by Law, Kim
They both smiled at each other, enjoying the moment before things could go either really good, or really bad, then Bob broke eye contact. “There’s…uh…something I should probably tell you.”
“Are you kidding me? What?” Geez, what now?
“Davenport called earlier.”
“Here?” That hadn’t been what she’d expected to hear. She studied him, trying to figure out if she wanted to know why. Curiosity won. “What did he want?”
“To make sure you were here and not…gone.”
So he’d worried she’d taken a hike. She wondered if that meant he wanted to see her. Could she have anything to do with the canceled press conference? Anything good? She’d been shocked not to hear a word from his family’s publicist yesterday or today, releasing any sort of statement about their relationship. Everything had been strangely quiet.
She nodded, unsure what the movement meant, but unable to think of anything to say.
Bob tapped his watch. “It’s go time. You okay?”
A surprising calmness settled over her, and she nodded. “I’m ready.”
With a quick nod, Bob stepped in front of her and exited the building, moving toward the small podium he’d had erected at the edge of Oglethorpe Square. A small gathering of colleagues patted her on the shoulder in encouragement as she followed him out the door.
Security guards lined the walk across the street, and she held her head high and proud as she crossed.
Once in front of everyone, she scanned out over the gathered crowd and wished with all her might she wasn’t up there alone. The old feeling of being one against the world returned and saddened her. She knew nothing had really changed yet, but then, everything had.
She would no longer let past lies hold her down. Instead, she’d now go after each and every single thing she wanted. Including JP.
When she finished here, she’d go after JP to convince him he couldn’t live without her, even if he did one day want to be president. She might bring a little tarnish to his name, but she would spend the remainder of her days doing nothing but polishing it.
Darkness surrounded the outer edges of the square, but the space immediately in front of her was lit so brightly she could barely make out any faces. Might as well get this over with.
She leaned forward and pulled the microphone to her.
* * *
JP edged around a crowd of people, a baseball cap low on his head and his gaze on the ground, hoping no one recognized him before he wanted them to. He wanted to do this on his own terms—and the way it would make the biggest impression on Vega.
He might have only one chance to win her, so it had to be perfect.
Well, that wasn’t true. If he didn’t make her see reason tonight, he wouldn’t stop until he did get her. But for her sake, he wanted it to be perfect tonight.
Another question about her past relationship was lobbied up through the crowd, and the sound of Vega’s voice soothed him. He’d refused to watch the sex video that had apparently made the rounds over the internet, and hearing her talk about another man was seriously irritating. Not just because she’d been in that relationship—though knowing the man had touched her in those ways fed JP’s urge to hunt him up and take him out—but because she’d been treated so poorly. She hadn’t deserved that, and she didn’t deserve to have to be up there defending herself now, either.
He hated that he’d gotten here late. The plan had been to find her beforehand and be onstage with her from moment one, whether she wanted him to or not. Traffic on the drive from Atlanta had dictated he go to plan B.
“James Lewis, Savannah Chronicle, Ms. Zaragoza. If what you say is true, why did you disappear instead of explaining all this back then? It makes it look like you’re trying to sail in on your notoriety now, without having to deal with all the consequences in the heat of the moment.”
JP caught a glimpse of Vega as he continued to jockey for a position in the dead center of the crowd, and he stopped in his tracks. She looked amazing. Hair flowing in long curls, eyes shining and sexy hot, and oh my God, those lips. She had a deep crimson painted on her gloriously wide mouth, and he suddenly wanted to punch every man in the crowd, because he knew what they were all thinking.
Picking his jaw up, he pulled his gaze from the black-and-white dress clinging to her every curve and ducked his head, continuing quickly through the crowd.
“As I stated before, Mr. Lewis,” she began. “I was twenty. Everyone was calling me a home-wrecker, suggesting I might go so far as to physically harm Mr. Pritchard’s then-wife, and everywhere I looked, my supposed friends were taking money to lie about me. Your daughter, sir, how old is she?”
“Nineteen,” Mr. Lewis said, his voice remaining strong and sure of himself.
“Can you imagine, Mr. Lewis, your daughter innocently falling for the wrong man, having every last secret about her life as well as her body and sexual preferences graphically shown for the whole world to see, and then telling her to step out in front of everyone…all these same people who are accusing her, who already have their minds made up…and tell them they were just wrong. That no, she can’t prove it, but they’d just have to take her word for it?”
“I would encourage her to do exactly that, actually.” His tone wasn’t quite as sure, but he was sticking to his story. “Hiding does nothing but indicate guilt, and I teach my children to stand with pride, no matter what.”
“And would you plan to be there standing by her side, Mr. Lewis, as she faced them?”
“Absolutely. She knows she has my support.”
“Say you’re dead. What then?”
Pause. “Then her mother would be there for her.”
JP found a spot he liked and faced the front, waiting to see how this was going to play out.
“What if her mother couldn’t be there? Or her sister, or her brother, or any other family member, or anyone in the whole entire world who she’d ever thought was a friend? None of them are able to stand there and give her support, sir, and most of them have already publicly called her a liar, anyway.”
