“I realize this was the worst, most juvenile courtship strategy I could’ve come up with, okay? But once I started, I couldn’t walk it back.” He grins guiltily. “And in my defense, it did work. Kind of.”
“I can’t believe you,” I laugh-sob, swiping at my eyes.
“As soon as you left, I regretted it. I knew I had to apologize, so I went to your office that night to do just that, and . . . well, you know the rest.”
“Backwoods Ben,” I murmur. “I do know the rest.”
I climb onto his lap and hug his neck as hard as I can. I wish I could climb inside him. His arms tighten around me and we stay that way for a long time.
When I finally pull back, I stare into his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ben. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize how special you were the second I met you. I’m sorry I didn’t remember you. I’m especially sorry I wasted all these months not knowing you.” I take his face in my hands. “How could I have ever not seen you, when now you’re all I see?”
He exhales, and now he looks shaken.
“Please forgive me.”
He makes a strangled noise in his throat and crushes me to him.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say into his neck.
When he laughs, I feel it clear down to my toes. Eventually his lips find mine, and we’re kissing and he’s picking me up and walking us back to my bedroom.
I pull back, breathless. “That’s the end of your surprises, right?”
“Ask me again tomorrow.” He lays me back against the pillows.
“Next thing you’ll tell me Ben’s not your real name.”
“It’s Benjy, actually.” He drags his shirt over his head.
“You’re secretly a Russian spy. You were planted here to sabotage our financial system.”
“One thing I will never be is a Communist.” He kicks off his jeans and crawls over me, nipping at my thigh as he tugs my pants down my legs. “We should form our own party. The no underpants party.”
I giggle as he attempts to remove my panties with his teeth.
“A party of two. I’m in.”
Epilogue
Ben
It’s been nearly a year since Kate and I made things official, and professionally, it’s been a year of victories—for both of us.
In December, the tax bill officially passed the House and Senate, and was signed into law by the president a few days before Christmas. Thanks to the increase to the child care credit, Senator Warner and a number of like-minded Democrats did cross the aisle, making it the first major bipartisan legislation passed by this administration.
The day the bill passed is among the most memorable of my life. Post-vote, we attended the first of many victory parties we’d enjoy over the following weeks, and when we got home later that night, tipsy from too many champagne toasts, Kate took me to bed and congratulated me.
And congratulated me.
And congratulated me.
Months later and I’m still thinking about that night.
Kate rebounded from the disappointment of her child care bill with a high-profile project: a resolution reforming the way sexual assault allegations are handled on the Hill. The updated Congressional Accountability Act changed the system for reporting employees’ claims of sexual harassment, established an office to advocate for employees during the adjudication process, and required lawmakers to reimburse taxpayers for any workplace settlements. Spearheaded by Senator Warner and cosponsored by a record forty-three senators—including Senator Hammond—it marked our second shared victory. The resolution passed by voice vote a mere four months after it was introduced, a near record for the slow-moving gears of Congress. I think I was happier for Kate’s success than I was for my own.
I’m still working for Senator Hammond, though I’ve started putting out feelers to move into the private sector. Delivering on tax reform is as good as it will ever get in my government career, and supporting Kate on the sexual harassment legislation fulfilled a personal mission of mine to enact change in my sister’s name. I’ve known for a while that I’m ready to move on, though working down the hall from Kate has certainly been a motivating factor to stay. Ultimately, I’m ready to make more money. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have a family to support soon.
If it’s been a year of professional triumphs, then personally? I’m living my damn dream.
When I first laid eyes on Kate at Senator Riordan’s retirement luncheon a year and a half ago, I was completely knocked for six. I’ve never had such an instant, visceral reaction to someone. While I’m sure many would chalk it up to simple attraction—Kate’s easily the most beautiful woman in any room—it was something else, something deeper, like I’d known her before and would again. When she smiled and shook my hand, I was done for.
You’d think I’d have been angry after she’d dismissed me so summarily—and maybe I was, at first—but I couldn’t seem to fight her gravitational pull. I’d watch her in her office and marvel. She’s a fidgeter, unable to sit still, always tucking a knee beneath her, crossing and uncrossing her legs, kicking her feet up on a chair. I’d spot her at her desk twisted up like a pretzel and tie myself into knots.
And, God, those legs. They taunted me, day in and day out.
When her name popped up in my inbox, I half expected the email to say, I see you watching me, you perv! (I would have deserved it.) Her meeting request was one I’d typically kick over to an assistant, though I practically tripped over myself accepting, even picking a late-afternoon timeslot in the misguided hope things would go so well I’d be able to say, Why don’t we continue this over dinner?
Boy, did that not go as planned.
Poking and provoking her was enjoyable, I’ll admit it. But the night Kate opened up about her father was a turning point for me. By then, I’d started to wonder if I was wasting my time, if pursuing her was an exercise in futility. That night gave me total clarity: Kate didn’t need an antagonist, a man to frustrate and foil her. She needed a stable, steady presence, a constant in a world of variables. Someone who’d stick around and love her no matter the circumstances.
