by Carsen Taite
Meredith felt the burn of a blush rising up the back of her neck, but she did her best to keep smiling. “You try running for president someday and see how much free time you have.” She touched her fingertip to her thumb and shook her head. “Gordon gave me a rare day off, yet here I am.”
Dixon clapped her on the shoulder. “Great job yesterday. You’ve got this.”
“I hope so, but there’s still a lot of delegates in play.”
“Hardly any in contention. Quit being modest.” Dixon cleared her throat. “Have you started thinking about a running mate? Because I have some ideas.”
Meredith kept a smile plastered on her face, but inwardly, she groaned. These kind of conversations were only just starting, but they were likely to become more commonplace as they got closer and closer to the convention. Everyone wanted to cozy up to the front-runner to start carving out their personal piece of the presidential pie. “I’d love to hear your ideas,” she lied. “I’m headed out of town again tomorrow, but call my office and set up a meeting for the next time I’m back in town.” Dixon didn’t need to know that she had no plans to be back in town until the convention, and by then it would be too late to incorporate any last-minute choices. She already had a few names in mind, and the decision wasn’t going to be the result of groupthink.
What bothered her more than everyone offering their unsolicited advice was the fact this was her last day in town for the foreseeable future, and this vote was eating up the time she should be spending with Stevie. She glanced around, looking for Serno to ask him what the holdup was and saw him standing with a few of her other colleagues in front of the bank of televisions that lined the wall of his outer office, one for each network, including cable. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the screens, but she couldn’t make out what they were watching. She walked over and listened in to MSNBC, the only channel with the volume turned up.
“Press gathered en masse this morning outside of Senator Meredith Mitchell’s Manhattan apartment,” the anchor said, “hoping for a glimpse at the senator’s girlfriend, but she either slipped away unnoticed or hunkered down for the long haul.”
Meredith gasped when a photo of Stevie appeared on the screen.
“Stevie Palmer works as a public defender in the District of Columbia, but apparently, she’s been tagging along with the senator on the campaign trail. We’ve assembled a panel of experts to talk about how this news, that the formerly single senator has a new girlfriend, might affect her election bid. With me this morning are…”
He kept talking, but all Meredith heard was a dull roar.
Dixon grasped her arm and whispered, “Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet.”
This was horrible. Where was Stevie? Please, God, don’t let her walk out into that horde of hungry journalists. Stevie’s voice telling her about the gossip columnists reporting about her after the wedding echoed in Meredith’s head. She’d written that off as idle nuisance, but that was also before she’d been running for president. Judging by the size of the press presence outside her apartment building right now, this was another level entirely. She edged away from the crowd around the television. “I need to make a phone call.”
Serno chose that moment to emerge from his inner office. “We’ve got the votes. Everyone get to the floor pronto. I want this wrapped up in the next hour.”
Meredith felt her phone in her jacket pocket. She could talk on the run. She shot out of Serno’s office and dialed as she walked, but the call went directly to voice mail. Damn. She hoped no reporters had managed to get Stevie’s cell phone number, or she’d be smothered with calls. Meredith slowed her pace while she composed a text, but there simply wasn’t time to say all she wanted to say, and caution told her to be careful what she put in writing now that her dating life was splattered all over the network news. She settled on a few simple words and hoped they would Band-Aid the wound until she could see Stevie in person. I heard. I want to see you. It’s going to be okay.
She pressed send before she could rethink the words that weren’t completely impersonal, but weren’t nearly as personal as she wanted them to be.
Chapter Seventeen
Stevie walked off the plane, and Erica led her to the waiting car where she held the door open. Stevie glanced inside at the total stranger behind the wheel and looked back at Erica. “You’re not driving?” She felt foolish. After everything Erica had done for her today, for her to assume Erica was going to chauffeur her around all day was selfish, but she was genuinely apprehensive about being carted around by a stranger. Silly, really, when she considered how many times in her life she’d stepped into a taxi. But you weren’t being pursued by paparazzi at the time. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just…”
Erica smiled. “I’m sorry too, but I need to get to the Capitol and be ready when Senator Mitchell’s done there. I don’t even know if she’s aware of what’s going on, but I don’t want to leave her in someone else’s hands if there’s a crowd waiting for her. I’d take you along, but…”
“I get it. If I’m in the car, it’s just more fuel for the fire.”
Erica pointed at the guy in the driver’s seat. “This is George. He works for Rook Daniels—I believe you met Rook at Addison and Julia’s wedding. You can trust him to be discreet.”
Stevie decided she was being ridiculous. “I’ll be fine. I won’t leave my house until I hear from Meredith.”
“About that.”
Stevie held her breath while Erica drummed her fingers on the door. “Yes?”
“I’ve arranged for you to check into a hotel. Your house is surrounded.”
“What?”
“Just until the furor dies down. George will handle all the details and get you whatever you need, but trust me, it’s best this way.”
