The Phoenix Campaign (Grace Colton Book 2)

by Heidi Joy Tretheway

  “You’re right,” Gloria Alton says, and it throws me for a moment. “But marriage is a big issue for voters. You’re a widow, Congresswoman Colton. So the question remains, are we ever going to see you in One Observatory Circle with a husband and family? Or is this man in the picture just a meaningless fling?”

  The words hit me like a slap, tearing away the gray area that exists in my relationship with Jared. We were supposed to be nothing but a one-night stand when he first sought me out in a bar, but we’re nowhere near the nuclear poster family suitable for a political campaign.

  But we could be a family.

  If he loves me enough to want me for the long haul.

  If he loves the idea of being a father.

  “The man in this picture is a good man. Let’s move on, Gloria, so we don’t bore your viewers.” I give her my best smile and, miraculously, she does.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “How’d it go?” Trey looks up from his computer. He’s the last member of my staff left in the office. Sasha’s done with me for the night, but she packed every minute of my schedule from seven to seven tomorrow.

  “It went.” I sink into the chair by Trey’s desk with an audible sigh and toe off my shoes.

  “Your hair looks good up.” He nods to the hair-sprayed confection of curls pulled into a loose twist, with a few soft spirals by my ears. Per Jared’s direction, it’s become my signature for public appearances. “Jared knows his shit.”

  “Except for the part where he acts like a shit.”

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  I roll my eyes, unsure of how much I should say. “I think this one was my fault. He pushed me, I pushed back hard, and then … he just quit.”

  “He quit you? Or the campaign? That’s why Sasha Heller’s in the mix now, isn’t it?”

  I nod. “He said he didn’t want me to be his candidate anymore. So he assigned someone else.”

  Trey scoots his chair to the side of his desk and grabs my hands in his. He waits until he has my full attention. “Don’t sweat this, baby girl. Maybe the best thing for you two is to have a bit of space. It’s a new relationship and going from zero to sixty is pretty jarring.”

  I cock a brow in question. “You know this from experience?”

  Trey’s gaze slides away from me. “Nah. Things are moving pretty slow with Joel. He’s out, I’m not, and that’s a problem for him. I don’t like keeping secrets, especially from people I love, but I can’t help this one.”

  Trey’s words echo the words in my brain. I don’t like keeping secrets, especially from people I love, but I can’t help this one.

  Aliza knows about my pregnancy, yet I can’t bring myself to tell Jared, or Trey and Mama Bea. The people I love.

  There’s also another man to whom I owe the truth, the one who’s taking untold amounts of flak for picking the “slutty widow” as his running mate after the backlash of my pictures. Shep Conover deserves to know his running mate’s going to be a blimp by spring. I need to repay his faith in me with honesty.

  I chill, imagining what he’ll say. He knows Jared and I are recently together, and I wonder if he’ll shame me for being so colossally stupid for getting knocked up right now, or if he’ll blame me for potentially ruining his shot at the White House.

  Jared’s words from early in the campaign echo back to me. “Voters won’t vote for you if you give them a reason not to. They’re listening for all the reasons why not. You’ve got to be louder and stronger with the reasons why.”

  ***

  I send Mac and Eric into a tizzy when I announce that I want to drop by Jared’s apartment after I leave the office.

  “Could we pick him up and bring him to your condo, Congresswoman Colton?”

  “No. I have to go to him.”

  “We need to call ahead to ask a few security questions.”

  “No. It needs to be a surprise.”

  Mac and Eric exchange disapproving looks but Eric nods and mumbles some more military letterspeak into his microphone. All I catch is, “Phoenix away from Charlie Hotel to…”

  Jared’s apartment window light is on, a good sign. I use the keycard he gave me to get into the lobby and march my butt up the stairs to apologize like a grown woman.

  Mac and Eric trail me, both wearing sidearms, but they’re no real backup for this confrontation.

  I should have brought Jared something. Wine? No. I can’t drink it, anyway. Some kind of food? Or dessert? Something to show him I’m sorry.

