When Grace was done she exited off-stage to where Ethan stood. He couldn’t do anything but offer her a hand down, and she couldn’t do anything but take it. Their fingers touched and something sparked through him. On the stage, Nancy Jackson launched into her speech. Ethan knew he should listen but with Grace sitting so close, he was mightily distracted.
It took every ounce of willpower to listen to the comptroller. And all that self-control vanished in an instant when he saw Grace toy with a pen, tracing the cap on the outer edge of her lips. She noticed him looking, and grinned.
…
Two hours later, in the backseat of his car, Grace was buttoning her blouse and laughing as if she’d had too much champagne. “We can’t keep doing this! This really has to be the last time…”
His head lolled back against the seat rest, his body limp and drained, he panted, “Whatever you say, Grace.”
Her laughter cut off abruptly when she checked her phone. “Oh no, it’s late! And it’s a work night. Will you walk me to my car?”
“As soon as I can walk again,” he said with a leer, but he wasn’t entirely kidding. “Sure I can’t drive you home?”
“No, thanks. We can’t leave my car in the parking lot,” she said, idly tracing the steamy glass with her finger.
He let her do it, fascinated and bemused.
“What? Stop looking at me that way, Ethan. Why are you laughing?”
His chuckle turned into a belly laugh. “Do you see what you’re drawing?”
When she saw the giant heart she’d traced in the steam, Grace snatched her finger away, then turned scarlet. Another woman might have brushed it off as nothing or made some snarky comment, but he’d caught Grace out in an unconscious expression of her feelings and, mortified, she hid her face in her hands. Which only made Ethan laugh harder.
“Oh my god, I’m twelve!” she cried.
“Grace…”
“I need to leave this car while I still have a shred of dignity left.”
“Grace!” he cried, grabbing her hand before she could yank open the door. “C’mere,” he said, sliding over in the seat to pull her close. Taking her wrist, he captured the offending finger and kissed its wet tip.
“I’m such a dork…”
“You’re adorable,” he reassured her, taking that finger and using it to trace something else on the glass.
“GS,” she said, recognizing the shapes. Then he felt her breath catch. “GS plus EC.”
“Now you’re twelve,” he said with triumph.
She whacked him in the stomach.
“Ow! Hey,” Ethan laughed, kissing her hard and thoroughly. “So when does my guy debate with yours? Let’s talk timelines.”
He hadn’t done it to catch her off-balance but he was gratified to see her recover quickly. “It’s still too early,” Grace said, deftly disguising the guile behind her eyes.
It was a lie, he knew. She was putting him off. But for some reason he couldn’t be pissed about it. Truthfully, he felt a flash of pride. Look at Grace Santiago, all grown up and playing politics in the big leagues…
Chapter Fifteen
Bright and early on Father’s Day, Grace arrived at the Halloway House to find Mama as cheerful as Grace had ever seen her, ladling gazpacho into bowls with thick bread on the side. All the Halloway family was in attendance, including Blain, who was still wheelchair-bound.
The proud patriarch, Senator Halloway, insisted on sitting at the head of the table and carving the ham. Perhaps his arthritis was acting up because he dropped the knife twice. It was the second time that he said, “We have an announcement to make.”
For one wild heart-stopping second, Grace thought that he might announce that he was suspending the campaign! Instead, he reached out, took Mama’s hand, and said, “I asked Ms. Santiago to marry me and, this past weekend, we flew to Vegas and made it legal.”
Grace couldn’t have been more shocked than if he’d announced he was going to enter a monastery. The family gasped with delight. Blain was the first to congratulate them. Then the family was crowding around and hugging them, and the senator was saying, “Thank you. This has been a long time in coming.”
Grace sat frozen in her seat. What? How could it have been a long time in coming when she didn’t know anything about it? She blinked, more than once, and in her shock, tried to make sense of the particulars.
