"Great, thank you," Tanner said. Duecent was one of those types who prided himself on his prickly, asshole attitude, he guessed. So instead of a smile or a handshake, he just gave a short little nod, flashing his teeth in more of a grimace than a smile. He wanted to convey the impression that offering up thanks was physically painful.
Duecent didn't smile, but his glare lessened slightly, which Tanner took as a good sign. "Head on in - she'll call me if she needs anything," he said, and turned away.
No offer of coffee, no warnings about Alicia's current mood, no introduction on his behalf. Duecent might prove to be a tough nut to crack. Tanner made a mental note to ask around about what the chief of staff might like, so he could bring him a present to crack the ice.
For the moment, however, he needed to focus instead on Alicia. Charming Alicia was most important; everything else was secondary. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly as he shook out his shoulders. He could still feel a comforting little residual burn in his muscles; the sign of a good workout the day before.
And then he turned the knob and stepped into Senator Alicia Stone's office.
Not bad, was his first thought as his eyes quickly took in the interior of the little room. And that went for the woman behind the desk, as well as the decorations.
Alicia's office was small, of course; junior Senators always received the worst accommodations. Unlike the outside rooms, however, Alicia had either brought in a designer, or taken the time and effort to make her new office feel a bit more comfortable. Dark cherry bookshelves lined one entire wall; running his eyes over the titles, Tanner observed that, along with books of law and history, Alicia also had some newer thrillers, biographies, and even a couple of romance titles among the older and dustier hardcovers! She'd rolled out a thick rug over the floor, and an oil painting of the Rocky Mountains, done in an Impressionist style, hung behind her chair. Some senators chose to cover their office walls in photographs of themselves, smiling and shaking hands with various important or famous people, but Tanner only saw a few small pictures on Alicia's walls - and he didn't recognize the faces of the men and women standing next to Alicia, smiling and shaking her hand.
After the quick sweep around the office, Tanner focused his eyes on the woman now rising up from behind her desk. "Hello there, Senator Stone," he said, putting on his carefully chosen smile (confident but not too haughty, interested and open, self-assured but not yet straying into arrogance). "It's good to meet you."
"And you too, Mr. Tanner," Alicia returned, accepting his handshake across the desk. She had a good grip, despite the delicate fingers, Tanner noted. It wasn't the politician's overly hearty handshake, however; it suggested interest, but also a slight detachment. "Mr. Perkins spoke highly of you."
"Thank you for taking the time to meet with me," Tanner replied, brushing off the compliment. "Indeed, I've been watching your campaign with some interest. You've done quite the exemplary job, so far."
"Oh?" Alicia asked, leaning forward a little as Tanner took a seat across from her desk. He crossed his legs but leaned forward; interested but not threatening.
"Yes, you've done an amazing job," he went on, doing his best to walk the line between too much praise and too little. "And I've also been quite interested in your platform - very audacious!" He chuckled, showing that he didn't mean this as a slight. "But although you've definitely got the fire, I suspect that you might be in need of someone with a bit more experience in navigating the Washington waters. Someone who can help clear the way to make accomplishing your big goals a little easier."
"And that someone is you, I'm guessing," Alicia commented, giving him a little smile.
He smiled back - easy, engaging, charming. "Well, I do have some experience in this area," he said, casting his eyes downward, not wanting to make his brag seem too obvious. "I've been around long enough to make plenty of connections, on both sides of the aisle. I think that, between your ambition and my experience, we could weave a very strong legacy."
There. Magic word deployed. Sure enough, he saw Alicia's eyes - blue-green eyes, quite enchanting - flash at the mention of a legacy. Democrats must have some genetic weakness to that word, he considered to himself.
"And what position do you see yourself in, exactly?" Alicia asked, pushing her chair back. She rose up and moved around from behind the desk, taking a seat on the chair next to Tanner.
