As she entered the room, her father was just taking his seat at the table. “Good morning, Father,” she said.
“Good morning, Selene. You’re up early.”
It wasn’t a question so she didn’t volunteer a response, merely smiled and nodded as she made a beeline for the table. The papers lay in a neatly stacked pile beside her father’s place, and she glanced at them longingly. She couldn’t pounce on them and scan the front page without making him suspicious.
Slowly, she took a seat across from him. The housekeeper bustled in with coffee.
“So.” Her father shook open his newspaper without looking at it as he glanced measuringly over the top of it at her. “You were out late last night.”
“You must have gotten home earlier than usual,” she countered, “because I wasn’t really late at all. I’m usually in bed by the time you stagger in.”
Her father’s eyebrows rose. “It was after midnight.”
“In Europe, parties are just getting started at midnight. I tend to forget how provincial the States can be.” She smiled. “It will be wonderful to be in France again when my friend Willi gets married.”
“Just for a visit, right?” Her father lowered his paper an inch.
She shrugged, reaching for the silver coffee carafe. “Who knows?” Her father, above all else, craved control. This inquisition into her personal life wasn’t really personal, she reminded herself. He wasn’t really interested in her; it was simply an exercise in ownership. And she knew the only way to make him back down was the implied threat that if he continued to probe, she would leave.
“Well,” he finally said, rustling his papers. “I had hoped after the election that we could spend more time together.”
She sent him a bland smile and stirred her coffee. “As had I.”
Stalemate.
As her father finally turned his attention to the paper, Selene held out a hand as if she weren’t particularly interested. “Would you hand me one of those, please?”
“What section?”
“I don’t care. Front page, I suppose. I really should keep up with the campaign developments.”
Her father reached absently for another newspaper, but as his gaze fell on the above-the-fold headline, she saw him freeze in midmotion.
“Whoo-hoo!”
She jumped a foot in the air, her hand going automatically to her throat as her father continued to hoot and cackle. “What on earth is the matter?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over his jubilant celebration. She watched him warily, half expecting him to leap to his feet for a victory dance.
He turned the paper so she could see the headline. “One of those damned Danforths has been arrested!”
She snatched the paper from his hand and rapidly skimmed the article. Over her father’s noise, she saw that the article told her little more than Adam had the night before. Marcus Danforth, fourth son of prominent politician and senatorial candidate Abraham Danforth, had been arrested, charged with racketeering by the FBI.
“This will sink Danforth’s campaign,” her father sneered. “He’s managed to wriggle out of the last couple of sticky spots the press has caught him in, but there’s no way to whitewash this.”
“Unless it’s a mistake,” she said quietly. “He hasn’t been found guilty yet.”
“It won’t matter,” her father predicted. “There are fewer than two months left now until the election. Danforth’s not going to be able to bounce back that fast.” He rubbed his hands together. “This couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“I’m sure Marcus Danforth doesn’t share your sentiments.” She shook her head sadly. “I don’t care how it affects the campaign. I refuse to wish ill luck on anyone just for the sake of winning.”
“That’s not what I meant,” her father said impatiently.
“Oh?” She reached for a slice of toast and began to spread butter over the top. “Then what did you mean? It sounded like you were pleased that this poor man has been arrested because the resulting bad publicity would further your political goals.”
“Well, perhaps, but—”
“What are you going to do if you don’t win?” she asked.
Her father stopped talking. Stopped smiling. “What?”
She repeated the question.
“What kind of a thing is that to ask me?” he demanded. “Don’t you have any faith in your own father?”
She ignored the aggressive tone. “Of course I do, but there can only be one winner. I honestly want to know what you plan to do if you aren’t the one the voters elect.”
John Van Gelder looked at his daughter with a blank expression. “It’s never occurred to me that I wouldn’t win,” he said simply.
She realized he was telling her the exact truth—he had never even considered losing.
“But what if you do?” she persisted.
He frowned at her again. “I don’t know. I suppose I’d…get involved in a business again.” But he didn’t sound certain.
Pain pierced her heart. Don’t be silly, she lectured herself. Surely you weren’t expecting him to say something about spending more time with you? “Well,” she said crisply, “maybe you’d better think about it a little bit. In the unlikely event that you lose—” she worked hard to keep any hint of sarcasm out of her voice “—you might want to have some future plan to share with the press. Otherwise, you’re liable to look ridiculously foolish, or conceited, or both.”
She turned her attention back to the paper she held, aware that her father was gaping at her. No wonder. She’d never spoken to him like that before in their entire, albeit limited, history.
At the bottom of the article about Adam’s brother was a small, italicized sentence: See related story, p. 4C.
Page 4C? That was the society section. The gossip corner. As always, during a hotly contested election, the media scavenged for any juicy tidbits they could find. As she flipped to the fourth page of the section, she idly wondered what they’d found now. Given the number of people in Adam’s extended family, it was a sure bet there were plenty of skeletons hidden in closets. And probably a number of perfectly innocent mistakes that could be made to look far worse than they ever had been, as well.
