Stay (Dunham series #2)

by Moriah Jovan

Eric sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Vanessa has . . . everything. She’s smart and talented. Gracious. Beautiful.”

  “The perfect wife for an up-and-coming politician.”

  Indeed.

  “Tell me something. Why do you think she’s still holding onto LaVon like a talisman?”

  Giselle pursed her lips. “I can only guess.”

  Eric inclined his head in acknowledgment of her warning.

  “My Aunt Trudy—Knox’s mother—defined me the way LaVon defines Vanessa. It’s hard to break away from, especially if it happens very early in life.”

  “You broke Trudy’s face,” he said wryly. “That had to’ve helped.”

  Not a ghost of a smile. “Yes and no. Justice, not closure. You never really get that. You never feel . . . clean. Annie has the same issues with her mother.”

  Eric started, his history with Annie flashing through his mind instantly. “Yeah. Her whole life is a reaction to her mom.”

  Rose and Laura didn’t get along.

  “We can talk after class if you want, Eric, but I have to get back to work.”

  He shook his head and went back to his office. Talking wouldn’t help.

  You make me have drama!

  Apparently. It had been nonstop drama from the time he’d turned around one day and saw a thirteen-year-old Vanessa looking at him with that expression on her face.

  Eric and Vanessa had been connected ever since.

  Yet . . . not.

  What had been his overriding goal in taking Vanessa to Silver Dollar City? To experience her range of emotion? Well, hell.

  Fire

  Passion

  Laughter

  Lust

  Anger

  I’ve never held hands with a boy before.

  Have you ever had a boyfriend?

  No.

  Staking her claim on him publicly and with no hesitation, purposely drawing him into her fetish that, until Eric, had been hers and hers alone.

  Eric sat back and groaned, rubbing his forehead and eyes as if he hadn’t already done that enough these past few months.

  I love you, Eric. Stay with me.

  . . . stay out of my life . . . it killed me when you left the first time, and again when you left the second time.

  He was still as confused about that as he had been since he’d left Silver Dollar City five months ago. She seemed to have been trying to communicate something entirely different from what she’d actually said.

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  He looked up to see Knox leaning against the doorjamb. “Just got back from Salt Lake.”

  “I can tell by your scuffed-up face. See, I don’t get that. Giselle, either, but she’s a freak anyway. Have you seen the collar Bryce put on her?”

  “The ink he got around his arm is a helluva lot more permanent than a pretty choker she can take off at will.”

  Knox blinked. “Take off? Serious?”

  “Yeah, all is not as it seems with those two.”

  “Oh, hell, he was freaky like that before he knew what it was. She just makes it okay for him to indulge his inner bad boy.”

  Eric chuckled. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I wanted to come congratulate the next attorney general of the state of Missouri. You’ve apparently already won the election and it’s not for a couple of years yet.”

  Eric didn’t bother to respond.

  “Photo shoots everywhere. You made the cover of Details and GQ, even.”

  Eric grunted.

  Knox took a seat on the couch across from Eric’s desk and lounged back in it, clasped his hands behind his head and stared at Eric. Chewed on the inside of his cheek.

  “You spend five months preparing and trying the case of a lifetime,” he said abruptly after a moment. “But instead of going to see your girlfriend when you win, you go see your karate teacher to get the shit beat out of you. Even I can’t miss that. Talk to me.”

  Eric shook his head and ground his jaw.

  . . . you make me have drama!

  Looked at the floor. Pursed his lips. “She . . . gave me an ultimatum. In June.” He took a deep breath. “She wanted me to pick up and move there, right then. If I wasn’t willing to do that, she’d cut me off. No email, no phone calls, no text messaging. No trying, no . . . possibility, no . . . nothing.”

  “Well, I can’t blame her for not wanting a long-distance relationship.”

  “You don’t get it. She wanted me to move there so we could date. To find out if we could have a relationship, and here I was thinking we already did.”