I just had to prove I was that man.
It’s an approach that’s served me well over the past year. Despite our rocky start, our relationship has been surprisingly drama-free. We rarely fight anymore, but when we do, we get to have wild makeup sex afterward. Sometimes I think she picks fights with me just so we can make up—not that I’m complaining.
We still push each other’s buttons, but it’s collaborative, not combative. We spend our days riling each other up and our nights making love. Sometimes we barely make it past the front door. I’ve never been so turned on by every facet of a person, as obsessed with her brain as I am with her body.
It’s a combination of these sentiments that have led me to where I am today: standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with a diamond ring burning a hole in my pocket, gazing at Kate while she gazes out on the Reflecting Pool.
She catches me watching her and narrows her eyes. “Uh-oh.”
“What’s ‘uh-oh’?”
“Whenever you look at me like that, you’re coming up with some brutal physical challenge for me.”
I have been known to do this.
“You’re looking extra shifty, so I’m gonna go ahead and use my preemptive veto.”
“I’m not—” I laugh and shake my head. “Kate.”
“What?” She sounds suspicious.
“Do you remember the first time we ran together? And at the end, I sort of . . . came on to you?”
She breaks into a smile. “How could I forget?” She steps toward me and loops her arms around my waist.
“I know you thought I did that to prove a point about your signing up for Donkey Date. And maybe that was part of it, but there was more to it than that.”
Her brow furrows.
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“You’d just introduced me to your mom as your running buddy.” I spit the words out like they taste bad. “I panicked. I couldn’t let you friend-zone me.”
She starts laughing, covering her mouth with a hand.
“I wanted to tell you how I felt about you, but it was too soon. You weren’t ready to hear it. So I promised myself that one day we’d come back here and I’d tell you what I wanted to that day.”
She’s shaking her head. “You’ve been holding this in for a year? Why am I not surprised?”
“I’ve been saving this story for the right time.”
“Why is now the right time?” she asks, right on cue.
I squeeze her hands once before releasing them, then drop to one knee. She gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. It’s the mother of all aneurism faces.
“Kate, I’ve wanted to marry you since the moment I met you. As usual, I’ve been waiting for you to catch up with me.”
She laugh-sobs as the first tears start to spill down her cheeks.
“I’ve been thinking about all the things I wanted to say to you. How much I love you. What an amazing, kind, generous, brilliant woman you are. How you’ve made this past year the best of my life. How you own me, body and soul. That I’ll do everything in my power to take care of you and make you happy.” I grin up at her. “It’s been a year and I’d still rather argue with you than get along with anyone else.”
She’s crying harder now. I hope these tears are a good sign.
“I want you to marry me. Please be my wife.”
I’ve barely gotten the words out before she lunges at me, throwing her arms around my neck with such force that we fall backward and end up on the ground in a tangled heap. I laugh as she attacks my face with kisses.
“Should I take that as a yes?”
“Yes! Yes”—kiss—“yes”—kiss—“yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
I pluck the ring from the box and slide it onto her shaking finger. She stares at it like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “I get to marry you.”
So this is what it feels like to get everything you’ve ever wanted.
“You mean you get to argue with me for the rest of our lives.”
She smiles at me. “Promise?”
Author’s Note
When the idea for Meet You in the Middle came to me in 2017, it was after the wildest election of our lifetimes. You couldn’t go five minutes without seeing a breathless headline proclaiming the death of bipartisanship: couples breaking up (or even divorcing) over election results; estrangement from family and friends; new dating apps designed exclusively for members of each political party. Most people took the division in stride, accepting it as par for the course post-2016. My thought? This would make a great romance novel.
And so I began to write what I hoped would be a funny, emotional, and timely story about a couple who falls in love despite the (massive) personal and professional odds stacked against them. I was committed to keeping the book as politically neutral as possible, as I wanted readers on both sides of the aisle to feel comfortable letting their guard down and losing themselves in Kate and Ben’s love story. I hoped to find that sweet spot where readers could laugh at our protagonists’ antics while laughing at themselves too—an ambitious goal when some don’t believe bipartisan relationships like this can (or even should) exist in today’s polarized world.
Clearly, I disagree—and so do the scores of people who’ve sought me out to share personal stories of the successful “politically mixed” relationships in their own lives, proving to me that we’re all much more committed to finding common ground than the loudest voices in media would have us believe.
If you think some of the issues and legislation discussed in the book sound familiar, it’s because they’re all based on real-life counterparts. Ben’s tax plan is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in late 2017; Kate’s child care bill is the Child Care for Working Families Act, originally proposed in 2017 and reintroduced in 2019; the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act to update sexual harassment protocols passed in early 2018. Much of Kate and Ben’s more amusing hate mail and the contents of Ben’s “Kate” file were also influenced by articles I found during research.