Mr. Lewis was apparently to JP’s left as half the crowd turned that direction.
“Then I would hope she…” He paused. “She would…”
“I’ll tell you what she would do. She would stand there, all alone, nineteen years old, and be ripped to shreds by people often more interested in creating a headline than reporting the facts. When she finished and walked away, she’d be so broken she wouldn’t be able to face anyone with any sort of pride again, for a very long time. Yet she’d continue to wonder, as she’d been doing every single moment since the ‘news’ had broken, how she’d come to be such a bad person as to do all those things everyone said. Only, before she spoke, she’d only have read their words in the news. Afterward, they’d have said them to her face.
“Where would she go then, Mr. Lewis? What would she do? My guess, she’d run and hide, exactly as I did, only in this instance she wouldn’t have even a shred of pride left to cling to. She’d have had all those people telling her, to her face, just how pathetic and evil she really was. And no matter what she wanted to believe…she would believe them.”
A hush fell over the crowd, and JP fought the urge to clap. That was the woman he loved up on stage, standing up for herself. He couldn’t have been more proud.
“What do you say to reports that you went after JP Davenport with the same intention as you did Ted Pritchard? That you wanted to trap him into marrying you?” This question came from JP’s right. He swiveled his head and caught the red hair of a reporter he recognized from Atlanta. A woman he’d refused to sleep with no matter how many attempts she’d made. She’d always struck him as particularly devious.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking, ma’am. Are you asking if I got involved with Mr. Davenport for the same reason I dated Mr. Pritchard, or are you asking if I set out to somehow trap Mr. Davenport? Because those are two completely different things. And if your question is the second one, I’d lik
e additional information on how, exactly, you’re proposing that anything I did could have ‘trapped’ Mr. Davenport.”
He loved that she was finished shirking from people and obstacles. If he wasn’t careful, she’d be the one going after office in a few years, and he’d be left riding her coattails.
“I’ll rephrase my question.” The reporter pasted on an evil grin. “Governor Chandler canceled a press conference earlier this evening. One intending to announce Mr. Davenport as the newest Georgia senator. Rumor is, Mr. Davenport won’t be taking office anytime soon. Do you believe you ruined his career, as you did Mr. Pritchard’s?”
Pride sharpened the line of Vega’s jaw, and though he wanted very much to hear her put the reporter in her place, this was the moment he’d been waiting for.
“I’d like to take this one, if I may.” He removed his ball cap and spoke loud enough to be heard, even though he carried no microphone.
Vega stilled at the podium as everyone in the crowd shuffled to get an eye on who had spoken. She held a hand over her brow to shield the light and peered into the crowd.
“Sir?” she asked. “Could you use a microphone, please? I’m having trouble hearing you.”
One was thrust in his hands.
Soft gasps punctuated the evening as he was recognized, and everyone around him began to step back as if they’d come into contact with either a man of great respect, deserving of a polite distance, or a man with leprosy. He honestly wasn’t sure which way they were feeling.
Lifting the microphone, he stared into the eyes of the woman he loved, knowing she couldn’t see his in return, but wanting her to feel them, all the same. “To the question of—”
Her indrawn breath echoed over the speakers, and he smiled. There was zero doubt she knew who was speaking to her.
“Did you ruin my career. I’d like to answer that, if I may.”
The square was dead silent.
She nodded. “Please.”
The fingers gripping the side of the podium began to twitch. He hated that he’d made her nervous, but it couldn’t be helped.
He took several steps forward, the crowd shifting with him, opening before him and closing the gap behind him as he moved. “The simple answer is no.”
He swung his gaze to the redheaded reporter. “Would you like more of an explanation than that, Ms. Keen?”
She jerked to attention as if shocked to find him focused on her. “Please, Mr. Davenport. I’m sure everyone would love to hear the explanation.”
“Including me,” Vega said.
When he turned back to her, he was pleased to see her hand stilled and the spark back in her eyes. He loved her more with every passing minute. “It would be my pleasure. By the way, has anyone mentioned how amazing you look tonight?”
From her quick downcast eyes, he was guessing they hadn’t.
“That’s what I thought,” he said into the microphone, his voice low, but it felt as if he were by her side, speaking directly to her. He continued to move closer. “You are beautiful, Vega. Every man here is jealous of me right now.”
A smile touched her lips. “That wouldn’t be unusual. Men often wish they were you. A Davenport, able to have any woman he wanted, all that money, the power.”
“A beautiful woman I love?”
Her eyes widened in shock, then she glanced nervously around at the still-silent crowd, and he started laughing.
“That’s right, baby. I just announced to everyone here—and on the live feeds from their cameras—that I love you.” He took the two remaining steps until he stood at the base of the stage, directly in front of her. “And that’s why the answer about whether you ruined my career is an unequivocal no. You made my career, baby, not ruined it.”
A line formed between her brows. “I don’t understand.”
“Can I come up?” He nodded to the stairs leading up to the risers.
“Please.”
