Campaign For Seduction

by Ann Christopher

  In that moment, she knew.

  Just as the senator caught himself watching her with his heart on his sleeve, blinked and turned away, the unwelcome realization hit Liza, a missile strike right between the eyes.

  She was in love with him.

  Oh, God. Oh, no.

  It couldn’t be. She didn’t do relationships, so it was impossible. More than that, it was inconceivable. Also irrational, ill conceived and incredibly self-destructive.

  No good could come of it today, tomorrow or ever. She had a better chance of a successful romantic relationship with a baboon from the National Zoo.

  But…she was.

  She was in love with him.

  The terrible revelation was just penetrating her brain when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, a streak of red that was moving too fast for any innocent purpose.

  What the—?

  With dawning horror she saw Vern Stubbs lunging through the scattered crowd and toward the senator, but this wasn’t Vern Stubbs, the pitiful but harmless loser who’d just lost both parents.

  This was an assassin.

  With a pistol in his raised hand and murder on his face.

  “No.”

  Screaming, Liza ran to stop him.

  If only she could get there in time.

  “No, no, no!”

  The bodyguards were already in motion, but they were several beats behind Stubbs, and Liza knew it was too late even if no one else did. The senator’s head whipped around, and she had a glimpse of his bewildered alarm and his lips forming her name—Liza, he yelled, LIZA, as though she was the one in danger.

  Then three shots rang out: crack-crack-crack—fast, just like that—and the senator’s eyes widened in surprise.

  And then, even though Liza had sounded the alarm and the sheriff’s deputies were tackling a struggling Vern Stubbs to the muddy ground and wrenching the pistol out of his hand, it was too late and the senator was shouting with pain and falling to the ground in a crumpled heap.

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 16

  J ohn’s neck hurt like hell.

  Worse than that, he couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking. Almost getting killed could do that to a person, yeah, but he still didn’t like it. Fingering the thick white bandage that was strapped to the side of his neck like a volume of the phone book, he caught himself fidgeting and shoved his hand back into his pocket, where it’d been for a good part of the day.

  It’d be real nice to take another painkiller or three, but he needed to keep his mind clear, with clear being a relative term. He needed to keep his mind as clear as possible for a man who hadn’t slept in several days, had nearly been assassinated a few hours ago and had felt a bullet graze the side of his neck.

  In the last few hours, he’d been rescued, hospitalized, treated, cleaned, released and grilled by the authorities. Now he was being interviewed by a ring of ten or twenty of his closest friends from his press corps and the local press, all of whom had their arms reaching for him and their digital voice recorders shoved inches from his face. In the outermost ring stood the camera people, who shot the proceedings for tonight’s news.

  The only good thing about this whole scenario was the fact that he was almost done with the press for the day and would soon have several uninterrupted hours on the plane for the flight to Columbus. For the first time in his candidacy, he was putting a temporary but firm moratorium on the press’s access to him.

  Hallelujah.

  He stood on the tarmac for this impromptu preflight press conference, the afternoon sun beating the tops of their heads so hard that they would probably all end the day with migraines. Adena and Jillian stood to his right, his bodyguards to the left. Jillian was plastered to his side and had one protective arm slung around his waist. Apparently she didn’t want to let him go. Pretty soon, well…maybe in several hours or so, he’d tell his sister to give him a little space, but for now he enjoyed the human contact that told him he was still alive.

  Behind them, serving as the backdrop for all this fun, was his plane, which was checked, fueled and ready to go. The blue heading, Jonathan Warner for President, stood out against the white fuselage and the stars and stripes logo on the tail.

  Man, he really liked his plane.

  If only he could get on it and fly away sometime soon.

  “What now, Senator?” someone asked. “Are you keeping your schedule?”

