Unfinished Business (11 page)

“You know,” she began slowly, “I usually get dinner or something before a kiss like that.”

“I tried. We were interrupted by a couple of would-be thieves, remember?”

“Try again. I mean, I don't know anything about you. As a man. As a person. I want to know who you are. Really. Who you are, other than”—she frowned as though the words complicated the matter—“a self-absorbed jerk.”

Mark laughed. She was right, of course. He was sounding like a jerk. But he was a jerk with a dinner date. “Done. Tonight, seven p.m. It's Thursday. I have fish on Thursdays, so I know a place that—”

She shook her head. “Not tonight, I have plans. Tomorrow. Seven p.m.”

“You don't have any plans.”

“I do. PTA meeting. It's been scheduled for months.”

He frowned, not sure if she was telling the truth or playing hard to get. “I'll have to check the schedule, but I think that will work.”

“Good.” She glanced over her shoulder at the crutches. “And you aren't fooling anybody with all this posturing and posing. I know you hurt yourself last night, so use those things if you need to.”

Mark frowned. “I'm all right. Just a little sore, that's all,” he told her, and sidestepped any further discussion by saying, “Tomorrow's Friday. On Friday I have steak. We'll go to Brighton's. Might have to meet you at the restaurant instead of picking you up like a proper gentleman caller, though.”

“Thursday, steak? Friday fish? Is this some kind of religious thing?”

“Not exactly.” He chuckled. “Just a personal habit. And it's the other way around: steak on Friday, fish on Thursday. Sundays and Fridays I have steak—or at least red meat. Tuesdays I like Hunan pork. Wednesday Italian and on Saturdays and Monday, chicken of some kind.”

She stared at him, again like he had lost his mind. “Don't you ever try anything different? Just because it's there?”

He shook his head. “When it comes to food, I'm not one for adventure. My staff knows the schedule and when I go to dinners, people just work with it. Friday, we'll go to Brighton's.” He nodded toward her oddball collection of colorful clothes. “And none of that. Leave the political slogans at home. I assume you have a nice dress.”

A flicker of something skittered across her face. Doubt? Fear? He wasn't sure. It was there for just a fraction of a second. Then it was gone. “Yes, I have
a dress,” she said, raising her chin at him as though these, too, were fighting words.

“Good. Now, that leaves only one thing.” He skewered her with his gaze again. “You goin' with me back to Billingham, or what?”

Another flicker and this time he was sure.

Fear.

She opened her mouth and he knew he was about to hear a lot of bravado and bluster. But deep inside, she was scared to death.

She was gorgeous, spirited and sexy. And she was right: he wanted her like crazy. Something about her made every hair on his body stand straight up, and certain other parts, too. He wanted her, wanted to find out what would happen after a kiss, wanted to feel her body wrapped around his and hear his name as a scream of pleasure on her lips.

He wanted her, whether her views on life and politics were right or wrong or indifferent. But he liked her a little better for those two little flickers of absolutely human, absolutely justifiable terror, and the way she mastered them with a single blink.
Gorgeous, spirited, sexy and brave,
he thought adding the word to the growing list of her virtues. She was irritating as all hell, but he liked her. A hell of a lot.

“I'll go,” she said, “on two conditions.” She showed him her fingers. “First”—she nodded toward the picture—“you call the cops about
that
—but discreetly. I don't want anyone in this office to know. I don't want to give that woman the satisfaction of thinking she's scaring me. But maybe they can get me a full contingent of bodyguards if I'm making this trip.”

“What else do you want? Bulletproof vest? An armored car?”

That was funny, wasn't it? At least clever? But she
was looking at him again like she'd just as soon slap him as answer.

“You got any of that stuff?” she demanded.

Mark shook his head. “No, but—”

“The second thing is,” she interrupted, and those luminous eyes locked on him again and he knew, short of permission to mine uranium, he'd give her just about anything she asked for. “I want my friend Angelique to come with us.”

“What for? Protection?” he chuckled. “From what I saw of her, Angelique's not much of a bodyguard.”

“Not protection.” She tossed her head, sending those wild curls flying. “For moral support. I'm entering hostile territory, going to your Billingham. You brought a full contingent of aides to my school. If I'm going to get booed and heckled on your turf, seems like I should have one friend who loves me to turn to.”

