The very idea of letting Kay go was unheard of to him just minutes ago, before she made that big announcement. He had some serious thinking to do.
Since they drove separately to the restaurant, he walked her to her car and then he opened the driver side door for her. And he made an announcement of his own. “I have to handle some business in Europe,” he said to her.
Kay stood at the opened door and stared at him. “When?”
“Tomorrow.” It wasn’t true. There was no pressing business he had to handle. But he did his best thinking at his home in France. This decision, he knew, would require his best thinking.
Kay continued to stare at him. She noticed how he wasn’t looking her in the eyes, which was unlike him. She also noticed how their world seemed to be shifting right before her very eyes, and she didn’t understand why. “When will you be back?” she asked him.
He hated this. He even rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “In a couple days or so. Now get in the car,” he ordered. “It’s chilly out here.”
But just as she was about to get in he stopped her, and pulled her into his arms. He held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. But he held onto her, and not for a few seconds either. For what felt like minutes on end.
And when they stopped embracing, she could see so much pain in his eyes. “Nico, what’s wrong?” she asked him. She had no clue why he would be that upset.
And he wasn’t about to tell her that night. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said to her.
But he looked almost teary-eyed to her. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Stop asking me that,” he snapped. “Now get in out of the cold.” He opened the door wider for her.
Kay was still puzzled, but she got into her car. He closed the door. But just as she pressed down the window, to continue talking with him, he walked away. To his own car. And he didn’t delay. He drove out of that parking lot with a fast burst, and fled.
Kay was dumbfounded. What on earth happened? He was behaving this way just because she decided to run for public office? As she put her car in gear and drove off too, she remained baffled. Sometimes she wondered if she knew Nico at all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She walked into the tiny building on the Southside of Chicago, stood in the middle of the floor in her skirt suit, her heels, and with her briefcase at her side. Rog, who was leaning against the desk, smiled. “Well?” he asked. “How do you like it?”
“It’s tiny,” Kay said.
“That’s because our staff is going to be tiny, too. We’re going to keep this campaign tight and right. No leaks. No drama. All volunteers will work from home, and the crew we’ll have working in here will only answer phones and sign up new volunteers, especially doorknockers. We’re going to do the darn thang, Kay,” he said happily. “I’ve got it all mapped out.”
Kay’s cell phone began ringing and she quickly reached into her coat pocket.
“I don’t believe this,” Rog said. “I’m telling you our secret sauce strategy and you prefer to talk on the phone?”
“I just want to make sure it’s not,” she said, without finishing her thought, as she looked at her phone’s Caller ID. When she saw it wasn’t him, she sighed. And let it ring.
“You wanted to make sure it wasn’t who?” Rog asked.
“Nico,” said Kay.
“Why? What’s going on with him?”
“I haven’t heard from him in two weeks.”
“Wow, really? I take it that’s not like him?”
“No! He calls me every single day. Now suddenly . . .”
“Did you call his office?”
“Of course I did. They said he’s still out of town on business. I told his secretary to tell him to call me. She said she told him all three times I asked her to.”
“And he still hasn’t phoned you?”
Kay shook her head. “No.”
Rog let out an exhausted exhale. “Nothing happens in a vacuum, Kay. What’s going on?”
“Nothing! That’s what’s so crazy. We had dinner two weeks ago. I told him I was going to run for Justin’s seat. I expected him to be happy for me. He knows how much I love politics. But he acted as if I betrayed his trust or something.”
Rog frowned. “Why would he think something like that? And you said he wasn’t happy for you?”
Kay still hated how it all went down. “Far from it,” she said. “I think he hates the idea.”
“But why? He knew you were in politics when he met you.”
“He knew I was in politics working for other politicians when he met me. He said he never dreamed I would run for office myself.”
“Ah. I see. But why would that make a difference to him?”
Kay shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it made a huge difference to him.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since that night at dinner?”
“I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Oh, boy,” said Rog. “And here I was hoping he’d finance our entire campaign.”
Kay looked at him. “No, you wasn’t hoping that either. I’ll never use him like that.”
“I didn’t say you would. But I would,” Rog said.
“Boy bye,” Kay said, and phoned Nico again. For the fifth time that day alone. But the call, like all those other times, went to his Voice Mail. She tossed her phone back into her coat pocket.
“May I ask you something, Kay?” Rog said to her.
“You can ask,” Kay responded.
“You and Nico have been dating for well over two months now, but yet you’ve never once, not once, brought him over to meet my wife, or around any of our friends. Why is that?”
“He’s a very private man,” Kay said.
“Or a very married man,” Rog responded.
Kay looked at him. “Why would you say something like that, Rog? You know he’s not like that.”
“I don’t know that,” Rog said. “And apparently you don’t either or he wouldn’t be so upset about your decision to seek office. He hasn’t contacted his supposed girlfriend in two weeks. What’s his problem?”
