The Phoenix Candidate(52)
“Stop. Go for a walk and get yourself dinner. I haven’t finished mine, but I’ll be home in a bit.” I hang up without waiting for a reply, and look up guiltily at Trey and Mama Bea, sorry I have to eat and run.
Trey arches a knowing brow. “Is this Mr. Oregon Grape Bouquet?”
“How’d you know what kind of flowers he sent me?”
“Classy guy. Takes an interest. Makes it personal,” Trey says. “And also he asked for time on your calendar through noon tomorrow, but asked me not to tell you yet.”
“And you just gave it to him?”
“Hey, I can’t mess with a hopeless romantic. I’m a hopeless romantic.” Trey flutters his lashes and both Mama Bea and I laugh. “Anyway, you were smiling when you got those flowers, so I guessed he was OK.”
“You guessed right.”
***
I’m not prepared for the ferocity with which Jared attacks me when I get out of the cab at my apartment. He’s got his hands on my ass, his mouth on my neck, and he’s breathing the dirtiest words into my ear.
“If you don’t unlock this door in two seconds, I’m going to fuck you right here on the sidewalk,” Jared growls.
I push him back. “Get off me, and I’ll get my key in the lock.”
Jared spins me away from him, but his fingers trace up the front of my skirt, pressing into the apex of my thighs. “I have to have you now, Grace. Every way I’ve imagined I could have you this week. Every way you want me, even if you can’t say the words.”
I grind against his erection and twist the key, pulling open my apartment door and almost tripping to the elevator with the press of Jared behind me.
My little ritual—keys, Ethan, light—is disrupted by Jared’s rough hands, pulling me against him, his breath in my hair, his hard chest against mine.
“Wait—” I step away from him, toward Ethan’s picture, and touch the glass.
Breakable, just as he was.
Thoughts of Ethan get my mind out of the gutter, to the one thing Aliza forced me to admit I want most: I want to be on the ticket. “Are we going to talk about Boyle?”
Jared runs a hand through his hair and massages his neck. “Why not? I’ve been talking about him for ten hours.”
The frenetic, sexual charge is gone from the room and I lead him to the couch. I open some wine and he opens his laptop. “You knew?”
“We were still in negotiations. He didn’t pull out for nothing.”
“So what did he—” Oh. I get it. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. His withdrawal from the race comes with certain agreements. Certain promises.
“I’m flying to New York tomorrow to meet with him.”
“To vet him. As a running mate.”
“Yes.”
I look down at my hands, twisting around the stem of my wineglass. It feels like a betrayal, even though it shouldn’t. Jared has a job to do. Conover can pick any running mate he wants.
And that person might not be me.
“He’s a safe choice,” Jared adds. “He has a good name. A lot of electoral votes. A strong track record on domestic and foreign policy.”
“He’d be a good running mate.” At least I can admit Boyle would be the better choice.
“So would you, Grace.” Jared sets his wineglass down and his fingers trace my cheek. It’s tender, longing, but full of the regret that Jared isn’t the only one pulling the strings. Ultimately, it’s Conover’s decision.
And I have nothing in my arsenal to make him want me more.
“So is it a done deal? I mean, is Boyle a foregone conclusion to join Conover if he gets nominated?”
“Nothing’s ever a done deal. The endorsement was part of the package. It gets him in Conover’s court and he’s got to spend the next three weeks working to migrate his delegates over to Conover’s column. We don’t know how many will go, but I’d say it’s a fair guess this will tie them up with Darrow.”
“You’re saying we’d go to convention without a presumed nominee?” The shock in my voice is apparent. It would be unprecedented, at least compared to recent history in which the party nominee is obvious weeks or months before a convention.
The nominating process at the convention is just a formality. It’s a rah-rah session designed to get party faithful engaged, to show the candidate in all his presidential potential.
And to introduce the future vice president. That’s the real wild card. Most candidates announce their choice days before the convention.
I bite my lip against the flood of disappointment, but Jared reads it on my face.
“I’m sorry, Grace. Maybe this isn’t your year.” Jared looks truly dismayed.