Rook (Political Royalty Book 2) (6 page)

It looked like Collins would take her home territory and claim the Northeast. Massachusetts and Vermont polls showed her with a commanding lead, but a decent second place finish would still net Walker some of the proportionally awarded delegates. The only real surprise was the general’s lead in Texas. It was the only fight shaping up to be a spanking. Despite the heavy military presence, Haven had still expected a closer race.

She was praying Virginia didn’t follow suit. In fact, she’d put the lion’s share of their ad budget into the Commonwealth, determined to secure a win for Walker and turn the purple state to red in the fall. Her previous campaign experience meant she knew the state and understood its makeup. It was as good a place to take a stand as any. With the strong naval presence around Norfolk and the Northern Virginia contingency, it was shaping up to be an uphill climb. It was the reason they’d spent the day there and the reason they were still there. The piedmont might love Walker but the more densely populated areas still seemed to be leaning toward Collins. It was the reason the state had gone to the Democrats for the last two elections. County by county, the Commonwealth was predominantly red, but add in the population centers and the picture changed. Haven wanted to make sure it changed in Walker’s favor.

“Less than an hour,” said Justin, coming to stand behind her.

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. It was the time until the first polls closed and the numbers started coming in.

“What are you hearing?”

She knew the answer before she asked the questions. She’d been staying on top of the numbers all day long but Justin had been keeping track of the caucus volunteers in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wyoming and giving her updates all day. She’d debated sending him to the Midwest, but in the end she decided to concentrate their efforts on the East Coast and in Virginia specifically. She said a silent prayer she wouldn’t regret the decision in the morning. He glanced at his phone but she doubted he needed to. One of the reasons she’d given him the caucus states was the ease with which he made friends. No doubt the captains had been texting him like mad throughout the day. They’d give it everything to convince the undecideds because they believed in Walker, but they’d go a little bit farther because they loved Justin.

“The same. Once things start to close in the Midwest, I’ll see if I can beat the bushes in Alaska.”

It would be an impossibly long night, but no one was about to go to sleep before the last polling place closed. And if they were very lucky, the field would be thinner by the end of the night. Unless they pulled out some kind of freakish upset, Estevan and Simpson were unlikely to have a path to continue come morning. Super Tuesday was when the donor gates opened or the money dried up. depending on where the candidates finished. Walker’s campaign didn’t, strictly speaking, need the money, but they did need the wins. He needed to start tomorrow morning with a more open playing field and enough delegates to look viable.

“Minnesota looks like it’s going to be close,” he said, rubbing a hand over his jaw and the five o’clock shadow she knew drove him nuts.

Sometime before they all found their beds, he’d sneak off to shave again. She’d tried to point out that she thought the extra stubble looked sexy but he’d given her a look and reminded her she wasn’t his target market.

“Close enough for an upset?”

“No,” he said, grinning. “I really don’t think so.”

“They’re coming in,” called Travis from the other side of the hotel suite, huddled around the television with the Walkers.

The senator’s wife left their girls with her parents and took the jet from South Carolina to Virginia to spend the night with her husband, the man who’d fucked Haven halfway across the country and back. Thinking the thought made her feel as if someone had filled her stomach with wet cement. Looking at Sandra Walker waiting to play the adoring wife made it a thousand times worse. She hated herself a little more every time she came face to face with the reality that Walker was married and had been for long enough to make a family. One she helped him jeopardize.

That on its own hadn’t been enough to make her deny him. It took her own sense of self-preservation to do that, and even then she was barely holding on by a thread. She couldn’t guarantee if he came to her she wouldn’t let him in. Open herself for him and lay everything she’d ever worked for out like an offering. She still wanted him every minute of every day and the desire showed no sign of abating. She could write a morality play on all the reasons she couldn’t let him in her bed, but she doubted when push came to shove if any of that would matter. In the meantime, she had a campaign to run, one she intended to win.

Walker was a good man who did one bad thing. He needed her. It was enough reason for her to lean into the self-flagellation, but it wasn’t enough of a reason to disqualify him from being president. Not when the picture he painted of the America he believed in was one she wanted to believe in too. One millions of Americans could believe in. It wasn’t his only platform point, but figuring out a way to feed a growing population so children didn’t starve to death was pretty damn noble. And when she listened to him explain his plans to groups of mesmerized voters, it also seemed pretty damn possible.

She’d throw herself into getting him elected and then try to figure out a way to make peace with the fact that she’d given her heart and soul to a married man and couldn’t seem to get either back.

“Come on. Let’s go see what they’re saying.” Justin took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

They hadn’t spoken about her feelings toward Walker since the conference room. She didn’t know if she’d convinced him she was okay or if they’d just adopted their own
don’t ask, don’t tell
policy. He couldn’t have known how far things had gone. He’d never have been able to let that slide.

The giant map of Virginia flashed on the screen behind the commentator and Haven sucked in her breath. The State Board of Elections had barely started reporting. The only way they’d have results this early would be if things had gone horribly wrong. Given the eggs and one basket thing, she prayed that wasn’t the case. When
Too Soon to Call
flashed under the map, she exhaled slowly. They were still in the fight. It wasn’t over.