For a second, he thought he saw a tear, shimmering just a blink away from being shed, shining in her eyes. But he must have been mistaken, because when he reached for her, she shrugged away from him with a “No more of that, Senator” that sounded about as far from tears as east from west.

“All right,” he agreed. “Angelique gets a ticket, too.”

She exhaled as though a weight had fallen from her shoulders. “Fine. Then gas up the jet, or saddle up the horses or whatever it is you country people do.” She sighed. “I'm ready to visit the backwater and get this whole thing over with. Now, honor your bargain,” she said, reaching for the phone and delivering it into his hand.

When her skin brushed against his and Mark felt his body react from heart to groin, he wondered if any of this was a good idea. They could talk politics
and argue and fuss until the cows came home, but the business between them wasn't going to be finished until he'd possessed her body with his own, and he had the feeling she knew it, too.

Erica sat at a small table in the center of the room, her legs crossed beneath her blue silk dress, leg swinging with impatience as the minute hand on her watch crept past 8:36 to 8:37. One more minute, she told herself, as she had for the past seven minutes, fury setting her jaw.

She was the only black person in the crowded but posh palace of a place. Even the waiters were all white. She imagined the kitchen, suspecting that there, too, was a monochrome of whiteness. Except for the dishwasher. He might be black. Or Hispanic. Or both. The thought made her even angrier. This would be the kind of place he would pick: a place that was a throwback to an earlier America where white people held privilege and the rest of the people were invisible.

“Black people built this country!” she wanted to shout. “
Si se puede!
” Either that, or run back to the kitchen and start banging pots to the tune of “El Liberte!”

No one else seemed to find anything wrong in the room, even her solitary self. Erica pulled at the fab
ric of the borrowed silk dress and surveyed the room again.

The place really was an “old boys' club”: dark décor, club chairs, low lighting. The customers were mostly men, though a few women peppered the room. Almost all, male and female, wore suits, as though their dinner was nothing more than an extension of the workday. Erica got the sense of deals being made over the proverbial handshake.

She sighed.

Here I am, cooling my heels in the sort of place I hate by the very nature of its existence, all because…

Because…

Because of that man and his damned kiss
, she admitted, feeling even angrier with herself than with the restaurant. That kiss had turned the world upside down. For an instant she'd have turned in her ACLU card, signed up for the John Birch Society, allowed the clock to be turned back to 1950—anything, anything at all—just to keep that man's lips locked on her own.

Just when, she wondered, had she gotten so weak?

Maybe I shouldn't go with him down to Billingham
, she thought.
Either that or I should just sleep with him and be done with it—

A burst of raucous male laughter, as loud and raw as anything out of a locker room, exploded in the air. Erica caught a snippet of conversation that ended in the words, “And that's why
we're
the real America!”

Erica frowned, not liking the sound of that one bit. She turned a little, making sure her face expressed her disapproval, just as Mark Newman strode into the room.

Well, not strode, exactly. More like limped or something. But he did it with such authority that one hardly noticed the awkwardness of his gait. He had
the cane with him again, and in a weird way it was like a part of him. He'd integrated it into his identity without allowing it to hinder his seeming strength or masculinity a single bit.

“Look who it is…” she heard one of the men at the nearby table murmur, just loud enough for the others to hear. Erica cut her eyes in that direction, taking in a white-haired man with a big beak of a nose as the apparent speaker.

“Senator Newman,” one of the white-haired man's companions offered. Erica took him in, too, without his noticing: a red-faced dude with a bald head. “Insufferable, isn't he?”

“But I guess we must make nice with the future presidential candidate,” the white-haired man continued, as though the very idea made him want to hurl. “He's the leadership's darling. And the media seems to find him absolutely charming. God only knows why.”

“You know why!” The bald man chuckled. “Look at him!”

“Oh, I don't know.” A third man added his comments to the conversation. “He might just get plucked in the primary.”

“Malloy will need something pretty explosive to manage that,” the white-haired man disagreed. “Don't see Newman being that stupid.”

“Well, it's not over yet,” the third man added. “And either way, he's got at least five or six more years of dues to pay.” He shrugged. “Anything can happen.”

