I’d been a mistake. One my father regretted; one my mother probably regretted. She’d gotten money from him, but like everything with her, the money slipped through her fingers like water through a sieve, leaving her with a document she’d signed promising not to come back for more, and a daughter she didn’t want.
“Sometimes it’s disappointing.” I shrugged. “I read ‘I Knew a Woman’ my senior year in high school. And the moment I read it”—the words slipped through me again—“it made me think there might be something I was missing, moments when sex wasn’t just about ego, money, and power. That there could be beauty in it. Even if I didn’t think I’d ever find it.”
I didn’t tell him the rest, that there was something about the poem that gave me hope. Hope that even though I’d been born from this ugly affair between two people who didn’t give a shit about each other, that maybe there was something out there that was special—more—even if I was afraid to find it. Even if it sat across the table from me, staring at me like I was everything.
Silence hung between us, and I felt that awkward sense that maybe I’d over-shared, and I wished I could rewind the last few minutes, scoop up my words, and hide them back inside me. But then he spoke and I lost more than words. I lost my heart.
“First off, whoever told you sex was just physical wasn’t doing it right.” Will cleared his throat. “I see beauty every time I look at you.”
I froze.
“Sometimes when I’m inside you, I feel like the breath has been knocked from my body, and I forget everything but the look in your eyes. There’s something about our bodies joining that feels right, like there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Like it’s exactly where I’m meant to be.”
He played with his fork, his gaze on mine. “When I enter a room now I look for you before I do anything else. And if you’re not there, I wonder where you are, and what you’re doing, and even though I’m not supposed to admit it, part of me wishes I were with you. And when you are there, I can’t take my gaze off of you.
“I watch you, waiting for you to smile, wishing that smile were for me. When you smile it lights up the room, and when you laugh I feel it rush through my whole body.” His voice cracked slightly. “I know you’re freaked out. I know you’ve never done this before. I like that you haven’t done this before. Like knowing that I’m showing you things no one else has ever shown you. There’s beauty here, whether you want to admit it or not.”
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even know where to begin, how to explain to someone like him where I’d come from. I didn’t know how to make him understand that things like this were nearly impossible for me. No one had ever given me what he gave me now.
He’d grown up surrounded by love. The way he described his mother, his relationship with her, she loved him. He didn’t know what it was like to live your entire life never hearing the words, I love you; he didn’t know what it was like to always feel alone.
Will sat across from me, saying things I didn’t know how to process. I’d never let anyone in; never let anyone get close. But he didn’t seem to care. He pushed and pushed, sneaking through my defenses, and now my mind was full of him. He’d invaded me, and I had no clue how to handle it.
“I don’t want to screw this up.” I don’t know who was more surprised by the words coming out of my mouth. “I probably will. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t even know what this is.”
“Don’t you?”
I shook my head.
“It isn’t just physical.” There was something in his voice—it wasn’t a question, but I heard the uncertainty, as if he needed reassurance.
I was becoming too good at giving him what he wanted. “No. It isn’t.”
As soon as I said the words, one knot unbound and another one tied.
I flailed a bit. “I know I suck at this.”
He grinned. “You do. It’s cute, though. You’re the girl who seems like she never takes a wrong step. Now you’re stumbling over yourself and it makes me want to catch you.”
“Just don’t give up on me,” I blurted out, my heart pounding so hard in my chest I could feel little else over my nerves and the urge to throw up. “I want to be better at this. I’m trying. I’m going to try,” I amended, unable to look up and meet his gaze. “Just give me a chance.”
I stared down at the plate, struggling to keep my face from heating, trying not to feel like I’d just put myself out there, waiting to see if he’d reject me. The silence became overwhelming, and suddenly I had to look up, had to know if my words had any effect.
The weight of his stare knocked the breath from me. He looked at me like a man who knew exactly what he wanted.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I swallowed. “Good.”
I forced myself to eat another piece of lasagna and act like those four words weren’t everything; as though I hadn’t just given him my heart along with the unspoken, please don’t break it.
Chapter Sixteen
Rumor has it Will Clayton is off the market. Who’s responsible for locking the handsome candidate down?
—Capital Confessions blog
Will
It took skill to date a girl without letting her know you were dating her. I started out gradually—I brought her things in the morning—coffees, muffins, donuts, her favorite croissants from a French bakery in Alexandria. Of course, in order to spoil her, I also had to spoil the entire office so no one would realize my relationship with Jackie was anything other than professional. Overnight I became everyone’s favorite boss, and my Amex bill took a hit.
I was pretty sure she knew what I was doing—with the food, at least. Her lips curved every time I delivered another set of baked goods to her desk. But each time, her smile kept me in a good mood for hours. Definitely worth it.
The flowers were harder. Giving her flowers would have freaked her out, but for some reason I couldn’t even begin to understand, I wanted her to have them. So I just bought them, filling my town house with roses until the place smelled like a florist and I began questioning my sanity.