  “Oh. Huh.”

  Thinking about it suddenly made Eric mad all over again.

  “You know what?” he burst out. “It was completely unreasonable for her to demand something like that when neither of us knows how it’ll turn out. And completely irresponsible of me to comply.” He sat up and glared at Knox, then poked his finger into his desk. “I may not make as much money as she does and I may not ever have anybody who directly depends on me for their livelihood, but I do have my own life and my own success. I have my own responsibilities and they aren’t any less important than hers. In fact, they’re more important.”

  Knox’s silence only made Eric madder.

  “If I had left this studio in June when she wanted me to, it would’ve crashed and burned, leaving Dirk and Giselle in the lurch. Why would I do that? I just got elected in a landslide in spite of what happened with Simone, which means that this entire county trusts me to protect them regardless of what I may or may not have done. And then just . . . resign? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, poor Vanessa, forced to be all alone down there in the Ozarks with her weekend CFO and her fucked-up nephew and her pet missionaries and a filthy rich old man who lives in a broken-down cabin on the back forty like he’s a Lynyrd Skynyrd song come to life. Yeah, color me guilt-ridden.

  “And you know what else? Because I didn’t give in to her then, this dojo can stand on its own now. If I left, Dirk and Giselle would do just fine as long as they keep my name on it. Nobody in Chouteau County expects me to stay now that the governor’s tapped me and the powers that be at the RNC are kissing my ass. I can just name my executive as the interim prosecutor and then she can win her own fucking election when I leave.”

  Knox winced.

  “Chouteau County would have a parade. The first Hilliard got rid of Nocek and iced a serial killer. His protégé put a child-murderer on death row. Who the hell knows what a second Hilliard—who’s got the nation’s ear—could accomplish, right? So whether you like it or not, whether Vanessa likes it or not, I did the right thing and I resent being the bad guy. I wanted to try. She wasn’t willing to compromise at all, not even so much as an email, much less come up here to see me.”

  Eric gritted his teeth. “This is Simone all over again. I did the right thing when I spit in her face, and she punished me for it. I did the right thing in not jumping when Vanessa snapped her fingers, and she’s punishing me for it. She doesn’t want drama. She says I make her have drama. So you know what? She can just continue on with her drama-less life—without me as her primary irritation. I’m a fucking idiot, getting involved with another woman in that family and don’t think LaVon’s any less of a nuisance than she ever was, so you can take your . . . helpfulness . . . and shove it up your ass.”

  Knox stared at him—well, through him. “So . . . you’re just going to write her off.”

  “She wrote me off. She doesn’t give a shit what I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  Eric blinked. “I want—” And for the first time in his adult life, he couldn’t finish that sentence immediately. “Too much, apparently,” he muttered finally. “I want her with me on the campaign trail, waiting for me in Jeff City when I come home at night. First Lady. Of Missouri. Then the United States.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “But I also want to be with her at Whittaker House,” he admitted, low. “Taking care of the place s
o she can cook. Raising Vachel.” He paused. “A family.”

  Knox stared at him stone-faced.

  “There’s no possible compromise that I can see,” Eric murmured. “For us to have a relationship, one of us is going to have to capitulate. And it ain’t gonna be me.”

  Knox remained silent.

  “What,” Eric finally snapped when the silence drew too thin for his comfort.

  “That ultimatum she gave you,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, so what.”

  “You need to think about that for a while.”

  “What the fuck—? Hilliard—”

  Knox arose and turned to leave. Stopped at the threshold. Studied the door jamb for a few seconds before speaking again. “Vanessa can be quite manipulative,” he said matter-of-factly. “She constructs these schemes, see, to get people to do what she wants. Simple ones, elaborate ones. Like I do with numbers, only she does it with human nature. With asshole guests, it’s a game to her, but anything more serious than that . . . With people she loves . . . She’ll do it, but as a last resort. Only if she thinks she’s serving some greater good and the direct approach isn’t working for her.”

