In Bed With the Opposition (13 page)

She made a helpless sound. “The Halloways are family to me. Don’t you understand?”

“No. I don’t. Family is about blood. It’s about putting up with people and sacrificing for them because they share your DNA. It’s about trying to help them through their problems, even when they disappoint you a million times.”

“Family is about more than blood, Ethan. But I agree with that last part and that’s why I put up with the senator’s antics. That’s why I’m taking this job.”

“You’re taking this job because it’s an opportunity to get ahead professionally.”

Grace flinched because he made it sound so horrible, but didn’t people do it every day? She was the daughter of a housekeeper, but she’d made something more of herself. And this was the kind of opportunity that might never come along again. Didn’t successful people, dedicated people, important people, put other things on hold so they could succeed? Hadn’t Ethan done just that, all his life? “My career is just as important as yours.”

His expression fell. “You said you were afraid I’d give up on you, but now you’re just quitting on us.
Again
. You and me, we’re just over. Just like that?”

“Only because of the campaign,” Grace said, miserably.

He literally put her at an arm’s length. “That’s your excuse this time. When the campaign’s over, you’re going to find another reason.”

Grace’s verbal defenses failed her completely. She didn’t know what to say. “It’s just for now. Until the election, we have to keep things professional and do our jobs.”

He was hurt and withdrawing, she knew. His eyes became unreadable. Crossing his arms over himself, he leaned back against a counter and stared at her. “You know I’m going to beat you, right?”

Coming from someone else, it might have sounded bitter, but from Ethan it just sounded like a statement of fact. “What makes you say that?”

“Because your candidate is a gaffe machine and now there’s a third party in the race.”

Her hackles went up. “I thought you said Dr. Dark Ages didn’t have a chance of winning?”

“Well, our relationship isn’t the only thing that’s changed, Grace.”

Chapter Thirteen

It was the worst Valentine’s Day ever, and not even an entire box of chocolate and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s AmeriCone Dream could make her feel better. She’d only meant to put her relationship with Ethan on hold, but the look on his face when she’d broken things off had said it all.

He was
done
.

She used to think he was the worst mistake she ever made, but now she wondered if breaking it off with him was the
most
epic mistake of her life. Unfortunately, there was no way to take it back. Maybe she could try to fix things. When the campaign was over, she’d go to Ethan and tell him everything. She’d tell him about the pictures, about the blackmail, and about how miserable she was without him. She hoped he’d forgive her and that he’d let her make it up to him in all sorts of sexy ways. But what if the damage couldn’t be undone?

To keep herself from brooding in the style to which she’d grown accustomed, she threw herself into the job that was currently ruining her love life. She moved her office to the Baltimore campaign headquarters, which was pure culture shock. Unlike the hallowed marble halls on the Hill, campaign headquarters was a disordered obstacle course of telephone cords, white boards, and conference rooms. Grace was used to a frenetic work schedule, but this place had a quirky and unpredictable pace that dizzied her. She didn’t like the untidiness of it, and found it difficult to work surrounded by a storm of Post-it notes and index cards.

Directly below her office was a room filled with televisions, computer terminals, and newspapers all dedicated to scanning the media for any mention of the campaign or the candidates. She had a staff working under her. A strategist, a communications director, a financial manager, a spin doctor, and even someone Blain called “The Plumber,” who was in charge of something nefarious. Probably spying.

But it was on Grace’s shoulders to win or lose this—and she was up against one of the most talented, experienced, and celebrated rivals in the business…who also happened to make her heart go pitter-pat.

Overwhelmed, Grace was glad for Molly, who, in a show of solidarity, had dyed her hair the same distinctive shade of green Senator Halloway used on all his campaign signs. “Hey, no tears, Grace. I know this has been rough on you, so just tell me what to do.”

Touched by her friend’s gesture, Grace said, “I thought you didn’t like Senator Halloway.”

“I’ve been talking to Malibu Ken and the volunteers, most of whom would walk on broken glass for the guy, so I figure there’s gotta be something to him. You can win this election, Grace. You’re Supergirl. You can do it.”

“Wonder Woman,” Grace sniffed. “Not Supergirl.”

“What-Ever,” Molly said, sitting in Grace’s chair and propping her boots up on the desk. “So, for this glamorous job, you really have to put things on hold with the Coat Check Casanova?”

“His name is Ethan,” Grace said.

“I know. I’m just trying out titles. The Diner Don Juan? Your PlayStation Paramour?”

“He’s more of a Wii kind of guy.” If she didn’t put a stop to this, Molly could go on all day.

“You should meet him in secret. Think of how exciting and adventurous that would be.”

“I’m not exciting or adventurous.”