  Something to take the edge off so I can finally talk to him long enough to get a sense of his stance on family and kids and that tiny human, smaller than a blueberry, who grows inside me.

  My brain turns calendar pages and I realize that by the time of the general election, I could be showing. The cruelest pundits will say I should lay off the cheesecake. The worst tabloids will claim a first sighting of a baby bump, the unidentified man’s love child.

  I knock on Jared’s door and then test the handle. It’s unlocked. I swing it open and Jared is at his round dining table, a mess of papers strewn across it. Beside him, Sasha Heller looks up at me and smiles, her silky tank top hugging all the right places.

  Absent her jacket, she looks a lot less like a shark.

  She looks a lot more like my replacement.

  Fuck.

  “Sorry.” I blink, willing this vision away from my eyes. “I didn’t know you’d have company.”

  “What are you doing here?” Jared’s tone is guarded.

  “I came by to … just to catch up. It’s no big deal.” My feet rewind me a few steps back to the door. “We can talk tomorrow. At my office. Or whatever. You can make an appointment with Trey.”

  Sasha’s eyes flick to Jared and back to me. She shifts her chair closer to him and I bristle. “Jared and I have had a long night. And you look tired. Why don’t you just download with me tomorrow?”

  Her smooth question stabs at me, taunts me. I look tired? She might as well have said I look like crap. “I really just wanted to follow up with him on….” I trail off when her bare elbow brushes his arm.

  “On what?” Jared’s gruff voice catches my hasty retreat.

  I’m talking garbage but I really can’t have this conversation with my lover, or ex-lover, or at least ex-consultant—whoever he is to me right now, but at a minimum the father of my child—with Sasha here.

  “Logistics,” I sputter. Logistics, like what the hell are you doing with her right now?

  “I can handle those.” Sasha waves her hand like that’s nothing, like I’m nothing. “We were just going over everything for the next stage. You don’t have to worry about it.” She touches Jared’s shoulder for confirmation and I grit my teeth.

  “Sasha’s got it under control,” he confirms.

  My eyes bounce between them, desperate to break up this cozy little meeting but finding no footing. Jared’s eyes burn into me as my body vibrates with indecision—fight or flight?

  I smile sweetly at Sasha. “Then if you’ve got it under control, you won’t mind if Jared and I take a minute to wrap up some loose ends?” I’m playing nice even though I want to slap her with my get-the-hell-out look.

  Jared nods slightly. “I’ve been working so closely with Grace in the past few months that I’d like to hear a bit from her tonight, if that’s OK, Sasha.”

  If that’s OK, Sasha? Where the fuck is my bossy man?

  “I think we’re pretty much done anyway,” Sasha says lightly as she stuffs papers in folders. “We can debrief on the Alton show tomorrow. It doesn’t air until Friday.”

  I exhale. Small victory.

  Sasha slides on her jacket and slips her laptop and files in her attaché. “I’ve got some talking points to draft. This little speech at Trey’s high school is turning into a major pain in the ass.”

  Jared flashes me a warning glance—Not now—and I hold my tongue. “Sasha and I are scrambling the schedule a bit this week to accommodate that and some new appearances, b
ut we’ll have it sorted out shortly.” He turns to her. “Thanks for joining our team at the last minute.”

  She waves her hand. “Pffft. It’s fine. It’s kind of fun to be on the same side of a campaign as you for once. Just remember me when it comes time to make White House staff assignments, OK?” Sasha gives him a wink and another light pat on the arm, then strides to the door.

  “Ready by seven tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Good.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The door clicks closed and Jared closes the distance between us in two heartbeats. I open my mouth to speak, but his hands cup my cheeks and his lips stop my words.

  He doesn’t just kiss me. He drinks me in. Soft touches of his lips and light flicks from his tongue turn into a teasing, then demanding dance. Our mouths twist, crush, taste and tangle. I feel my pulse race in my neck as his arms pull me tighter to his chest. Our bodies align perfectly.