“Here he comes,” the white-haired man muttered. “Mark!”

Mark nodded at them and Erica saw the slight shift from smile to smirk as he turned his face toward them.

He doesn't like them, either
, Erica realized, watching
these men who'd just run him down within her earshot seconds before, now hail him, urging him to join them.

“Sorry,” she heard him say in that demandingly certain tone he was master of. “Got my eye on far more attractive company.” Then without another word, he passed them and within seconds stood over her with that beaming, full-of-himself, boyish grin on his face.

“Hey,” he drawled, all slow and Southern and dripping with syrupy sweetness.

And just like that, her anger melted away and her brain froze and her heart started acting stupid again. Erica stared up him for a moment, too tongue-tied by the larger-than-life quality of the man to say anything. His dark hair was growing out a bit, and his ears looked a little less prominent, sticking out of the whiteness of his head. He wore his gray suit easily, with the casual demeanor of a working man, even if that work had consisted of sitting on his rump, running his mouth. But mostly, it was his eyes and lips that made words flee from her brain: the first, blue and clear and fixed on her with what looked like genuine pleasure, the second soft and fine and, she knew for a fact, almost perfected fitted to her own.

Unfinished business.

His words for this insane attraction. Angelique started talking in her brain about “humanity” and “personal pain.”

And now, here he was again, looking at her with that sort of look that could melt a woman's heart, dissolve her into a useless puddle of mushy emotion, make her vulnerable to the worse treatment in the world, and Erica felt herself slipping into its spell. Even the fact that he was a Republican didn't matter—not while he was looking at
her with those eyes and speaking to her with those lips.

Then he started talking, and ruined everything. “…Don't like that dress much,” he was muttering, analyzing her like a frustrating bit of legislation. “Probably suits your girlfriend Angelique, but it doesn't do anything for you.” He reached toward the dress's neckline, pulling. “Bet you got one of them T-shirts on under there somewhere…”

“Hey!” Erica snapped, shoving his hand away. And just like that the moment of infatuation went as fast as it came, leaving her with only one feeling for the man: irritation. “That's my body you're messing with. Keep your paws to yourself!”

He leaned forward, devilment in his eyes, and she could smell the faint aroma of alcohol on his breath. “You didn't say that the other day.”

“Shut up,” Erica snapped, half rising. “Or I'm leaving. I swear I will.”

“All right, all right,” he conceded, chuckling a little. “Couldn't resist. But seriously, that's not your dress, is it?”

Erica felt a flush of embarrassment color her cheeks. “What difference does it make?” she demanded. “I thought you'd like it. It's…blue…and silk…covers everything and isn't printed with anything you might find objectionable.”

“Which is exactly what's wrong with it. It doesn't suit you.” He frowned. “I saw you in something more…more…” He shrugged and flashed her that up-to-no-good grin again. “Unusual.”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Well, I'm glad to disappoint you. In fact,” she made to rise again. “I'm thinking this whole thing was one big mistake. What happened between us in your office—”

“You mean the kiss?” he interrupted, the grin crimping into its distant cousin the smirk.

“Y—yes,” Erica stammered, feeling suddenly nervous and quaky again. “That.”

“That,” he agreed. “I guess you're right: it was probably just a mistake. You couldn't keep your hands off me, but it could have been a mistake. Still”—he lifted another shoulder—“shouldn't stop us from having a nice dinner. Besides we still have things to discuss.” He leaned back a little, reaching deep into his breast pocket to produce several sheets of folded paper and tossed them across the table at her.

“What's this?” Erica asked.

“First one's your copy of the police report. Right now, since I didn't receive any kind of threat, the Capitol police consider it a matter for the D.C. police. Which, my dear, means—”

“No one's going to do anything,” Erica finished with a sigh.

“Well, there's not a lot they
can
do. There's not much to go on. And a woman like you has plenty of enemies.”

“I do not.”

