by K. A. Linde
He adjusted the blue tie at his neck. It was his unspoken cue that he was ready to begin. Liz held her breath, and silence lingered heavily in the room as reporters leaned forward, anxious for what was to come.
“Thank you all for being here on such short notice. I’m sure you’re curious about the recent allegations against my character. And I’m here today to set the record straight.” Brady paused, and Liz watched all the hungry expressions on the reporters’ faces. “Politicians in the public eye are frequently held to a higher standard. We’re expected to be impenetrable. We’re expected to be superhuman. Every fault, every stumble, every hurdle we have to cross is open and accessible to the public. It is the life we chose, I chose, when I was sworn into office. It is a life I would trade for nothing, because it gives me the opportunity to work for the people I care about, to work for the citizens of this great nation.”
Brady, easing into his speech, now smiled charismatically. Liz hadn’t realized the knot of nerves that had gnarled up between them was so intense until it started to unravel.
“As you can imagine that life, this life, comes with limitations. And limitations are the last things politicians tend to talk about. But after the news that hit headlines this weekend, I feel as if it is my place to address one of these limitations. One of these, well, to be frank, ladies and gentlemen, have you ever considered how difficult it must be to date while helping to run the country?”
Brady leveled an amused look at them. The crowd chuckled at his statement, feeding into his speech. Good.
“An article ran in the Charlotte Times newspaper on Friday claiming that I had an affair with a university reporter, Sandy Carmichael, who I have since confirmed is Liz Dougherty. As a bachelor, I find it hard to reconcile myself with the word affair. While what happened between Ms. Dougherty and myself was kept from the public, it hardly constitutes an affair. It was my attempt to keep one aspect of my life private. I still strongly believe that what happened between us should remain between us, but I also understand the delicate position I find myself in. I did not come out about my relationship with Ms. Dougherty for any other reason than privacy concerns.”
Liz sucked in the air she hadn’t realized she had been without. That was the hardest part . . . hearing him discuss privacy as if they would ever be afforded it again.
“Privacy issues seem no longer to be a concern, though, and the very last thing I would want to see happen is for Ms. Dougherty’s name to be smeared for being associated with me. After speaking with Ms. Dougherty,” Brady said, his eyes darting to Liz briefly, “we have agreed that it no longer makes sense to hide our relationship. The article was only false in that it did not address the fact that Liz Dougherty and I are currently together.”
Oh God . . . it was really happening. Liz felt tears well in her eyes. She had been the one to confess to Calleigh about their relationship, but hearing Brady say it to a room of reporters somehow made it all seem so much more real.
“It might have begun in secret, but from this day forward, we would like to make it clear that is no longer the case. Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to seeing many of you again.”
Brady gave the reporters a warm smile and a curt nod before turning to go. And then the room exploded. Reporters pushed forward against the small stage, demanding to ask questions.
“But what of the age discrepancy?”
“What will your opponents think of the negative articles she wrote about you, Congressman Maxwell?”
“Representative Maxwell, just one question!”
“Congressman, can you comment on the use of a fake name to hide Ms. Dougherty’s identity?”
“What else are you hiding?”
“Is this all a stunt from the campaign to cover up your sexual exploits?”
And on and on.
Liz had been expecting it. Even if Heather hadn’t prepared her for the onslaught of questions, she would have guessed this would happen. She had been preparing long enough to be a reporter that she knew firsthand what that was like. She even knew which questions she would have asked. But none of that made it any easier. Her stomach flipped and she felt queasy as the reporters added insult to injury.
She turned away and tried to tune out the madness. She breathed in and out slowly and imagined herself back at Brady’s lake house in the peace and quiet. The only thing they’d had was each other’s company.
Brady wrapped an arm around her waist when he reached backstage and started walking her away from the stage without a word. He was trying to protect her. This was just the beginning, and he knew it as much as she did.
Chapter 2
BACKLASH
Perfectly done,” Heather said, complimenting Brady as they walked toward the rear exit.
“I’m not sure that stymied any of their concerns,” Brady said casually, as if none of this affected him. But of course, Liz knew that it did.
There was still much to figure out. Now that their relationship had gone public it hardly meant their problems were over.
“You didn’t expect them to,” Elliott, Brady’s lawyer, cut in. “It’s out there now. We go from here.”
“Alex is back on board and wants to discuss strategy at noon,” Heather said, talking about Brady’s campaign manager. “Then we’ll get the speech writer working on something for when you have to talk publicly. We want to keep the whole thing on message. We’ll need to brief the staff. I don’t want anyone talking to the press. I want them aware that if they do, it will come at the expense of their job.”
Liz swallowed at that comment. She didn’t want anyone risking their job. Though most political staff should know when to speak and when not to. It was just surreal being on the other side and having someone tell her when not to speak to the press, instead of Liz looking for opportunities to get people to talk.
“I think we can clear all of that up by this afternoon and then get you back in D.C. by nightfall. Your secretary informed me that there’s an important vote coming up this week on education and you need to be in committee despite what is happening in your personal life,” Heather droned on.