But as she caught sight of the article, her brain stopped functioning and shut down altogether.
It was a photo of Adam and her. Together. Coming out of the hotel where they’d spent their first glorious night.
So shocked she couldn’t even react, she simply sat and stared at the damaging photo.
They had just come through the front door of the small hotel; its sign was clearly visible just to their left. Adam had one arm around her. In the other, he carried her small overnight case. He was smiling down into her upturned face, an unmistakably tender expression that she might have been pleased to see under different circumstances. A large caption with bold type below the photo read: Danforth-Van Gelder Campaign Takes Intimate Turn.
There was an accompanying article. She scanned it automatically, a sick, lurching feeling growing inside her.
Abe Danforth’s youngest son might be under siege, but his third son has reportedly made friends with the enemy. Adam Danforth was seen escorting heiress Selene Van Gelder, daughter of his father’s chief rival for the senate seat, from a well-known historic hotel recently. This Danforth son, while still a bachelor, has been seen in the company of heiresses before, most notably with the former Karis Dougherty…
The rest of the article was even more scurrilous. There was a picture of Adam—clearly a much younger Adam—carrying a woman in his arms, standing on the stoop of what looked to be a private home. The article explained that Karis Dougherty had been engaged at the time the picture had been taken, that Adam insisted that it had been nothing more than a study date for which he’d offered to give her a ride. It ended with arch insinuations that made her heart ache for Adam and infuriated her. No wonder he’d been so determined that they share the news with the press at their own pace
. This made something so special seem…cheap and ugly.
She had barely absorbed the article when her father said, “What in hell is this?” It was a roar of anger and she knew he’d found either the same or a similar article in the edition he was reading. “Selene, there’d better be a damn good reason for you to be in a photo looking intimate with Adam Danforth. This could ruin the campaign!”
She tore her gaze away from the paper. “How could it possibly hurt your campaign?” she asked wearily. She’d feared that if her father found out about her relationship with Adam, he’d go ballistic. It was disheartening to be right.
“Are you telling me you’re…seeing this boy?” Her father stood, papers sliding sideways to the floor. His face was red with rage. “He’s a Danforth!”
“I know that, Father. I have yet to discover what’s so objectionable about the family, other than the fact that you’re running against one of them for office.” Her own voice was louder.
“Abe Danforth,” John gritted, “is a philandering wastrel. He had designs on your mother’s fortune years ago, until her family got wise to him.”
There was a stunned silence in the room. She could see in her father’s eyes that he hadn’t intended to blurt that out. And of all the things she’d expected him to say, that hadn’t even been among the possibilities. “He…what?”
“He was one of your mother’s suitors many years ago,” her father said stiffly.
“Before you?”
He nodded once.
“Did you know her then?”
He nodded again, his eyes softening. “She was the most beautiful of the debutantes that year. I loved her the moment I saw her.” His gaze was distant. “Every man in the room did. But none of them could get near her after Abe Danforth set eyes on her.”
Suddenly, the reasons for her father’s antipathy toward Abraham Danforth made sense. Not good sense, given that the events must have occurred nearly forty years ago, but at least she understood the connection at last. “But she married you,” she prompted.
“Yes, after her father put a stop to an unsuitable alliance with the Danforths.”
“Why was it unsuitable? The Danforth fortune puts ours in the shade, so he can’t really have been after her money. I don’t understand. Were they related?”
John Van Gelder shook his graying head. “No, nothing like that. Abe’s father had gotten the better of your grandfather in business on a number of occasions. There was bad blood between them.”
Bad blood between them. And her father appeared to have carried on the grudge.
So her mother had been forbidden to see Abraham Danforth. Her father’s antipathy became even clearer—he hadn’t been her first choice and he knew it. Had she loved Abe? Had she simply accepted the first man who came along after the relationship was forcibly ended? Selene doubted she would ever know, but she felt a surprising pang of pity for her father. He’d clearly adored her mother…and probably had never known if she cared for him in the same way.
“We intended to talk to you after the election was over,” she said. “I didn’t want to upset you while you had so much going on with the campaign.”
“We?” Her father’s face darkened again. “Selene, I forbid you to see Adam Danforth again.”
She stared at him. Was he serious? Didn’t he understand that words like those were what tore families apart? “You’d better be careful about what you say,” she warned him. “I never would have met Adam if it weren’t for you—”
“Me? How?”
“That stupid fund-raiser at Twin Oaks,” she reminded him. “You insisted I attend. I met Adam there, remember?” She lowered her head and glared at her father. “And I have no intention of allowing you to dictate whom I see.” She glanced back at the paper. “I can’t imagine how they got this photo. Surely there aren’t media hounds following all the members of the Danforth family around. There must be dozens of them!”
It was only chance that led her to glance back at her father.
He had an odd expression on his face. Almost a guilty one, if she wasn’t mistaken. A little alarm bell began ringing hectically in her mind. “You didn’t,” she said slowly, “have anything to do with this, did you?”
“Er, no.” Her father wasn’t a good liar.