Stevie wanted to protest. Her home was her safe place and she’d been looking forward to being tucked away in its comforts since she snuck out of Meredith’s building. Other than the maid’s uniform that she’d changed out of on the plane, and the sexy underwear she’d packed for her visit to Meredith’s the night before, she didn’t have any clothes. But she knew Erica was right. If her house was indeed surrounded, she wouldn’t get any rest there anyway, and Meredith certainly wouldn’t be able to come over. A hotel rendezvous was much more likely under the current circumstances.
An hour later, she was tucked away in a suite at the Hay Adams. She had no idea who was paying for the room since George had made all the arrangements from the car and warned her not to use her own credit cards to pay for any charges. Whoever was paying, it wasn’t cheap. The prices on the minibar were off the charts, but raiding it was her only chance for any kind of lunch. She stripped off her clothes, wrapped up in a fluffy robe, and grabbed a tin of cashews and an Amstel Light. Hunkered down in bed, she channel surfed her way to a B movie about a serial killer hijacking a plane, taking small comfort in watching someone’s life being more difficult than her own.
The more she watched the movie, the more normal she felt. In the scheme of things, nothing had really happened to her. Sure, her privacy had been violated, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. If she was going to date Meredith, she would have to get used to some level of exposure of her private life. She just thought she’d have more time to prepare for the onslaught of attention, and she hadn’t expected an explosion of it so soon after she and Meredith had been intimate for the first time.
That’s what she should be dwelling on—their night together, not the craziness that followed. She reached a hand underneath her robe, not at all surprised to find she was wet just thinking about Meredith touching her. Every detail of their night together came flooding back, and she prayed Meredith would be able to finish up at the Capitol and find a way to sneak over here as soon as possible.
* * *
Meredith walked through the tunnels from the Capitol Building to her office. She vowed to spend no more than fifteen minutes there, wrapping up anything necessary, and then she’d find Stevie. She
burst through the doors, and her secretary Kate sprang from her chair.
“Have you seen the news?” She pointed at the TV on the wall. “The cable channels have spent all morning on this.”
Meredith kept walking. “News? That’s not news they’re airing. It’s gossip. Where’s Jen?”
“She’s in your office making some phone calls.” Kate handed her a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list of everyone who’s called for you this morning, not including reporters. I listed them in order of who I figured you’d care about.”
Meredith glanced at the list, noting Erica’s name listed first with three stars next to it. She’d call her first. She walked into her private office and shut the door behind her, but instead of finding solitude, she saw Jen sitting at her desk, talking on the phone. Jen held up a hand before saying to whoever was on the line, “I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you back with more details in just a bit. Thanks.” She hung up. “How did the vote go?”
Meredith suppressed a frustrated scream. “The vote? I don’t care about the vote. Have you seen the news? The press is all over Stevie. Have you heard from her? What’s going on?” She paced as she talked, but no amount of physical exertion quelled the mounting anxiety she felt.
“Hey, calm down. Everything’s okay.”
“Everything is not okay.” Meredith waved her hands for emphasis. “The press surrounded my apartment building in Manhattan this morning, shouting her name. We were so careful. How did they even know she was there? If I find out one of the employees there leaked info to the media, I’m going to—”
“Meredith!”
She looked up to see Jen staring at her, and she realized she’d been rambling. “What?”
“Sit down and let’s talk about this.”
Meredith sat on the sofa in her office but stayed on the edge of her seat, ready for action. “We need a plan.”
“I’m way ahead of you.”
Meredith sighed with relief. Despite the fact they’d been at odds over election strategy the past couple of months, it was nice to know she could count on Jen to step up when her personal life was taking a bad turn. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Stevie. I can’t even imagine how she must be feeling right now.”
“She’ll be fine. Once she realizes she’s right in the middle of her moment of fame, she’ll be glad she was able to help you out.”
“What?” Meredith struggled to process Jen’s words. “Help me out how?”
“Now hear me out before you get mad.”
“No one on the receiving end of those words ever stays calm. If you have something to say, spit it out.”
“Gordon thinks your personal life shouldn’t be the centerpiece of your campaign, but he’s looking at it from a guy’s perspective. Your votes are going to come primarily from women, both now and in the general. Female voters want to connect with their chosen candidate, and that means letting them see into your personal life. Of course, that means you have to have a personal life. Stevie may not have been who I picked for the role, but since you did, we can work with it.”
Jen paused and Meredith jumped on her words. “‘Work with it?’ What does that even mean? And I don’t appreciate you judging who I choose to have a relationship with.”
“Oh, I’m over the judging part. I’ve moved on to the leveraging part. Now that the secret is out, Stevie can play a more active role. Nothing too out front, but she can appear at your side at events, maybe a few photo ops of the two of you at charitable events. You know, personal glimpses of the candidate. The press will eat it up, and I guarantee it’ll buy you more votes in the female demographic.”
“Stop talking.” Meredith was out of her seat, her mind racing toward the only logical conclusion it could find. “Was it you?”
“Excuse me?”
