Like her environmental bill.
Blain nodded noncommittally, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Say, Grace, what are you doing for New Year’s?”
With all the smugness she could muster—which, at the moment, was quite a lot—Grace said, “I’ve got a date.”
Blain actually blinked, which gratified Grace in every possible way, right down to the tips of her pinched toes.
“Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Ethan Castle,” Grace answered, unable to smother her grin. Truthfully, Ethan made her grin a lot. They’d been calling, e-mailing, or texting every day and Grace couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy. And she also couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Blain look so dumbfounded.
“You’re kidding, right? He’s a shark, Grace.”
“So are you.”
“What about that whole song and dance you did about how you were afraid anyone might find out about you two all those years ago? What if he uses that against you?”
Normally, Grace would have chided him for so casually bringing this up at work, but it was almost the holiday and the Hill was practically a ghost town. The snow was really coming down outside and the staffers were gone except for Norma Billingsly, who was in her office with the dark wooden door closed tightly.
So Grace eyed Blain levelly, spoiling for a fight. “Ethan doesn’t know about the pictures. And even if he did, why would he use them?”
“I know his type. He wants something from you.”
Grace tried not to let her satisfaction show. Oh, Ethan wanted something from her. The same thing Grace had been trying to give Blain for years. If he was jealous now, well, too bad. “If Ethan knew about the pictures, he’d be embarrassed by them, too.”
“Get real, Grace. He’s a guy. He’s not going to be embarrassed that someone took pictures of a girl going down—”
“I’ll hit you if you say another word,” Grace hissed.
“Fine. But we’ve got a campaign to run. I don’t want him to unbalance you.”
“Too late.” Grace did feel unbalanced, and it was a euphoric feeling!
Blain furrowed his brow. “I’m not just saying this for Grandpa’s sake. I’m saying it for your sake, too. A lot of opportunities come up during a campaign. This is a time to be focused on work, not your love life. If you let yourself get distracted and miss a chance to get ahead, you’re never going to forgive yourself.”
…
Tinsel and garland. Presents and bows. Santas on every corner. Christmas was here, and the nation’s capital was decked out in pine boughs and colorful lights. Grace was in her glory.
Yet, Molly trudged behind her as they jostled with other shoppers to get into the mall and announced, “I hate this holiday.”
Grace gasped. “How can you hate it? It’s the one time of the year when nobody considers it self-indulgent to browse store windows and eat cookies!”
In answer, Molly pointed at the piece of paper clutched in Grace’s gloved hand. “You don’t browse, Grace. You execute shopping missions. You’ve categorized every store and color-coded the ones with sales!”
“I’m just making a list and checking it twice. One day you’ll thank me for it.”
Once inside the mall, Molly stomped directly toward the Starbucks. As they waited in line, she asked, “So, this is really it, right? You swear that you’re not going to sit around again waiting for Malibu Ken to get drunk enough on eggnog to grope you under the mistletoe?”
“I’m done with Blain Halloway,” Grace said airily, resisting the urge to stomp on Molly’s Goth-booted toes, and producing a coupon for their beverages instead. “I’m spending the holidays with Ethan. Christmas Eve, anyway. After that, he’s going back to spend Christmas Day with his family. He’s invited me to go with him, but I think my mother would be heartbroken…”
Molly took out a few bucks for a passing Salvation Army Santa then shook her head at Grace. “I knew you’d ruin it.”
“What?”
“You should be meeting him in a seedy hotel and having wild monkey sex with him. Instead, you’ve got him talking about taking you home for the holidays! Your outer good girl has bashed your inner bad girl into submission.”
Oh, Grace wasn’t too sure about that. She’d been the one to demand they take things slow, but now the enforced chastity was killing her. She was constantly dreaming about all those heart-stopping, blood-pulsing, mind-bending things they’d done in law school, and she kept waking up in a fevered sweat.
Grace grabbed her cocoa from the counter and toasted Molly. “Maybe this Christmas I’ll get to be naughty and nice.”
