Campaign For Seduction

by Ann Christopher

  “Isn’t this funny? I’ve seen the movie a million times, and I don’t even know the woman’s name. You know who I mean. Sonny’s mistress? She waits in the shadows for him and has no life of her own. And then when he has time he rounds up ten body guards, and they all go over to her dark little apartment—”

  “Don’t—”

  “—and he has sex with her up against the wall, like we just did, and the bodyguards always wait outside and snicker—they don’t show that part in the movie, but you know that’s what they’re doing—”

  This time, he grabbed her upper arms and shook her once. “No.”

  “—and then Sonny leaves with a smile on his face and the woman is left alone again in her dark little apartment, waiting for him to come back the next time, whenever he can squeeze her into his busy life.”

  They stared at each other and there was nothing but pain between them.

  True to his reputation, the senator didn’t go down without a fight. Those hands skimmed up into her nape again for a caress so tender she questioned everything she thought she knew about herself and what she wanted. Surely any sacrifice—her reputation, her career, her self-esteem—would be worth it if he continued to touch her like this.

  “That’s not what I want for us, Liza. That’s not where we’re headed.”

  She believed he meant it—maybe he wanted their affair to be more involved than what she’d just described—but that was irrelevant. “That’s all you can offer me at this point in your life.”

  “The hell it is.”

  That light was back in his eyes, the one that was somehow quiet and wild at the same time and always scared her to death. His expression forcibly reminded her of what he’d said when he slid inside her—I want you to be the mother of my children—and panic stuttered in her chest. Had he really said that? Why had he said that? Why did those words touch such a deep chord within her?

  Acting quickly, she held up her hands to stop him before he told her something else she didn’t want to hear and couldn’t handle.

  “I don’t do relationships anyway, Senator, so this whole discussion is moot.”

  He stilled, his features cold and icy-sharp now. “Why?”

  “I can’t make them work.”

  “Because your marriage failed?” He made her sound like the world’s most yellow-bellied coward when he said it like that. “And that gives you…what? A lifelong exemption from trying?”

  “Because I have a tendency to screw things up and have zero skills when it comes to picking men. I chose one who didn’t see the need to stop dating just because he was married.”

  “I can go you one better,” he told her. “I chose a woman who died on me.”

  Liza gaped at him. “It’s not the same thing at all. There’s a difference between selecting the worst possible person to be your life partner and selecting a person who gets a terrible disease and dies involuntarily. You went to law school—I’m sure you can see the distinction.”

  “I don’t think you understand. I watched the woman I loved waste away to nothing, and I wished I could die with her. I prayed to die with her. For three—no, four—months after she died, I cried myself to sleep every night. If I can try again after that nightmare, why can’t you? If I can take a risk, why can’t you?”

  “I don’t do relationships.” She reverted to her stubborn mantra because she was too drained to go head-to-head with any logical arguments.

  “You’ve never been in one with the right man.”

  “The right man?” she muttered. “Talk about your oxymorons.”

  That was the wrong thing to say, judging from what she saw of his murderous expression before she had to glance away. Stalemated, they glared at opposite sides of the bedroom.

  After a minute she heard a harsh sigh. “Liza.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Look at me.”

  His infinite calm made her feel all the more strung out in comparison. Mutinous, she met his steady gaze and waited.

  “This thing with us,” he said, his measured voice full of warning, as though he needed to make her understand that she’d drown if she insisted on swimming in the undertow. “I’m not saying it’s convenient. It’s not. This isn’t a good time for either one of us. But you and I are going to have to deal with our feelings for each other.”

  “We just dealt with them.”

  This lame attempt at defiance wavered before the absolute intransigence in his flashing eyes.

  “Darlin’,” he said, unsmiling, “we haven’t even scratched the surface.”

  Another burst of overwrought emotions erupted from her, as uncontrollable as the last. “Don’t try to guilt me for protecting myself. Do you know what kind of risk I just took by having sex with you? If people find out about us, you may lose the presidency, but you’ll still be a senator. But my reputation as an ethical journalist will be ruined forever. Forever. Everything I’ve spent my entire life working for would be lost like that.” She snapped her fingers. “What would I do then? I support myself and my father—what would I do for money? Write a tell-all? Forgive me if I don’t want to end up like one of those disgraced political mistresses, with offers to pose nude pouring in from Playboy and no one wanting to hire her—”

  “That’s the last thing I want for you. Believe it.”

  Startled by his sudden urgency and vehemence, she stilled. He looked fierce, protective—as though he valued her well-being as much as his own. Sensing an opening, she tried to take advantage of it.

  “Since we’re on the same page, Senator—”

  His low growl told her she was skating on splintered ice by using his title.

  “—let’s just agree that what happened here tonight will never happen again.”

  “I can’t do that.” he said. “I’ll never do that.”

  “Why not?”

  He swallowed hard, a flush creeping over his cheeks.

  “Because I’m in love with you.”

  It was nearly dawn by the time the senator and his staffers and Liza, Takashi and the rest of the press corps converged on the plane. The only question was where the campaign was going. Adena wanted to go back to Washington as planned, at least for now, but the senator wouldn’t hear of it.

