Tempting (22 page)

A dig at Dani's mother. Compared to Fiona being pregnant with Alex's child, it was a poor follow-up. She handed over the picture and stood.

“I have to get to work,” she said numbly, barely able to form the words. She couldn't think, couldn't focus. None of this was real, she told herself. It couldn't be.

Of course she hadn't thought it was real, either, with Hugh or Ryan.

She'd thought Alex was different—that he wasn't like the other men in her life. She'd trusted him, given her heart to him. But she'd been wrong and he'd been nothing but a lying, cheating, weasel bastard.

D
ANI CURLED UP
in the corner of the sofa, Gloria holding her and rocking her back and forth.

Everything hurt. She could barely breathe because the sobs were too harsh and frequent. She felt as if she'd been beat up and left for roadkill, only this was worse. She'd done it to herself.

“I trusted him,” she cried. “I t-trusted him. I know better. They're all bastards. Every one of them. I thought he was different. I thought he was better than Ryan or Hugh, but he's not.”

Gloria smoothed her hair. “Shh. It will be all right.”

“Will it? Really? Can you know that?”

“I know you're too strong to let this setback break you.”

Dani tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was more of a gargle. “I don't think so. I feel completely broken. Worse. I feel shattered. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep leading with my heart only to have it stomped on.”

She grabbed a handful of tissues and blew her nose, then began to cry again.

There was a huge open wound right in the middle of her chest. She wondered if her very essence was going to spill out onto the rug and evaporate. She was hurt on a level that was past anger. She'd believed in Alex. That's what really killed her. She'd totally believed in him.

“He said all the right things,” Dani said. “Like Ryan, only better because they weren't about me. He always talked about his family and being so damn loyal. Like he was this incredible guy.”

“You don't know that he's not.”

“He cheated on me with his ex-wife after telling me this whole story about how she'd cheated on
him.
We bonded over slimy ex-spouses.”

“So why would he say all that if he was really still sleeping with her?”

“To suck me in.”

Gloria smiled sadly and touched her cheek. “That's a complex plan, Dani. Do you really think you're worth all that?”

Despite everything, Dani laughed. Then she collapsed in her grandmother's arms and began to cry again.

“She's having his baby. I saw the picture. I saw her stomach.”

“Maybe she has gas.”

The sob-giggle combined into a snort. “Women like Fiona do not have gas.”

“Everyone has gas. You don't know she's pregnant and if she is, you don't know it's really Alex's baby. Fiona has an agenda. You said she wanted Alex back. Getting her competition out of the way is going to make that go more smoothly.”

“Maybe,” Dani said, unwilling to give Alex the benefit of the doubt.

“Someone else could be the father.”

Based on how beautiful Fiona was, Dani was willing to bet there would be thousands of volunteers.

“I don't know what to think,” she admitted. “I want to believe it's all a game she's playing, but she knew stuff about the house. Specific stuff and he said she'd never been there. So he has to have lied about that.”

“I'm sure there's a logical explanation for how she knows that.”

Dani sniffed. “You're taking his side. That's not allowed.”

“I'm trying to help you see that you don't have all the facts. If it turns out he's betrayed you, then I'll have Walker hire some mercenary type to grind him into dust.”

There was a fierceness in Gloria's voice that made Dani feel safe and loved. It was no match for the ache inside, but it helped a little.

“I like that plan,” Dani admitted.

“So we're in agreement. In the meantime, you need more information. You have to talk to Alex.”

“Not today,” Dani said. She'd barely gotten through her shift at Bella Roma before escaping to Gloria's house where she'd collapsed. “Not for a long time.”

“Eventually.”

“Maybe.”

Dani wiped her face and wondered how she would get over this if Alex was the cheat she suspected. Were there really no good men out there or was she just cursed to never find one of her own?

 

A
LEX WAITED
until everyone had left the meeting. Mark picked up the phone in his office, then glanced at Alex. “Did you want something else?”

“I want to talk about how you got the charges against me dropped.”

Mark shook his head. “There's no need to thank me. I was happy to do it.” He looked at his watch. “I need to make this call.”

Alex ignored that. “I'm not here to thank you. I'm here to ask you what the hell you think you were doing, messing in my life? You didn't even have the courtesy to talk to me first. You just fixed everything. Like that was the right thing to do.”

His father straightened in his chair. “You could show a little gratitude. If you'd been charged, you would have had to leave the campaign. Your old law firm wouldn't have wanted you back, so what would you have done? If you'd been convicted, the likelihood of you ever practicing law again would have been close to zero. I saved you, Alex. Don't forget that.”

“I wanted to handle things myself.”

“Give me a break. How were you going to do that?”

“By working through the system.”

“The system? The only system that matters is the one we control. You're acting like a child. Did you want to go to jail?”