  “No reason not to. The doctors stitched me up, good as new, and gave me a little shot for the pain. I’ve got that fundraiser for Alzheimer’s research tonight at Heather Hill.” Thinking of his aunt Arnetta Warner’s horror if he missed her yearly extravaganza in the memory of his uncle Reynolds Warner, who’d been felled by Alzheimer’s, John shuddered. “Unless I turn up with an ax through my skull, my aunt’s counting on me being there.”

  “What do you think should happen to Vern Stubbs, Senator?” asked the reporter from the Washington Post’s blog.

  “It’s not for me to decide,” John said. “There’s a legal process in place that needs to play out, but I do hope that he gets the psychiatric treatment he needs. They tell me he was able to hold a job for several years, while he was medicated, but obviously that fell by the wayside.”

  John’s gaze flickered, as it always did between questions, to Liza, who stood in the back of the clump of journalists and didn’t look too good. Actually, she looked terrible. Her eyes were swollen and red, her makeup smudged and her hair ruffled. There’d even been a moment or two when he thought she was trembling.

  Maybe she was in shock. That would explain her chalky complexion and vacant expression, as though her spirit had checked out of her body.

  Was she worried about him? God knew he was sick about her.

  “Senator?”

  Blinking, John tried to focus on the person talking. Who was it? For the life of him, he couldn’t remember the woman’s name. “I didn’t catch that.”

  This didn’t seem to bother the woman at all. Christie—that was her name.

  “I was just asking when your new secret service detail will be on board.”

  “Soon.” John’s lips curved up into a half smile, which was all he could manage with his neck screaming at him. “You know we don’t discuss the details of our security arrangements, but let’s just say I’ll be very happy to see those agents show up for work.”

  This earned him a chuckle from everyone gathered except one.

  “Are you second-guessing your decision not to have secret service agents in the first place, Senator?” asked a voice so cold it could have come from the heart of a glacier.

  John’s startled gaze flew to Liza, whose shoulders were squared in that fighting posture he knew so well.

  She’s back.

  His jolt of relief was quickly followed by renewed uneasiness.

  She was back and furious. Those dark eyes flashed torture and murder at him, and he had the disquieting feeling that if he wasn’t careful, she’d grab the nearest digital voice recorder, jam it down his throat and twist it a time or two.

  “I don’t spend my time second-guessing things, Liza—”

  “Maybe you should, Senator.”

  Everyone tittered except for John and Liza.

  “—and all’s well that ends well.” John caught himself grinding his back teeth, and his temples and nape began to throb in the onset of that headache he’d feared. “My bodyguards saved my life, and I saved the taxpayers a little money by not bringing in the secret service until it was absolutely necessary. So it’s all good.”

  Glancing quickly away from Liza before things got any worse, John turned to one of the other news journalists. “Pete? Did you ask me something?”

  Pete opened his mouth, but Liza interrupted.

  “Of course, many security experts and a lot of your supporters felt that secret service protection was absolutely necessary the moment you declared your candidacy, Senator.” Liza’s derisive emphasis on those two word
s sent John’s hackles rising up into the stratosphere. “They’ve already been saying that the secret service could have done a better job of securing the perimeter around you earlier. What do you say to people who were critical of your decision to delay that protection and feel it’s a sign of recklessness?”

  John couldn’t believe his ears. Staring at Liza, he felt all of his extensive public relations training and experience fly right out the window.

  “Recklessness?”

  “Recklessness,” she said flatly, nostrils flaring.

  “I say that I made the best decision I could at the time with the information available—”

  John heard the snarl in his voice just as Adena shifted next to him and murmured, for John’s ears only, “Careful.”

  “—and when I received different information, I changed course. I’m not afraid to admit—” John broke off, realizing both what he was about to say and that it would be all over the Internet before he even landed in Columbus.

  “That you were wrong, Senator?” Liza supplied helpfully, those delicate brows raised as if there was genuine confusion about the right word to use.