  Liza and Takashi observed the debate inside Sitchroo while Brad filmed.

  Liza watched, transfixed, as always, to see the transformation that came over the senator. He was passionate one moment, presidential the next—and always fascinating. For this crisis he’d switched to full warrior mode, concerned about the safety of his people and fighting to protect them.

  “States of emergency?” the senator asked. “Red Cross?”

  “It’s all in the works,” Adena told him.

  “Good.” Grim satisfaction bracketed the corners of his mouth. “How soon can we get there?”

  Adena rubbed her chin and took a moment to think. “If we give it twenty-four to thirty-six hours—”

  The senator looked uncomprehending, as though the subject on the table were an impromptu journey to the center of the earth by golf cart. “I’m not waiting twenty-four hours. We can do better than that.”

  “I’m not sure we can, John,” Adena said. “We’ve got commitments for tonight.”

  “Nothing we can’t cancel or reschedule,” he said flatly.

  “Well, maybe, but we’ve got no idea which runways are operable, what the roads are like or what kind of security we can arrange at this point, and we don’t want to divert local resources to protect you—”

  Adena trailed off, silenced by the obvious and growing irritation on the senator’s face. The staffers shifted uncomfortably and exchanged worried glances. Apparently they all thought that someone needed to talk some sense into the senator, but no one wanted to be the talker.

  Adena plowed ahead and much as Liza would have preferred to dislike the woman for the rest of her life, she felt grudging admiration for her. Squaring off against the strength of the senator’s will, as
Liza well knew, was no easy thing.

  “John,” said Adena, taking great care to keep her voice conciliatory, “I don’t have a magic wand. I’m pretty sure the captain doesn’t have a magic wand, either. If he can’t land this plane—”

  “Then you’d better find me someone who can,” he said.

  Liza and Takashi exchanged excited sidelong looks. No one spoke.

  Taking a deep breath, Adena tried again. “John—”

  To no one’s surprise, the senator cut her off with an impatient wave. “We’re wasting time. I don’t care what you need to do. We can take this plane, or a smaller plane, or, hell, get me a blimp. I don’t care. Once we get close enough, we can take a helicopter the rest of the way in, or you can just find me a parachute. We’ve got all the security we need and we’ll cover our own costs. You got me?”

  “Yeah,” Adena said glumly. Liza actually felt sorry for her because the senator’s demands were a huge logistical nightmare of the sort that was usually left to invading army generals. “I got you.”

  “Good.”

  The senator glanced over his shoulder at Liza and Takashi. Liza, who’d put all thoughts of their tryst firmly on the back burner for now, felt the force of that brief connection to the depths of her belly and in the lingering ache between her thighs, but then his unreadable gaze slid away.

  “Tell the press what’s going on,” the senator continued, still speaking to Adena. “They probably know already, but give them the option of getting off here or coming with me. And make sure they understand that if they come with me, we’re not going to be giving interviews. We’re not going to politicize this. We’re going to make sure those people get the help they need. That’s all. Anyone who doesn’t understand that needs to get off my plane right now.”

  His gaze flickered a last time to Liza, then away, and he did not look at her again. “Let’s saddle up.”

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 15

  “T hat’s where the house was.”

  Liza’s current interviewee was an unemployed former farm-worker named Vern Stubbs. Tall but dumpy, he looked to be in his early forties and had the craggy skin of a person who spent most of his time working under a hot sun. There were big muddy patches on the knees of his jeans, and his unbuttoned red plaid shirt hung limply on either side of a dingy white T-shirt.

  “Right there.” Vern pointed to a concrete driveway that ran twenty feet from the street and ended in a pile of bricks, wood and all the other debris that used to comprise a home, a life. A mangled black SUV peeked out from under the rubble, its back tires hovering a few feet off the ground. “That’s all that’s left.”

  Nothing was left.

  Next door was the neighbor’s untouched house, a Victorian that’d survived the onslaught without so much as a broken window or a lost shingle. Liza was about to contemplate the whims of Mother Nature but Vern spoke again and pointed.

  “That was a hundred-year oak.”

  To the man’s right, Brad caught the image with his video camera as Takashi watched the proceedings. Liza tracked their movements and, gasping, stared at the remnants of something that in no way resembled a tree. It looked like a giant ice cream stick that had been splintered and stuck into the ground, jagged side up. The top of the tree, which had no doubt been leafy and green, was nowhere in sight.

  Mother Nature had really outdone herself this time.

  In the last eighteen hours Liza had seen the overworked coroner’s refrigeration truck picking up body after body in a death toll that had passed thirty and was still climbing. She’d seen bewildered dogs wandering the streets with their heads hanging low and their tails between their legs. She’d seen mobile homes tossed and tumbled like a set of toy cars inside a child’s pencil case.

  Worst of all, she’d seen the walking dead—people like Vern who looked as if they wanted to burrow through the wreckage and join their loved ones in the afterlife.

  Overhead, the morning sun blazed against the blue sky in the prettiest spring day Liza had seen in a while. A faint breeze ruffled her hair. Life, apparently, was still going on.