Tanner found himself needing to focus quite hard to keep his eyes from darting to her legs. Alicia wore the typical blouse and pencil skirt, professional and uptight, but it was cut a little closer to her figure than the Washington standard, revealing a very nice pair of legs. He kept his eyes carefully up on her face, not giving away the slightest hint of his inner surge of lust. "Well, perhaps a senior advisor role," he replied easily. "I wouldn't want to presume to tell you how to structure your staff, but the closer we work together, the easier it will be for me to open doors for you."
"Working closely does sound like a good idea," Alicia murmured, leaning forward slightly towards him.
Not showing any sign of inner turmoil, Tanner hastily recalculated. She was coming onto him! Very subtle, but he could see her pupils dilating slightly, the way that she noted his broad shoulders, even disguised beneath the somewhat baggy and ill-fitting suit. Barely arrived in Washington and already searching for a sexual partner - perhaps Alicia Stone was adapting to the Washington culture faster than he'd anticipated!
Still, this was good news. He could use this - and indeed, it just advanced the timetable of his overall plan. This was just what he'd been hoping to see. The goal now would be to flirt back without being the first one to make a move. Alicia, despite her youth, seemed to want to lead.
"And where might it be best to focus first?" Alicia asked, those big blue-green eyes still locked on him. "In your personal opinion?"
Those eyes were surprisingly deep and distracting. To Tanner's own surprise, he had to focus quite hard to keep from getting lost in them. "Well, on your campaign for this seat, you discussed your education bill quite regularly," he said. "That might be a good place to start - although we'll want to move slowly at first, not rush ahead too quickly."
"What's wrong with rushing ahead? Sometimes it's best to just dive in," Alicia countered, a little smile darting about her lips. Tanner swallowed at the heat in her voice. She really wasn't holding back!
"Well, it's a very complex process, especially if you don't want it to go down in flames," he managed. "Need to get everyone on board. We don't want to be accused of anything... improper."
He lingered on that last word, seeing another little flare of Alicia's pupils. Yes, she definitely wanted him! He couldn't believe that things were going to be this easy. Then again, this was where he excelled. He, Keegan Tanner, was a master in the arena of seduction, and this poor young woman, new to the kind of deep politics played in Washington, didn't stand a chance against him.
He almost felt sorry for her.
"Improper," Alicia repeated, her voice deeper, huskier. God, that was a sexy voice. Tanner couldn't quite help himself any longer - his eyes dipped down briefly, noting that, as she leaned forward, her blouse gaped open slightly at the neckline. It wasn't enough to be improper, but he caught the slightest little glimpse of her breasts, soft and supple. Heat flared deep inside of him, surging down his spine and stiffening his cock inside his pants. "Is that truly what you want to avoid, Mr. Tanner?"
"Well, we don't want anything to get out in public," Tanner murmured back, mesmerized by this seductress, eagerly opening herself up to him. This was too easy!
"But in private..."
"Well, we do need to indulge in fantasies every now and then," he allowed. "After all, we all do fantasize about what we want to accomplish..." His words, technically, could still be proper, still be about the legal process - but heat flared in Alicia's eyes, and he knew that an answering flame was burning in his own.
She didn't say anything else, but leaned in a little closer. Thi
s was it! Tanner matched her, one of his hands rising up. Once their lips met, he'd cup her neck, draw her to him. Of course, he wouldn't fully take her, not here - but she'd hire him on, they could arrange a suitable off-site location to meet that evening, and he'd just arrive early to set up the cameras so that he could gather the blackmail material he needed...
So close to him, Alicia's lips parted. "I know what you want, Mr. Tanner," she whispered, and Tanner felt himself grow even harder, throbbing inside his pants.
"What is that?" he asked back, his gaze locked on hers, looking into those soft, limpid pools of greenish blue, filled with heat and desire and warmth-
-and then, like a door slamming shut, all the heat vanished from her eyes.
"I know, Mr. Tanner," Alicia repeated. She still whispered, but this time there was a new hardness to her voice, a lining of steel, sharp as a blade. "I know exactly what you want - and who you are."
