorry, but someone is suspicious about me—and about whom I’m seeing. This someone is very tenacious. We could be exposed.”

Terrified of what might come next, she swallowed hard.
 

When she gave him an anxious glance, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hair in reassurance. “But I need you to know it doesn’t matter. I don’t want anything to change between us. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s all that matters.”

Nestling into her favorite crook between his arm and chest, she was still despondent. “I don’t want to change anything either, but what’s going on? Who is this ‘someone?’ What’s happened?”

“It’s Senator Sanders. Before you came along, Helen and I were together for a while and . . .”

She stared off as she listened to Stephen recount his history with Helen. Of course she knew Stephen had been with many women before her, and she hated it when the subject came up. Having to hear in depth about his time with Helen was particularly difficult. She listened, though, resigned to the facts as he laid them out.
 

It was only when Stephen told her about the prior evening that she ripped herself away and exclaimed, “She did what? And in your office? Who would do that?”

“She would.” He winced. “It wasn’t uncommon for us to . . . uh . . . meet in my office.”

“Oh.” The thought made her stomach turn. Anxious about what was coming next, she pursed her lips. “Okay. Move on. She’s standing half-naked in front of you. And . . .” Before she finished sentence, her heart started beating double time; her speech became wobbly. “And what did you do? Did you . . . touch her?”

“No.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I realize that I deserve to be asked that, but the answer is no. I mean it every time I say I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

“That’s good to hear.” It was an understatement. She was ecstatic to hear him say it again, and she gave him a kiss which reassured them both.
 

He smiled afterward and shrugged. “Let me tell you the rest.”

As he gave her a blow-by-blow account of the remainder of his encounter with Helen, Anne cringed. She was angry and sad and without any means to respond. She wanted to claw Helen’s eyes out and expose her to the world for what she truly was, yet even the simplest rebuke like a slap or a snide remark was out of the question. Anne was powerless as a senator pursued her boyfriend. It was a crushing feeling. And after hearing the whole story, she came to the same conclusion as Patty—they needed to protect themselves from Helen.
 

At the end of their discussion, he faced her and said emphatically, “I have to say it again—I’m sorry. I love you. I want you to be happy.”

More than anything, Anne wanted Stephen to be happy as well. After such a difficult conversation, she needed to comfort him. “I’m okay,” she said, even though she really wasn’t. She wrinkled her nose with a grimace. “Though, I don’t like that she stripped in front of you.”

“Don’t worry.” He kissed her forehead. “I didn’t like it either.”

“Good.”

He winked. “On the other hand, if you want to show up in my office one day and strip for me, that would be a total turn-on.”

“Humph.” She smirked and reached up for a kiss. “We’ll see.”

Later, in the middle of the night, Anne woke in a panic. She sat up and looked around Stephen’s dark room, trying to get her bearings.
 

Because he was a light sleeper, her stirring woke him. “What? What is it?”

Emotions she’d stuffed away earlier in the evening came bubbling through. She blurted out, “I’m ending my internship. Right now.”

Stephen groaned into his pillow. “We’ve been through this. It doesn’t help. We got together while you worked in my office. Who cares if it was one week or three months?”

She shook her head. “I don’t care. And we should stop seeing each other
 . . .
until the election is over.”

Not speaking, he sat up and pulled her tightly to his chest. “That I will not let happen.”

Adrenaline coursed through her. Anne wasn’t ready for the conversation, but she knew they had to have it. She leaned into the warmth of his arms. “No, I think it’s the only way. So far, we’ve managed to keep everything quiet. No one knows, and if anyone suspects, we have a good alibi. Let’s quit while we’re ahead.”

He squinted, appearing confused and half-asleep. Despite her confidence in her proposal’s logic, her voice became quieter and more hesitant as she continued. “We could just take a break. The election is only nine months away. That’s not so long. We could still talk.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, the same panic hit her, as it had for some time. She worried that, though they loved each other, if he lost the election, things might change between them.
 

“And in November, maybe we could pick up where we left off.” The fear bubbling inside her chest made it sound more like a hopeful question.

Stephen’s expression slowly changed to one of full comprehension. He was incredulous. “What do you mean by ‘maybe we could pick up where we left off?’ I hate your idea about not seeing one another, but I’m more concerned by what you just said.” He blinked rapidly. “Are you having doubts . . . about us? Is that why you’re proposing this?”