…
Christmas vacation meant, among other things, that Grace didn’t have to wake up when the alarm went off. Fumbling around to silence it, she accidentally turned on the radio to some inane morning show. She was super groggy—probably still dreaming, in fact—because she could swear she just heard Dr. Dark Ages announce his candidacy for the US Senate.
Grace snorted with laughter until she came fully awake.
Wow, she must be really stressed about the senator’s campaign to dream that crazy foreteller of germy doom was mounting a primary challenge against her boss. But she was awake now, so why was he still droning on about it on the radio?
Grace bolted upright, reeling in astonishment. No, this couldn’t be right. Something seemed off. The apartment was silent except for Thurgood snoring at the foot of her bed, whiskers twitching. Surely, someone would have called her about this. Why wasn’t her phone ringing?
“Oh crap!” Grace ran to find the cell phone she’d so ceremoniously switched off the night before. Her call log showed three calls from Blain and seven from Ethan. As soon as Grace turned on her phone, it rang. It was Blain and he was shouting.
“Let’s not get worked up,” she said, mostly to calm him down. “Dr. Dark Ages isn’t a serious candidate.”
Blain’s voice nearly cut her with its edge of nasty sarcasm. “Then why is your new boyfriend running his campaign?”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. Ethan is a pro. He wouldn’t work for that clown.”
“He would and he is, Grace. Ethan Castle is mounting a primary campaign against Senator Halloway.”
Grace tittered with nervous laughter. No way. Her Ethan? The one she planned to spend the holidays with? “Where’d you get your information?”
“Call him. See if he has the balls to pick up the phone.”
Grace did just that. She called his cell phone. No answer.
She called Ethan’s apartment in Los Angeles. No answer there, either.
She left him a voice mail. No reply.
And in the silence, the blood slowly drained from Grace’s face. It couldn’t be true. Ethan couldn’t be working for the enemy. If he was, that would mean that he’d been working her for information right from the start. And he wasn’t that kind of guy, was he?
The awfulness of it started to sink in. He was a politician. He knew how to work people. And he’d worked her just the way Blain had warned her he would. She’d let him do it, too. She’d let down her walls just a little bit and…
Grace remembered how he’d turned down the chance to work on the Halloway campaign. Now she knew the real reason why. It had nothing to do with campaign excitement or even working for Blain Halloway.
She’d been flattering herself to think that he was actually into her. He’d been sizing her up. Waiting for her to tell him something he could use!
Men, Grace thought bitterly. Other than the senator, she couldn’t trust them. Not her father, not Blain, not Dale, and definitely not Ethan.
Grace launched her slipper across the room. It crashed onto her dresser with a clatter, knocking over several perfume bottles (which she promised herself she would immediately reorder as soon as her temper cooled).
The smash disturbed Thurgood’s nap, and he hissed in protest. Grace felt like hissing, too. Here she’d been fantasizing about putting her hands al
l over Ethan but now she only wanted to get close enough to choke him!
…
And this, Ethan thought, was the downside to working with political neophytes.
He’d packed his stuff, closed up his apartment, and spent seven hours on a plane readying for his big move to Maryland without having any clue that this maelstrom was brewing. The minute he touched ground, his iPad lit up like a Christmas tree and he had more phone messages than he could count.
When Professor Kim asked for discretion, Ethan assumed that went both ways. He never expected the guy to announce his candidacy during a random college presentation on preventing the spread of the common cold.
“Listen,” Ethan snapped at the professor, clutching at his phone while making his way out of the airport. “This never happens again or we’re done. If I’m working on your campaign, you do things my way. That means you ask me before you do anything. Got it? From now on, always assume you’re being recorded. Goddamnit, I didn’t sign on to a winning campaign, but I didn’t sign up for amateur hour, either.”