Didn’t the scheduler share his appointments with her every day? Las Vegas certainly wasn’t on the agenda. And he’d married…Grace’s mother?
“You all know how I felt about Martha,” the senator was saying. “But this woman has been at my side through all the hard times since, and I know Martha would understand and be happy for us, so I hope you can, too.”
Maybe he was right. Martha Halloway probably would have understood. But Grace didn’t! Indignant, she wanted to know how long this had been going on. Had it been an affair while his wife was dying? Had the senator taken advantage of his position as his mother’s employer? And for a brief, very uncharitable moment, Grace even wondered if this elopement was a way to generate positive publicity for the man who had been portrayed in the national news as an unrepentant xenophobic lecher.
But Mama’s happiness was too radiant, and the look in the senator’s eyes was genuine. It wasn’t politics. It was love. She’d just missed all the signs…
She’d always thought all the nice things Senator Halloway did for her over the years were about her. Now Grace wondered if the senator’s kindness had also been a way of winning her mother’s heart. Showing their love openly, Mama and the senator looked as if they were each ten years younger. Mama flashed the sparkling engagement ring and her wedding band, and Grace’s grudging heart finally filled for them both. “I know you’re going to be so happy together.”
After dinner, Grace shooed her mother from the kitchen. “I’ll take care of the dishes. You shouldn’t have to work on your honeymoon.”
“Oh, mija, it’s not work for me. This is my home now.”
Grace swallowed, realizing that even though going from housekeeper to a senator’s wife would be an adjustment, it would also be validation. Marrying Kip Halloway was a stamp of approval that said, once and for all, that Mama was not trash—no matter what Grace’s father had claimed when he left all those years ago.
Strangely, it was validation for her, too. It suddenly occurred to Grace that she was finally going to be a member of the family. What a twisted world…did this mean Blain Halloway was now her step-nephew? Ew.
“You’re really happy, aren’t you?” Grace asked, marveling at the way her mother had somehow been able to move on from everything her father had done, had somehow found it in her heart to trust someone new. And if Grace’s mother could do it, maybe sometime soon, Grace could learn to do it, too.
…
Ethan was setting up the grill on Professor Kim’s back patio for the Fourth of July fund-raising cookout, when PolitiGal peeked her head around the side. “I was talking to one of my contacts in the majority leader’s office,” she said. “And think I’ve got something we can use against Senator Halloway.”
Stacking up bags of hot dog buns, Ethan said, “Hit me.”
“It looks like influence peddling and a possible sex scandal involving your old flame.”
Ethan snorted. “Who, Grace? She’d never be involved in anything like that.”
PolitiGal waved a folder under his nose. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It can still cause some damage…unless you’re suddenly the only honest politico in the country.”
Ethan scowled, remembering all the times he’d used rumor and innuendo to get ahead by a few points in the polls. Then, glancing at the contents of the folder, he was beset with a wave of nausea.
Back in law school, Dale Delmont had been a smarmy fellow who was always trying to impress the ladies with his car, his watch, his computer, or whatever other trendy item money could buy. Ethan had never liked him, but Grace had… “This is everything?�
�
PolitiGal nodded. “I know it’s not much. But I think there’s more there. Do you have anybody inside the Halloway campaign?”
Ethan grimaced. He had sources inside the Jackson campaign, but none in the Halloway camp because Grace could sniff out a nonbeliever a mile away.
“Want me to keep digging?” PolitiGal asked.
Clutching the folder, Ethan grabbed his keys. “No. I’ve got this.”
Half an hour later he was a very unwelcome visitor at the Halloway for Senate campaign headquarters. Not even Grace’s most timid volunteers were dumb enough to let him into their inner sanctum, but he didn’t expect to be stopped cold in his tracks by a man wielding a stick. Well, a crutch really.
“Grace isn’t here,” Blain Halloway said. “Next time, make an appointment.”
