Campaign For Seduction (11 page)

“Yes,” she said. “Hello.”

“You’re with someone besides your father,” the senator said flatly.

“That would be correct.”

“Who is it?” he demanded. “A man?”

Thrilled as she was to hear the jealousy in his tight voice, she couldn’t go down this road with him, not even a few steps.

“That’s irrelevant,” she said pleasantly.

“I don’t think so, but we can discuss it when I get there. I want to meet your father.”

“Why?” she asked, immediately suspicious because nothing good could come out of such an event.

“I’m courting the elderly vote,” he said after a pause. “Also the veterans’ vote.”

“This is not the veterans’ hall,” she cried, aghast.

“I’ll bring my sister,” he reassured her, “so it’ll be completely innocent.”

Innocent? Innocent?

Reaching behind to grip the sofa for support, she gave Takashi a weak smile and kept her tone casual. Takashi, who didn’t look fooled for a moment, glared back.

“That’s not the best idea you ever had,” she said into the phone.

“Probably not,” the senator agreed easily. “You’re welcome to come here to my house if you want, but that might be trickier.”

These were both such ridiculous suggestions that she couldn’t answer.

“Liza?” The senator raised his voice, probably afraid she’d hung up. “Hello?”

“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, flabbergasted, “but I have to ask: are you insane?”

He laughed. Laughed. As though what he suggested was a perfectly normal proposition, like making an ice cream run after dinner. As though he didn’t have her heart skittering and headed straight for cardiac arrest with his crazy talk.

“Will your friend be gone in five minutes, or should we make it seven?” The senator paused as if giving the matter careful consideration. “Or maybe we could all hang out together for a while, watch the DVD—”

“Five,” she said quickly. “Five should do it.”

“Great,” the senator said and hung up.

Liza lowered the phone, thinking hard and not daring to look at Takashi. Feeling guilty and conspicuous, she gestured vaguely
over her shoulder, realized she wasn’t pointing to anything in particular and cleared her throat.

“I need to…go.” Lame, but the best she could manage. “Are we finished?”

Takashi stood and frowned. “Who was that?”

“Salesman,” she said, the first inane lie that popped into her head.

Takashi kept quiet even though he looked as if he wanted to yell, “Bullshit.” Snatching up his jacket, he walked back through the living room and paused at the front door to issue a final warning.

“You’ll think about what I said, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Because your friend with the attraction to the senator is putting a lot of people—including me—in a tough situation and I don’t like it.”

Chastened, Liza hung her head and nodded. The last thing she wanted to do was put Takashi in the position of choosing between his loyalty to their friendship and his responsibility to the network.

Muttering something dark and unintelligible, he lobbied a final glare in her direction and left. And Liza’s sharp, clear-headed brain left with him.

Panicked and manic with indecision, she shut the door behind him and turned in a quick circle like a dog chasing her tail. What should she do? Clean up the kitchen? Throw on some real clothes and a little makeup? Leave?

Before she could make up her mind or even narrow down her choices, there was a tap at her kitchen door. Spiked out on adrenaline, she jumped ten feet in the air. When her feet hit the floor again, she glanced at the clock over the mantel; it hadn’t even been three minutes since the senator had called.

Losing her head for a minute, she flung herself onto the nearest sofa, picked up a pillow, pressed her face into it, and screamed until her vocal cords burned. Then she screamed again. When the second scream did nothing to slow her racing pulse, she screamed a third time, this time stamping her feet as well.

Better. That was better.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, girl?” Liza threw the pillow aside to see the Colonel frowning at her from the doorway, the
dishrag in his hands. “There’s someone at your door back here. You want me to get it?”

“I’ll get it.”

Trying to reclaim some dignity, she walked sedately to the back door and peered through the curtain in time to see the senator, who was flanked by his sister and two giant bodyguards, knock again, harder this time. Sending up a vague but fervent prayer to heaven—Help me, God, please—Liza unlocked and opened the door.

Chapter 10

T he unexpected guests streamed inside as if they paid the mortgage on the place, locking the door behind them and surveying the kitchen. The two bodyguards murmured a polite hello and fanned out. One went into the living room, the other up the back stairs, both presumably looking for any terrorists or assassins she kept hidden behind the furniture.

She gaped after them for a second—she had the hysterical urge to yell, “Make yourselves at home!”—and wondered nonsensically where the security company had found men that size. Had it crossbred NFL linebackers with NBA centers?

But then Jillian handed her a bottle of wine and a bouquet of beautiful yellow roses. “I hope you don’t mind us barging in on you, Liza. We thought we might sit and visit awhile.”

Before Liza could sputter an answer, Jillian turned to the Colonel, who was watching the proceedings with a suspicious frown, and took his hand.

“I’m Jillian Taylor.You must be Liza’s father. Nice to meet you.”

He glowered. “You can call me Colonel.”

“Nice to meet you, Colonel.” Jillian removed her scarf and coat
and slung them across one of the bar stools. “Have you been baking cookies? These smell wonderful.”