“What time will your parents be here?”
Jackie stood in front of me, a clipboard in hand, my name written across her chest. She would make a white cotton Vote for William Clayton T-shirt look hot. It took me a moment to use my words.
I glanced at my watch, tearing my gaze away from her, conjuring up the least sexy thing I could think of. “They should be here any minute.”
“Good. I emailed the itinerary so they should be clear on the schedule of events. Are you nervous about your speech?”
Today was a talk in front of the League of Women Voters. Jackie set it up last-minute; she’d been volunteering with them for a few years. It was good exposure for me, a chance to work on the ever-important female vote. My mother and father were in town visiting and had decided to stop by and hear me speak. I was more nervous about Jackie meeting them than I was about the speech.
“A little bit.”
Jackie reached out, straightening my tie. Her gaze ran over me, her expression critical. As always, just being close to her was enough to make me want her. I kept waiting for this feeling to disappear, for the edge to abate. It’d been over a week since we’d first had sex, and I still felt the same rush I had in the beginning.
Despite the lust tearing through my body, we were firmly in candidate/campaign staffer mode. In a way, today was just as important for Jackie as it was for me. Mitch had let her take the lead planning the event. It made me even more determined to do well.
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
She grinned. “A little bit.”
“I’ll make you proud. I’ll charm all the ladies, and I’ll keep my hands to myself, and off of your gorgeous body.” I shoved my hands into my pockets with a grin. “And I’ll stop thinking about how cute you look in that T-shirt. Okay, that’s a lie. But I will rock the speech. Promise.”
The smile deepened. “Trust me, t
he last thing I’m worried about is your ability to charm the ladies.”
“So you think I’m charming?” I teased.
“Fishing for compliments?”
“Only from you. Always from you.”
She sighed. “You’re incorrigible. I’m not worried. Everyone will love you.”
The sad thing was, somewhere along the way I’d stopped caring about what everyone else thought, and only wanted to impress her. Easier said than done.
I lowered my voice. “What are you doing later tonight?”
“Mitch has me working on a ton of stuff with him.” She shot me a look. “I’ve been cutting out earlier than normal lately.”
“What about after that?”
She hesitated.
“What?”
“Maybe we should take a night off.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately.”
“And the problem is?”
“Aren’t you sick of me?”
“It’s been three nights this week. We’re not exactly picking out china patterns.” I had friends who were commitment phobic, but they could have taken lessons from this girl. “Did I seem sick of you last night?” I whispered.
She flushed. “No.”
“So there you have it. We can grab a drink when you finish working. I’m going out for dinner with my parents. Text me when you’re finished and we’ll meet up.”
I walked off without giving her a chance to argue. I was beginning to learn you had to manage Jackie to get ahead. The trick was getting away with it.
Jackie
He was maneuvering me again. It was frustrating, and annoying, and strangely arousing. That he was good at it—and it worked—complicated things even more.
I leaned back in my chair, notepad in hand, listening to Will’s speech. He was, for lack of a better term, nailing it.
Today he wore a navy suit, light blue shirt, blue striped tie. It was elegant without being pretentious, and did amazing things for his tall, muscular frame and tanned skin. I definitely wasn’t the only one turned on right now. Women leaned forward in their chairs as he spoke, more than a few playing with their hair. He cracked a joke and giggles spread throughout the audience. Hell, I’d written the damned joke and even I had to fight the laugh from bursting out. He was a heartbreaker, and I didn’t think he even realized it. Or maybe he didn’t care. He had all of these weapons in his arsenal and he didn’t need to use them.
Mitch sank down in the empty seat next to me. “Our boy’s killing it.”
The burst of pride was unexpected and a little overwhelming. “He is.”
“You did a good job with the event. It’s the perfect audience. Great turnout, too.”
I flushed. Praise from Mitch was rare. I counted myself lucky if he wasn’t yelling at me, telling me I’d fucked up. He wasn’t an asshole; he was tough on everyone, but fair. And even though I knew he would never say it, Will was more than just a candidate for him. But that could be said for all of us.
There were candidates you worked for because it was your job; candidates you never really liked, but whose campaigns you ran because politics left little room for personal feelings. And then there were candidates like Will. We all believed in him, in his message, his campaign promises. He genuinely cared about helping people, and it inspired the staff working for him to give their all.
“Have you met his parents?” Mitch asked.
My gaze drifted to the elegant couple in the front row. “Briefly.”
I’d introduced myself when they first arrived, careful to make sure Will wasn’t around. I didn’t want to blur the lines between our relationship, working or otherwise, any more than we already had. Meeting the parents as anything other than campaign staff screamed blurred lines.
“They’ve thrown a lot of support behind his campaign,” Mitch mused.
I nodded in agreement.
