The Phoenix Candidate(66)

Chapter Thirty-Nine





The rap on my office door startles me from my catnap. I grunt out a “Come in,” and Trey peeks his head inside my office.

“Someone’s been a bad girl.”

I frown at Trey. “Give me a break, OK? I stood up for what mattered. I defended our bills.” I say our because Trey’s been essential to this process—the research, the writing, and the heart. I lost a family and he lost a brother. We’re in this together.

“I meant you’ve been bad in a whole different way.”

He lays a tablet down on my desk and a grainy image floods the screen.

My head’s tipped back, my lips are parted. My hands are deep in a man’s hair while his face is buried against my neck. And my knee is hitched up against his hip while his hand snakes beneath my skirt, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination about what we’re doing.

The only thing this photograph doesn’t reveal is the man’s identity. Jared.

“I take it this is Mr. Bouquet?”

I nod mutely, my eyes stinging. But, fuck, I’m all cried out, right? Right? Can’t I just be done with this week after Jared and the Dragon Lady and the interview from hell?

I switched off my phone on the shuttle back from New York, and now it feels like a grenade in my pocket if I pull the pin by switching it back on again.

“You pissed off the Darrow campaign good,” Trey says. “I just got a Google Alert for this.”

I check the time in the corner of the screen and mentally count it back. Lauren left my office just over an hour ago.

Jared knew enough not to put you in that situation, and yet he did it anyway. He exposed you. Lauren’s words come flooding back, and now I see the bomb she planned to drop. Jared brought you down to the gutter, Grace. And you’re going to hate him for it.

She’s right. I do hate him for this, for lecturing me about earth tones in my wardrobe, yet failing to protect me from such a stupid, public spectacle. It’s a massive lapse in judgment.

Almost like he set it up.

Did he mean to create this Achilles heel? Damn him. Damn Lauren for throwing down her trump card. My reputation as a serious congresswoman is toast, thanks to a romp caught on camera.

I scrub my face with my hands, at a loss. “That’s it. Put a fork in me. I’m done.” I heave a shaky breath and let the tears come.

I’m going to be the butt of every joke.

The slutty widow.

The congresswoman who talked family values one day and slept around the next.

The woman with a near-stranger’s hand up her skirt, splashed across the national news.

But never, ever the vice president. This is a deadly blow. This is Darrow’s retaliation for going so far off script.

I sit until the silence is too much. I peek up at Trey from behind my hair and he’s looking at me like I’ve grown another head.

“You’re done?” he asks.

I hang my head. “Honestly, Trey, what else can I do? I can finish out my term. I can try pushing the rock uphill with our legislation. But this is not something I can recover from. Like, ever.”

“Bullshit.”

“Look, I’m not going to try to stage a comeback like Eliot Spitzer. I know when I’m beat. This is beat, Trey.”

“Spitzer resigned over a prostitution scandal!” Trey explodes. “Point to this picture and tell me exactly what you’re doing wrong.”

“I’m in love with him.”

Holy shit, where did that come from?

“Baby girl, I already knew that. But focus, OK? Point to this picture and tell me what, other than the fact that you two are wearing clothes and nowhere near a bedroom, is wrong with this?”

I look again and see the expression on my face: pure desire, I’m acting on instinct. I see Jared’s broad shoulders and strong hands, my ankle hooked around the back of his thigh as he presses me against the sandstone wall outside my apartment entrance.

I look closer. I recognize my black shift dress. That was the night of the bad seafood with the Darrows, and the night Jared waited outside my apartment and scared the life out of me when I came home.

Somehow, a photographer knew to be in the right place at the right time to take this picture. Did the Darrows set me up, or did Jared?

Considering this picture was released in retaliation for my Knox on Politics interview, I think I have my answer.

“Well?” Trey prods me, and I realize he’s still waiting for an answer. “Two consenting adults in love. How terrible for America. There’s nothing wrong with this picture, except that it’s intended to harm you.”

“But it’s public!” I moan.

“You’re not going to hell in a handbasket, Grace. You’re not with a prostitute or a married man or an intern. You’re not a married woman—you’re free to do this and live your life. And you’ve been pretty much dead to the world of dating, but the world can’t expect that to continue.”