Kat turned back to her screen and hit the reply button. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one else appeared behind her.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: You are unbelievable
Alex,
Asking me to change my name is not the way to welcome me. The answer is NO.
—Kat
PS—next time you want to welcome someone, try chocolates. I prefer mine dark and nutty, none of the sugary, cherry-filled kind.
Satisfied, she took one more look over her shoulder and hit Send before she could lose her nerve. She immediately went to the next email, which was from Nathan—a terse note explaining the files that were attached. The first file hadn’t even downloaded when she saw an email pop up from Alex.
Frowning, she craned her neck to peer into his office. He wasn’t there. She clicked the message.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Thick skin
You’ll find campaign staff don’t have time for sugar coating or cherry fillings.
But I’m all for a woman who likes dark and nutty.
Sent from my BlackBerry
Her face heated. She minimized the message and looked behind her before she reread it. Was he flirting with her?
“Here you go.” She nearly jumped out of her chair as one of the campaign staffers she’d met earlier appeared. He handed her a BlackBerry. “It’s all set up for you. Use this instead of your personal phone from now on—hackers are likely monitoring your text and phone messages so they can sell something to the media.”
She opened her mouth to ask the pimply-faced intern if he was serious, but he turned and left before she had a chance. She deleted Alex’s emails and went back to reviewing the documents Nathan had sent. Whatever game Alex was playing, she would not indulge him.
Hours passed like minutes. Kat immersed herself in the policy briefs she’d received. The analysis was fascinating and unlike the academic ones she was accustomed to. Nathan’s arguments could almost convince her the IED bill was justified. Almost. She made several notes for her book.
When she looked at her watch, she realized with dismay that she wouldn’t have time to go home and make it back before the scheduled call with her father. She walked to Crista’s desk and asked if they could move the video chat to another day. Crista handed her a tablet computer. “Here, this works on cellular. You can take the call from your car so your mother won’t find out.”
Kat blew out a breath. “What exactly do you know about my mother’s situation?”
Crista continued tapping away at her computer. “Everything. We researched you when the news story broke and were able to get the claims made on your health insurance, so we’re aware your mother is on mood stabilizers. I assume that’s why you need to go home.”
Fire erupted inside her. Kat gripped the tablet so hard, her fingers whitened. “That type of information is private. How did you get it?”
Crista turned in her seat, finally focusing her eyes on Kat. “Don’t be upset. Privacy is an illusion. We hire a firm to do investigations for us—every high-profile campaign does. In this electronic world, information is abundant.”
Kat muttered her thanks for the tablet and rushed out to her car. Someone had moved it to an underground parking spot the senator used when he needed to come in and out of headquarters without battling the media. She was shaking with anger, but there was no point in taking it out on Crista.
It took her several minutes of clicking her electronic key to find the car, but she was relieved not to encounter a horde of reporters waiting for her when she did. She sat with her hands resting on the steering wheel. Something buzzed and pinged in her purse, and she reached inside to retrieve the BlackBerry. It was an urgent text from Alex.
You ok? Crista says you seem upset.
She resisted the urge to throw the device out the window. She tapped back a message.
Privacy is important to me.
The response was almost instant.
We’re a small campaign staff. It’s not personal.
What did that even mean? Not personal? It was the very definition of personal. There were at least thirty people inside that campaign office and they all knew every intimate detail of her life.
She put the phone in her purse and started the car. In two hours, she would be talking to her father for the first time. She needed to prepare herself. The BlackBerry buzzed and pinged insistently. She put the car back in Park and picked it up.
The senator is looking forward to talking to you. Need anything?
Yes, she needed to go back in time, before the story broke, when she was all set to get her promotion. A gnawing ache grew in her stomach. Had she miscalculated? Alex made a good case for how her working on the campaign was a win for both of them, but she didn’t trust him. What was the play? She put the phone on silent. She needed some quiet time to think.
Kat’s mind whirled as she drove home, and she was grateful that the rush-hour traffic on I-95 had abated. She made it home in less than an hour. The news vans were gone; they’d left after Alex had made a statement that she was moving to Richmond to work on her father’s campaign. He’d even gotten her to roll out an empty suitcase when they left the house earlier in the day, explaining that the media didn’t have unlimited resources. They would take the stakeout to Richmond, and they had. Alex was a smooth operator. Just like Colin.
She entered the house and found her mother sitting in the living room with the TV on. Kissing her on the cheek, Kat noted her color was better.
“How’re you doing?”
Her mother’s eyes were bright. “You didn’t have to come back early. I took my meds.”