Jen narrowed her eyes at Meredith’s accusatory tone, but Meredith wasn’t fooled at the feigned indignation. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. Are you the one who tipped off the press that Stevie was at my place? Please tell me it wasn’t you.”
She stared hard at Jen, willing her to deny the accusation, but Jen only held out her hands as if in supplication. “Hear me out. I know you’re mad at me now, but I promise you, this is for the best. This way we can control the narrative.”
“Narrative?” Meredith’s voice rose. “There is no narrative. There’s only me and a woman I care about, and for you to think you can make decisions about how and when we make that public is beyond my understanding.” She grabbed her purse and started walking toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Jen called out. “We have a lot more to talk about.”
“Not right now we don’t.” Meredith didn’t look back, but she did indulge her anger by slamming the door behind her as she left the room. She ignored Kate’s frantic waving and left the office, dialing Erica on her cell as she walked.
“I need help,” she said into the phone as soon as Erica answered.
“I know where she is. I’m downstairs with the car.”
“Thank God. Can you get me to her?”
Several decoy stops later, Meredith walked down the hallway of the Hay Adams Hotel, scanning the doors for the room number Erica had given her. She paused when she found the one. She had a key, but felt like using it would be just another violation of Stevie’s privacy. She knocked lightly on the door and hoped the noise wouldn’t draw any of the other hotel guests to look out into the hall. When the door swung open, she was unprepared for the sight of Stevie in a fluffy white robe, and despite everything that had transpired since she’d left her that morning, it took her breath away.
“Can I come in?”
Stevie pulled her into the room, wrapping her up in her arms, and shutting the door with her foot. “I’m so glad to see you. Are you okay? Did you get mobbed on the way over here? I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to avoid them completely, but they were everywhere.”
Meredith’s head spun at the whirlwind of Stevie’s comments, and she reached to steady herself. “Do you mind if we sit down?”
“Of course not.” Stevie led her to the sofa, and once they were seated, pointed out the minibar. “Can I get you a drink?”
Meredith pointed at the empty Amstel Light bottle on the coffee table. “I’ll have one of those if there’s another.” When Stevie handed her the beer, she took a long draught as fortification. “Are you okay?”
Stevie nodded. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if Erica hadn’t been there. She’s great under pressure, but all in all, I guess it was bound to happen sometime. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”
Meredith heard the echo of Jen’s words in Stevie’s pronouncement, and for a second she considered abandoning her quest to come clean. Maybe exposing their relationship was bound to happen, and at least now it was behind them. She could have Gordon’s team draft some talking points, and they could develop a strategy to make this whole revelation work for them instead of the other way around.
But if she was going to have a relationship with Stevie, it needed to be based on trust, not on expediency, and that had to start by dispelling the notion that what had happened this morning wasn’t anyone’s fault. “I need to tell you something.”
Stevie placed a hand on her thigh. “Can it wait? Now that I know you’re okay, I just want to forget this ever happened.”
Meredith desperately wanted to say yes, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to truly relax into Stevie’s embrace until she told her the truth. She placed a hand over Stevie’s and eased gently away. “I wish it could wait, but it’s important.”
Stevie gazed into her eyes for a moment. “Okay.” She straightened her robe and crossed her arms. “What’s up?”
“It was Jen,” Meredith blurted out the words quickly before she changed her mind. She plowed ahead. “Jen told the press you’d be at my apartment and exactly when they could find you.” She looked into Stevie’s eyes, trying to read a reaction, but she got nothing, but a flat stare. “Please
say something so I know you’re not mad.”
The silence was deafening, but she resisted the urge to talk through it, merely watching while Stevie stood and walked across the room. Stevie paced for a few moments, and Meredith could tell her mind was churning, but she didn’t have a read on her emotions until Stevie finally spoke.
“I brushed it off for your sake, because I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t handle the stress of constant scrutiny that I know you experience every single day since you’ve started your campaign.”
“And I appreciate that—” Meredith started to say, but Stevie raised a hand to cut her off, and she immediately shut up.
“So I brushed it off,” Stevie repeated. “But it was pretty horrifying, not just to have to sneak out of your building in a maid’s uniform, but to see my name plastered all over the internet, not for some accomplishment I achieved, but as fodder for all of the gossips who want to know who’s sleeping with the future president.” She paced some more. “I could get past all that. Eventually.”
Meredith heart beat quicker at the idea of getting past this, but she could tell there was more. “What would it take?”
“To be honest, I don’t know.” Stevie shook her head. “You’re saying Jen did this?”
“Yes. She just told me and I came straight here. It was her way of trying to humanize me for the voters—show them I have a personal side. I guess she thought since Gordon was against me making our relationship public, the only way to accomplish what she had in mind was to just get it out there. If anyone else had done this, I’d fire them on the spot. Although I’m sorry it happened this way, but I have to say there’s a part of me that’s relieved that we don’t have to sneak around anymore. Like you said, it was bound to happen.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
Meredith did a mental replay. “I promise I’m not trying to minimize what you went through, but don’t you want this too?”