Ethan stared at the guy, sizing him up. It was hard not to want to knock those perfect white teeth of his down his throat. Instead, Ethan handed Blain the folder. “Wanna make a comment about this before it ends up in the news?”
The senator’s grandson had a decent poker face, but the indrawn breath and the twitch of his right hand were dead giveaways. Ethan’s political instincts lit up like a switchboard.
Less than a minute later, they were sitting in a conference room together and Ethan decided on the direct approach. Okay, it wasn’t a decision as much as a gut instinct, but he went with it. “We’re hearing that you used your influence to get Dale Delmont a job on the Hill—a job he’d already been turned down for—and that you did it to keep him quiet.” Ethan made it sound like he knew more than he did and steeled himself not to show any signs of surprise at whatever Blain might be willing to confess.
Even so, he found himself shaken when Blain said, “Grace didn’t want you to know about it.”
What the hell had Grace been hiding? Bravado would have to get him through this, so Ethan said, “Well, now I know. So you might as well explain yourself.”
Blain snorted. “You want me to explain myself? Maybe you should explain yourself. I was just helping Grace out of the trouble that you got her into.”
The hell? This time there was no way Ethan could hide his surprise or his confusion. “The trouble I got her into?”
“That’s right,” Halloway said, jabbing a finger at Ethan’s chest. “Somehow I don’t think it was Grace’s idea to get down and dirty in a library stairwell. She was the youngest kid in her class, always eager to please, and you took advantage of that. You put her at risk, and I had to clean up the mess you left behind.”
This sounded bad. Really bad. Ethan had vivid—very vivid—memories of sexcapades with Grace in the law school library. He remembered the night in the library’s glass stairwell, and how he’d had her on her knees, and it still made him unsteady to think about. His brief hesitation gave him away.
Blain let out a whistle, low and angry. “You dick. You’re bluffing. You just knew about Delmont. You didn’t know that Dale Delmont had pictures of you and Grace, did you?”
Ethan saw fireworks inside his own head. “Are you kidding?”
“He knew Grace had a relationship with our family and threatened to make the pictures public.”
Ethan’s hand came down hard on the table. “Oh, come on. To what end? She was just a staffer. Nobody would have printed those photos.”
Halloway’s voice took on a harder edge and he sounded like his grandfather. “There’s no gatekeeper on the Internet. He knew it would scare her and it did.”
Ethan felt a murderous rage building in his blood. “Are you saying Dale Delmont blackmailed Grace? She should’ve gone to the police.”
Blain stiffened defiantly. “Well, she didn’t. She came to me.”
“It’s never the goddamned crime. It’s always the cover-up.” Ethan threw himself back into the chair, his hand making a fist of his hair. “You made it ten times worse, asshole.”
“I know better now, but back then, I was—”
“Just a spoiled frat boy eager to use your grandpa’s authority?”
The senator’s grandson glared. “You don’t get to judge me. I’m not the one who left Grace totally vulnerable.”
For the first time in his life, Ethan had no snappy comeback. As it happened, Halloway had just delivered the most brutal blow of all: the truth. Ethan had always teased Grace for needing to follow the rules, but the very first time he’d convinced her to break them, it’d made her vulnerable to blackmail. Pieces fell into place, and it staggered him. “This is why she flunked out of law school.”
Halloway nodded. “And maybe it was for the best, because she didn’t want to have to face that creep—and you—every day. She probably knew, deep down, that you were the kind of guy who would use this to win, no matter who got hurt. So, what are you going to do? The least you can do is let us know what kind of shitstorm we need to prepare for.”
Ethan’s mind began spinning with the possibilities. Sex photos of a Senate campaign manager wouldn’t sink a campaign, but it was salacious and everyone involved would look bad, except maybe Ethan, who would come out looking like a stud. Even a hack could turn this it into a messy scandal. Blain Halloway’s political future could be compromised. Delmont could end up in jail, depending on the prosecutor, the applicable law, and the statute of limitations involved. But it was Grace who would suffer the most.