  John swallowed his anger, too exhausted to keep his public mask from slipping and too drained to fight with Liza, of all people. Staring at her, seeing her turmoil and the fear that simmered just beneath it in her glinting eyes, John thought about how much he wished he could touch her to reassure her that he was fine. Then he thought about how the presidency, much as he wanted it, seemed like the worst punishment in the world if it kept him from the woman he loved.

  Staring at her, he gave up the fight.

  “Yeah, Liza,” he said. “I’m not afraid to admit I was wrong.”

  Liza couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking that night during the Alzheimer’s fundraiser at Heather Hill.

  The first martini helped slightly, but the second made it worse.

  So she’d better have a third martini and hope for the best.

  Drifting through the bejeweled crowd, being careful not to step on the trains of any of the passing women, all of whom were wearing dresses that cost more than a couple of her mortgage payments, she wondered why she’d come and how soon she could leave. Was it wrong for one of the event patrons to show up, have two martinis within half an hour and then leave before dinner was served?

  Yeah. She supposed it was.

  Why had she come? Well, she knew why. She’d come because her father was demented with Alzheimer’s and she was a newly minted board member of the association, as was Arnetta Warner, queen of Heather Hill, and she wanted to raise as much money for the cause as she could.

  So, even though she’d had a pretty busy day today—what with realizing she was in love with the senator; seeing him shot, sprawled and bleeding in a pretty good impersonation of a man about to die; grilling him on the tarmac; receiving the unexpected news from her agent and then flying here to Columbus with barely enough time to shower and throw on her little black dress and heels—she was determined to be pleasant and schmooze with the guests.

  Lingering in the doorway, she held the stem of her latest empty martini glass between her cold, trembling fingers and tried to get a grip before she had a full-blown panic attack. The unsteadiness seemed to be spreading through her body, and she could swear her knees were now also shaking and her teeth on the verge of chattering. With another deep breath, she blinked away the image of the senator’s dazed, limp form being half carried, half shoved into his SUV, and tried to appreciate her surroundings.

  Heather Hill was extraordinary. The rolling grounds, the mansion, the glittering crystal and china, the enormous bouquets of flowers, the priceless antiques—it was all unbelievably beautiful, elegant and over-the-top.

  Liza’s tax bracket was pretty good, and she could’ve bought her own Heather Hill if she’d wanted to. The thing was—she’d never want to. What would she do with all this space and stuff if she had it?

  For that matter, what did she think she’d do with the fifteen million per year she’d been offered a little while ago? More vacations? As if. A hobby? Not in a hundred years. A bigger house? Why would she do that? She could barely manage her house as it was with the constant travel, and a spread like this was nothing more than an extra thirty rooms to be lonely in.

  Why wasn’t she happier now that her greatest ambition in life—the anchor’s chair—was hers for the taking? Why hadn’t she told her agent she’d accept the network’s offer? Why had she said she needed to think about it?

  Think about it? Where the hell had that come from?

  What kind of home did the senator live in?

  If he loved her and she loved him…could they work something out?

  Rogue thoughts like these had been plaguing her all afternoon, as if the image of the senator shot and bleeding weren’t enough to keep her overwrought brain occupied. Did he really love her? Today, when his life had surely passed before his eyes, had he thought of Liza at all?

  He wasn’t thinking of her now. She’d lay money on it.

  While she’d been numbing her pain with martinis, he’d been networking, like he was now. Over near the fireplace of the enormous formal living room, chatting up some of his relatives, looking bright-eyed and unruffled. Laughing, even.

  As though he sensed her looking in his direction, he glanced around, midsentence, and caught her eye. Stared at her for a second before turning back to his cousins, Andrew Warner, a corporate tycoon who’d recently bought his own company, and Eric Warner, a corporate tycoon who now ran the family’s multibillion-dollar clothing company, WarnerBrands International.

  Liza was left shaken, breathless and more conflicted than ever.

  He, on the other hand, continued his stupid little conversation like a happy social butterfly. She could have almost imagined he’d looked her way at all, but for the infinitesimal tightening of his jaw.

  Jerk.