Kay didn’t know, and she therefore didn’t answer Rog. “What’s the plan again?” she asked him. “I don’t even want to deal with Nico and his nonsense right now.”
But then Rog’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out.
“I want to talk strategy,” she said, giving him a taste of his own medicine, “and you want to talk on the phone?”
Rog smiled. “This is Rog,” he said into the phone. And then he listened. Kay began walking around the small space, trying to see if it would work at all, although she knew it had to. They were on a shoestring budget, with all of the money coming straight from Rog – to be reimbursed once they got their big money donors lined up, so she had to take what she could get.
“It’ll do,” she said out loud. She had to stop obsessing about Nico and focus on her campaign. Time to get the show on the road, and she knew it.
But then she heard Rog say, “oh, please don’t tell me that,” over the phone, and she walked back over to him.
He was still on the phone. “Yeah, it’s going to change the complexion, that’s for certain. But thanks for the heads up, man. Right. Sure thing, buddy,” Rog said, and ended the call.
“What is it?” Kay asked.
“We’ve got a new entrant into the race.”
“A new opponent? Who?”
Rog exhaled. “William Holmes. The son of soon-to-be-retired Congressman Justin Holmes.”
Kay’s heart deflated. “You’re kidding,” she said.
“I wish I was,” Rog said. “I wish I was!”
Kay already knew the answer, but she asked it anyway. “Where does that leave us?” she asked Rog.
“Back on the outside looking in,” Rog said. “He has that Holmes name, and undoubtedly the backing of his old man. That’s a mountain we’ve got to climb now.”
“Meaning?”
�
��We were considered the front runners this morning,” Rog said. “Now, tonight, now that William has entered the race? He’s automatically considered a shoo-in. And shoo-in trumps frontrunner any day of the week.”
Kay leaned her head back. This can’t be happening, she thought. And then she thought about Nico, and his little disappearing act, and it just felt like pile-on time to her.
But she was no quitter.
“Okay,” she said, removing her suit coat. “Change in strategy. We were talking how to hold onto our frontrunner status and build on the lead we expected to have. We’re going to change that tune. No more inevitabilities. We’re the upstart now. Our entire strategy has to be how do we outwork the Holmes political machine. How do we outthink them. And how do we convince the voters that their congressional district isn’t a monarchy you pass down to your kid. It’s a democracy the best person for the job should obtain. We get to work,” she said to Rog and sat her briefcase on the desk.
Rog smiled, and then laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Kay,” he said. “You know how to turn shit around to your benefit better than anybody I’ve ever seen in action.” He stood up from his leaned position against the desk. “Let’s get to work then,” he said.
Kay smiled too, but her heart wasn’t in it. She had to get busy on her career, and for the remainder of that night in that office building, she did get busy. She had and Rog sat at that desk and plotted their strategy like the political operatives they were. But always in the back of her mind was Nico. Always in the back of her mind was that nagging sense that he was hiding something from her that he didn’t want ever exposed. Something that apparently would be devastating if it ever came to light. Rog suggested a wife. But Kay refused to believe that. Nico wasn’t that kind of man.
But then again, she didn’t think any of her previous boyfriends were that kind of men too. And they were that kind and some beside. But Nico was different. If there was a side to him that he protected as if it was a DaVinci painting, she would lay her money on that bad boy side of him that didn’t involve his ties to women, but his ties to gangsters. She saw it in Nico every time he refused to dig too deep.
Which only left her even more worried. Was Nico safe? Was his life in danger? Did her announcement cause problems for him that she couldn’t even imagine?
And just thinking about it caused Kay to drop her pen onto her writing pad and sit back in her chair, even as Rog was showing her the list of venues they need to reserve immediately. And he looked at her. When he saw the agony all over her pretty face, he sat back too. “You need a break?” he asked her.
Kay could only nod.
“Yeah, I see it all over your face. Let’s call it a night,” he said. “But get some sleep, Kay, and be ready to go full-force tomorrow. If we’re going to outwork them, we’ve got to get to work.”
“Agreed,” Kay said, stood up and grabbed her briefcase and suit coat, and slowly made her way out of that office.
Rog shook his head. He worried about her. He’d never met anybody so kind and so considerate as Kay, a true fighter for the little guy, that was so unlucky in love.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was ten at night by the time Kay unlocked her front door and made her way inside her home. She and Rog spent hours rethinking their strategy and decided they needed big donors and their lobbyists on board earlier than they’d planned. And she was still trying to figure out which donors would be the best for her to contact first. But when she sat her briefcase on the foyer table and entered her living room, kicking off her heels as she did, she realized something different in her home. His cologne scent was always present in her home. He was there too many nights for it not to be. But it wasn’t just a lingering scent from weeks gone by that she was inhaling. It was a fresh scent. And it was everywhere!
But he wasn’t in the living room. She looked, and he wasn’t in her kitchen. He wasn’t in the downstairs powder room, either, nor her home office. Which meant there was only one place left for him to be.