  Hardness and softness.

  Cool touch and warmth.

  A gift and a demand.

  An apology. A question.

  I’m not ready to ask the question. And I need something cleverer than, What would you say if I told you we were going to be parents in seven months, and how do you really feel about it?

  “Why did you—?”

  “I’m sorry,” Jared whispers against my neck, his hands kneading up and down my spine. “I know Sasha’s pretty hardcore, but I thought it would be best for us. You know, to have that space to just focus on—”

  “Shut up. Shut up.” I stop his words with another kiss that spreads silence through the room for long seconds. When we break for air, I continue. “I’m here to apologize. You were trying to do your job. I was too touchy, too cranky, and I pushed you too hard. I’m sorry.”

  He chuckles, deep and rich, and I feel it through the vibrations of his chest. “Then we’re both sorry. And we’re both forgiven. Deal?”

  “Yes.”

  Jared’s teeth, sharp and white, nip a bit harder on my neck where it meets my shoulder. “Can I make you say that again?” His hands travel up my hips and under my blouse, circling my ribcage, making his intention clear.

  “Yes.”

  Jared leads me to his bedroom, pulls his body tight behind mine. His cock presses on the fly of his slacks and I push my ass back toward him, making him groan as he finds all my buttons and zippers.

  When our clothes lie in a pile on the floor, he spins me toward his chest, catching me in his arms. Skin to skin, chest to chest, I feel our breathing quicken with anticipation.

  “I wasn’t just angry at you for being stubborn. And ignoring my request to vet your speech.” Jared’s lips move across my bare skin on a path from neck to nipple.

  “I though we’d just forgiven each other?”

  “We have. For the fight about the speech. But there’s something else you’re holding back from me.”

  His teeth find my nipple, inflicting just enough pain that my back arches and I let out a startled noise. Something I’m holding back? How could he know?

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not holding back? I think you are. Don’t think I don’t see it. I’m a man, but I’m not fucking blind to what’s happening in your body.”

  Holy shit. He knows I’m pregnant.

  Jared sucks my other breast into his mouth, his tongue laving over the nipple’s tip, and his hand moves between my legs, palming my folds, tracing where moisture spreads.

  “I know you, and I know your body. Do I have to name it?”

  I should answer him, but this exquisite torture—his mouth on my breast, his thumb working my clit, and a finger teasing my G-spot—makes words come slowly, as if appearing through a fog.

  He releases my nipple with a sharp nip and there’s fire in his eyes. “If you can’t be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself. Don’t scream and writhe like I’ve pushed you over the edge, when the truth is, you were faking it.”

  It takes a moment for that to register and my body stills as my brain processes Jared’s accusation.

  “I what?”

  “You faked it. You faked your orgasm. Last time we were intimate.” Jared’s voice vibrates with intensity, his expression ferocious, as if I’d committed a far more heinous crime.

  Then again, lying to your lover about what pleases you is a bit less dire than lying about a child. And yet relief floods me, knowing that Jared doesn’t know I’m pregnant, at least not yet.

  It gives me that little bit more time.

  To figure out his heart. To go to the doctor and be sure it’s real.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “It’s not enough. I can’t be with you if I can’t be sure this is real. Between us.” He presses my shoulders back to lie down across the bed. His knee nudges mine apart and I open to him. “I need you more than the first day I met you. More than the first day I made love to you. And I won’t settle for less of you, when you withdraw and our intimacy whittles away. Because that’s the beginning of the end.”

  His cock nudges at my entrance, a question spoken by his body.

  I wrap my legs around his hips and pull him inside me. “Take me. Please. Get me out of my head,” I beg him.

  His powerful hips draw back and slam into me. I feel him from tip to root, every inch, every nerve completely focused on what he wants from me. “It’s just us here.”

  No it’s not. There’s another life, too.

  He thrusts inside me again and I whimper with the force of it. “I need to know. I need to know what you want from me.”

