Know When to Hold Him (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was the house she grew up in, but Spencer still rang the doorbell. She’d had security called on her once, when she’d come home for a visit during college. Didn’t want to replay that nightmare.

This time, she recognized the face. Melissa. Late thirties. Friendly, competent. Spencer was expected. Which was nice, since her father had invited her to lunch that morning. When Spencer arrived in the dining room, she found him, already seated, with a pile of papers next to him. He looked up, with a pleasant if distant expression. “I was beginning to worry about you.”

Spencer fought the urge to check her watch pointedly. She was right on time. But to her father, if you weren’t early, you were late. “Traffic,” Spencer replied, sitting at the only other seat with a plate, to her father’s right. “George couldn’t make it?”

Hayes didn’t glance up from his memo or report. “Of course not. He’s at the office.”

She took in the dining room, traditionally set with dark woods, warm rose draperies, her maternal grandmother’s china, and her paternal grandmother’s silver. It hit her that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been alone with her father. There was always someone. George. A staffer. A driver. Even her mother sometimes made it.

“Heard from mom?” she asked, mainly to make conversation.

Hayes sighed and put his paper down pointedly. “I told you last night, she’s in Aspen.” His attention shifted to the door to the kitchen. “Melinda!” He raised his voice. “We’re ready for our lunch.”

In mere moments, Melissa/Melinda brought in the tray of chicken salad sandwiches, fresh fruit, and a marinated green bean salad. Glasses of iced tea were placed in the proper positions, to the right of the luncheon plates.

Spencer racked her brain for conversation topics. Family was out. Her mother and two sisters were all out of state. Hayes only discussed pressing matters, and out of state wives and daughters clearly did not qualify.

“I was at the Buchanan ranch last week,” Spencer began.

“Really.” Hayes picked up a pen and circled something in a file.

“It was JT’s birthday weekend. Rumor has it, he’s running for state office.”

“Well? Is he or isn’t he?” Hayes demanded.

“Probably,” Spencer allowed. “I told him attorney general would be good.”

Hayes nodded thoughtfully. “Or Congress. But he’d need an open seat. And the delegation is full.”

“Isn’t that what an election is for?” Spencer couldn’t help herself. “To open up a seat?”

She was rewarded with a stern glower. She had known better. Elections weren’t contests, in Hayes Hightower’s world. They were confirmations. Coronations.

“Speaking of,” Hayes said between bites of lunch.

“Yes?” Spencer asked, a grim knot tying itself in her stomach around strawberries and chicken salad.

“Troy Duncan.”

Spencer nearly choked. “What about him?”

“He’s a remarkable man. A real asset. Last night just confirmed that. Everyone was most impressed.”

Spencer set her fork down on her plate, with a soft chime of silver against china. She recognized a Hayes Hightower set up.

“Next year will be a critical year for the party. We have a real opportunity to bring this nation back around. And I think Troy Duncan would be a rallying figure for conservatives. A role model for youth, that’s what we need.”

It was the pitch. Spencer waited for the ball to come across the plate.

“I know you will take care of the situation, whatever it is, accordingly.”

Crack
. Out of the park. The crowd goes wild.

“What situation are you talking about?” Spencer asked evenly.

Hayes took a sip of his iced tea, ice tinkling against the crystal glass. “The young woman you have under your firm’s name at the Crescent. That situation.”

“I don’t discuss my clients. I won’t confirm or deny–”

“Spencer…”

She paused at the paternal warning. For just one brief moment, she was eleven again, and he was all-powerful. But then, she remembered that she could use her grown up voice. “Just what are you asking me? If I did have a hypothetical situation with Troy Duncan, are you asking me to throw it? Why would I do that? After all, Hightowers always win.”

“Troy Duncan is no use to me or the party if he’s not the moral, conservative hero we need him to be.”

“Why does the party need Troy Duncan?” Spencer pressed on, her intuition telling her that her father wasn’t telling her everything. “Why do you?”

Hayes speared a green bean precisely and ruthlessly. “He’s agreed to campaign for me.”

Like a fork on a green bean, her intuition turned sharp and savage. “You’re a four-term Republican senator from Texas. No one’s challenging you. You get reelected automatically if you put your name on the ballot. You definitely don’t need Troy Duncan to help you win.” She watched her father’s reaction. “No. You’re making another run for the White House.”

Spencer kept her voice even and reasonable, but the white knuckles gripping her luncheon fork showed stronger emotions were in play.

Hayes assessed his daughter, in a matter of fact way that only a career Washington politician could achieve. A faint look of surprise was his only answer to Spencer’s bold statement.

Spencer moved both hands to her lap and steadied herself. “Have you told mother?”

“Your mother supports me, one hundred percent.”