Confusion shot through Tanner's head. This wasn't what she was supposed to say.
He started to draw back, but Alicia's hand shot out. She closed her fist on his tie, keeping him close. With a yank, the knot tightened uncomfortably on his neck.
"Oh, Mr. Tanner," Alicia said again, her voice no longer that seductive whisper, now hard as diamonds, edged with ice. "I asked about, found out all about you. What you do. Did you really think that I'd be so easy?"
Tanner opened his mouth, but for once in his life, he found himself speechless.
Somewhere, along the way, he'd made a horrible miscalculation.
And now, as Alicia glared at him, chilling him to the bone, he had a horrible feeling that, for the first time in his memory, he'd gotten himself in over his head...
Chapter Six
*
Alicia glared at the scumbag sitting in her office. His face no longer showed the brief flash of confusion - that had been quickly swept away; the man had excellent poker skills, at least - but he was definitely off balance.
Good. Served him right, for what he just attempted to do.
Duecent, Alicia's campaign manager when she ran for office, now serving as her interim chief of staff, had simply told Alicia that she had a meeting with Keegan Tanner the next morning.
"And who is this Mr. Tanner?" Alicia asked, frowning at the little bulldog of a man as he hesitated in the entrance to her office, wavering as if not sure whether he should invite himself in or duck and bow like a proper servant.
In response, Duecent just shrugged. "Comes recommended by Aaron Perkins, from Senator Reed's office," he answered. "I guess he's got a lot of connections around here, senior fellow, and he wants to try and help you out. Given that you're new here, and all."
"Well, that's very kind of Mr. Tanner," Alicia murmured, her bullshit detector buzzing at high alert. "Did you find out anything else about him?"
All she got back was another shrug. Duecent had been a great campaign manager, Alicia considered as she watched the man finally decide to leave the threshold of her office and head off to do... something, but he wasn't exactly cut out to be a great Chief of Staff for her office. Perhaps this Tanner fellow could help out on that front.
But instead of leaving the matter there, Alicia grabbed her computer and typed Keegan Tanner's name into the search bar on Google. She clicked over to the images tab for a moment, looking at the top pictures that came up.
The top dozen hits were all for the same man, and Alicia decided that this must be Mr. Tanner. He was quite attractive, she thought, and younger than she'd expected. Something about his expression, however - the smile that spoke of hours practicing in front of the mirror, the perfectly groomed hair, the broad shoulders that had been built in a gym, not out in a field - gave her the impression of a shark. Keegan Tanner looked ready to take a bite out of any juicy target that he could find.
Next, Alicia moved over to the list of returned results, and began reading. She moved quickly and methodically through the list of links, ferreting out all the information that she could uncover.
Research. Alicia had always prided herself on it. It sounded like a cold and solitary pursuit, she admitted readily enough, but ever since she was a little girl, she'd loved packing her head full of facts, arming herself with weapons of knowledge, wrapping herself in the armor of education. Her dad used to joke that, when he came home from work, he was more likely to find Alicia in the family's little library, curled up around a book, than in her room playing with her toys.
Despite his jokes, however, both Alicia's mother and father encouraged her to learn. Instead of insisting that she should be playing dress-up with her Barbies and throwing tea parties with the stuffed animals that well-meaning relatives kept on sending her for birthday presents, they put up with her twice-a-month visits to the local public library. Most of the time, Alicia staggered out of the library with both hands wrapped around a stack of books that reached nearly all the way up to her chin. The librarians chuckled - up until she came back two weeks later, returning them all and exchanging them for a fresh stack.
The lessons of research stuck with Alicia, and she always made an effort to know as much as possible about any meeting or debate that she entered. When it came time for her weekly call home to her parents, updating them on their girl's progress in the big world of politics, she often had to drag herself away from an open book to pick up the phone. Occasionally, she'd lose track of time as she stayed up late, reading up on points for a debate, only to glance up at the clock and realize that it was nearly three in the morning.
