Stay (Dunham series #2)

by Moriah Jovan

  He knew what Knox had nearly done when he thought he’d lost Justice forever.

  All of them, the most powerful men Eric knew— Powerless against their need to keep their women—and on their women’s terms.

  The lesson wasn’t lost on him, but at the moment he had other things to think about. Vanessa had set this little drama in motion to present Eric as a serious contender, and he would play his part to the hilt.

  He took three steps to the base of the staircase, and held out his hand. She placed hers in his palm and he lifted it to his mouth. She smiled benignly and allowed him to tuck her hand in the crook of his elbow.

  “You look nice,” he murmured. Stunning.

  “Thank you,” she murmured in return.

  “I wish you’d introduced me to Queen Vanessa before now.”

  The corners of her eyes crinkled, even though she wouldn’t look at him nor crack her wide smile.

  “Vanessa.”

  But she would smile at the governor. “Ray.”

  The governor’s mouth twitched as he looked between them. “Does this mean I can collect on my bet?”

  Vanessa curled her arm further into Eric’s. “Not necessarily.” She looked up at Eric. “My politics are the best-kept secret in southern Missouri,” she said wryly. “There’s a large number of people engaged in illegal gambling over where my loyalties lie.”

  Good God, how could an entire state be that blind? Eric smirked. “Maybe we could pass ourselves off as the next Matalin and Carville.”

  She laughed then and Eric watched her, enchanted. “Prettier, I hope.”

  “So, uh,” ventured the governor, pointing vaguely between them, “is this permanent?”

  All amusement left her face and Eric didn’t feel much like smiling, either. “We don’t know yet,” Vanessa murmured reluctantly. “We’re . . . trying to figure it out.”

  “We’d like it to be,” Eric said, looking at her, daring her to deny that.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “Whittaker House is the fly in the ointment, I guess.”

  Vanessa nodded.

  “I can see how that might present a problem,” said Dixon soberly, then clapped Eric on the back. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll expect you in the AG’s office in two years, young man.”

  Eric nodded, but turned back to Vanessa simply to study her, and she stared back. For long moments they did not speak.

  “I love you, Vanessa,” he finally murmured, unable to keep it to himself any longer.

  Her hand tightened on his arm. “I love you, too,” she whispered, her turquoise eyes too moist.

  “Please don’t cry.”

  “We’re going separate directions.”

  He swallowed his bitterness at the knowledge that she was right—had been right all along. “You’re killin’ me here, Vanessa.”

  “And you’re making my watches melt.”

  He couldn’t help his chuckle, despite his . . . pain.

  That was it. He hurt.

  He would take her back to Whittaker House tomorrow and leave her.

  “Vanessa, come with me,” he said, desperate. “Please,” he begged. “Come with me to Jeff City, all the way to Washington if I make it that far. Please.”

  “You come to Whittaker House and be my partner,” she retorted. “It’s a lot more certain than winning an election or seven. Spending your life and a lot of other people’s money on crap shoot after crap shoot.”

  “More than a crap shoot,” he snapped, angry she didn’t see his goals as important enough for her to gamble on. “Whittaker House can function on its own with a carefully chosen management team.”

  “I am the chef,” she hissed and vaguely gestured toward the clusters of people who had resumed their conversations, but kept eyeing them speculatively. Glasses clinked and laughter rang out and conversation hummed. “I am its face. These people—all of them—go to Whittaker House for me. If I am not there, it dies. You have a business with your name on it. How do you not get this?”

  “I’ve always known I was leaving it behind, Vanessa,” he growled back. “I’ve made plans for its survival, which you could do with Whittaker House. I only have a narrow window of opportunity to get where I want to go. I need a wife to get elected and I don’t want to marry anybody but you.”

  “And I want you to help me run Whittaker House and raise Vachel.”

  His nostrils flared. “So that’s the end of the conversation.”

  “I told you that in Kansas City, and when you left me the first time, and again at Silver Dollar City, and a fourth time last night, but you keep not believing me, thinking somehow I’m going to change my mind and leave my life behind regardless of what it’ll cost hundreds of people if I do so.”