It wasn’t an answer to her question. But still the effect was the same. Jeannie Hightower wasn’t a concern. How many times had Spencer heard someone say,
Don’t worry about Jeannie
. Her whole life. “You said…” Spencer corrected herself. “You promised that you would never make another run for the White House without the whole family agreeing…”

Hayes made a dismissive motion. “You were twelve. Savannah was still in diapers. Of course I wasn’t going to consult you about my career.”

She couldn’t let that one go. “Savannah was seven, not in diapers. But we’re adults now, all of us: Lee, Savannah, and me. A national campaign affects us, it nearly destroyed this family…”

“Exactly.” Hayes cut her off with a short, quick bark. “You’re adults now. You can handle the big bad world. You don’t need to be coddled and wrapped in cotton balls. You know what this is going to require, and we all are going to do our part. Even if it means our individual goals are put aside.”

Spencer clenched the white linen napkin in her lap, twisting it, wishing the damn thing would just tear.

“Anyway, even if you didn’t put the Troy Duncan situation to bed, it would be a nightmare if it ever came out that you were the one who brought such a promising career down. Really embarrassing. George found out about this in two minutes. Imagine what the opposition research could do.”

Spencer stopped strangling the defenseless, innocent napkin and placed it on the table next to her plate where a half-eaten chicken salad sandwich lay, green lettuce getting soggier by the minute. With the weight of the world landing on her shoulders, it should have been harder for Spencer to stand, but she did so with surprising grace, with an ease born of years of practice and self-control around her father.

“I have an appointment.” The lie came too easy. It was an excuse her father wouldn’t question.

“Good of you to come. Thank you for handling this with your usual discretion.”

Spencer managed a smile before she left the room. Of course she did. Things always appeared fine in the Hightower family. They never fought. And they always won.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Spencer stopped in the doorway of the exclusive salon in Highland Park Village and surveyed the space. Phil sat in a nearby chair, holding a
People
magazine. She caught his attention. He sent a pointed glare at someone in a stylist’s chair.

Spencer followed his nod and recognized Dalynn, her head full of white goop and foil. Then she saw what—or who—Phil had called her about on her way home from the Hightower residence. Spencer nodded and went to speak with a manager.

In a few moments, a young hairstylist in five-inch black stilettos decorated with silver spikes ushered the gentleman sitting next to Dalynn to the back room.

Spencer counted to ten then followed.

A man’s head leaned back in a sink, water rinsed through his hair. His eyes closed, and it appeared like he didn’t have a care in the world. The salon’s employees had cleared out and he and Spencer were alone. And, unfortunately for him, Spencer had just received orders from Hayes Hightower. That always made her a little twitchy.

Spencer approached the shampoo chair and with a quick twist of the faucet, blasted the water to ice cold. The man’s eyes shot open, and he gaped at Spencer standing over him, brandishing a curling iron. He looked back at her then at the curling iron. He relaxed his head a little, and recognition appeared on his face. Spencer allowed herself a small smile. Good. He knows who he’s dealing with.

“Give me your phone,” she ordered. After another wary glance at the curling iron, he reached into the chest pocket of his shirt and withdrew the device. Spencer wrenched it from his hand and, with a quick thumb, she scrolled and found it. Ruthlessly, she deleted the voice recording of Dalynn spilling her life story. She started to hand it back but something even better occurred to her. Another sharp tap on the screen and she discovered exactly what she expected. Recent calls from George Clayton.

Spencer held the phone to her ear and heard the recognizable deep voice answer. “Don’t. Mess. With. Me.” She threatened with her words and eyes, and the man in the chair shrunk back into the flow of freezing water from the faucet. “Don’t mess with my clients. Or it’s war,” she vowed, before ending the call and handing the phone back to the man.

As if on cue, a stylist hustled to him and wrapped a towel around his shoulders, in order to soak up the chilled water streaming from his head. “Cold water closes the hair cuticles. Makes the hair shiny,” she called after him.

The man huffed, semi-amused and semi-frigid, she presumed. When he stomped past her, she studied the curling iron’s loose black cord pooled on the ground. It hadn’t even been plugged in. Men were such babies around electric beauty tools.

As instructed, Phil, the firm runner, escorted Dalynn to the offices of Hightower & Associates after her hair was done. Spencer was waiting for her in the conference room. Once Dalynn’s new auburn highlights had been complimented and an ice cold Coke poured, Spencer got down to business.

“I thought we went over this, after the last tabloid reporter, Dalynn. Talking to strangers is a bad idea. You don’t know who they are or who they’re going to sell that story to. That man recorded your entire conversation.”

Dalynn’s face was a mixture of confusion and defiance. “He was just a guy sitting next to me! How was I supposed to know he was a reporter?”

Spencer didn’t correct Dalynn’s misunderstanding. Explaining why George Clayton had sent a minion to get information about her would take hours and terrify her in the process.

“Because I told you. Do not talk. To anyone. This is your story, Dalynn. I don’t want anyone taking it from you. I don’t want anyone telling it for you.”