  Well, it’s not like I use my powers for evil.

  Before Eric could reply anything, Knox said, “See ya,” and disappeared.

  * * * * *

  39: Never Bet Your Money

  ON ANOTHER MAN’S GAME

  Vanessa awoke with a start, her eyes popping open to the pitch black of a drizzly Ozark autumn night.

  There.

  Thudding knocks on her front door.

  She scowled and looked at her clock. Two. Strange. Usually her phone rang, but the inn was nearly empty, the permanent residents fended for themselves, and the night concierge wouldn’t wake her up unless it was something she couldn’t handle herself. Then it did ring—with the ringtone Vanessa hadn’t heard in months and had never thought to hear again.

  She rolled out of bed and ran down the stairs, wrapping her winter robe around her.

  “Eric,” she whispered when she opened the door and saw his silhouette there on her porch.

  “It’s cold out here, Vanessa,” he said, his wry tone heavily laced with fatigue. Startled into action, she moved out of his way enough for him enter. He had a duffle bag over one shoulder and a garment bag over the other. In the light of the small fire on the hearth, she watched him put his phone on the counter, drop his duffle on the kitchenette tiles, and hang his garment bag on a cabinet knob. He bent to rummage in the mini-fridge and retrieved a bottle of exotic beer before crossing the room and dropping into the club chair in front of the fire.

  “Siddown,” he muttered. “We need to talk.”

  She looked at the garment bag and back at him, where he lounged in the chair and stared at the fire, his long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles.

  Too shocked, tired—confused—to think, much less protest, she sat in the other chair.

  “You and I,” he said, then took a long pull on his beer, “are going to a big bipartisan shindig for the governor’s birthday tomorrow night in Jeff City. Black tie. I know you have a dozen evening dresses, so don’t try to use that as an excuse.”

  Vanessa studied his muscular body. Remembered how it felt.

  Here he was, unexpected and uninvited and far too welcome, ordering her around—again—and not only did she not protest, she had no desire to.

  “I know what you did,” he muttered, picking at the label on his bottle, “screaming at me at Silver Dollar City that day. You knew I’d call your bluff, demanding something that outrageous. Move here so we could date? No phone calls, no email? No communication at all? I thought you were out of your fucking mind. Pissed me off so bad.”

  She wanted to see the spider web tattoo wrapped around his hip. Trace its strands with her tongue.

  “Took me a while to figure it out because, as usual when it involves you, I get my hackles up or I get a hard-on—or both—and lose three-quarters of my IQ. So, yeah. Thank you for not letting me fuck up that trial, which would’ve fucked up my career.”

  “You’re welcome,” Vanessa whispered automatically. She had nothing else to say.

  He looked at her sharply. “You had that planned, didn’t you? Practiced it? Just waiting for the perfect moment to spring it on me.”

  She shrugged and looked away.

  “Shit, you save my ass every time I turn around the wrong way,” he grumbled, which surprised a reluctant chuckle out of her. “So,” he said after another swallow, “tomorrow. I want to see you in my world, or at least, the world I want to be part of. I want to see, just once, what it would be like if you came with me, all the way or however far I make it.”

  “That’ll just make it worse for both of us,” Vanessa muttered, staring at a worn patch in her chenille robe, thinking she needed a new one.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I want the chance to convince you.”

  “You just need a date,” she flashed, stung, “because your sexuality’s being called into question by the left and you’re losing credibility with your conservative base because you’re thirty-three and still single.”

  “I don’t give a shit about that, Vanessa,” he snapped. “Being gay could only help me at this point, but I’m not copping to something I’m not. And another thing. I could get any date. Shit, I could get Annie on a plane down here right now if I was that desperate, which I am not, and that’s not even counting the fact that Tye Afton’s after me to hook up with his skank of a daughter.”

  “Stacy Afton?!” she squeaked.

