An Irresistible Bachelor

by J. R. Ward

  Four more to go and then maybe he’d feel halfway decent again.

  The elevator doors opened and he walked up to the receptionist who covered weekends. “There are some ladies and gentlemen coming to see me. An invitation list should have been left for you. Will you please show them down to the big conference room?”

  “Of course, Mr. Walker. And I’ve had breakfast set up for you all.”

  “Good thinking, Latasha. Thanks. And we’ll be in there through lunch, too.”

  He headed down the hall and waved to a couple of his people who were behind their desks, working in sweaters and khakis. When he got to the conference room, he pushed the double doors open. For confidentiality purposes, the only windows in the room faced out of the building and he went over and looked at the view.

  He tried to imagine how he would feel in a year. Would he still be thinking of her?

  Gray arrived next and then the members of the committee began to file in.

  When everyone was seated around the glossy table, Gray leaned over to him and whispered, “Are you going to make your announcement first?”

  Jack looked at the assembled group. The men and women in the room were culled from all sectors of Massachusetts political life and there were two with national ties to help strategize about the long term. It was a powerful crew and fully capable of helping him get where he wanted to go.

  Funny, how he’d been prepared to give it all up and never look back.

  “Jack?” Gray prompted. “Are you ready?”

  He nodded, forcing himself to get on with the rest of his life.

  He was standing up when there was a commotion out in the hall and the door was cracked open.

  “Excuse me! I don’t believe you are a part of this meeting!” Latasha hissed.

  Jack was about to demand what the hell was going on when Callie burst into the room. She stopped short as all the attention around the table focused on her.

  Oddly enough, his first thought was that her hair was down, just the way he liked it. And then he did himself a favor by remembering that what she looked like was no longer his concern.

  Although where she was mattered if she was on his property.

  “This is a private meeting,” he said, trying not to look into her eyes. He had no interest in seeing that particular shade of blue again.

  “I’ll call security,” Latasha muttered while reaching for a phone.

  “That’s all right. I’m sure Ms. Burke is just passing through.”

  “Actually, I’m not.”

  He cocked an eyebrow, not really in a big hurry to indulge her. But as she put her hands on her hips, he had a feeling she was not going to leave unless she was dragged out or she had a chance to say her piece.

  Jack shrugged. He wasn’t about to sic a security guard on her. And there was no reason for the two of them to have it out in front of three judges, a senator, the Speaker of the House, a DA, four CEOs, and a clergyman.

  Although maybe Father Linehan would make a good referee.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, would you give us a moment?”

  Gray shot him an amused look as he left the room with everyone else.

  When they were alone, she clasped her hands together and took a deep breath.

  “So,” he drawled, “what’s on your mind?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is really important. I have to talk to you.”

  “You want to sit?”

  She shook her head.

  “Jack, I made an awful mistake last night. I’m so sorry. I should have known you’d keep your word. You always have. I jumped to the wrong conclusion about that announcement.”

  He sat in his chair and stared down the long table at her. If she thought that was what bothered him most, he wasn’t going to correct her. He’d had it with trying to reach out. Now he was more concerned with getting over her.

  “Thanks for saying something.” He looked at his watch.

  “I just wasn’t thinking straight. I’ve been so torn.”

  He nodded, but stayed quiet, not having much to say.

  There was a period of silence.

  “If there isn’t anything else,” he got to his feet, aware of a feeling of disappointment.

  Christ, he still had hope? What an idiot he was.

  “Jack, I didn’t come here to say I love you and expect you to forgive me.”

  “Good.”

  “Because saying I love you wouldn’t be enough.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her face. He could see she was having trouble choosing her words.

  She cleared her throat. “Right before my mother died, my father came to the apartment. He brought a dozen roses with him. The moment I looked into his face, I knew he had come to say good-bye. She was getting worse. . . . He knew it was time.”

  Jack slowly sat down in the chair. He had a feeling she was going to tell him everything.

  “I was at her bedside, and I knew they wanted to be alone. I went into the living room but the apartment was very small, so voices carried. Even the very quiet ones.” She looked at him. “I heard my father say that he would have married her. He would have left his wife and m-married her. If it hadn’t been for me.”

  She took a deep, shuddering breath.

  “He, ah, he told her that it was impossible with me around. He couldn’t very well marry a woman who already had a twenty-some-year-old daughter who looked like him. His indiscretion would have been so obvious. I—” She tapped her chest. “It was me who he blamed for keeping them apart. Me.”

  Jack got to his feet and came around the table, unable to stand the way her voice sounded. He wanted to take her into his arms, but she started to pace.

  “After he left, I went to my mother’s bedside. She looked up and I knew he wasn’t the only one who regretted having me. I mean, God, it was her whole dream. To be his wife. I tell you, I hated them both that day. I hated them and what they had done to each other. And what they did to me.”

  She stopped and faced him. “There were a lot of reasons that I didn’t want to tell you what had happened. One of them was noble because I wanted to protect my half sister. But the real reason was—” She straightened her shoulders, breaking his heart with how strong she was trying to be. “But the real reason was me.”