  “And the hundreds of thousands who already believe in me? I’m not Almanzo Wilder, Vanessa, much as you’d like me to be. There are a lot of people out there who’re counting on me to fulfill their hopes, who believe in me and my leadership, and are willing to work to get me there.”

  She gulped. “I guess this is where you start sacrificing what you want for the greater good of a cause you believe in. You want to be a public servant? This is where you start serving the public.”

  The next hour couldn’t have seemed better. Vanessa stayed with Eric and nursed a cocktail. She kept him close, posed for pictures with him, smiling, always smiling, Chef Granny Whittaker rising to the occasion with her signature graciousness. Eric listened to her chat amiably, intelligently, on a wide range of subjects, always flirtatiously sidestepping semi-playful questions as to her party loyalties. It was a game for her to keep everyone guessing, he realized, just another part of the mystique of Vanessa Whittaker: Ford muse, cover girl, eccentric chef. They couldn’t see past her public personae to the philosophies she had read and internalized from the pages of every Wilder book on the wall in her grand parlor.

  Eric drifted away from her, guided by a couple of politicos who needed to speak in privacy for a few moments, but he kept Vanessa in sight and she him.

  “Say, son, nice to see you here.”

  Eric had vaguely noticed Senator Afton approaching from his left, Stacy in tow, but had been too far gone in thoughts of Vanessa to care. He glanced at her across the rotunda where she stood chatting, and tried to think of a graceful way to catch her eye.

  “Senator,” Eric murmured.

  “Hi, Eric,” Stacy said brightly.

  “Stacy.”

  “I saw you alone, thought I’d rescue you,” Afton murmured. “It’d be to your benefit to have a date tonight, seeing as there’s some press here. And we need to have a little chat about that potshot you took at me last month.”

  “Wasn’t a potshot, Afton,” Eric muttered. “It was a declaration of war. You put me on the hook for the Republicans after I’d already told you what I decided. You knew I wasn’t going to play ball, and thought you could force my hand.”

  “Then you’re more naïve than I took you for, boy. You’re never going to win on a third-party ticket. Any third-party ticket, Libertarian, Independent, Green. Doesn’t matter. You’ll be the next Ross Perot, splitting the right-wing voters down the middle and giving it up for another Democrat. Lose it for you and the Republican candidate.”

  “Maybe so, but either way, it’ll be bad for you and your cronies if I don’t come along for your ride and I’m here to tell you: I’m not coming along for your ride. What the Republican party needs is a clean shot through the heart. Or a big dose of Viagra. You and your good ol’ boys are just too old and feeble to get it up without help.”

  Afton’s nostrils flared. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Cipriani.”

  “Politics is all about enemies, Afton.”

  “You—”

  “Senator,” Vanessa purred from beside Eric. He felt her hand on his back and her breasts press against him even as she held her hand out for Afton to shake. Eric wrapped his arm around Vanessa’s waist and pulled her clo
ser. Stacy’s slightly red-rimmed eyes narrowed a bit as she looked between them.

  “Vanessa,” Afton said smoothly, taking her hand gently but letting it loose quickly. “I didn’t know you and Eric were . . . an item. In fact, I wouldn’t have guessed you two knew each other at all.”

  “It’s not so strange. We have Knox in common, after all,” Vanessa murmured. “Hello, Stacy.”

  Stacy sneered and walked off. Eric watched her slightly wobbly gait for a second or two before looking back at Afton. “I don’t know why you’re surprised,” Eric said low. “I told you I wasn’t going to be her nanny. I also told you to get her cleaned up. She may be dressed a little better, but she’s high as a kite right now.”

  Afton’s glance slid to Vanessa, who stiffened at his sudden look of contempt, before addressing Eric again. “You have some nerve,” he said tightly. “Calling my daughter a whore when this one—” He jerked his chin toward Vanessa. “—made her fame on her back, spreading her legs for King Midas.”