Senator Halloway would have to fire Grace to keep the campaign on message, and her reputation would be in ruins. The idea of that made Ethan sick. It really did. Not because he was ashamed of anything he’d ever done with Grace. Not five years ago, and not now, but because this would make her a subject of ridicule. There’d be jokes. People would question her professionalism; her career would be effectively over.
It’s what she always told him she was afraid of and he hadn’t been willing to listen.
“I’m not going to do anything,” Ethan said, with a shake of his head. “I wouldn’t use this…”
“But the Jackson campaign would,” Blain filled in for him.
Ethan fought back the bile in his throat. “As far as I know, I’m the only one who’s got this information. My guess is that Delmont probably bragged a little bit to the wrong person in the majority leader’s office about how he got his job; luckily, he’ll want to keep his mouth shut now.”
“The only thing we can do is make it hard for anybody to connect the dots.”
Ethan fumed. “Right. So take a vacation. Find a therapeutic center far away and stay there for a long rehabilitation.”
Halloway stiffened, but didn’t argue. “What about you?”
“I’ll stay away from her,” Ethan said, bitterly.
There wasn’t any choice. Everything he was doing—or more importantly, everyone he was doing—was under scrutiny. So the best thing for Grace would be to keep things strictly professional. Just the way she’d asked him to the night she broke up with him. And at the moment, he wasn’t sure that would be all that difficult, because he was almost as pissed at Grace as he was at himself.
That night at the Independence Day cookout, it seemed oddly appropriate to be watching fireworks overhead since everything in his life had just exploded. He was still seeing flashes of red fury when he could finally leave the party and be alone. He didn’t expect to find Grace waiting in the hallway outside his hotel suite, sitting on the floor with her back against the wall as if she’d temporarily taken leave of her senses.
“You shouldn’t be here, Grace. This isn’t smart.”
She stood up, brushing herself off, and he saw she was wearing a white blouse, short blue skirt, and those killer red stilettos. Of course she was. Knowing her, she was probably wearing the stars and stripes on her underwear, too. And that was exactly the kind of thought he needed to stop having.
“You should’ve told me,” he said, swiping his key in the door.
“I was too ashamed to tell anybody.”
Ethan shook his head. “You told Blain Halloway.”
“Oh God, I only told Blain be
cause—”
“Because he’s everything you ever wanted in a guy.” Ethan heard the bitterness in his own voice. “I remember.”
“I told him because I was young and scared and I didn’t know what else to do.”
Ethan felt himself softening, imagining how she must have felt. He was just a student back then, with no money or power. Short of punching Dale Delmont in the throat, he wouldn’t have been able to help her. If those pictures got out, Ethan might take a little ribbing, but it would all be with a wink and boys-will-be-boys nod. It’d be different for her.
“Come in,” he said, knowing that this wasn’t a conversation they should have in the hall. Once inside, he threw his stuff on the credenza and led her to the bar in the kitchenette. “First rule of politics, Grace. You never give in to blackmail. You fucked up.”
She nodded, her shoulders rounding with defeat. “I know.”
“Then you made it worse by leaving me in the dark.”
“I tried to tell you. At the laundry. I tried…”
He wasn’t taking any of that. “You’ve had months to tell me since.”
Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. “No, I didn’t. By the time I worked up the courage to tell you, you’d taken a job working for my boss’s opponent. And then I couldn’t tell you.”
Well, there it was. Now they came to the heart of the matter. He had to give her points for making the picture crystal clear. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust him years ago, and she didn’t trust him now. Grace Santiago, with all her lists and neuroses, had walls so high up around her they couldn’t be breached. He once thought he would be the guy to break through those walls. After all, he was named after the Revolutionary War hero, Ethan Allen, who nearly single-handedly captured Fort Ticonderoga. But Fort Ticonderoga had nothing on Fort Grace. She’d let him inside her body, but never further than that.
In Bed With the Opposition Page 16