Kat raised a brow. Every evening was a battle to get her mother to take her medications. There had been several days when she’d actually resorted to mixing them in her food or tea. But the pillbox containing her mother’s daily medications was empty. Nothing in the trash. Had her mother flushed them down the toilet? Kat didn’t want to re-dose her—too much was just as bad as not enough. She’d learned that the hard way. In the past year, the medications had gotten more complicated than ever. Her mother’s doctor seemed to be getting stricter about dosages and schedules for both sedatives and mood stabilizers.
She went back to the living room and sat with her mother. Emilia was in better spirits than Kat had seen in months. They watched the news in companionable silence. Her name was mentioned in a three-minute story but it had stopped being top news. Alex had made a statement outside headquarters a few hours ago saying that the campaign had asked Kat to write an honest report on her father’s defense policies. She rolled her eyes.
“He’s quite the charmer, isn’t he?”
Kat couldn’t agree more.
“I’m glad Bill is finally going to know you,” Emilia continued. “I tried contacting him, you know, after the divorce. To tell him. But he wouldn’t take my calls.”
Kat turned to her mother. She’d spent years trying to get her to talk about her father. “I thought you said you didn’t tell him.”
“Because he never gave me the chance. He was so angry with me for leaving him.”
Kat’s eyes widened. She’d always thought it was her father who broke things off. “Why did you leave him?”
Her mother sighed. “We had a whirlwind romance in college during our senior
year. He asked me to marry him on our third date. Graduation was coming up, and he wanted me to come with him, to his home in Northern Virginia, so we could be close to DC. I hardly knew him, but he was charming and so handsome. I was young and didn’t know any better. After we were married, it all started.”
Her mother stared at the TV. Kat picked up the remote and turned it off. “What started, Mom?”
“First, his mother told me I needed to change the way I dress. Be more like Jackie O. She took me shopping. I hated those clothes—they were itchy and uncomfortable. Then Bill took me to a cocktail party where they were talking about the Cold War. I spoke up and told them what I thought, that we needed to focus on jobs at home, not on stockpiling weapons and hunting down spies.”
She shook her head. “Bill laughed at me, called me a silly woman. I was so embarrassed. When we got home, he told me I had no business making those comments. My job at those parties was to smile and look pretty.”
Kat’s heart ached for her mother. For most of Kat’s life she’d been sick, but once in a while when her medication was just right, Emilia showed Kat a glimpse of the intelligent and vibrant woman she was. She had often wondered whether her mother would have been a different person if she hadn’t been heartbroken over her father.
“There was always something. I didn’t know how to host a proper dinner party or smile properly when the photographers snapped our picture. I started staying home more and we drifted apart. I could tell I wasn’t the wife he’d hoped for. Then one night I heard his daddy tell him that I was going to ruin his dreams of becoming president. He told his father he’d made a commitment to me, and as a good Christian, he wasn’t going to break his marriage vows. He said he’d just have to give up his dreams. That’s when I left.”
Kat put her arm around her mother. Emilia wiped her eyes. “I loved him, Kat. I wasn’t going to be the reason he didn’t become the great man I knew he could be.”
“Did you tell him why you left?”
Her mother nodded. “I told him we weren’t right for each other, that he needed to marry a woman who could be his first lady. He was so angry with me...wouldn’t talk to me after I left...said I’d abandoned him. Then you came and I had a new purpose in life. By then he’d remarried and had a perfect new wife. I saw them on TV, the perfect couple. She looked great on camera. I figured if I said anything he might sue for custody, and I’d lose you, too.”
So that was when it had all started. Kat’s aunt had told her that undiagnosed postpartum depression had made her mother spiral out of control. But what if it was heartbreak, too? She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying. “I don’t have to do this, Mom. I don’t need to know him. I’ll quit the campaign.”
Her mother grabbed her arm. “No, Katerina, I want you to know your father. I should have found a way to tell him. You need him now.”
Something in her mother’s tone gripped her heart. “What do you mean, Mom?”
Her mother shook her head. “It’s time, Kat. It’s time.”
Kat wanted to press her mother, but a look at the wall clock told her it was almost time for the video call with the senator. Muttering an excuse about a grocery-store errand, she left. She drove to a nearby coffee shop and parked in a dark spot.
After powering up the tablet and following Crista’s instructions to sign into the video chat app, all she had to do was wait. The senator would initiate the call. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she was sure he’d be able to hear it on the other end. She took out the BlackBerry to distract herself and noticed several messages from Alex. She must’ve missed them when she was talking to her mother.
Do you want to come to DC tomorrow? Briefings on the IED bill.
Would be good experience for you.
Hello?
Good material for your book.
Kat? I see your BlackBerry is online. Are you ignoring me?
This is not how I expect my staff to behave.