  Eric’s left fist glanced off Afton’s chin.

  Just a touch, really.

  So fast no one had seen it.

  Eric had no trouble keeping his cool in the face of Missouri’s Who’s Who turning to stare at the commotion Afton created by having fallen for no reason anyone could see.

  “Are you okay, Senator?” Eric said loudly, faking great concern. “Here, let’s get the hors d’oeuvres tray around here. You’re probably starving.”

  Afton struggled to get to his feet, glaring at Eric when he offered his hand and refusing every offer of help.

  “You little motherfucker,” Afton hissed after he’d straightened himself and waved a hand to indicate that he was fine. He wasn’t. He’d have a nasty bruise on his jaw in an hour. “You’re going to regret that.”

  “Remember who you’re dealing with, Afton,” Eric murmured.

  “A punk kid who raped a thirteen-year-old girl, is who.”

  “You keep singing that song and I’ll put you down for good.”

  Afton’s nostrils flared. “Are you threatening to sic Hilliard on me?”

  Eric affected an amused chuckle, just for the passersby. “The thing about pissing off a prosecutor is he can get to files and records journalists and other bloggers can’t, especially if he’s in bed with the FBI. Hello, scandal of the century if anybody finds out where all those real estate funds went and who you’re fucking—’cause you’d never survive that.”

  “Nobody’d believe any lie you tell,” he sneered.

  “Lie? I think not. Knox—you know, one of the best white-collar prosecutors in the country? He’s been through all those old real estate deals. And there’s a weasel of a reporter up in my county who got a mysterious package of pictures of you visiting your mistress.”

  Afton turned a little green around the gills.

  “Think about who I have behind me, Afton. They all know what I know, and they have a score to settle with you anyway.”

  The man stood in front of Eric trembling in frustrated rage.

  “I’ll fight dirt with dirtier,” Eric said. “And I’m not afraid to do it publicly if you push me too far. Now apologize to my lady.”

  His nostrils flared and he flashed a glare at Vanessa, then stalked off. Eric looked down to see Vanessa’s flushed face and the vacant stare she directed at Eric’s shirt studs.

  “He’s right, Eric,” she whispered.

  “Vanessa, don’t,” he begged, his frustration mounting.

  “No. I would just bring you down. Maxim. Esquire. Those are bad enough. But Wild, Wild West— That Sebastian’s backing you, even though he and I— And everybody knows it— No, I can’t subject you to that, with you wanting to defend me at every turn and worse, using me to get to you about Simone . . . I can’t hack that, watching you fight off accusations you wouldn’t have to deal with if I weren’t in the picture.”

  “Vanessa, you don’t understand. Afton can’t touch us—you—now.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. “I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about your constituency, you know, the moral majority types. The religious right. Any way you cut me open, I won’t be acceptable to them, and that’s who matters.”

  “All they’ll see is a charming woman with a collar as blue as theirs who worked hard and made it on her own. They’ll see the woman who built Whittaker House, which is a survivalist’s wet dream wrapped up in a five-star experience. They’ll see an entrepreneur who takes care of her land as well as she takes care of her people. The religious right will get over it the minute you open your mouth and talk about what you believe, and then they’ll fall head over heels in love with you.”

  “But—”

  “And in case this hasn’t occurred to you yet, the religious right isn’t exactly singing my praises. They’re willing to compromise on a couple of things, but none of those are deal breakers. If they can deal with me, they won’t blink an eye about you.”

  “But—”

  “You are an asset to me, Vanessa,” he whispered furiously, now aware that their argument was beginning to attract attention. “Don’t you get it? You had a famous lover when you were twenty. You posed semi-nude for an artist and two magazine covers. Big deal. There is no other dirt that can be dug up on you. On the other hand, I am going to be hearing about the thirteen-year-old girl I raped for the rest of my life, and every one of my opponents will be pointing at Vachel as proof. If you’re outed as the one who proved my innocence, I’m going to be accused of having raped you, too.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, and he knew he’d just pushed her back into the trailer park.