Ethan checked himself. The damage was already done. No need to berate the poor man. Besides, Ethan wasn’t half as upset that the professor was already bungling his way through the campaign as he was about Grace. He’d intended to tell her—tonight. He’d planned such an expensive and romantic Christmas Eve that she’d have dressed herself up in a bow and let him unwrap her…and now she wouldn’t even answer his calls.
He had to resort to text messages, at which he was suddenly all thumbs.
Let’s talk. I can explain everything. -EC
No need to explain. I get it. -GS
At least she was still playfully signing her initials. That was a good sign, right?
I’ll be at your apartment to pick you up in 10 minutes. -EC
I don’t want you at my apartment and I’m not getting into a car with you.
Uh-oh. No more initials.
Then meet me at the restaurant where we can talk. I’ve got reservations. -EC
I’m not going to let you wine and dine me at some romantic restaurant where people might think we’re dating.
It took him almost half an hour of cajoling to get her to agree to meet him anywhere. She chose the diner, which he supposed was neutral ground, but not the place he’d intended to spend Christmas Eve. She took her time showing up, and he was so hungry after his flight, he ended up ordering a burger while he waited.
She finally arrived in smart high-heeled boots, which gave her the air of an urban street fighter, ready for the attack. And she marched across the tiled floor to Ethan’s booth as if she were at the head of a legion. That tight little jaw of hers, spine straight, a look of utter determination on her face, as if she’d let no one and nothing distract her from her mission. Truthfully, it was kind of sexy.
“Coffee,” Grace snapped at the waitress, throwing her coat into the seat.
She looked like she was ready to launch into a well-practiced diatribe, so Ethan held up his hands in surrender. “Look, Grace, I’m sorry you found out about Professor Kim’s candidacy the way you did. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. I was going to tell you tonight.”
Grace wasn’t mollified. “You think I’m pissed off because you didn’t tell me about it? I’m mad that you’re doing it! You’ve been scoping out our campaign for months. How stupid was I to think you were actually in town to see me?”
Ethan’s own jaw tightened as he considered her words. “You seriously think I’ve been getting cozy with you to spy on Old Man Halloway? You know me better.”
She rearranged the salt and pepper so that they were lined up properly. He’d seen her do that before. Was it a tic? “You sound so sincere, Ethan. Probably just how John Smith sounded before he let Pocahontas be kidnapped and forced to shill for Big Tobacco.”
There was something so delightfully nutty about her that he almost laughed. “I don’t think that’s how it happened.”
Then she gave him a look frostier than the weather outside. “You told me you were going to work for McLanahan or Wagner. You told me you were torn.”
Half-finished with his burger, he took a stab at the coleslaw. “I was torn. I had no idea who I wanted to work for. I just couldn’t get excited about any of them. That’s never happened to me before. I even considered just sitting this one out and booking more gigs on television. So when I talked to Professor Kim—who doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning, as you know—I realized I had an opportunity to do something different. It wasn’t a planned thing and I’m not going to make a dime on it, so what’s the big deal?”
The Santa-hat-wearing waitress seemed to know better than to interrupt them. She slid a mug to Grace, who dumped fake sugar into it with such fury that coffee splashed the table. “The big deal is that now we’re enemies, Ethan.”
She said it like some Cold War spy who caught him trading in state secrets. “C’mon, Grace.”
“No, I mean it. I gave you a chance to work for Kip Halloway and you turned me down. Instead, you went to work for a guy who is trying to take out my boss. That means war!”
It was adorable the way she pointed at him with her coffee spoon. But it worried him that she was this upset. “Grace, it’s just politics. Friends work on opposing campaigns all the time. We’re grown-ups. We do our best, then shake hands when the game’s over.”
Grace slapped her spoon down. “It’s not a game to me. You work for a different politician every season, but I’m loyal.”
So, she didn’t just work for Senator Halloway, she obviously idolized the geezer. “I’d never ask you to be disloyal.”
Her lower lip quivered and for one horrifying moment, he thought she was going to cry. “Can’t you see that you’ve ruined everything? You’ve ruined Christmas Eve and I can’t go home with you for Christmas. I can’t even see you to the airport.”