  She pushed a piece of hair out of her eye. Or maybe it was a tear. “I didn’t want to relive any of it and I had convinced myself that with both of them dead I would never have to. Telling you the story was hard enough. Telling you who he was, though, would bring it all back. I could barely get through the events when they actually happened. I couldn’t see how I could—”

  Her voice cracked.

  “Callie.” He walked over and he was relieved when she let him wrap his arms around her. He wanted to do something more to ease her pain, and he felt helpless.

  Whatever he had expected, the truth was harder than he had imagined.

  He heard a sniffle and then she stepped back sharply, lifted her head, and looked him straight in the eye. Her voice was completely unwavering.

  “So I didn’t come here to tell you that I loved you. I came here to tell you that my father’s name is”—she took a deep breath—“Cornelius Woodward Hall.”

  Jack felt his chest contract, convinced for a moment that he couldn’t possibly have heard her right.

  She cleared her throat again and repeated, “My father was Cornelius Woodward Hall.”

  As if she was getting used to saying the words out loud.

  “Oh, my God.” Jack scanned her face and her red hair. He hadn’t noticed the resemblance before, but having known the man rather well, he could see it now.

  “Grace is my half sister. As far as I’m aware, she and I are the only ones who know the truth. Well, and her fiancé knows, too.” She let out a long breath. “She’s all the family I have left, really. I was afraid . . . I don’t know. I assumed she’d be upset if I told you, even though you were a friend of hers. It has always been a secret, Jack.
My father never wanted anything to be said about me. I only approached Grace after he was gone out of desperation. Loneliness.”

  Jack’s mind started spinning. He’d known Hall, had respected the man, but all that went out the window as he imagined everything Callie had been through.

  “How the hell could he do such a thing?”

  “I’ve decided to stop asking that question.”

  He reached for her again, drawing her against his body, thinking that he was never, ever going to let her go.

  He pictured Hall, swanning around the Congress Club in New York, all smiles with his wife and his daughter. The man had always spoken of his family in such glowing terms, with such conviction. And it had been lies. All of it.

  That bastard.

  Jack felt like kicking over the man’s gravestone.

  Callie spoke against his chest. “Last night, I finally realized that Grace wasn’t the only one I was protecting. I decided I was going to tell you everything. But then the announcement came out and I lost sight of . . . everything. Who you really are, what you promised me. I wish I could go back and unlock that door, Jack. I really do.”

  “It’s okay.”

  The forgiveness, he thought, was so easy. So simple. So complete.

  “This morning, when I learned you’d kicked out your mother, I suddenly realized I’d read the situation completely wrong. And I spoke with Grace.” She pulled back. “But I want to be clear. I did not ask her permission to tell you. I told her I was going to explain everything to you, because I had to or I was going to lose the man I love. And nothing would be worth that.”

  He gently took her face into his hands. As their lips met, he would have done anything to avenge her if he could have, but that time had long passed. Now he could only protect her. And that meant his candidacy was off.

  She was absolutely right. A reporter would find out about Hall somehow and blow the story up into an exposé that would rob Callie of the privacy she held so dear.

  She took a deep breath. “And I can’t get Anne out of my mind.”

  Jack frowned. “Anne?”

  “Last night I found a letter from General Rowe to Nathaniel. We were right. It was Anne in the mirror. And her father would have supported a marriage between the two of them after all.” She shook her head. “Anne lost her last chance to see the man she loved. Last night, I was determined not to have that happen to us, but then I thought everything had changed. I thought we were over.”

  As he bent his head down to her shoulder, he thought they were lucky. Lucky to have found each other. Lucky to get past the obstacles even if it hurt.

  We cut it so close, he thought, and then laughed.

  “Your timing is good,” he said. “I was about to formally announce my candidacy, but obviously I’m not—”

  “No. Don’t call it off!”

  He pulled back and shook his head. “Good God, how can I run now?”

  “I’m not going to hide anymore. I’m not going to protect him and neither will Grace. If you don’t think I’ll hurt your chances too much, I want to stand beside you when you run. I don’t want you or me or Grace sacrificing anything for that man. He didn’t deserve it when he was alive. And now—I just refuse to believe it matters anymore.”

  “Callie, are you sure you want to do this? It’s not going to be easy.”

  “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. I just wish I wasn’t such a liability.”

  Jack stared into her eyes with disbelief. “You are not a liability to me. And besides, the voters have to choose me because they believe in my vision for the state. God knows, I have enough scandals of my own. If my platform, my convictions, aren’t enough to override my own past, it’s not going to matter what your father did or who he was.”

  There was a pause and she smiled softly at him. “So you’re going to run? Because I think you would make a fantastic governor.”

  Jack couldn’t believe the way she was looking at him. She was so steady, so certain, even though he had the sense she knew what she was in for.

  “Okay. I’ll run.”