“When do I get to tell it, then?” Dalynn asked, her voice rising, her hands smoothing over her belly. “I’ve been waiting, stuck in that hotel room, waiting for Troy to get his head out of his butt and accept some responsibility! I’m tired of it. I’m tired of sitting around while Troy has all the say and no one listens to me.”

Spencer empathized with the girl. She couldn’t imagine being pregnant, alone, and forced to keep silent. The last would be hard enough. “This is hard. I know, Dalynn.” A knot twisted in Spencer’s stomach. “I know,” she repeated. “It’s infuriating, to be told to shut up and smile. To be told that if you open your mouth, you’re only going to make it worse.”

Tears sprang to Spencer’s eyes. No one understood Dalynn’s frustration better than she did. “I wish I could tell you how to do this differently. I do. But that is not how the game is played. And it is a game. There are playbooks, referees, and clocks.” Spencer grabbed Dalynn’s hand. “And the clock is running out. Okay?”

Dalynn nodded and sniffed.

Spencer handed her the box of tissues from the table. “I told you there was an ultimatum.”

“The Draft.”

“Yes, the NFL Draft. Three days from now, you’re either going to have a paternity test in your hand or a news camera in your face. I promise you.”

Dalynn blew her nose. “I don’t know about the news cameras,” she whimpered.

Spencer understood. “That’s why I’ve been trying to avoid them. And not because I don’t want you to tell your story, or because I don’t think you can do it. I know you can. It’s because…” Spencer paused for a beat. “Reporters suck.”

That made Dalynn laugh, as Spencer had intended. “I can’t believe that reporter followed me into a salon!” Dalynn shook her head. “I should have known he didn’t want highlights.”

Spencer just patted Dalynn’s hand, never mentioning who the man in the salon really worked for. It was nothing she needed to worry about. Spencer would take care of it.

…

“Phil’s taking you to the airport?” Rainey asked, sitting in Spencer’s office, her feet tucked under her.

“Mm-hmm.” Spencer selected the print button on her computer and, a second later, the familiar
whirr
of the printer started.

“And this is a last ditch attempt to get a paternity test? And not because Kenny Rogers is going to be there?”

Spencer paused at the printer as she struggled to keep her voice nonchalant. “Kenny Rogers is Troy Duncan’s agent. Of course he’s going to be there.”

“You think you can change their minds?”

“I think I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.” Spencer hoped she sounded reasonable.

“Up your sleeve or up your skirt?”

Spencer’s stare would have frozen the mythological fried egg on the sidewalk in July. Rainey was unapologetic.

“Just checking,” she said.

“We haven’t.” Spencer trailed off. “You know…”

Rainey raised her brows. “At all?”

“Well, a little,” Spencer conceded. “I tried, but…”

Rainey looked alarmed. “Tried? Oh, God, what happened? He couldn’t?”

“No!” Spencer held up both hands, palms out. “Believe me, he could. But he said no.”

“He said no?” Rainey was incredulous.

Spencer sank back into her desk chair and covered her eyes with her hands. “Last night. Oh, Rainey, it was…” Confusing. Embarrassing. Complicated. “Horrible.”

“Did he say why?” Rainey allowed her psychologist tone to sneak in. Spencer was fine with it. She felt crazy when she thought about Liam. Might as well get a professional’s opinion. So she told Rainey the whole humiliating story. The date that wasn’t with the old fogeys and the imposing father and the virgin client. And the coming back and the kissing and, then, the big, fat ‘
No
.’

“Who does that?” Spencer asked, after the whole pathetic story had been laid out, her voice approaching hysteria levels. “What man says he wants to wait? What does it mean?”

Rainey pulled her knees to her chest, giving them a little hug. “I think the clinical term for it might be respect. Maybe even love.”

Spencer froze at the “L” word, even as her heart gave an extra thump. “No.” She dismissed Rainey’s suggestion. “Nope. We just met. He’s a player, a ladies’ man. “

“Who said no. To you.”

Spencer shook her head again. Rainey wasn’t getting it. “He said he wants to have sex when there are no complications between us. Has he met me? I’m one big complication.”

“I’m just saying, men like him turn women like you down never. He’s single, straight, and hot, and he still wants to spend time with you even after this whole Troy Duncan situation. He met your father, for goodness’ sakes.”

Spencer flinched. “Maybe that’s why he said no. He met my father. And George.”
And he decided the lot of us were too bat shit crazy to deal with.

“He’s been dealing with you over this whole Dalynn situation and hasn’t backed down. You think he’s scared of your father? Of George?”

Spencer’s expression turned bleak. “Because I’m just like them.” She knew it was the truth. She didn’t need Rainey to confirm it. No one knew their character flaws better than Spencer. She excelled at everything. Even self-immolation.

Rainey smiled at her friend. “No. You’re way better.” Spencer sniffed. It was good to have a friend when her confidence had been annihilated. Rainey leaned forward. “So tell me what the plan is for the Draft.”