“You did!” She rose, facing him across the table. “Tell me you didn’t set me up for this photo op.”
“Of course not!” This time, truth rang in his tone. Then, as she watched, he seemed to deflate like a slowly leaking balloon. “Not on purpose, anyway.” He sighed. “I hired a private investigator to follow you and report back to me. I was concerned when you began spending so much time away from home.”
She was beyond appalled. “You hired someone to take pictures of me and Adam just because you have an imaginary grudge against Abraham Danforth? Are you crazy?” She never shouted. But she was shouting now.
Her father seemed to shrink in upon himself even further. “I didn’t know who you were seeing when I hired him.”
With each new revelation her shock and fury swelled. “That shouldn’t have mattered! You hired someone to snoop on your own daughter instead of simply asking me who I was going out with?” She laughed wildly, bitterly. “You got more than you bargained for, didn’t you?” She regarded him as if he were a very small and very repellent bug on her breakfast plate. “I will never forgive you for this.” She spoke very slowly and very distinctly, each word quivering with the rage she couldn’t repress. “I have spent most of my life wondering what was wrong with me to make you dislike me so. I got used to being ignored. I suffered through this damned campaign because you needed a family prop to make you look good. I even went to your opponent’s fund-raiser because you insisted—and guess what? I met Adam Danforth there. I fell in love with someone you hate just because of his last name.”
“Selene, I—”
“And here’s another newsflash for you, Father. I do not intend to stop seeing Adam. Ever. He wants to marry me.” She shook her head. “My own father spying on me.”
“I asked him specifically not to take pictures,” John said quietly. “The man must have recognized your—Adam—and decided he could make more money with those than he could working for me.” Then her words sank in and his eyes widened. “You’re going to marry him?”
“I am.” She started for the door of the breakfast room, then turned and regarded her father again. “And do not assume you’ll be invited to the wedding.” She stomped out, slamming the door behind her. She’d never lost her temper like that in her life, as far as she could remember. Her hands were shaking and her insides were quivering. She felt like she was going to cry. Or throw up. Or both.
And dear heaven, she needed to call Adam right away. What on earth would he think when he saw that? She knew how he felt about publicity. The jelly in her stomach congealed into a hard ball as she ran to find her phone.
Nine
Adam had been asleep less than two hours when someone knocked on his door. He rolled over and peered at the alarm clock, but when he saw the clunky old clock of his boyhood rather than the more modern one that graced his bedside table at his own home, memory flooded back.
He was at Crofthaven, in his boyhood room. His father hadn’t really done much with the house in the more than fifteen years since Adam had left home. While the more public areas that visitors saw were periodically refurbished, the bedrooms that belonged to the kids hadn’t been changed much.
A second rap sounded on the door. More forceful. Impatient, maybe.
“Come in,” he called. He sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face. When he saw the familiar features of his younger brother Marcus, relief joined the parade of memories from the night before. It had been several hours until they’d been allowed to take Marcus home from the police station. Anxious hours during which the lawyer Marc had retained had refused to let Marcus or any of them speak to the FBI, hours during which they hadn’t been permitted to so much as see him. It had taken all the D
anforth influence as well as a ridiculously sizable bail to get him out. “How are you?” he asked.
Marc’s handsome face was sober. But he’d clearly showered and looked a lot better than he’d looked hours earlier when Adam had brought him home. He tossed the morning paper onto the edge of Adam’s bed. “How would you be if you were arrested for something you didn’t do?” he asked.
Adam grimaced. “Point taken.” He eyed his brother. “Family support is one thing, bro, but you’d better be in here for a damned good reason. I didn’t get to sleep until after five. And it’s barely seven now. What’s up? Have you heard something?”
Marc shook his head. “No.” He hesitated. “There’s something in the paper you need to see.”
His brother’s manner stirred Adam’s nerve endings to alert. “Such as?” He pushed himself up straighter.
Marcus silently reached for the paper and handed it to him. Adam noted that the front page had been folded back to a section inside. His brother pointed to an article and photos near the top of the page.
At the first glimpse of the photo, Adam couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He remembered the morning well, the feel of Selene’s slim shoulder as he hugged her against his side, the way she’d laughed up into his face. He even remembered consciously restraining himself from leaning down and kissing her because they were in public…and the whole time, someone had been skulking in the shadows with a camera.
Selene’s father was going to flip out. He forced himself to read the article, his features hardening in disgust. Of course they had to drag that old story up. Poor Karis. Her husband George was going to be livid, too. When the story had broken a decade ago, he’d nearly called off the engagement. But Adam and Karis had finally been able to explain the misunderstanding, and Karis’s wedding had gone forward as planned. The couple still lived in the Savannah area and George wasn’t going to be happy at this latest smearing of his wife’s character.
Character smearing. His father’s campaign was going to take a hit from this mess with Marcus, and to have Adam falsely broadcast across the media as a playboy wasn’t going to help. John Van Gelder must be dancing a jig this morning if he’d seen this article, even if he was furious that Selene was involved with Adam.
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