“You must,” he responded. “Saying the things you say, doing the things you do, wearing the things you wear. I say and do all the
right
things.” His eyes strayed to the nearby table of men, and Erica was surprised to find them staring back at him with interest. “And people still hate me for it,” he muttered. He pasted the phoniest smile she'd ever seen on his face and nodded pleasantly in their direction. Before Erica could comment, he turned back to her and continued briskly. “The Capitol police will intervene if I receive any kind of similar threat. They'll assess its gravity, perhaps assign some kind of security detail, if they think it's necessary. But for now”—he shrugged—“don't worry. It's probably nothing. Just a crackpot who saw you on TV. You're in the phone book,
right?” Erica nodded. “Then you were easy enough to find. And besides, you don't have anything to worry about.” He gave her another one of those bullshit grins. “I'll protect you.”

Erica rolled her eyes and shook her head, but instead of going there with him, she focused her attention on the second piece of paper.

“The next two are your tickets and our itinerary. Session finishes on Wednesday, so we'll leave on Thursday. Got a lot on the schedule. A few are optional for you, but…you've stirred up a lot of interest among Billingham's citizens. Seems from the mail I'm getting that people want to talk to you. Try to set you straight on a few things, probably.” He paused and when Erica looked up, he was rubbing his forehead.

“What's the matter?”

“I don't know,” he murmured. “Felt a little queasy all of the sudden.” He reached for the glass of ice water on the table and Erica noticed his hand shook a little before closing around it. He drank it all down without stopping. The B.S. smile showed itself again in spite of the sudden pallor of his face. “That's better,” he lied. “I was at a cocktail party. Let the server talk me into some kind of munchy thing I shouldn't have eaten.” He grimaced. “I'd have done better with one of Dickey Joe's home brews.”

They were interrupted by a waiter who made a great show of presenting the menus and explaining the specials before disappearing to some unseen recess with the promise to return for their decisions.

Erica studied her companion. The tight lines were back in his face—the same tight lines Angelique had pointed out when they searched his photographs online. As much as she hated to admit it, Angelique was right: he was hurting. Hurting pretty bad.

“We can go, if you're not feeling well—”

“I feel fine,” he snapped, sounding truly irritated. “Stop trying to find ways to get out of this. That's the point, isn't it? For us to spend time together, realize no matter how much sparking goes on between us, we can't stand each other and in so doing completely detonate this…this…”

“Crime growing between us?” Erica offered.

His features twisted into a slight wince of pain at the word
crime
and she wished she'd chosen another. “I was going to call it an attraction, but crime might be right.”

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled. “Bad word choice.”

He shook his head. “No. Good word choice. Criminals are sneaky, insidious, and aggressive. Sometimes love is the same way.”

Love?
Had he actually used that word? Erica let out a shaky little laugh. “I don't think we need to go that far. We both just love a good fight. That, and maybe you need to find one of those silly women chasing you and take her up on her offer.”

“Oh yeah?” he smirked at her. “And what's your excuse, Ms. Johnson? You need to take someone up on
his
offer—”

“Have you made your decision?”

The waiter stood over them, supercilious in his black-and-white uniform.

“We have. We'll have the prime rib, medium-rare,” Mark muttered without really looking at him at all. “Side of mashed potatoes and whatever the vegetable is.”

“Broccoli.”

“Whatever it is,” Mark repeated. “Just water for me. No, maybe a little Pellegrino—”

“Excuse me,” Erica interrupted, glaring at him. “I can order for myself and I don't want prime rib.”

“Trust me, the prime rib is excellent here.”

“I don't care if it's encrusted with diamonds, I don't want it. I don't eat meat.”

Mark let out a short bark of annoyed laughter. “Why aren't I surprised?” he muttered. “Honestly woman, if I say white, you say black just to spite me, don't you?”

Erica smiled at him sweetly. “That's oddly appropriate, given the differences between us, isn't it?”

Mark rolled his eyes and shook his head, and Erica felt his annoyance rolling off him in waves.

It's your own damn fault, Mr. Steak-on-Friday
, Erica thought.
I didn't pick the restaurant. If you'd just asked me—

“We have a lovely Atlantic lobster,” the waiter offered. Erica glanced up at the man: the frozen smile on his face suggested that he wanted to be far away from the fight that was brewing. “We usually serve it with our surf and turf, but I can get it for you without the turf,” he finished, offering an anemic chuckle.

Erica gave him a small smile for the effort.