The Colonel softened with this compliment, unable to remain gruff with a beautiful woman who appreciated his baking. “Molasses. Help yourself.” Turning to the senator, he renewed his frown. “Who the hell are you?”

“John Warner,” said the senator as they shook hands. “Great to meet you, Colonel.”

The Colonel cocked his head and scrunched his face with concentration. “I know you, don’t I? From the TV?”

“I’m running for president.”

The Colonel shook his head. “That’s not it. You’re one of those house guys, aren’t you?” He wagged his index finger. “I saw you fix up some old house last week. Laid the carpeting, didn’t—”

“Ah, Colonel—” Liza interrupted and put her hand on the Colonel’s arm before this whole scene degenerated into more of a farce than it already was “—why don’t you let the senator have some cookies?”

But the Colonel wasn’t to be diverted. Staring into the senator’s face, he sized him up with the kind of universal once-over that suspicious fathers worldwide used on younger men.

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting,” said the senator.

“You sniffing after my daughter?” the Colonel demanded.

“Oh, my God.” Liza smacked her palm to her forehead and wished lightning would strike her dead on the spot.

The senator, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the grilling, but of course he faced down hordes of ferocious reporters on a daily basis. “Liza’s very special,” he told the Colonel solemnly, a flush creeping over his cheeks. “I’m anxious to spend more time with her.”

Liza’s foolish heart fluttered.

The Colonel hitched up his chin and put a hand on one bony hip as he took the measure of the senator. “Liza’s a lot of trouble. She’s impulsive. Runs her mouth a lot. Lots of bluster and bravado, especially when she’s scared.”

“I know, sir,” the senator said, his tone grave.

Liza spluttered, too outraged to manage anything coherent.

“She screws things up,” the Colonel continued.

The senator’s face darkened. “That hasn’t been my experience with her,” he said, and this quiet but firm defense of her claimed him a tiny corner of Liza’s heart.

The Colonel nodded, his estimation of the senator apparently rising a couple of notches. “Don’t let her walk all over you and spit you out.”

The senator’s lips twitched. “I don’t plan to, sir. I’ll take any advice you can give me, though.”

“Well,” said the Colonel with obvious satisfaction, the interview successfully concluded for now, “you’d better have a cookie. Keep your strength up.”

“Thank you.”

The senator took a cookie and smiled. Jillian, whose eyes were now bright with what looked like happy tears, took the Colonel’s arm and steered him into the living room, cooing over the cookies.

Liza tried to breathe as the senator moved into her line of sight.

He looked less presidential at the moment in his Cleveland Indians baseball cap, puffy jacket, turtleneck sweater, baggy jeans and hiking boots, but he’d brought his aura of power and control with him and was somehow more dangerous than ever—even if she detected a new hint of vulnerability and uncertainty in his eyes.

He didn’t look thrilled to be there all of the sudden, which was strange considering it’d been his brilliant idea to appear out of the blue at her house. Unsmiling, he let his glittering gaze slide over her and paid special attention to her breasts, hips and bare feet.

Her nipples hardened inside the thin satin cups of her bra; nothing she could do about that. Nor could she do anything about her mascara-less eyes or Little Orphan Annie hair. But when she found herself feeling grateful that she’d at least indulged in a pedicure and had bright red toenails, she gave herself a swift mental kick in the butt.

“I don’t know how you do it,” the senator said unhappily, “but you get more beautiful every time I look at you.”

This threw her for a huge loop. It was no flowery compliment, the way he said it—it sounded more like a curse. As though he couldn’t forgive her for tempting him like this and planned to hold it against her indefinitely.

Liza floundered. How could she make a sarcastic comment about him needing glasses when he had the exposed look of someone who’d just bared his soul?

“That was three minutes,” she told him, deciding to back up and start at the beginning of his long list of transgressions. “Not five.”

“Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t look sorry at all as he took off his jacket and cap and tossed them on the nearest chair. He looked grim but satisfied, as though he’d finally done something he’d wanted to do for very long time. “I was anxious.”

“Yeah? Well, I’d be anxious too if I’d started doing crazy things.”

Irritation flickered behind his eyes. “We’re back to name-calling again?”

On firmer ground, she squared her shoulders and put her hands on her hips.

“What would you call a presidential candidate who engages in risky behavior like refusing secret service protection, sneaking around with two bodyguards who don’t look smart enough to find their butts with an extra pair of hands and a flashlight, and showing up at the house of a journalist covering his campaign?” She broke off only long enough to draw a quick breath. “Is there some other word we should be using besides crazy?”

“Determined.”

Her world did another crazy flip because the desire flaming off his body left no doubts about what he was determined to do.

He inched nearer, stopping when he was close enough for her to see the splintered shards of black in his brown eyes and smell the faint musk of the sophisticated cologne on his skin. His expression was somber, his jaw set. The hot energy of his passion for her shimmered around him, as powerful and visible as waves of heat rising in the Kalahari. Her answering want centered in a tight knot low in her belly, a torment of the worst possible kind.