  “Oh, you know her,” Eric drawled smugly. “Why am I not surprised? Do you know who she’s sleeping with?”

  Vanessa huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Of course you do. Vanessa, I want you, and somewhere down deep in my gut, I feel like you owe me this. One night. One function. Please.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again. Yes, she did.

  “All right,” she murmured.

  “Good,” he said, finishing off the bottle and thunking it on the table. “I’m going to bed.” He hauled himself out of the chair and trudged up the stairs without another word or a backward glance.

  Stunned by his familiarity, yet warmed (thrilled), she followed him. She dropped her robe and shivered in her tee shirt—well, Eric’s tee shirt, the one she’d neglected to ship back to him. She crawled into bed beside him, where he lay fully clothed but for his boots, already asleep, his arm slung over his forehead.

  She, however, lay awake beside him and, for the first time, wondered what it would be like to leave Whittaker House to be a politician’s wife.

  * * * * *

  40: Show Me

  “Holy . . . ” Eric breathed the next evening when he saw Vanessa at the top of the staircase in the Capitol rotunda, one of her delicate hands on the railing and the other hidden somewhere in folds of pale pink fabric overlaid in heavily embroidered-and-beaded sheer white. She’d curled her blonde-and-brunette hair and piled the curls on top of her head, then woven strands of pink pearls through them. The cut of her neckline only hinted at cleavage, but it was her elegant bare neck that grabbed and held his undivided attention for a second or two.

  She looked over the milling politicos and their spouses. Waited until the noise had died a bit. Waited until every person in that room had caught sight of her and stopped speaking to stare.

  Eric watched her take the first step and every step thereafter with the measured grace of royalty, her free hand gathering up just enough of her dress to keep her from tripping on its hem. She looked at him with a haughty expression that let him know she expected him to pay her immediate obeisance.

  And he would.

  The last time he’d seen her, she’d been darting around their hotel room in her lacy pink lingerie, hot rollers in her hair and lotion all over her face. Now . . .

  No wonder she’d insisted he go on to the Capitol without her. For a woman who di
dn’t want to be in his world at all, she sure knew how to make it come to a dead stop.

  Yet another facet of Vanessa Whittaker he had never suspected: Not the gracious innkeeper. Not the aggressive lover. Not the girl he’d taken to Silver Dollar City. Not the skilled butcher. Not the giving aunt. Not the cover-girl chef or Ford muse.

  His heart pounded in his chest so hard he thought his ribs would crack.

  “Well, well, well, Cipriani,” murmured the governor in his ear. Eric might have been startled but couldn’t be bothered. “You’ve come up in the world. Vanessa would be quite the feather in any politician’s cap. Stacy Afton she is not.”

  He said that in such a way . . .

  Eric looked at him sharply. “You know Vanessa?”

  “Hell, I eat at Whittaker House as often as possible. We all do. I wasn’t aware you knew her.”

  Eric’s breath left him in a whoosh and he turned back to his . . . girlfriend? Lover?

  No.

  Neither of those terms were right.

  Wife.

  But not.

  Now, looking at this woman coming down the stairs, he figured Dirk may have been right about love, about being in love, and perhaps Eric should rethink his opinion, because what surged through him now was something deeper than intellectual and sexual attraction.

  His entire life was wrapped up in Vanessa Whittaker, and her entire life was wrapped up in him. Not soul mates, no, and not fate, either, because he—they—didn’t believe in those concepts. The two of them existed in some state of symbiosis, bound by and ever aware of their long and strange history, yet detached from it.

  No question that he wanted to spend his life with this woman.

  The question was: How badly?

  I would’ve sacrificed anything to be with Bryce, but I really had to think about it. I couldn’t have them both. It was the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make and it hurt.

  Eric still didn’t know what Giselle had sacrificed to be with Bryce, but he did know what Bryce had done to keep Giselle and how desperate he had been to do it.

  He knew what Sebastian had sacrificed to keep Eilis.