With a spring in his step, he leapt up onstage and moved to stand beside her. She turned to him.
“Without you,” he continued over the speakers, “I would have never seen what had been right before me all along. I wouldn’t have accepted that politics is not what I want, but rather, something else even more important.”
The deep brown of her eyes darkened. “And what would that be?”
“We can’t hear you!” someone yelled from the crowd.
Vega blushed and seemed to remember they stood before everyone, having what she had to know was a highly important, and personal, conversation. She pulled the microphone from its base and brought it to her lips. “I asked what that would be.”
A collective aah went through the crowd, and she once again faced him, an I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening smile on her beautiful face.
“I’m not going into politics. I’m starting a new program instead. Just like I told you I wanted to do.”
Vega stared at the man she’d dared to hope would show up tonight, unable to believe what he was currently doing in the middle of live, national television. By now, stations across the country, and probably some outside the country, would have tuned into what was going on here.
She wondered just how far he was willing to go. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
“I would.” He nodded. “But first, I need someone to come up here and help me.”
Who? She glanced around, trying to figure out what he meant, when she spotted Cat off the side of the stage, Tyler at her side with his hand in hers. JP met them halfway and picked Tyler up in his arms. He then returned to center stage. She couldn’t keep her love from bursting wide-open in her chest and showing across her face.
“Hi, Tyler,” she spoke, the words echoing over the silence.
JP held the microphone up to Tyler.
“Hi.” He ducked his head in embarrassment.
“Are you going to help your uncle tonight?”
He nodded. JP whispered in his ear, and Tyler reached for the microphone. He grasped it with both hands, and his right arm began to twitch. “I’m helping Uncle P tell ’bout his program.”
And they were apparently going to do that by letting everyone see the dystonia that affected the movement in Tyler’s right arm. Vega remained silent as JP introduced Tyler and turned to the crowd to explain the program he had already put into motion, as well as the dyslexia he himself had suffered with all his life. He couldn’t have done anything more to impress her than what he was doing right now.
“So, no,” he wrapped up. “Vega did not ruin my career. She merely helped me see there were far more important paths I needed to be following.”
He winked at her, and she quickly brushed tears from her eyes. At least these were tears of happiness.
“I have one more thing I need to point out tonight,” he said to the crowd.
Turning away from her, he motioned toward Cat, and Vega saw Becca now standing by her side. She carried a very large, rectangular box in her hands as she made her way to JP.
“Everyone, this is Becca.”
The crowd responded in unison, “Hi, Becca.”
“Becca is going to help me with something for Vega.”
The child stepped around her uncle and held out the box, and Vega burst out laughing. It was imported chocolates.
“You brought me chocolates?”
“I’m trying to butter you up,” JP rumbled. “And they weren’t easy to get overnighted, so I deserve lots of points for them.”
The crowd laughed, then immediately fell silent. Clearly, they were as interested as she to see where this was going next. She took the box from Becca and leaned down to kiss the girl on the cheek. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she murmured.
“Hey,” JP complained. “I’m the one who paid to get those here. Why didn’t I get that kiss?”
Vega grinned. “Becca’s cuter.”
JP acted as if he’d been stabbed in the heart, and Tyler cackled out with laughter as any child would. Then Vega saw both Cat and Emma step up on th
e stage behind JP, and she looked around. What was going on?
He stared into her eyes, the moment quickly going from lighthearted to intense. “I apologize for ambushing your press conference. I know this wasn’t how you intended it to go, but from what I heard, you explained the past quite succinctly, and that should be good enough to move on.”
She couldn’t disagree. She nodded.
“And I want to say, to you and everyone here, there couldn’t be a better person in this crowd than you, baby. You’re sweet and moral, worried about others before yourself, and when given a choice, you always do the right thing. My family agrees with me, and that’s why they’re here. They wanted to show you that you have their full support.”
He paused, then set Tyler down and reached for her hand. “We have their full support.”
The next instant, JP was on one knee, a ring box in his hand, and smiling up at her. Vega looked wildly around at everyone on the stage, caught Bob’s wink and Emma and Cat’s supporting smiles, then finally redirected her attention back to the man she loved. The man currently kneeling before her, and many, many others. She gulped.
“Before I ask this question, know that if you say no to me, if you break my heart…here before this very large crowd, and my family…” He shook his head with sadness, as if a very bad thing had happened. “Well…everyone will feel so sorry for me. They’ll likely shower me with gifts and attention…”
Several ladies from the crowd let out a whoop as if they would gladly shower him with attention.
“See what I mean?” One side of his mouth lifted, one dimple shining. She loved that smile. “They’re already lining up to make me feel better.”
“Stand up,” she whispered. Still into the microphone.
He lifted an eyebrow.
“I want the man I love to ask me to marry him on his feet. So when he’s done, I can kiss him in a way that’ll leave no woman out there with any doubt that I’ll be the last one he’ll kiss.”
The half-smile grew to a full-blown one, and he rose, seemingly towering over her even though she had on very nice, and very high, brand-new Louboutins.