“Wait!” Liz spoke up, finally hearing exactly what Heather had just said. “You’re going back to D.C. tonight?”
She knew that his job, his life as a member of Congress was split between Chapel Hill and D.C. It wasn’t split equally, though. If she had to guess, from what she knew it was a seventy-thirty split, with more time in D.C. than at home. Still, she didn’t think he would leave her that same day.
“He has to go back tonight,” Heather said, not even looking up from the papers in her hands.
Brady turned to face Liz. She had put up with a lot since this had all exploded in her face, and she had known from the start they would have less time together. But she had broken up with her boyfriend, started dating Brady again, and had now officially announced their relationship to a sea of reporters. She damn well deserved a little more time with him before she was fed to the wolves.
“You’re not reconsidering, are you?” he asked in a tone that made it clear that that was an unacceptable option.
“No, I’m not reconsidering. I’m wondering why in the midst of this madness I’m going to be left all alone to deal.” Her voice was calm and controlled. She didn’t want to sound whiny. She knew what she was getting into, but she had thought one more night wasn’t too much to ask.
“You won’t be alone, and you won’t be dealing alone. Even if I’m not here, I’m still available to you.”
“You make it sound like a business arrangement.”
Brady’s eyes turned molten. “You’re the last person who would think it was.”
Liz took a deep breath to try to calm herself down. She was working herself up and it wasn’t going to help anything. “I know. I’m sorry. I just . . . we haven’t had much time together.”
“Sorry to i
nterrupt,” Heather said. She looked as if she was anything but sorry. “We have to get you out to the car now. We’re expecting a bit of a holdup.”
“We’ll discuss this in the car,” Brady said, squeezing her waist and then releasing her.
Liz wondered what exactly “a bit of a holdup” looked like.
It seemed that Heather’s definition and Liz’s were drastically different. A large number of the reporters had come around to the back entrance, where it was clear Brady was going to be leaving, and had swarmed the area to ask questions. Liz stared at the onslaught with her eyes wide.
Brady draped an arm protectively around her shoulders as soon as the door opened. “Stick close to me,” he whispered against her hair.
She didn’t need to be told twice. Actually she probably didn’t need to be told once. Heather and Elliott cleared some space for them to walk through and then she and Brady were outside. It was a bleak February afternoon, completely overcast as they pushed through a sea of reporters to get to the waiting car beyond.
Liz heard the questions thrown at them, similar to the ones she had heard in the conference room. Cameras flashed overhead, people called out her name, microphones were thrust in her face. Liz did everything she could just to keep her head down and follow Brady’s lead.
Elliott held the door open and Liz slunk into the backseat of the dark tinted town car. She heard Brady address the crowd briefly before following her inside. The door shut and then they were moving.
“What about Heather and Elliott?” Liz asked softly.
“I told them to take the next car.”
Liz was glad. It meant they had a few minutes of peace without Heather interrupting every conversation. It was just the two of them. Liz’s hands shook in her lap and she hadn’t even realized it. “That was . . . intense,” she whispered.
“Are you all right?” Brady asked, reaching for her.
She slipped under his arm and leaned into his shoulder. “Yeah. I should have expected it.”
“It’ll get easier with time.”
She kind of hoped it would never get easier and everything would just disappear. She had never wanted to be in the spotlight. Newspaper journalism had been her chosen field in part because it ensured that she would never have to be in front of a camera. Didn’t look like she was going to get off so easy.
Brady chuckled at her expression. “My reporter afraid of some camera time?”
It was like he had read her mind. “I’m not a fan.”
“Well, hopefully you won’t spend much time dealing with it.”
“Agreed,” she said softly. “So, do you really have to leave tonight?”
“Under the circumstances it would probably look better for me to continue about my business as if nothing were wrong. I wouldn’t want to look like I needed to take time off.”
“Well, that makes sense . . . but considering the circumstances, being your new girlfriend who you hadn’t seen in over a year apart from this weekend and one night in October, I thought you could make an exception.”
“You’re my exception, Liz,” he said, trailing his hand down her jaw.
Her eyes fluttered closed, all thoughts of what had just occurred flying out of her head. One simple touch and she was lost to him. It had been like that since the beginning. She hadn’t been able to get enough, hardly been able to say no, found it impossible to stay away. Even when she had forced herself to walk out of his life, she had still thought about him all the time.
She tilted her head up to him and their lips met. It was like a dose of medicine for her system. His hand slid up her thigh, reminding her of their earlier exploits and the fact that she was still without underwear.
“How do you do that to me?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Make me forget all sense.”
“Are you saying we don’t make sense?” he asked, trailing circles into her inner thigh and slowly spreading her legs.
“We make perfect sense,” she said. “Aside from all the reporters trying to prove us wrong.”
“Someone is always trying to prove something.” His hand brushed up against her sex and her grip on him tightened. “Like I’m trying to prove that I actually can keep you quiet for a few minutes.”