“No. No. Not at all. I don’t have any doubts.” She was relieved he’d picked up on what she said, and it opened the floodgates of her pent-up emotions. She wrapped her arms around him. “It’s just overwhelming. I feel guilty. And I worry what’s going to happen between us if you lose.”

He shook his head. “Anne, I love you. I want to marry you. I’d ask you at this very moment if I thought you’d say yes. What happens with this election has nothing to do with how I feel about you. I’ll love you the same regardless of whether I win or lose.”

“But if—”

“No. No buts. And please don’t feel guilty. Listen to me. Say that we are exposed, and it’s ugly, and I do lose the election. The truth is I’ll be a happier man if I lose and we’re together than if I win and we’re apart.”

His words soothed her, and she gave him a tender kiss. “I love you.”
 

“And I love you.” He responded with a more intense kiss, followed by a quiet embrace. “I can see why you feel the pressure. It’s not just me; everyone in my family is obsessed with the election.”
 

“Just a little.” She smirked.

“Don’t feel bad. It gets to me, too.” He smiled and pressed his lips to her forehead. “But my family supports us—even Patty. Believe me, if she didn’t, she’d let me know. And they all would much rather I be happy and with you than be the miserable, single bastard I was before we met.”

For a brief moment, she thought of the photos in the gossip rags of him smiling with Jennifer Hamilton. “You weren’t miserable.” Her mouth twisted with sourness.

“Compared to how happy I am now, yes, I was miserable,” he said with a sheepish smile.
 

She sighed and stared at him squarely. “But what if you lose?”
 

“I don’t know . . . the White House would probably offer me an appointment of some kind.” He played with her hair. “Or maybe I’d be like all the other defeated senators and get an ambassadorship somewhere good—like Australia. That would be fun for both of us, right?”

“Right. As an ambassador, you’re going to take your girlfriend along with you—like the State Department would let you do that.” She rolled her eyes.

“Maybe you wouldn’t be my girlfriend.” He squeezed her hand and grinned.

“Whatever.” She chuckled, but her face soon became serious again. “Really, Stephen, how will you feel if you lose and it’s because of me?”
 

He shook his head and smiled. “Do you remember the night in the car when we talked about
Master of the Senate
?”

“Yeah.” Her brow furrowed because she wasn’t following him.
 

“What did I say about it?”

She was silent for a moment as she recalled the conversation in the backseat of his car. She remembered what he said, and things fell into place. “You said . . . something like you didn’t aspire to be master of the Senate.”

“Exactly. I’ll be okay. Life will be different than I envisioned it at one time, but it will be better because of you.”

“But what would you do?”

“I don’t know. For a while I’d probably spend time on the ranch . . . doing things up there. Then I’d live wherever you were—either here or in Colorado. I’d go into private practice or go back to being a prosecutor. Hell, if I wanted, I could be the U.S. Attorney for the state if the job opened up.”

“You’d be easily confirmed by the Senate.” She chuckled.

“Exactly.” The hope was evident as he stared into her eyes. “And we could get a house together. It would be a nice life.”

Holding his gaze, she saw his sincerity. As much as he enjoyed all the power and trappings of being a senator, he’d be equally happy with a quieter life. It was one of the reasons she loved him. She leaned in for a kiss. “I’d like that life.” After a long kiss, she sighed. “Of course, I still have to get a job for the next year.”

“Why don’t you work on Grayson’s committee staff? He’ll hire you.”

“The Senate? No friggin’ way.” She giggled. “I’m getting outta there. I want a lowly administrative job in a giant law firm where I can get lost in the mix.”

He chuckled and tousled her hair. “Well, Grayson could get you one of those, too.”

Chapter 21

One night in March, Stephen looked up from his laptop as Anne appeared at his office door. He rose immediately. “Is something wrong?”

   
“No,” she said, locking the door behind her.

“Well, it’s nice to see you, sweetheart, but what are you doing here so late?” He walked toward her. “And why are you locking my door? You know I don’t do that.”

“I’m in the office because I had to cover the front desk while that big meeting was going on. And as for the door, I’m taking extra precautions,” she said as she met him halfway. “I asked Greg if he could do me a favor and stick around for another hour. I told him we needed to talk—in person.”

“About what?” Her naughty smile told him it couldn’t be bad.

“Well, Greg probably thinks we’re having a fight, but that’s the last thing I want to do.”

“But you still want to talk?”
 

“Actually, I don’t want to talk,” she said as she wrapped her arms around him.

“What do you want to do?”
 

“Well, I’ve been thinking. My internship is going to end soon, and there’s something that’s been bothering me.”