Writing Kate and Ben’s story has inspired me in so many ways: to lead with love and curiosity, to focus on what unites us instead of divides us, to approach differences of opinion with an attitude of learning rather than of “schooling.” I hope you’re similarly inspired—to see the person beyond the label, to embrace those that challenge you, maybe even to take a chance on someone you otherwise wouldn’t. If you do, I’d love to hear about it.
Acknowledgments
I have many people to thank for the labor of love you’re holding in your hands.
To Kate Seaver and the entire Berkley team: You’ve made my first publishing experience an absolute dream every step of the way. Thank you for being such passionate champions of this story from day one and for going above and beyond to get the book into readers’ hands. The Berkley Romance team is the best in the business, and I feel so incredibly lucky to get to work with such a talented, dedicated group of people.
To Kim Lionetti: Your title might be “agent,” but I think a better one might be “fairy godmother,” because you appear out of thin air to make dreams come true! Thank you for taking a chance on me, for your unwavering belief in this story, your genius revision suggestions, and of course, the perfect title.
To Erika Robuck: You were the first person I told I was secretly writing this book, and your early, emphatic support (from a real author, no less!) was instrumental in giving me the courage to go after this big, daunting dream. Thank you for your generosity of time and friendship, for your thoughtful critiques, for shepherding me through the writing, querying, and publishing process with endless amounts of advice, and for not letting me hit “Publish” as soon as I wrote “The End.”
To Kate, Kir, and Kim, my best friends and brilliant betas: It’s not an exaggeration to say that without your constant cheerleading and demands for the next chapter, I may not have finished this book. Words are inadequate to describe how grateful I am for your decades of friendship. Thank you for indulging my absurd amount of texts and calls demanding your opinions on word choices, character arcs, and plot points (and never letting on just how annoying I’m sure it was). Everyone should be so lucky as to have friends like you in their corner.
Mom and Dad, you always taught me that I could do anything and encouraged me to follow my dreams—and because of you, I have. Thank you for instilling my love of reading, fostering my creativity, and bankrolling my childhood book habit. Dad, special thanks for the pages of handwritten notes detailing the finer points of firearm usage and safety, as well as for pretending you never read chapter 30.
Kristen, thanks for giving me the candid, pull-no-punches feedback I can always count on from you. I owe my love of romance novels to you and your hand-me-downs. John, thank you for redlining every last thing I ask you to, as well as helping me craft some of the better jokes that made it in. Erin, Danielle, and Dee, thank you for reading early drafts and responding with such enthusiasm. Your support and excitement have been such a gift.
Bree, thank you for patiently answering all my questions about life as a Senate staffer. Jeff, thank you for the behind-the-scenes tour of the Capitol Building. Any artistic license I took with the realities of the political process was for story purposes, and the mistakes are mine alone.
To Patrick: The night I met you I said, “I’ve met the man I’m going to marry.” Fifteen years later, you’re still the best decision I’ve ever made. No matter what outlandish ambition I have, your response is always the same: “Do it! You’d be amazing at that.” That kind of blind, irrational faith in me is just one of the many things I love about you. Thank you for our four children; for man
aging said children when I needed the space, time, and absolute silence to write; for patiently, endlessly discussing the story with me; and for encouraging me to pursue this dream when we had no reason to believe anything would come of it. Any swoonworthy hero I ever write could never come close to you.
Questions for Discussion
1. When we first meet Kate, she is closed to the idea of dating her political opposite, but by the end of the book, she realizes that she’s found her match in Ben. What factors or events do you think were most influential in changing her mind?
2. Kate’s behavior could be perceived as contradictory: she’s strong-willed and decisive in her professional life but doesn’t want to make the first move in her romantic relationships. Do you think you can be a feminist and still subscribe to old-fashioned ideals of courtship? Why or why not?
3. While Kate’s mom, Beverly, is a vital figure in her life—even influencing her choice of profession—Kate’s complicated feelings about being the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy follow her into adulthood. How did Kate’s upbringing and relationship with her mother help shape her beliefs? Why do you think Beverly urged Kate to give Ben a chance when she herself never married? How important do you think Beverly’s advice was in Kate’s decision to open her heart to Ben?
4. How do you think Kate’s strained relationship with her father affected her ability to trust and open up to Ben? When Kate finally did share the story of her upbringing with Ben, how did his reaction help move their relationship forward?
5. Ben told Kate that “I’d rather argue with you than get along with anyone else.” Do you think opposites-attract relationships are more or less likely to succeed than relationships between people who are similar? Why or why not?
6. Ben demonstrated his feelings for Kate with a variety of romantic gestures, patiently prodding her along the path toward acceptance of their differences. What do you think was the tipping point for Kate in letting her guard down with Ben?
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