The brighter the flame burned, the more she wanted to throw herself into it.

Reining in her growing self-destructive impulses, she worked up some renewed outrage and wielded it like a protective sword.

“Wait till one of my colleagues gets a picture of you slipping out of my house and it lands on the front page. You’ll be wondering why you did something so risky.”

“No one saw us.”

“No?” She waved a hand toward her living room, from whence came the ominous sound of wobbling, as though bodyguard Number One had bumped her end table and almost knocked over one of her expensive lamps. “Those two saw you.”

“Those two have signed a confidentiality agreement and are paid very well—by me personally—to keep their mouths shut.”

“Really?” Lacing her voice with every ounce of sarcasm in her body, she raised one eyebrow. “What about if they get subpoenaed? Will they keep their mouths shut then?”

“Is there some investigation pending that I don’t know about?” he drawled.

No, actually. There wasn’t.

And all her colleagues no doubt thought he was safe at home, enjoying a rare night off from the campaign trail and relaxing with friends or some such. If so, he was lucky he’d gotten away with it this time, and she meant to let him know it. She opened her mouth to continue her rant—he could never do something this dangerous again—but something in his expression stopped her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked instead.

“I told you. Visiting. I thought we could watch a movie.” Rummaging in the pocket of his jacket, he produced a DVD and held it up for her to see.

“Rocky?”

“It’s my favorite.”

“What are you doing, Senator?”

This subtle emphasis on his title had exactly the effect she’d hoped for, and he flashed a warning frown. “My name is John.”

“You are a senator and a candidate for president of the United States,” she said, determined that at least one of them should acknowledge this crucial fact even if they both wished they could ignore it. “Have you forgotten?”

Before he could answer, they were interrupted by heavy footsteps. With a nasty start—how could she have forgotten they weren’t alone?—Liza took a quick step backward and tried to look casual.

The two bodyguards emerged from the living room and headed for the back door. “It’s all clear, Senator,” one said as they left. “We’ll wait outside.”

“All clear,” Liza echoed, acid dripping from her voice. “I feel so much safer now.”

The senator let out a snort of laughter but didn’t seem the least bit amused. “I spend a lot of time wanting to strangle you. I should be running as fast as I can in the other direction.”

“Feel free.”

“No, thanks.”

Thoroughly baited, which was probably his point, she raised her chin. “Tell me something, John—how many other women have you snuck out to see on these nocturnal visits?”

His face twisted. Judging by the way his nostrils flared and his fists clenched, he really did want to strangle her. But beneath his obvious anger he looked affronted, as though he might demand an apology for this unforgivable slight to his honor.

“None.”

None. Oh, how she wanted to believe it. Melting when she needed to be strong, she forced herself to smirk. “None?”

“Yeah,” he said. “None.”

There was a rough new note in his voice that was raw and primitive and much more dangerous than anything he’d said since arriving. Startled, she took an involuntary step away, but there was no hiding from him, no safe corner in her own kitchen. The counter hit her in the back, cutting across her kidneys, and she was trapped.

He crept closer, his eyes bright with purpose. “You’re special to me, in case you hadn’t noticed. Do you think I make a point of meeting the father of every woman I see?”

“We’re not seeing each other and I—I don’t do relationships,” she stammered. “I’ve already told you. And I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re wasting your t—”

“You know what I think, Liza?”

“N-no.”

He drifted closer and settled into place, hands braced on the counter on either side of her. He neither smiled nor touched her, but she found herself breathless and wet anyway, teetering on the edges of both hyperventilation and sexual meltdown. He leaned in and she looked up. Within half a second, she was drunk on his scent, heat, size and masculinity, intoxicated by the bottomless
desire in his glittering eyes. He had the longest lashes, the smoothest skin. The keen intelligence and strength of will that were the biggest aphrodisiacs of all.

The images, never far from her mind these days, came, fast and hot. Him touching her. His big hands sliding over every inch of her body; his lips and tongue lingering on the pulse at the base of her throat, her nape, her belly button…and lower; his absolute possession, which would be ruthless, demanding and unforgettable.

Swallowing hard, unable to look away from his gleaming eyes, she tried to remember what was at stake here. Her career. The anchor chair. Prestige, permanence, history. She tried to recall how the set looked the last time she did the evening news, how it’d felt to interview the president a few months ago, the weight of one of her Emmy awards in her hands.

She couldn’t remember any of it.

Only one thing was real in her world now: the phantom glide of his sweat-slicked body over hers and the need to make it a reality.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that this is exactly the kind of bravado your father warned me about a minute ago. I think you’re scared to death.”

“I am NOT scared.”

Outrage trumped her fear and gave her the courage to utter the ridiculous lie. She was scared—more scared than she’d ever been in her life—but he didn’t need to know that.

To her amazement, he didn’t call her on it. Instead, dropping his voice, he spoke to her in the soothing tones a man might use with a small child.

“Shh, darlin’.” Slipping under his spell, she felt comforted and hopeful and terrified, all at the same time. “It’ll be all right. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”