  Out in the hall, Gray Bennett looked over as the DA for Suffolk County tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Listen, Bennett, I’m due at my kid’s soccer game this afternoon and we’re wasting time out in this hall. How much longer do you think he’s going to be in there?”

  Gray opened the door to the conference room a crack. He took one look at Jack and Callie kissing and shut it with a smile.

  “I think it might be a while. Why don’t I give you a call?”

  The man smiled slowly and then nodded with a knowing grin. “Sounds good. Hell, if that redhead wanted to see me, I’d give her the time, too.”

  Epilogue

  “MCallie, look at the time.” Gerard Beauvais’s voice broke through the silence of the conservation lab. “You will be late!”

  Callie glanced at her watch and leapt from her chair. “Oh, not again. I totally lost track of—”

  She began frantically screwing on lids and putting brushes away.

  “No, I will do that,” Gerard said, shooing her away. “You must go.”

  She grabbed her coat and her backpack. On the way to the door, she was talking to Gerard over her shoulder. “About the Tintoretto. We need to—”

  “We will talk of it tomorrow! Go!”

  She ran for the stairs and burst out through the back entrance of the MFA. Breaking into a jog, she fumbled for her keys as she went over to a silver Volvo station wagon.

  When she was speeding down Huntington Avenue, she flipped on the radio.

  “With the polls just closing now, we’ll have the results of this year’s elections in a matter of minutes. The hotly contested governor’s race, between Jack Walker and incumbent Butch Callahan—”

  She turned the thing off, unable to bear the tension. Heading into town, and running a couple of yellow lights along the way, she tried to pay proper attention to the road. She didn’t want to smash up the first and only car she’d ever bought for herself on a night like this.

  Eight minutes later, she pulled up in front of an office building just on the edge of Chinatown. She went once around the block looking for a space and then parked the Volvo up on the curb next to a Dumpster in the back, hoping she didn’t get towed.

  Rushing into the building, she heard the noise of an excited crowd out in the lobby and went right for a sign that read JACK WALKER FOR GOVERNOR. She wrenched open the door under it and hit a wall of people.

  The room was good-sized and filled to capacity. Down at the far end, she could just make out the stage that had been erected. On it were a huge TV set tuned to the local news and a lectern with a microphone. To one side of the platform, there was a bank of desks with people moving around furiously. She saw Gray with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, one ear plugged with a finger while he tried to talk on a cell phone. To his left was Cookie Sanchez, the campaign manager.

  At the edge of the action, she saw Nate, Thomas, and Mrs. Walker. They were standing apart from the crowd, Thomas looking a little overwhelmed and Mrs. Walker working her gloves with nervous hands. Nate was smiling, as if he had no doubt as to what the results were going to be.

  And then she saw Jack. Her breath caught, as it still did whenever she walked into a room and put her eyes on him. Pride in everything he had done over the past year, in the way he’d presented himself, in what he believed in, in how he had stood by her side when the story about her father had come out, had her chest swelling. It had been a grueling year for him, full of traveling across Massachusetts, meeting thousands of people, refining and redefining his vision for the state. And through it all, she had his full love and support. Even five minutes before the final debate last week, he’d been holding her hand and looking into her eyes as if there was nothing else going on in his life at all.

  He was looking around the room when Gray grabbed him, stared him intensely in the eye, and whispered something in his ear. Jack s
eemed momentarily stunned.

  And then the newscaster said, “And it’s just now official. Jack Walker has won the governor’s seat by a small margin over—”

  Callie shouted in happiness as the room exploded. People let out cries and yells of victory as everyone started hugging one another. She lost sight of Jack in the melee but could only imagine what he felt like.

  He’d won. He’d really done it.

  Blue-and-white balloons began to fall from the ceiling as she collapsed back against a blackboard, grinning so widely her lips hurt. Some kind of music came over the loudspeakers and then Gray and Cookie were pushing Jack up onto the stage. He seemed to be fighting them and craning his neck around as flashbulbs went off everywhere.

  The moment he was in plain view, the room fell completely quiet. Everyone wanted to hear what the first words from the governor-elect were going to be.

  As he stepped up to the microphone, someone yelled, “What do you say, Governor Walker!”

  Jack smiled. “Has anyone seen my wife?”

  There was a roar of laughter and people began looking all around.

  “She’s right here!” a man said next to her, pointing over Callie’s head.

  The crowd began to part, and just as she started for the stage, Jack leapt off the dais and strode toward her, kicking up a wake of balloons.

  They met in the middle of the room and he threw his arms around her, to the crowd’s booming approval.

  “I couldn’t have done this without you,” he said fiercely, in her ear.

  “I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it. And I’m sorry I’m late. I—”

  “Forgot to check your watch?” he finished indulgently.

  She nodded, trying not to cry, she was so happy for him.

  The people were still cheering when he pulled back and kissed her soundly on the lips.

  The rest of the night went by in a frenetic blur. There was a huge party immediately following the election results, but Jack and Gray had to spend most of that time talking to the press. It was well past two in the morning by the time Callie and Jack returned to Buona Fortuna.