  “Don’t,” he growled, taking her face in his hands and kissing her. She melted into him, that pretty lady he’d met at Chouteau Elementary.

  Flash after flash went off around them, but he kept hold of her when she attempted to tug away from him. “Good press,” he muttered against her mouth, then felt her smile and relax once again.

  Another long moment of kissing.

  He had been too long without her.

  “Eric,” she sighed.

  “Please, Vanessa.”

  “No.”

  “Vanessa—”

  “Don’t push me.”

  Eric knew to outsiders they seemed to be exchanging the most tender of words, only reinforced by the fact that he wouldn’t let her out of arm’s reach. She seemed no more eager to let go of him, but they were seated with different people at dinner, so far apart they were unable to make eye contact, much less touch.

  Dancing followed dinner.

  Eric sought her out as soon as politely possible, and she met him, turning into his arms without a word.

  “I bet Knox taught you how to dance.”

  She smiled, but it was sad.

  Hours later, Eric helped Vanessa into her full-length hooded skunk fur cape, touching her soft skin. She turned her head and kissed his fingertips where they lay over her shoulder. More camera flashes, but neither of them cared.

  Her eyes glittered when she looked up at him.

  Eric had never hurt so badly in his life as he did late into the night, holding her while she cried into his chest, after they’d made love for the first time in months.

  He drove her home the next day, and they kissed for long moments, each touch a memory to be stored away.

  “Goodbye, Eric,” she whispered when he climbed back into his car.

  “Goodbye, Vanessa,” he whispered, as her reflection in the rearview mirror got smaller and smaller.

  * * * * *

  It All Evens Out in the End

  * * * * *

  41: Raining Fish Hooks

  and Hammer Handles

  November 2010

  “VANESSA!”

  Vanessa sighed, stomped to her bedroom window, and threw it open. “I’M COMING! God, Knox, could you use the phone?”

  “Your phone is off, Vanessa. I’m not out here in the cold and rain because I like it. Get a move on. The natives are restless.�
��

  And Vanessa was listless.

  She stared at herself in the mirror, and where stood a hot saloon girl all done up in magenta satin, black lace petticoats, black stockings held up with pink garters, and black leather granny boots, she saw only an embattled and heartbroken thirteen-year-old girl.

  The elaborately framed reproduction tintype hung on the wall above her bed, and she glanced at it, wishing her piano player were here to see her, but of course, that was impossible.

  Never had she dreamed that she would not care how well a masquerade did, no matter that this one had pulled in as much revenue as her previous four masquerades combined. In fact, she resented this Thanksgiving’s turnout for one simple reason:

  Eric Cipriani, the cover boy savior of conservative politics, who’d shaken up the political landscape by blowing all definitions of “conservative” out of the water, whose love affair with Vanessa Whittaker, the cover girl chef and former Ford muse, had exploded all over politics and entertainment news the last two weeks.

  Neither of them had fared well.

  He was getting hammered for not having a “proper” girlfriend—one without obvious conservative philosophies, who had also posed semi-nude for a famous artist and two men’s magazines—or, worse, for hiding his homosexuality behind a woman, thinking the old trick of having a beard would actually fool today’s savvy and diverse electorate. He’d delighted the left with his apparent self-loathing, deeply offended libertarian types by not trusting them with the truth, and outraged the religious right for not embodying and promoting its definition of “conservative.”

  Once the media decided to rehash Eric’s “rape” of Simone, it took two weeks before Vanessa was outed as Eric’s savior, and their relationship had taken on a whole new dimension. As Eric had predicted, the whispers began as to whether he had also raped Vanessa—

  There is no other dirt that can be dug up on you.

  —and who was Vachel’s real mother?

  Who had really killed Simone Whittaker in that bar brawl in Raytown, Missouri? Had the Jackson County prosecutor covered for his colleague, the prosecutor of a neighboring county, by intentionally putting the wrong person on trial? Was it entirely unreasonable to think that the protégé of a man who’d turned vigilante would follow in his footsteps?