This is it. This is your life. Stop worrying about George and Daddy and fucking live your life. Make your own choices.
And right there, smack dab in the middle of the ballroom at the annual Foundation for the American Family convention, Spencer Hightower made her decision. Tonight, she would go after what she wanted. And what she wanted was Liam Connelly. She reached for his hand, entwining her fingers with his. His grasp was strong and safe. And…right.
…
Earnest and All-American, Troy Duncan spoke in simple generalities that meant nothing, in the end. He told them that football had taught him everything he needed to know for success: team work, hard work, and prayer.
Spencer was surprised that they didn’t play the national anthem during his standing ovation. She knew she was cynical about such things. An unfortunate side-effect of a lifetime of sitting through the same stump speeches and hearing the same sound bites. It was all window dressing.
The heroes with the flag pins on their lapels were good people, generally, but their words were just that. Words. They needed to be judged on their works. And this young man on the stage would answer for his actions—if Spencer had anything to say about it.
After the speech, Liam left Spencer to congratulate Troy. She watched from the side, content to have the attention and cameras on the football players and the politicians.
George leaned over her shoulder. “Liam Connelly. You didn’t tell me he represented our keynote speaker.”
Spencer shrugged him off with an irritated glance. “Didn’t know it mattered.”
George moved to her side, his arms crossed, his gaze on the Senator and Troy. “A sports agent. A former pro football player. Arrested twice in Missouri. He’s very different from your last boyfriend.”
Spencer faced George, keeping her hands tightly clenched on her upper arms. “When ever did you find the time to do a background check on my date? Before or after dessert?”
George cocked his head. “It’s called a phone and Google.”
Spencer inhaled sharply, shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s not your place, George. I’m a big girl. I can see whoever I want.”
“You can. We just need to be prepared.”
“For what?”
“The unexpected. Haven’t you heard? It brings down presidential campaigns.”
“Does it matter? Really? No voter cares what Hayes Hightower’s adult daughter does in her spare time. Or who.”
George flinched slightly at her crass implication. “Didn’t you attend the Hightower Ball with Dimitri Korolov?”
Now that name made her flinch. “What about him?”
“How did it go?”
“I’m not discussing my personal life with you. It’s none of your business.”
“He was a foreign national with a sweatshop scandal behind him. It could’ve been a public relations issue for your father. It’s my business. But obviously, the night didn’t go well.”
A chill ran the length of her spine. “Why do you say that?”
George smirked. “Because you’re here tonight with the ball player.”
She’d had enough. She gave George a nice view of her bared shoulder as she once again focused on the stage where Liam stood in the background. Troy posed for pictures with fans. She’d made her decision, and nothing George said or implied would change her mind. Right or wrong, she’d set her own course, regardless of the impact on Hayes Hightower or anyone else.
…
It should have ranked as one of the worst nights of Liam’s life, right up there with losing the Big 12 championship game and the time his leg broke in four places. He’d gotten sized up by Spencer’s father, a United States senator and an intimidating presence in his own right, glared at by the Chief of Staff person, and cornered by more boring rich people than he thought could exist in one state. The food was dry, the drinks were few and while he was proud to be an American, the repeated patriotic marches were making his head pound.
Liam searched around for Spencer and found her, for once, alone. She had been watching him.
Spencer had been right to try to talk him out of this night. A quasi-political event, and he had schmoozed and glad-handed with the best of them, keeping an eye out for Troy, trading cards with anyone who had a business or athletic interest. Only two things kept him from excusing himself approximately thirty minutes into the shindig: his client and her.
She had been the perfect partner at a snoozefest like this. She knew how to introduce people, how to smile, and then how to excuse them. She held her own and deferred accordingly. She was here as Senator Hightower’s daughter but still was her own woman.
He joined her. Ready to put up with a thousand more boring things, a thousand more butt-kissers, a thousand more pieces of overcooked chicken.
All for what?
A woman?
Spencer smiled up at him.
Liam remembered Stuart’s words. A woman made him want to stay. In Dallas. With her.
Damn, it was like being punched in the gut. This wasn’t happening. Not to him.
And that was before she whispered to him. “Meet me at my place. Twenty minutes.” She squeezed his hand and left to join her father.
They’d started the evening separately. But she wanted to end the evening together tonight. Liam ran his fingers through his hair. It was almost more than he could deal with.
Chapter Twenty-One
Stuart was at the door when Liam walked up to Spencer’s building. Liam figured most men who showed up after eleven o’clock would get the same knowing smirk from Stuart the doorman, but Liam didn’t want to be “most men.”
The idea that he was just there for a booty call didn’t sit well with Liam. But who would turn down a chance to spend a night with Spencer Hightower? Beautiful, smart, sexy as hell, she wasn’t the type of woman who would try to trap a man. Because she had everything. She didn’t need Liam. She didn’t need his paycheck, or his celebrity. She had her own life. And that was the sexiest thing ever.
Liam took a deep breath before he knocked on her door. Spencer answered, barefoot and still in her white dress. Sweet, sexy, and waiting for him. Liam grew rock hard just by the sight of her.