“You could pretend to be! This guy really rattles your cage. I approve.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think he wants anything to do with me right now.”

Molly sighed. “Guys like girls who play hard to get, so maybe he’ll come around…hey, is that your mom?”

Grace peeked out her office window to see Mama clad in a
Halloway for Senate
T-shirt, delivering a
dulce de leche
cake for the volunteers. Sugar couldn’t solve all life’s problems, but at the moment, Grace thought it might solve a few. Welcoming Mama into the office, Grace said, “You don’t have to go out of your way just for me.”

“I’m very proud of you,
mija
. But I’m here for Kip.”

In all the years her mother had worked for the Halloways, never once had Grace heard Mama call him by his first name. “
Kip
?” This practically demanded an interrogation, but Grace’s phone started ringing and that was the end of that conversation.

…

Ethan had taken his best shot with Grace and flamed out spectacularly. Now he had to get her out of his head. There was only one surefire way to do it: focus on his job. Unfortunately, that was hard to do when he saw her sitting two rows in front of him in the crowded auditorium.

He’d driven all the way to Ocean City for the governor’s town hall meeting, in which various public officials had been invited to speak, including Senator Halloway and Comptroller Nancy Jackson, both of whom had the knives out for the other. He’d come here to scope out the competition, but his attention kept drifting to Grace, who was pretending
not
to notice him, but wasn’t very good at it.

Every time she caught him looking her way, she dropped something. First her purse. Then a notepad. Then a pen. Meanwhile, his awareness of her drowned out everything on the stage.
Goddamn
, he was pissed at her. But he also missed her. All he had to do was remember how good they’d been together and his palms started to sweat.

Perched on the edge of his folding chair, Ethan noticed that the crowd cheered Nancy Jackson just as loudly as they did Kip Halloway, which was a bad sign for Grace’s campaign. Marylanders loved Halloway, there was no doubt about that, but many thought his time was done. They hoped Jackson would give them an opportunity to take and hold the seat for another decade, and her campaign was picking up steam. All Ethan had to do was take advantage of that split in the party faithful and he could win this thing.

Grace looked miserable. He should’ve taken some solace in that. Good. Let her be miserable. She’s the one who decided a job was more important than their relationship. She’s the one who broke things off. But just because they weren’t together didn’t mean they couldn’t be civil, did it?

He took out his cell phone and typed a message.

If I took the empty seat next to you, would you think I was a shady stalker? -EC

But before he could hit the send button, it happened.

Later, Ethan would remember it as a sort of slow-motion political train wreck. But in the moment, it felt like the blink of an eye…

“Miss,” Senator Halloway called to a pretty young assistant who filled his coffee cup. “Would you come back here?”

The governor’s assistant returned, crossing the stage. “Is something wrong with your coffee, Senator?”

In full view of the press and an auditorium full of witnesses, Halloway grinned like a naughty schoolboy. “No, honey, with legs like yours, I just want to watch you walk away again.”

Ethan actually heard Grace choke from two rows away. Gurgling in an effort not to spray her water on the people in front of her, she swallowed, then coughed and wheezed. Meanwhile, the town hall meeting went quiet.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Not even the governor, who was
never
at a loss for words.

Then people tittered nervously. Some booed. The governor’s assistant turned scarlet even as her lips whitened. To her credit, Ethan thought, she turned on her heel.

The press corps was on Senator Halloway the moment the meeting was adjourned. “Senator!” a reporter called. “Wasn’t that comment to the governor’s aide out of line?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kip Halloway said. “She’s a pretty little girl. I’m in my eighties and the day I stop flirting with pretty women is the day I die.”

And that,
Ethan thought,
is how a campaign falls to pieces.

He actually felt sorry for Grace. No amount of spin would ever fix this. This was going to be a story. A big story. Hell, he wouldn’t even have to
make
it a story. And there was nothing Grace could do about it.

…

So this was it. Grace had finally seen Kip Halloway at his worst. Nothing he’d ever done before made her so want to hide in shame. She tried to send a telepathic message to the senator that he should just apologize, but her boss gawked like a fish out of water.

Dale Delmont had been the reporter to ask the question—the slimy little bastard. But any reporter could have asked it. Now Dale was laughing and Grace could tell it was a laugh of triumph. Reporters had their story and they weren’t going to let it go.

In the car, Senator Halloway said, “Damn, I left my favorite pen back there.”

“Along with your dignity,” Grace snapped.

“Oh, Gracie Girl—”

“Don’t call me that! Don’t call me ‘Gracie Girl’ or anything like that ever again.”

His eyes filled with confusion. “Why not?”