“That’s crap,” Ethan said, and when she startled at his word choice, he said it again. “It’s crap. You want to be a professional in this business? Then act like one. This is just a primary. It’s not like I signed up to fight for the other side. Primaries can be friendly. Long before the general election, everybody holds hands. This will last a few months at most.”
He’d only said what was on his mind, but regretted making it sound like she was a naive, unreasonable kid. This was obviously deeply personal to Grace, a point she drove home with her next words. “A primary challenge is a statement that Senator Halloway is unfit. And I don’t know if I can be with someone who doesn’t know just how amazing he is.”
Ethan scowled thoughtfully, pushing his plate away. “I get it. You’re passionate about your guy. Your whole heart is in it. I admire that. I admire it a lot. But Halloway isn’t going to lose. We’re just going to have a polite debate.”
“You don’t do polite debates.”
He paused. “Fair point. Normally, I’d be chomping at the bit for a brawl. But not this time.”
Grace lifted an eyebrow. “So why’d you take this job?”
“For one thing, I like Professor Kim and I haven’t liked a candidate in a long time.”
“So take him to a Ravens game.”
Ethan found himself fiddling with his napkin. “You know why I really took the job. Do I have to say it?”
She blew on her coffee, making him wait. “Yes. I do need to hear you say it, because it makes no sense. Why did you take the job?”
“To be near you,” he said, his tone one of irritation. “You said I wasn’t the kind of guy to stick around so I’m proving you wrong. I told you I’d try to find a more permanent solution and I did.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes dropping as her cheeks pinkened. She was quiet for a long time—a really uncomfortably long time—and then she said, “I don’t know if I believe you.”
“Well, I can see why you’d have your doubts. Not every woman has a TV heartthrob willing to go to insane lengths for her…”
His cocky attitude worked on her every time. The smile escaped
her efforts to hide it. “How is this possibly going to work? How is this better than you flying back and forth? Now you’ll be in town, but we can’t actually date each other.”
“Why not?” Ethan said.
She looked at him like she thought he was an imbecile. “Don’t you think Dr. Dark Ages is going to be offended to know his whole campaign is part of a dating strategy?”
Ethan let his ego flash in his eyes. “He’s lucky to have me. It’s not his business who I’m dating and if it’s a problem, I’ll quit.”
Grace bit her lower lip. “It’s different for me. Senator Halloway isn’t just a client and I don’t think he’ll be okay with this.”
Everything was always so complicated with Grace. “It’s none of his business who you date, either.”
Grace didn’t seem so sure. “Maybe not, but I still have to tell him. He has a right to know if he’s being compromised by my relationship with you.”
“How would he be compromised? You’re not his campaign manager. Let Blain Halloway worry about the campaign. In fact, we don’t even have to talk about the campaign. If you need time to tell your boss, that’s fine, but don’t take forever. I know tonight got ruined. I can even grudgingly accept that you need to stay here for Christmas and settle things with your boss, but we’ve still got a date on New Year’s Eve, right?”
“Ethan, I don’t know about this…”
“We can make it work,” he assured her, reaching for her hand, which curled around her coffee cup in a fist. Slowly, he unwound each of her fingers into his palm and she let him. It soothed her, just as it used to.
“List three reasons it can work.”
“You need a list, Grace?”
“Almost always.”
“You’re just a little bit OCD, aren’t you?”
She grinned. “Just a little bit.”
Ethan started ticking off his reasons. “One, this can work because we’re professionals. Two, this can work because we’re highly motivated and smart. Three, because I want this, and I get what I want.”
“That’s five reasons,” Grace said.
That did it. He had to kiss that smart-assed mouth of hers. His hunger for her was starting to hurt. Leaning forward over the table, he grabbed her cheeks and planted one on her. “Listen, if you’re not impressed by a guy upending his whole life just to get a shot with you, you might just be a little too hard to please.”
In Bed With the Opposition Page 9