“I just got here.” Spencer motioned at her dress. “Didn’t have time to change yet.”
“You’re beautiful,” Liam said, because that was all he could come up with.
“I was about to pour some wine.” She headed into the kitchen. “A good bottle, not like that stuff they served tonight.”
Liam followed. “That sucked.”
“I told you…” Her voice trailed off. The sound of a corkscrew and the soft pop of the cork filled the silence between them. Liam took a glass of wine, and she toasted, “To us.”
He raised the glass with a clink, but he couldn’t drink.
It was her. In bare feet, in a kitchen, the smell of cabernet hanging in the air.
It was her. In a crowded ballroom, with stuffy people and overpriced food.
It was her. In his bedroom, her legs wrapped around him, trying to ignore a cell phone.
It had been a god-awful night, and he hadn’t run. He hadn’t been bored. He wanted to protect her and talk to her and drag her home and stay naked for days. His head swam. He put his glass down.
Spencer hesitated for a half-second before coming to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. The scent of lilies surrounded him.
“I’m glad you came.” Her voice was husky, her accent a little more obvious.
Why was he even fighting it? He leaned down to kiss her. Her mouth welcomed him, lush and sweet. He’d wanted to do this all night long. Even in the middle of a stuffy ballroom, in front of her self-important father and his stuck up friends. Liam would kiss Spencer anytime, anyplace. If she let him. For the rest of his life.
Where the hell had that come from?
Liam pulled Spencer tighter, clenching the white fabric between his fingers and deepening the kiss.
S
he reached for his shirt, tugging it out of his pants.
God, yes, his cock throbbed at the mere insinuation he was about to get naked with Spencer.
She pushed his shirt up, spread her hands on his stomach, and inched downward. He was going to lose his mind.
“No,” was his strangled word when he went to grab her hands.
Spencer pulled back, confused, with swollen, red lips. Liam wanted to kiss her all night long. He wanted to wake up in the morning and see her cheeks red from where his beard had scratched her. He wanted to hold her hand over dinners and bring her coffee in the mornings. He wanted her to laugh at him while she beat him at trivia, and rail at him when he beat her at poker. Because he knew he could, one day.
He wanted her. In every way.
And he couldn’t take that chance. She wasn’t the type of woman a man could leave, and Liam had always left.
He had no idea how to tell her. He wasn’t even sure he understood.
Liam took her hands. “Spencer.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Yes.”
“I want you so bad.”
She smiled, a soft, sexy, womanly invitation.
“But not tonight. I mean, I do want. I just think we should wait.”
What. The. FUCK. Was he saying?
By all outward appearances, she seemed calm. But Liam had seen this before, when her sweet eyes turned to ice.
“Wait?” She echoed.
“I want you,” he repeated. “So bad.”
“You said that.”
Now what? “And I don’t want anything coming between us.” Spencer raised a suggestive eyebrow that almost derailed Liam with the images it conjured up. “Not work, not phone calls, not Troy and Dalynn.” Not me.
Spencer lifted her chin and took a step back from him. It made him want to smash something.
You sure about this, Connelly?
“Are you blackmailing me? Is this some kind of no sex unless I back off kind of strategy?”
That ripped a hoarse, bitter laugh from Liam. Like the straining cock in his pants would ever let him get away with something like that. “No,” he said firmly. “No.”
How could he explain this? He didn’t even understand it himself.
How could he tell her he was falling in love with her? And that it was nothing he ever expected? He didn’t even know if he’d recognize himself.
He couldn’t. Not yet. Not until all of this bullshit was over and he could see clearly, and even then he’d have to explain it to himself first.
Liam opened his mouth to explain, to say, I’m falling in love with you and I’m fucking terrified of ruining everything. But the words didn’t come out. She was mad, her eyes glittering icicles. Nothing he said would make a difference. No, he needed to wait for the right time, the right place. When he was himself, in control, and he didn’t have a thousand things in his head.
“It’s like you’ve been saying, we might tear each other to pieces in the next week.” She had been saying that, herself, over and over. “When this Troy and Dalynn thing is over, when there’s no complications, when the Draft is over…”
She took another step back. That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Friends had told him to never put football before a woman.
He asked, despite a tightness in his throat. “Do you hate me?”
She started to nod then stopped. “I get it. I’m a bitch.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “You’re not the first guy to point that out. But I don’t understand, if you weren’t interested, why you came over.”
“Wait. What?” Liam’s world spun. Where was this coming from?
“I know I’m competitive. But I thought you were okay with that.”
He put his hand out. “I am. That’s not what this is about.” It’s not you. It’s me.
“It’s fine, Liam, I get it.” She sounded tired now. Resigned. “Thanks for letting me know how you feel, before this went too far.”
“I don’t think you understood.” Liam raised his voice a little.
“I do. I’m tired and disappointed and would really like to go to bed now. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
Something in her clipped tone made an alarm go off in Liam’s head. “What’s happening tomorrow?”