Fortunately, she didn't have a significant other to annoy with her odd hours - or, at least, that's what she told herself. A couple of times, she'd considered adopting a cat or a dog, some sort of companion to keep her company on those late nights, but the pollsters told her that she'd look less appealing if she chose a pet. "Speaks of desperation," they'd said.
Alicia didn't like hearing that the desire to own an animal companion made her desperate, but she did want to win. So she held off on adopting a cat or dog, and ended up sweeping the election by a landslide.
Reading through the links that Google returned on Keegan Tanner, Alicia found her nose prickling - the sure sign of bullshit being slathered on thickly. The man didn't seem to have any official title, but he popped up at plenty of political events and in the news, often quoted as simply "a Washington insider." For someone who didn't appear to have a formal job title, however, he certainly seemed to have a lot of inside connections.
That sounded dangerous to Alicia - why would he show any interest in a freshman Senator like herself? However, it also offered some possibility - if she could get him on her side, she desperately needed that expertise...
So when Keegan Tanner walked into her office a little later that morning, Alicia immediately sized him up, trying to guess his intentions.
He wore a slightly ill-fitting suit, with a couple of imperfectly cleaned coffee stains. That would suggest someone who wasn't too focused on their appearance - except that Alicia had seen the online pictures of Mr. Tanner, and knew that he loved his five thousand dollar suits. This, then, was all an act, a ruse to get close to her.
Well, two could play that game.
She turned up the charm, and to her surprise, she found the man falling for it! She did have to admit that he was quite attractive, objectively speaking, and she didn't need to try quite as hard to smile at him, batting her lashes, as she expected. Careful, Alicia, she warned herself. Don't get snared by him.
But then, Tanner eagerly charged forward, clearly doing his best to seduce her right here in this office, and Alicia reformed her defenses. She led him on, closer and closer to what he perceived as his target, getting a feel for him. Yes, he definitely had experience at this. She could tell from the buzzwords that he slipped carefully into the conversation that he knew how to play with people. If she hadn't known better, she might have even fallen for some of his lines.
As if Alicia would ever go for a man like this.
Running as a single wom
an... that had been a persistent thorn in her side, she had to admit. As much as she hated the idea of having to fight an uphill battle due to sexism (this was the twenty-first century! Sexism was supposed to be dead!), it turned out to be the reality of her campaign. She worked hard to establish herself as strong and independent, in order to court the female vote, while still making sure that she came off as attractive and fit, in order to appeal to the older, sexist men that formed an unfortunately large voting bloc.
A couple of times while on the campaign trail, Alicia even considered getting into a relationship, maybe even something serious, just so that she could drop this tired mantra of being a "strong and independent woman". There were a couple of cute reporters in the press corps that followed her around; maybe one of them would prove to be marriage material...
Alicia quickly squashed these thoughts whenever they emerged, and made sure that no trace of them slipped into her weekly talks with her parents. Privately, however, she did have to admit to herself that she was getting older, that she was getting tired of doing it all alone. Not that she'd give up her career for a husband; he'd have to be ready to handle her ambition and passion. But still, it would be nice to come home to someone, to curl up with another warm body on the couch and tell them all about her day, to have someone to complain to about the ridiculous comments made by fellow Senators and other Congressmen.
Tanner, however, despite his remarkably even and handsome features, that rugged set to his jaw, the strong body that couldn't be disguised by his ill-fitting suit, wasn't going to be that man.
He was, however, useful. Alicia just needed to apply the right pressure to guarantee that she saw results.
So she led him on - and then, just as he leaned forward, utterly confident that he had her eating out of the palm of his hand, she struck, both physically and verbally.
Her hand shot forward and grabbed his tie, dragging him down - that's right, Mr. Tanner, no using your height and male size to intimidate this lady! - and she stared into her eye. No more batting her eyes, no more sultry glances. She gave him her best icy, cold, emotionless stare, and she saw him swallow, his Adam's apple having a little trouble as his tie pulled tight around his neck.
Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance Page 4