As the county results filtered in, the screen matched the projections of Haven’s field staff. Walker was up by thirty thousand, but she’d expected that. It didn’t mean anything until the Collins strongholds reported and they had a real idea which way the Commonwealth would actually go. The next time they scrolled over to Virginia, the tag on the bottom of the map had changed from
Too Soon
to
Too Close to Call
. Cheers erupted around the room and Justin gave her shoulders a squeeze. She made the mistake of glancing across the room to Walker in time to see Sandra fling her arms around her husband. Walker’s wife pressed a triumphant kiss to his cheek. She might not care about the logistics of the campaign but she could tell when they were winning and what it could mean for her.

Or not. Maybe she was just happy for Walker, and Haven was the raging bitch who’d fucked another woman’s husband. The fact that she knew the second half of that statement was true made the first half not matter all that much.
God, how had she let any of this happen?

She looked away as fast as she could but it wasn’t before Walker met her gaze, his expression an incongruent mix of triumph and something else. The senator untangled himself from his wife and held up his hand for quiet.

“Regardless of how this works out, I want to thank all of you for the hard work you put in on my behalf, but I especially want to thank Haven. Even if we don’t win Virginia, it’s going to be close enough to change the narrative to one where we can take the nomination and the White House in the fall. None of that would have been possible without Haven’s brilliant strategy. Thank you.” He clasped his hands together and pointed them at her. The hands she’d felt pin her hips to the bed while he moved inside her. The hands she didn’t think she could deny.

Fuck.

Within rapid succession, they called Massachusetts and Vermont for Collins. Alabama took longer because of the time zone change, but it fell for Collins too. Not all that surprising, but it was still a bit demoralizing after the initial optimism. They went back and forth all night with Collins and Walker trading states, but the later it got, the higher Walker’s tally grew. Jenson pulled Arkansas and Simpson Oklahoma. Everything matched the projections Haven had been staring at for days. The only holdout was the Commonwealth.

It was after eleven by the time they finally called Virginia, even after Estevan trounced everyone in Texas. Haven kept refreshing the Board of Elections webpage as the numbers between Walker and Collins pulled closer and closer together. The news agencies waited for some of the population-dense counties to verify their results before they finally called it for Walker. It was close enough for a recall and she didn’t doubt for a minute that the Collins campaign would ask for one. She would in their place, but for the moment at least, it was Walker’s name plastered all over the news as having won the Commonwealth.

Haven wrapped her arms around Justin and pressed her cheek against his freshly shaved face, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne. She didn’t know when he’d found time to sneak off to shave, but the fact that he had made her smile. She was still smiling when she glanced across the room to the senator. His smile of gratitude twisted something inside her and she clung a little tighter to Justin.

“You okay?” He watched her as if he were trying to puzzle something out.

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“I’ll take them back down to the ballroom if you want.”

“I’ll do it,” she said, slapping on some bravado she didn’t actually feel.

Walker needed to make a victory speech with Sandra by his side and then he needed to go upstairs and get in bed with his wife while Haven tried to hold the hole in her chest closed.

“Come on, Senator,” she said, pulling away from the comfort of her friend’s arms. She plastered on a fake smile and turned to face the Walkers. “Let’s get you and Mrs. Walker in front of the cameras to claim your victory.”

Walker’s expression shifted from ready to celebrate to something more intense, but Haven didn’t stick around long enough to spin it into something more.

The crowd went crazy when the senator and his wife walked into the ballroom. The volunteers had been partying most of the night, but if the noise was any indication, they were nowhere near finished. The Walkers stepped out onto the makeshift stage looking poised, regal, and fit to rule. Sandra Walker’s icy-blonde beauty stood as a perfect counterpoint to her husband’s powerful dark good looks. Together they made the perfect couple and as Haven watched from the wings, something deep in her chest twisted.

There was no place for her in this picture. She didn’t belong on the arm of the man who would be king. Sandra Walker did. Right and wrong, love and hate: it was all irrelevant. Sandra had her place and she knew exactly how to play it, waving to the crowd before casting an adoring look at her husband. Helping Walker win the presidency was the closest Haven could hope to get to the story. The only role she had any right to play. Every victory he had upped the stakes, made the risk too high. The closer they got to the presidency, the higher the price became and they wouldn’t be the only ones paying it.

The senator thanked his supporters but she slipped out before he thanked his staff. She couldn’t be standing there when his gaze searched the shadows for her.

“D
ID HE JUST SAY WHAT I think he did?” Walker glanced up from the policy notes Abby gathered for him on health care to the Estevan press conference on the television.

Simpson never managed to get any real momentum with the Evangelicals, and after Super Tuesday there had been rumblings that the money dried up. He’d suspended a few days later. Estevan’s poll numbers since Super Tuesday had been abysmal. Walker had been half expecting the crazy fuck to throw in the towel as well, but unlike Simpson, Estevan could rely on his publishing fortune to keep his campaign afloat. He also had access to free press even if it was with the gossip rags he owned instead of trusted news outlets.

He’d been floating a new conspiracy theory almost every day, trying to make enough waves to gain some momentum. So far none of it had gotten play with anyone other than the fringe. Walker had been expecting today’s press conference to be more of the same. He’d only been half paying attention to the TV in the background but then he’d heard Estevan say something about welfare and his attention shifted.

“Back it up, please,” he said, and Abby grabbed the remote and hurried to comply. “Haven, I need you to listen to this.”

She turned to face him and the guarded expression on her face lanced through him. He hadn’t touched her since before Super Tuesday. With the campaign gaining more attention, Sandra had taken to spending more time on the road with him, but it was more than that. The few times when he thought they’d be able to steal a moment alone together, she managed to put distance between them.