Grace was furious as she jabbed her fingers into the leather armrest between them. “Because I always thought those were terms of endearment. All of my silly little life, I thought you meant them kindly. In a fatherly way.”

“But I do…”

“Were you looking at the governor’s aide as if she was your daughter? You
ogled
her.”

“Oh, Grace. The meeting was getting tense, and I wanted to bring a little levity.”

Grace was having none of it. “You demeaned her in front of her colleagues. You sexually harassed her.”

He wagged a finger in Grace’s face. “I never touched her.”

She dared to grab that leathery finger and glare. “You don’t have to touch anyone to sexually harass them, and you know it. You helped write the law!”

He dropped his hands into his lap. “It was just a joke.”

“What if the governor joked that way about me? What if I was the one who poured the coffee and he asked me to show my ass off as I walked away?”

Kip Halloway huffed indignantly. “I’d punch him!”

“Why? Wouldn’t it be funny?”

For once, Senator Kip Halloway was silent.

Grace was so angry she pushed the matter. “He’d be insulting my professionalism, he’d be treating me like I was less than all those men in the room, and that would reflect on you. You wouldn’t allow that, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’ll never forget the way your mother took care of my Martha in her final days, and you know how much I care for you. I’ve watched you grow up from a smart little girl into the woman you are today and you’re part of the family.”

“Well, that woman you just humiliated—she’s someone’s family, too. What would Martha think of what you did today?”

It was a low blow to bring his dead wife into this, but she’d never been so disappointed in him. His shoulders drooped and he hung his head. “I never meant to make that girl feel bad. I’ll call and apologize.”

“That’s too aggressive. Write a letter. Tell her that you’re ashamed of yourself and in the meantime, I’m going to think of ways to spin this.”

“There’s no spinning it. The voters know I’m an ass. They vote for me anyway. Remember last campaign? My slogan was ‘Halloway: He says what you only think.’”

“That was six years ago,” Grace said, wondering how any campaign manager could possibly make this better. “The people who’d think this is funny were going to vote for you anyway. The other campaigns are going to use this against you. Ethan Castle was sitting in the audience when you said it, and he’s going to slam you with this every single day.”

“Don’t suppose you can charm him out of it,” her boss asked hopefully.

Staring out at the window at the stark winter landscape as they drove off, Grace said, “Thanks to you, my charms don’t work on Ethan anymore.”

…

It was only a local public television show, but Grace had never felt less prepared for anything in her life. As the campaign’s ranking female, her face alone was damage control for the senator’s remarks, but Grace had never done a television interview as a surrogate before.

She tucked her hands under her gray-plaid pencil skirt to keep them from shaking while the makeup artist put the final touches on her cheeks. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure if it was her nerves about screwing up on TV that made her shaky or the fact that she was about to come face-to-face with Ethan Castle.

He strode into the studio, that cream-colored suit of his gleaming under the lights. The Irish fiddler who played for the studio audience in honor of St. Patrick’s Day was so smitten by the sight of him that she missed a note. Grace couldn’t blame her.

“Hey, Grace,” he said with an air of cheerful diffidence, as if they were no more than casual acquaintances. But at least he was speaking to her.

“Hey.” Plainly, he deserved more of a response, but she was decidedly tongue-tied. Her heart ached at the sight of him—the beautiful sight of him. He’d cut his hair since she’d seen him last; it was shorter and less wild. She still wanted to run her fingers through it. He was also wearing a big green pin that said “Kiss me, I’m Irish.”

Oh, how Grace wanted to do that, too.

Instead, she fiddled with the granola bar the studio had given her, but she’d been too nervous to snack on. “Are you hungry? Do you want it?”

“No, thanks,” Ethan said with a wicked grin, as they attached a microphone to his lapel. “I need to keep my appetite up if I’m going to eat you for lunch.”

And over the course of the next hour, that’s exactly what he did. Grace stuck to the script and even scored a few points of her own, but she was hopelessly outclassed. Ethan’s experience on CNN made him a natural on camera. He was loose and easy, funny and self-deprecating, undercutting all of Grace’s points with subtle jabs.

Inevitably, the interviewer brought up Ogle-Gate. “Ms. Santiago, your boss made some controversial remarks to the governor’s assistant. As a woman, do you think the senator’s comments were appropriate?”

The studio suddenly felt like it was a million degrees, and not just because Ethan was sitting so close to her. Grace swallowed and plowed forward. “It was inappropriate and the senator knows that. But Kip Halloway’s record on women’s rights stands for itself.”

Jackson’s spokeswoman went in for the kill. “The comments Senator Halloway made to that young lady were
disgusting
and underscore that he’s out of touch. Maybe those comments were commonplace fifty years ago, but not now.”