  “Everything, sweetheart,” he drawls. The word’s meaning races from chaste to dirty, from right now to forever. “I want everything from you.”

  “Always?”

  The rhythm of Jared’s hips falters. His face pulls back from me.

  “What are you asking?”

  “I just—” God, now I sound like I’m in high school, asking the boy I’ve just kissed whether this means we’re going steady. “I just need to know if you want me for the long haul. Past the campaign, no matter whether we win or lose. I need to know if we’re permanent.”

  Jared’s left hand strokes my cheek, then brushes down the center of my chest. I watch him touch me tenderly, looking closer at his hand. Unlike mine, his left hand bears no sign of a ring ever worn there.

  Would he ever want that? Marriage? A family? I need to know, desperately.

  “Isn’t right now enough?”

  His question stings my eyes and I blink back tears. Hell, no, right now isn’t enough, because for the next eight months I am making serious, life-altering plans. And Jared’s answer means everything to my plans for right now.

  “I need to know what you want.” My legs are still wrapped around his hips, his cock hard and pulsing inside me, but Jared’s body is still, his eyes focused on me.

  “What I want. Is you.”

  He moves to kiss me, but I tilt my head so my mouth can be free for another question. “But beyond today, or this election? What do you want? You told me a couple of weeks ago this was your last campaign. What is it you want to do with your life now?”

  Jared chuckles and cinches his arms around me, then rolls us on the bed until I’m on top. His hands rest on my hips. “You really want to have this conversation about my career aspirations now? While we’re fucking?”

  He clenches his muscles and I feel his cock twitch inside me.

  No. I don’t give a shit whether you raise llamas or open an artisan bakery and swear off politics forever. I care if you want to be with me. I bite back my snippy retort and ask him once more, my heart heavy with fear.

  “My timing’s never been great, but I need to know. That’s what was in my head last time we were fucking, as you so delicately put it.” It’s a half-truth, but it’s as close to the mark as I can get without confessing it all.

  “Then I’ll tell you this. Whether Shep wins the White House or you two end up as a footnote in the his
tory books, and you go back to kicking ass as the sophomore congresswoman from Oregon, I know I want to be with you.”

  “No matter what?” I sniffle, truly uncertain.

  “No matter what. Bring it on, woman. Hit me with your worst—unless you already have.” Jared rocks his hips into mine, spiking the heat that had ebbed between us.

  “And if we’re together, where do you want us to be? If I’m not VP, could you move to Oregon so I could keep my congressional seat? Would we have to commute to each other? Would you move to D.C.? Would we ever have … a family?”

  Jared’s arms tighten around me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve got lots of time to figure this stuff out and decide if it’s right for us.”

  No we don’t. We’ve got seven or eight months, tops. I keep my lips sealed to avoid contradicting him.

  “Look, I know you’re under a lot of pressure right now,” he continues, “which I think Sasha’s going to help. She’ll push you on stuff and you can fight her on stuff but at least you don’t have to fight me on every fucking thing.”

  Jared rocks against me harder and his thumb finds my clit. The pad of it makes little circles and I feel my skin tingle and tighten. “I don’t want to fight you,” I whisper.

  “Good. Then let it go. Let your climax come. And let’s keep this thing between us light and out of the public for as long as we’re able.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “It’s just for my, um, annual exam,” I explain as Mac and Eric trail me down the medical office building’s corridor. The cloying odor of air freshener and framed pastel landscapes set me on edge, as if I’m going down some sterilized rabbit hole.

  “We already did the pre-screen for security, so we can wait out here,” Eric assures me. He opens the door to suite 224, and I go in and speak with a goggling receptionist who clearly recognizes me.

  Dear HIPAA, please don’t fail me now. The last thing I need is a loose-lipped medical staffer blabbing to the tabloids.

  I don’t have time to let my anxiety build in the waiting room because a nurse directs me to a bathroom so I can pee in a cup, then ushers me back to an exam room where I’m told to disrobe, put on a faded green gown and sit my naked ass on crinkly paper on the exam table.