She grabbed her heels from off of the living room floor and made her way upstairs. And into the master bedroom. And that was when she saw him. He was lying prone on top of her bedspread, on his back, with his clothes still on (minus his suit coat), and his shoes still on too. His suit coat was flapped over her dressing table chair like it always was whenever he stayed the night.
As if that shit he pulled was normal too.
She leaned against the door jamb, her heels still in her hand. “I didn’t see your car out front,” she said to him.
“I was dropped off,” Nico responded.
“Why?”
“You’re running for Congress.”
Kay waited for more. Nothing more came. “And?”
“And I intend to keep my private life private.”
Kay was offended. “Are you implying that I won’t?”
“You’re running for Congress,” he said to her again, and then gave her a hard look. “What do you think?
Kay frowned. “Why are you so upset about that? It’s just a job.”
“Like hell it is! You will become a public servant. Public being the operative word.”
“But so what?”
“I keep my private life private, Kay! How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“I was chief of staff of a United States Senator when you first met me.”
“And that doesn’t mean shit. Who gives a fuck about staffers? But once you become a Congresswoman, there will be lots of people who gives a fuck about the person in charge. Which will be you. And that person’s personal life. Which will involve me. I don’t want that attention.”
“Why, Nico?” Kay asked him. “Skeletons in your closet?”
Nico didn’t stutter. “Absolutely!” he said firmly.
Kay didn’t expect him to be that forthcoming. And it concerned her greatly. “What kind of skeletons?” she asked him.
“The kind that I have no intentions of disturbing,” he answered her.
Kay didn’t know how to take that. He had to tell her more than what he was telling her. “What skeletons, Nico?”
“What you don’t know won’t bother you,” Nico said.
But Kay wasn’t satisfied with that answer anymore. During their entire relationship, she’d given him too much rope of privacy as it was. Now she needed to rein some of that in. She needed to know what kind of life Nico was living when she wasn’t around him. “What skeletons, Nico?” she asked again.
But Nico didn’t budge. “I’m not going into that,” he said to her.
And suddenly it all erupted. Kay’s anger with him for not contacting her for two weeks. Her concern for him for not knowing if his ass was alive or dead. And she began heading toward the bed. “Then your ass can leave now. I’m not putting up with your bullshit, Nico. Leave. Right now!” she said angrily, and then threw her heels at him.
Nico was able to deflect them easily, and didn’t even bother to sit up. He remained where he was, as if he understood her anger. He looked at her. She removed her suit coat and threw it across the chair. Then she placed one hand on her hip and the other hand on her forehead, rubbing it against an oncoming headache she’d been dealing with ever since he left.
Her distress was the last thing he wanted to put on her. But he saw that he had. He reached out his hand to her. “Come here, Katherine,” he said to her.
She didn’t want to give in to him. Why should she? But anger would only get them so far. And she needed more. She needed to know why he was behaving the way he as behaving. She went to him.
Nico placed his arm around her waist when she made it up to the bed, and then he slid her on top of him and wrapped his arms around her. Kay laid her head on his chest. She hated that it felt so good to be in his arms again. She hated that any man had that kind of power over her, where just a touch from him seared her. But she was not the kind of woman who could deny reality. She loved Nico Bacard. And it was a love that grew, rather than diminished, during h
is two-week absence.
But she had to let him know how she felt. “You should have phoned me,” she said.
“You should have consulted me,” he said.
Kay lifted her head up from his chest and looked at him. “Whether I run for office or not is my career choice, Nico. It’s my decision.”
“Your decision that will affect our lives,” Nico shot back.
Kay looked flustered. “I’ve done everything you wanted. I’ve kept our relationship private. I haven’t even taken you around any of my friends. And I intend to keep it that way. But you’ve got to give some too, Nico.”
Nico exhaled. She didn’t understand what she was asking of him. Giving some too would mean, if the truth of who he really was ever became public, would necessitate the end of that career she so wanted to have. And he wasn’t going to be the man that killed her dream. She’d hate him forever if he was the one who dimmed her rising star.
He was about to tell her that those two weeks he spent away from her were necessary because it forced him to make a painful decision. A decision he dreaded making, but he knew he had to make. He was about to tell her that he was going to have to end their relationship because of those skeletons, and still very active bodies, in his closet.
But before he could say a word, she spoke up. And gave him hope.
“It was all just a pipedream anyway,” she said, and laid her head back on his chest.
Nico looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I just found out today that the son of Congressman Holmes will also run for his father’s seat.”
Nico immediately understood what that meant. “Ah, shit,” he said.
Kay nodded. “You hit the nail on the head. He has name recognition. He has major backers. Even Eddie Drake, my former boss, is set to endorse him. And most importantly of all, instead of Congressman Holmes backing me to take over his seat in Congress, as Rog and I had hoped, he will be fully behind his son. His son is now considered a shoo-in.”
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