  He had some nerve. For making her think maybe she could do a relationship. For planting crazy thoughts in her head about the two of them, a happily-ever-after and children. For making her agent’s news tonight seem insignificant. For being so relaxed when she’d had two martinis and still couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking.

  For almost dying and taking her will to live with him.

  “Liza?”

  For looking so unspeakably amazing in his black tuxedo—tall and imposing, sexy and accessible, an irresistible combination of Will Smith and the Daniel Craig version of James Bond.

  “Liza?”

  The voice jolted Liza out of her bitter ruminations with an unpleasant start. What now? Why couldn’t people just leave her alone? She wrenched her gaze away from the senator and looked around to see who was talking to her.

  Ugh.

  It was Arnetta Warner, which was fine, and her grandson Andrew’s wife, Viveca Jackson Warner, which wasn’t fine.

  Arnetta was the eighty-ish matriarch of the Warner clan, and the word formidable had been invented for a woman like her. Impeccable, as always, in a beaded silver gown that perfectly complemented her sleek silver bob, Arnetta had been intimidating people with a single glance since before Liza was born. Liza knew from the research that Senator Warner regarded Arnetta Warner as the head of the family.

  Intimidation factor aside—Liza hated being intimidated—Arnetta Warner was a lovely woman. Viveca Warner, on the other hand, was someone Liza disliked on principle.

  A beautiful, brilliant investigative reporter for the New York Times, Viveca was too much like Liza for Liza to feel comfortable around her. Or maybe Liza’s fiercely competitive nature wouldn’t allow her to be friends with a woman who was nearly as accomplished as Liza.

  Actually, Viveca was more accomplished now that she had the gorgeous husband, three sons and the career. Whatever. The bottom line for Liza was that the night had just gotten a little worse and promised to be downright rotten before it was all over.

  “Hello, Arnetta.” Liza leaned in for Arnetta’s air-kiss and felt the cool brus
h of Arnetta’s cheek against her own. “Your house is spectacular. This is quite a night.”

  Arnetta nodded in a very fine imitation of a queen; the only things missing were the diamond tiara and the wave. And then came the obligatory modest comment: “I just hope we make a little money tonight.”

  Liza didn’t snort, but she wanted to. If this event didn’t make two to three million dollars for Alzheimer’s research, Liza would eat one of the glittering designer stilettos that were, even now, pinching her toes.

  Arnetta drew Viveca closer. “Liza, do you know—”

  “Viveca Jackson Warner, of course. We’ve met.” Liza held out her hand and the women shook while exchanging identical cool smiles. Liza decided to make nice. “I read your article about the problems with the public school system. That was—” Liza hitched up her smile, which felt as if it was slipping, and swallowed hard “—decent work.”

  Viveca’s eyes glittered with amusement, as though she knew exactly how much it cost Liza to give her a compliment. “Thank you. And I saw your interview with the secretary of state after the last round of peace talks.” She nodded with grudging respect. “That was a good get.”

  “Thank you,” Liza murmured and then took a hasty step back as she was assaulted by a new woman who appeared out of nowhere.

  The woman was one of those short, slightly plump, girl-next-door types, with wild black curls and the kind of sweet, wide eyes that made men melt every time. She wore a truly atrocious dress that was lavender and pink and so bright it made Liza wish she’d brought a deflector shield.

  “Liza Wilson?”

  Liza nodded and took the woman’s proffered hand.

  “I’m Isabella Warner. It’s such a thrill to meet you. I watched you on the evening news the other night. I really hope you get the anchor job.”

  “Thank you.” Liza wondered how soon she could politely extract her hand from Isabella, who seemed determined to pump it indefinitely. “That’s very n—”

  “I just want to give you a hug.”

  With no further warning, Isabella threw her arms around Liza and locked them tight. Liza, who didn’t believe in public displays of affection as a firm rule, especially with perfect strangers, stiffened and tried to pull back, but it was no use. The hug just kept on coming.