She’d seen the other staffers constantly glued to their phones, but she refused to use the holster that would let her clip it to her person. Crista went as far as to say that she only wore clothes that allowed her to attach the BlackBerry. Kat thought about how to play this with him. Going to Washington, DC, tomorrow? It would be a three-hour drive for her, and she’d have to leave well before dawn to avoid the horrendous rush-hour traffic in DC. It was a long trip for one day. But she would get to spend it with Alex, away from campaign headquarters. Maybe she could grill him about his endgame, find out what he was up to with her.
She thought about how easily she’d melted under his intense gaze. Was it a smart idea to spend more time with Alex? She punched out a message.
Chill. My BlackBerry was in my purse.
His response came seconds later. The man must have lightning-fast fingers.
Keep it on you at all times. That’s an order.
Really?
I don’t take orders from you.
She waited.
You do if you want to work on the campaign. DC tomorrow. Be here by 9.
She stuck her tongue out at the device.
I’ll be there at 8. Be available to sign me in.
She was not, in fact, going to take orders from him, and tomorrow was a good opportunity to tell him face-to-face.
The tablet chimed and her father’s face lit up the screen. With trembling fingers, she touched the answer button.
CHAPTER FIVE
KAT ARRIVED AT the Hart Senate Office Building well before eight in the morning. After a sleepless night following the brief conversation with her father, she gave up on sleep to get an early start on her drive.
Why was she so upset about the conversation? What had she expected from a man who didn’t know she existed and didn’t know anything about her? Still, the whole exchange left a bad taste in her mouth. But she couldn’t think about that now; it was going to be a long day and she needed to focus her energy on the meetings ahead.
She used a home health service for her mother for times she needed to be away. It was horribly expensive, but with her class schedules she couldn’t always be around to make sure Emilia took her pills. Kat had scheduled a nurse to come check in on her mother twice a day for the summer months. She didn’t want the campaign staff gossiping about her needing to leave to take care of her mother. The expense would drain her savings account, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Hopefully, her work on the campaign would pay off with a promotion.
Washington, DC, was alive at this early hour, with staffers rushing into buildings holding steaming cups of coffee. It was a pleasant morning; the heat of the day hadn’t hit, and the famous August humidity was still a couple of months away. The dome of the Capitol rose above all the rooftops. A law limiting the height of buildings effectively eliminated buildings taller than thirteen stories. It gave the city a light, airy feeling. She loved coming here and wished she didn’t have to rush home after the briefings. The Smithsonian museums were free for visitors and contained some of the world’s greatest collections.
Maybe while she was working on the campaign, she could ask Aunt Luce to come look after her mother for a night or two so she could stay a few days in a row.
She checked her phone. Alex had emailed her an agenda for the day, and it showed back-to-back meetings all morning. He’d left a visitor pass for her so she wouldn’t need him to sign in. Most of the congressional members had offices in buildings around the Capitol to accommodate their vast staffs and allow the general public to visit them without the hassle of the Capitol building’s security measures. A subway syste
m connected the office buildings to the Capitol.
Kat stopped outside the building to marvel at the marble facade. Despite lecturing on what happened between its walls, she’d never actually been inside. She followed a rush of staffers into the building and stopped. The ninety-foot atrium rose before her, drawing her eyes upward to Alexander Calder’s famous Mountains and Clouds sculpture featuring black aluminum clouds over black mountains. As people moved around her, Kat stood and stared. It was awe inspiring to experience something she’d only seen in pictures.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?”
His warm breath tickled her ear, and she froze.
“I’m not sure I like it.”
“Oh?” Alex didn’t move. Just stood there, smelling of clean soap and fresh coffee.
“The sharp angles, the blackness of the sculpture. It seems illusory.”
“Any why is that so offensive to you?” His voice was sardonic.
“This is one of the most powerful buildings in the world. The most senior senators of our Congress use these offices to make policy that affects the lives of people around the globe, whether it’s international aid to disaster victims or sending troops into battle. Everything should convey the gravitas of the power and responsibility here.”
She felt him step away from her and turned. He was eyeing her with open curiosity.
“For once, I agree with you. Come, let me show you to our offices.”
She followed him through the atrium and to the elevators. They went up to the dual-level suite of offices for the senator. He quickly introduced her to the staff, who all greeted her with the same warmth—and barely concealed scrutiny—that the campaign headquarters staff had.
He showed her to a cramped area that the staff used for their break room. There was a laptop on a small table. “Space is a premium here, so we can’t give you a desk, but you can use this space when you come visit if you need to check email or make a call. This is also where we keep the coffee.”
He refreshed the cup he’d been holding then held out the pot for her. She grabbed a disposable cup and let him fill it.
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