She answered with a fake smile. Fine. They were back to that. Back to keeping their distance.
When he left her condo, he was sick that it had to be that way.
For now.
Liam made his way to the parking lot but stopped at the security desk. Stuart made a show of checking his watch. Wise ass.
Liam stood there for a moment, avoiding Stuart’s unspoken question. “Women,” he finally said.
Stuart nodded. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
Liam formed a fist and thumped the desk, the gesture not even coming close to releasing the frustration inside. “Pretty much.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was the house she grew up in, but Spencer still rang the doorbell. She’d had security called on her once, when she’d come home for a visit during college. Didn’t want to replay that nightmare.
This time, she recognized the face. Melissa. Late thirties. Friendly, competent. Spencer was expected. Which was nice, since her father had invited her to lunch that morning. When Spencer arrived in the dining room, she found him, already seated, with a pile of papers next to him. He looked up, with a pleasant if distant expression. “I was beginning to worry about you.”
Spencer fought the urge to check her watch pointedly. She was right on time. But to her father, if you weren’t early, you were late. “Traffic,” Spencer replied, sitting at the only other seat with a plate, to her father’s right. “George couldn’t make it?”
Hayes didn’t glance up from his memo or report. “Of course not. He’s at the office.”
She took in the dining room, traditionally set with dark woods, warm rose draperies, her maternal grandmother’s china, and her paternal grandmother’s silver. It hit her that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone with her father. There was always someone. George. A staffer. A driver. Even her mother sometimes made it.
“Heard from mom?” she asked, mainly to make conversation.
Hayes sighed and put his paper down pointedly. “I told you last night, she’s in Aspen.” His attention shifted to the door to the kitchen. “Melinda!” He raised his voice. “We’re ready for our lunch.”
In mere moments, Melissa/Melinda brought in the tray of chicken salad sandwiches, fresh fruit, and a marinated green bean salad. Glasses of iced tea were placed in the proper positions, to the right of the luncheon plates.
Spencer racked her brain for conversation topics. Family was out. Her mother and two sisters were all out of state. Hayes only discussed pressing matters, and out of state wives and daughters clearly did not qualify.
“I was at the Buchanan ranch last week,” Spencer began.
“Really.” Hayes picked up a pen and circled something in a file.
“It was JT’s birthday weekend. Rumor has it, he’s running for state office.”
“Well? Is he or isn’t he?” Hayes demanded.
“Probably,” Spencer allowed. “I told him attorney general would be good.”
Hayes nodded thoughtfully. “Or Congress. But he’d need an open seat. And the delegation is full.”
“Isn’t that what an election is for?” Spencer couldn’t help herself. “To open up a seat?”
She was rewarded with a stern glower. She had known better. Elections weren’t contests, in Hayes Hightower’s world. They were confirmations. Coronations.
“Speaking of,” Hayes said between bites of lunch.
“Yes?” Spencer asked, a grim knot tying itself in her stomach around strawberries and chicken salad.
“Troy Duncan.”
Spencer nearly choked. “What about him?”
“He’s a remarkable man. A real asset. Last night just confirmed that. Everyone was most impressed.”
> Spencer set her fork down on her plate, with a soft chime of silver against china. She recognized a Hayes Hightower set up.
“Next year will be a critical year for the party. We have a real opportunity to bring this nation back around. And I think Troy Duncan would be a rallying figure for conservatives. A role model for youth, that’s what we need.”
It was the pitch. Spencer waited for the ball to come across the plate.
“I know you will take care of the situation, whatever it is, accordingly.”
Crack. Out of the park. The crowd goes wild.
“What situation are you talking about?” Spencer asked evenly.
Hayes took a sip of his iced tea, ice tinkling against the crystal glass. “The young woman you have under your firm’s name at the Crescent. That situation.”
“I don’t discuss my clients. I won’t confirm or deny–”
“Spencer…”
She paused at the paternal warning. For just one brief moment, she was eleven again, and he was all-powerful. But then, she remembered that she could use her grown up voice. “Just what are you asking me? If I did have a hypothetical situation with Troy Duncan, are you asking me to throw it? Why would I do that? After all, Hightowers always win.”
“Troy Duncan is no use to me or the party if he’s not the moral, conservative hero we need him to be.”
“Why does the party need Troy Duncan?” Spencer pressed on, her intuition telling her that her father wasn’t telling her everything. “Why do you?”
Hayes speared a green bean precisely and ruthlessly. “He’s agreed to campaign for me.”
Like a fork on a green bean, her intuition turned sharp and savage. “You’re a four-term Republican senator from Texas. No one’s challenging you. You get reelected automatically if you put your name on the ballot. You definitely don’t need Troy Duncan to help you win.” She watched her father’s reaction. “No. You’re making another run for the White House.”
Spencer kept her voice even and reasonable, but the white knuckles gripping her luncheon fork showed stronger emotions were in play.
Hayes assessed his daughter, in a matter of fact way that only a career Washington politician could achieve. A faint look of surprise was his only answer to Spencer’s bold statement.
Know When to Hold Him Page 16