They genuinely appeared to care about their son—seemed like the perfect family. His mother was the epitome of elegance, dressed in a suit that was probably St. John or something similar and wearing an engagement ring that could have doubled as an ice skating rink. Will’s dad was tall, the resemblance between father and son strong. Both his parents had been polite and showed absolutely no hint that they realized I was boning their son. Still, the whole thing felt weird.
The more time I spent with Will, the more I liked him. I thought about him during the day and at work. I liked spending time with him, in and out of bed. I cared about him. I just didn’t know where that left us. I’d say I was falling for him, but that was a complete lie. I’d already fallen for him and all I could think was—
Fuck.
Will
“Are we going to talk about it?” My mother asked.
We were ensconced in a table at Old Ebbitt waiting for my father to finish a business call.
“Talk about what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Really, William. Do I look like I’m blind? The girl.”
She brought out “William” when she was about to take me to task.
“What girl?”
“The blonde. The one you couldn’t stop staring at earlier.”
God. Jackie was going to kill me if I really was this obvious.
“Are you seeing her?”
I loosened the knot in my tie. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my relationship with Jackie, or whatever it was, but at the same time, I didn’t want to discuss my sex life with my mother. And I really didn’t want to hear all of the ways Jackie was wrong for me.
“Sort of.”
“Define ‘sort of.’”
“I’m seeing her, she just doesn’t realize it yet.”
“I don’t understand what that means.” She frowned. “Is this some sort of new dating thing I’m not familiar with?”
I ran a hand through my hair, resisting the urge to pull it out.
“It’s more of a Jackie thing.”
“And what’s wrong with her, that she doesn’t want to see my son?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the indignation in her voice. Pushy or not, I loved my mother.
“She’s scared. She’s young and she’s never had a boyfriend, and I think she’s afraid of how this looks—her working for me. It’s a tough situation.”
“It is. Some might even call it reckless. You’ve worked hard to get where you are. You have your whole future ahead of you, and now you’re risking that future for a pretty blonde? If the media learns about this—”
This was why I wanted to avoid this discussion.
“I know. Believe me, I know. It’s the worst possible time for something like this to happen. And yeah, she’s not exactly the kind of girl everyone expected me to fall for. It’s complicated with her. Everything just feels like more.”
My mother stared back at me.
“What?”
She shook her head. “You have that look in your eyes. The one you used to get when you were a little boy and you wanted to wear your Superman pajamas to school.”
“Mom—”
“You’ve been the perfect son. I know I’m not supposed to use words like ‘perfect,’ but it’s the one that comes to mind. I couldn’t be prouder of you.”
I was pretty sure my cheeks were bright red.
“You are kind, and smart, and you have the world in front of you. I wanted you to get into politics because I truly believed you could make a difference. You’re a leader. You always have been. I don’t want you to throw that away because of sex.”
God, this just kept getting worse. Hearing the word “sex” escape from my mother’s mouth was horrifying.
“It’s not like that. She’s the smartest girl I’ve ever met. She’s funny, and hardworking, and yeah, she’s sexy as hell, but that’s not all of it. There’s so much more with her. She’s . . .” I struggled to come up with the right words to describe Jackie. “She’s special.”
“You’re in love with her.”
“What
? No. It’s been like two weeks since we met.” I scrambled to remember that night at the Hay-Adams and do the math. “Three weeks. It’s been three weeks. You don’t fall in love with someone in three weeks.”
My mother nodded. “Of course you don’t.”
My eyes narrowed. “Are you patronizing me?”
“Yes.”
Heaven help me, all of the women in my life were managing me.
“I’m your mother. I know you. Once you make your mind up about something, that’s it, there’s no changing it. You’re in love with this girl.”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re basing this off of what, a five-minute conversation at a bar?”
She smiled the same smile I’d seen flashed my way throughout my childhood. The one that came when I’d insisted that I hadn’t eaten cookies before dinner, even though my face had been smeared with crumbs, or tried to blame the broken glass on the dog, and not the baseball I was throwing in the house.
“No. I’m basing it on the way you couldn’t take your eyes off of her all afternoon. I’ve never seen you look at any of your other girlfriends the way you looked at her. The conversation just confirmed it.”
I drained my glass, staring at my mother’s smug expression. My brain stumbled over her words, over the feelings inside me.
I’d known there was more than sex between Jackie and me from the beginning. I wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t afraid of caring for a girl; I’d cared about all of my girlfriends. I wasn’t even scared of commitment. I wanted to get married, wanted to spend my life with just one woman. I just didn’t think I’d meet her at the bar at the Hay-Adams. And I didn’t think she’d have no interest in being my girlfriend, much less anything more serious. And I didn’t expect to fall in love with her in a mad tumble.
I laughed, the irony of how fucked-up this all was hitting me full blast.
“I’m in love with a girl who doesn’t even want to have a relationship. She’s not interested in being my girlfriend. And I’m supposed to what, somehow convince her I’m the one for her? How the hell am I going to do that?”
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