“I think you did that earlier,” Liz said with a smirk of her own. His finger swirled around her clit and she gasped at how sensitive she was. She tried to remain silent as he worked on her on the drive.
Dark-tinted glass separated them from the driver, but she still felt vaguely as if they were being watched. It should have kept her from getting completely turned on all over again, but it didn’t. She was coming undone at the expertise of his fingers in the backseat of the town car.
When she felt like she might explode, he finally obliged her and delved two fingers inside her. He pumped into her a few times and it took every ounce of willpower not to cry out as he brought her to the point of ecstasy and then she tipped over the edge. She bit down on her lips and breathed heavily in and out as she came down from her orgasm. Her head was tilted back and her eyes closed.
Brady removed his hand from her. “Look, you can follow directions.”
“Just barely,” she whispered.
He kissed her again softly just as the car began to slow, signaling they were almost to their destination.
“Brady,” Liz murmured. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”
He laughed lightly and nodded when she looked at him. “Yes, baby. I’ll move some things around.”
Liz ducked her head. Unsurprisingly, Heather didn’t like to hear that plans were changed. She had been a bitch to Liz ninety-five percent of the time Liz had known her, but the stress of the scandal was really pushing her over the edge. At one point, Brady even had Liz leave the room so they could talk. She could hear him and Heather arguing all the way down the hall.
They were at Brady’s campaign headquarters in Raleigh. Liz wandered from the conference room where they were still arguing and down to his office. She closed the door and sat back in the oversize chair. With the computer booted up, Liz pulled up Google and steeled herself for what she was about to do. She typed in her name and then pressed Enter.
The top of the screen filled with a news tracker that updated as articles came in about her relationship with Brady. She clicked on one at random and skimmed the article. Words jumped out at her—affair, college student, reporter, scandal. She moved to the next article and the one after that and the one after that. After reading a handful of the same material she returned to the homepage and was surprised to see that a Wikipedia page came up under the search. She opened it and saw that someone had already added their relationship to the personal section of Brady’s page. Great.
She was jolted from her search when the door opened. “Hey, you,” Brady said with the same captivating smile. “What are you up to in here?”
“Torturing myself.” He arched an eyebrow. “Just looking up news articles.”
“That is never a good idea.”
Liz tore her eyes away from Brady to stare at one of the last articles she had up on the screen. Someone had managed to get a relatively good picture of them together when they had fled the press conference.
Brady was at her side before she knew it. “Let me help you with that,” he said, reaching over her shoulder, covering the mouse in her hand, and exiting out of all of the articles. “There, that’s better.”
“This was my life,” she whispered. “I used to wake up and read news articles before going to class. I followed my favorites, legends in their fields, religiously. The time I wasn’t reading articles, I was writing them. I lived at the newspaper. I took extra electives in the Journalism Department. Now I can’t even open up the Internet.”
“You can use the Internet, but Google searches of your name might not be the smartest idea right now.”
“It’ll blow over. It won’t always be like this,” he said in a surprisingly reassuring voice. “Come here.”
Liz stood up and then when Brady took her seat, he folded her into his lap. She kicked off her heels and tucked her legs underneath her.
“You can’t do this.”
“What?” Liz asked.
“Wallow.”
“I’m not wallowing,” she told him.
He raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”
She released a quick breath and then shrugged. “I guess.”
“You know you’re stronger than that.”
“I survived life without you.”
He smiled and kissed her forehead. “And you won’t have to do that anymore. What’s a few reporters after that?”
Liz nodded reluctantly. “You’re right.” She straightened and tried to put her fears behind her. There was really nothing she could do at this point. She had chosen Brady, and this was what came with that life. If she had to do it all over again, she would do the same damn thing.
“I usually am,” he said, nuzzling her neck.
“Also incredibly modest.”
“Oh, no, baby, I’d never claim that. You can reserve that for lesser men.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be seeing any other men. I like the egotistical one I already have.”
“Egotistical, hmm?” He nipped at her neck and she felt her anxiety disappearing.
“Yep. Egotistical, arrogant, cocky . . .”
Brady gripped her hand and ran it along his dick. “You’re right about one of those.”
Liz giggled and stood. “You’re insatiable, aren’t you?”
His pupils dilated at the sight of her standing before him in the dress she had worn to the press conference. “I’m the only one, obviously.”
“Oh, obviously,” she joked, leaning forward and pressing their lips together. “How long before I can get you out of here?”
“Unfortunately it will still be a few hours.”
“See? I have time to get to the newspaper,” she told him. They had decided it might be best for her not to go to school the day of the press conference. But she couldn’t stay away for much longer, since she was so close to graduating and needed the credits. She wasn’t sure what was going on at the paper. She wanted to call Massey, who had been covering for Liz as editor while she had been sick last week after the poor way Hayden had taken the news about Brady, and find out what was going on. But she was a little worried about what she would find. The only people she had spoken to since all of this had hit the newspapers had been her parents and her best friend, Victoria.