  This man, in the meantime, would have to bury his parents tomorrow.

  “Will you rebuild?” Liza asked.

  “I don’t know.” His chin began to tremble. Blinking furiously, he pressed his lips together and tried to compose himself. “They rebuilt four years ago after the last one, but the damage wasn’t so bad then. I don’t…I don’t know if I have the heart for it this time.”

  Pausing, Vern looked fifty feet across the debris-strewn grass to where the senator, flanked by his bodyguards and a couple of uniformed sheriff’s deputies, was talking animatedly with several other men among the wreckage of another house.

  Vern’s lips thinned with simmering anger and a nasty new light ignited behind his eyes.

  “Damn politicians don’t help.”

  This guy wasn’t playing with a full deck. Liza couldn’t shake the gut feeling that his parents’ deaths, tragic though they were, weren’t the reasons for all of the controlled rage she was seeing today.

  He’d seemed perfectly normal when she and Takashi approached him for this stand-up for tonight’s news, yeah, but the more Liza talked to him, the more the fine hairs on her forearms bristled.

  That prickly feeling was never a good sign.

  “You don’t believe the senator will help?” she asked. “Do you have more faith in Senator Fitzgerald or the president—”

  Vern’s derisive snort struck Liza as more of a warning growl. “One politician’s as worthless as any other, if you ask me. They’ve all got an endless supply of empty promises—”

  The senator doesn’t.

  The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she kept her mouth shut, listened and nodded like a good journalist should.

  “—and the president didn’t even come the last time. He sent the vice president.” Another snort from Vern, this one revealing the uneven edge of the man’s yellowed teeth. “And a fat lot of good he did us.”

  She’d heard this bitterness before, after Katrina. More and more people were angry at their government and felt abandoned. This man was just one example.

  “What would you like to see the politicians do?” Liza asked.

  Vern didn’t hesitate. “Get the hell out. Every last one of them.”

  That was it.

  Without saying goodbye, waiting for the few last words Liza had planned to say to him or even pausing to give her the finger, he wheeled around and stalked off, disappearing around the corner of a neighbor’s house.

  Relief hit Liza in a wave so strong she didn’t even bother hurrying after him to get his contact information in case the network wanted to follow up in a few months. She swung around to give Takashi a raised-eyebrow look.

  “We’re going to want to give him a wide berth.”

  “You don’t say. I’ve got several people lined up.” Takashi pointed to a group loitering near the perimeter around the senator’s fleet of black SUVs at the curb. They all looked hopeful and seemed anxious for their fifteen minutes of fame. “The woman from the day care center—”

  “Let’s check in with the senator,” Liza said. Takashi shot her that look again, the one that made her cheeks burn with embarrassed heat. She ignored it. “Maybe he’ll talk to the press now.”

  Takashi muttered darkly—he was always muttering darkly these days—but didn’t argue. Which was good because Liza was so anxious to see how the senator was doing that she’d probably tackle Takashi and pummel him if he gave her a hard time.

  Keeping their heads low to study the ground and avoid any sharp debris, they crept across the field toward where the senator was now dripping with sweat and shifting rubble to try to help a family find some valuables under that enormous pile of ruined dreams.

  Liza stared at him. She couldn’t help it. She never could.

  Even in his jeans, polo shirt, hiking boots and leather work gloves, the senator was still a striking sight. He so
mehow grew more presidential by the second, as though this crisis helped him reach his full potential.

  At his urging, they’d found an undamaged runway, landed safely and been among the first outside responders. Liza still wasn’t quite sure how they’d done it, unless maybe the senator had magicked it out of thin air with the uncompromising force of his will.

  Then he’d hit the ground running and hadn’t stopped since.

  The press—all seasoned, like Liza, all professionals who knew their way around a disaster—could barely keep up with him. He’d talked to the mayor, FEMA officials, and Red Cross workers, insisting they could do more and do it quicker. He had time for every survivor, an ear for every distraught person within his range of vision. If he’d sat down, eaten or rested—even once—Liza missed it.

  The only thing he hadn’t done the whole time was speak to the press.

  True to his word, the senator hadn’t mentioned slow response times, Senator Fitzgerald’s belated appearance or—and this was a biggie for politicians—blame. He’d just helped and listened, like he was doing now. Picked through memories and debris, held hands and reassured.

  As though he knew she was somewhere nearby thinking about him, the senator chose that moment to glance her way. Still flanked by bodyguards, he straightened, swiped his arm across his sweaty forehead and, in a gesture that seemed as natural as stretching first thing in the morning, turned his head to look at her.

  Liza’s heart fluttered.

  God, she had it bad for him.

  A good twenty feet still separated them, but she didn’t need to be any closer to know how he was. The dark patches under his eyes meant he was exhausted. The slight droop in his shoulders signified the emotional toll this disaster was taking on him. The grim set to his mouth told her that he was determined to do whatever he could—and he could do a lot—to make life easier for the survivors.

  Best of all, the faint smile that touched his eyes, if not his mouth, and the new warmth in his expression at the sight of her all announced that she’d just given him the strength to get through the rest of the day. That she helped him just by being there.