“If necessary,” Alex said, determined to keep his temper. He knew Mark's style well enough to recognize the technique of trying to make his opponent feel foolish enough to walk away without finishing the discussion. Alex wasn't going to be sidetracked. “I want to do the right thing.”

Mark stood and walked around his desk. “The right thing is for you to live up to your potential. You have an outstanding career and why should some pissant reporter get to screw that up? Did I make a few calls? You bet. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. You're so big on family loyalty and protecting those you care about. So am I, and that's what I did. I protected you.”

Alex stood. “You got involved in a legal matter that didn't concern you. You used your position to influence a district attorney. Doesn't that bother you? Because it sure as hell bothers me.”

Mark leaned against his desk. “I keep forgetting how idealistic you are. Look around. This isn't an intellectual discussion in some Ivy League law classroom. This is the real world. Do you know why you're on my campaign right now? On my staff? Because your law firm wants you to be here. They let you go because they're hoping I'll win the election. Then they'll have a connection to the White House. You know it and I know it. All of life is politics, son. It's a reality and you have to accept that.”

“Political reality has to stop somewhere.”

“Why?” Mark asked, sounding genuinely confused. “Why does it stop anywhere?”

Alex got it then. He'd never seen his father before—not as he really was. Mark wasn't evil or power-hungry. He simply saw the world in the way that made his life easier.

He thought of Katherine, who lived her life doing the right thing—not only because it was expected but because doing the right thing defined her. Yet she loved Mark with every fiber of her being. How did she reconcile the two?

If she were here now, she would tell him that loving someone meant accepting them as they were—good points and faults. He could love his father, but accept the faults? That was going to be tougher.

He had two choices. He could accept what had happened, or he could walk away. His gut told him to walk. That he wasn't the man to be a part of that.

But his heart remembered standing next to his birth mother's dead body, sobbing because he hadn't been able to save her. His heart remembered his vow to be loyal, no matter what. That if he ever found a family again, he would stand with them, protect them and never walk away. His heart remembered Katherine teaching him that duty was everything.

He didn't have a choice. He would stay, because it was the right thing to do.

 

D
ANI DIDN'T EVEN KNOW
which channels carried political shows on Sunday morning, but she flipped through the national networks until she saw men and women in suits looking serious. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee and prepared to become informed about the American political scene.

She'd never been interested before, but then she'd never had a parent running for national office before, either. Better late than never and all that. At least she always voted.

She sipped the coffee and listened to the guests talk about the latest crisis in the Middle East. Her mind wandered, probably because she was so tired. She hadn't been able to sleep in four days. Not since she'd spoken with Fiona.

Dani had been dodging Alex's calls—something she couldn't do forever. But she didn't know what to say to him. Part of her was afraid of the confrontation because it would be ugly, but mostly she didn't want to hear him admit that yes, he was a bastard and she'd been fooled yet again. Until there was confirmation, she was weak enough to want to believe the best of him.

“Shame on me,” she murmured into the quiet of the room, as the show shifted into a commercial break. “I need to be stronger than this.”

And she would be. In time. Wasn't she allowed a little weakness, at least in the short term?

The show resumed with a shift in topic. She saw a picture of Mark Canfield and turned up the sound.

Dani nearly dropped her coffee when her own picture flashed onto the TV screen. She swore.

Dani knew what was coming and braced herself to see that horrible picture of her driving away from Alex's house. Sure enough it was put up in a corner.

 

“Y
OUR YOUNG MAN IS HERE
,” Bernie told Dani the following day shortly after two. “Go on. I'll finish up here.”

Dani's stomach tightened with dread. “No, it's okay. I'll tell him I can't see him now. I want to work my whole shift.”

Bernie grinned. “I just said ‘your young man.' Now I'm talking like my mother. I need work to distract me. Go. It's fine.”

Trapped by a kind man with good intentions, Dani nodded, then walked through the main dining room of Bella Roma.

The lunch crowd had faded to only a few diners. She easily saw Alex standing by the front door. He didn't look happy.

“You've been avoiding me,” he said as she approached.

She hadn't seen him in nearly a week. Despite everything, she found herself wanting to step close and have him hold her. She wanted to feel his arms around her and breathe in the scent of his body. She wanted to kiss and be kissed and have all the bad stuff go away. Which only showed that she was spineless, weak and in need of a feminist intervention.

“I haven't known what to say,” she admitted, then nodded toward the back. “We can talk in my office.”

He frowned. “So there's a problem.”

“Let's talk in private.”

He followed her into the small, crowded space. There was a desk, a file cabinet and not much extra room. Especially with them both standing.

“What's going on?” he asked. “You haven't returned any of my calls. I went by your grandmother's place this weekend and she said you were out of town.”