Campaign For Seduction (22 page)

Jumping out of his SUV almost before it came to a complete stop at the end of the circular driveway, John stormed up the front
steps and pounded on the door. His secret service agents, assorted local police and his brother-in-law’s own security detail, none of whom looked like his biggest fans at the moment, fanned out and scrambled to keep up with him.

There’d been some murmurings about John entering through the back, but screw that. The whole world would know what was going on soon enough.

Anyway, if ever there was a good time for a sniper to take him out, it was now. Before he had to do his grim duties as a brother and one of the party’s top leaders.

They’d been expecting him, but that did not, of course, mean that his brother-in-law had the balls to come to the door himself. The harassed-looking housekeeper let him in and ushered him through the vaulted foyer and into the paneled library. John’s footsteps echoed on the gleaming hardwood floors, an ominous sound in the otherwise oppressive silence of the house.

It was just like that punk to skulk like a coward.

“He’s in here, Senator.” The woman left, shutting the door behind her.

For a minute John didn’t see anyone and he wondered where all the governor’s advisers were. The cozy room was still full of sunlight, which glinted off the swimming pool visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was no one at the desk, no one on the sofa or any of the chairs, no sign of human life.

Irritated, John was just about to call after the housekeeper when a movement on the other side of the entertainment armoire caught his attention.

Beau appeared, holding what was apparently a scotch on the rocks and looking a little gray under his light brown skin but otherwise calm. John wanted to kill him for his composure.

“You son of a bitch.”

Temporary insanity caught John in an iron grip and wouldn’t let go. Lunging across the room, he grabbed Beau by the collar and shoved him up against the wall, thunking his head and knocking his drink to the floor.

“I should shove your teeth down your throat.”

Beau broke free and they faced off, snarling.

Why wasn’t there some outward sign of this man’s moral
decay—something that set him apart from everyone else and served as a warning to the unsuspecting? What had happened to this man to make his conscience more flexible than the average person’s?

For God’s sake, what destructive demons possessed Beau? After everything he and Jillian had already been through, how could he cause one more crisis?

“How could you do this again?” John roared, honestly trying to comprehend the man’s thought processes. “Use small words so I can understand.”

“Do what, John?” asked a female voice.

No. Oh, no. Not Jillian. Not now.

Shit.

It was her. She emerged through the library’s side door, and John’s nightmare was complete. If he’d thought he couldn’t feel any worse for her, he was wrong. There was something about the combination of the bewildered look in her brown eyes and her squared shoulders—as though she knew something bad was about to happen but was determined to face it with courage—that just killed him.

John was forcibly reminded of the long-ago day their mother died and the look on Jillian’s face right before their father broke the terrible news.

Lord, give me strength to get through this. Give Jillian strength.

“Jillian.” John reached for her hand. “I didn’t know you were home.”

“I came back early. I was…on an errand.”

She turned to Beau, who now seemed frozen except for the wild glitter in his too-bright eyes. Guilt was etched deeply in every line of his body, every hair on his head. That and desperation.

Swallowing hard, he glanced at John and then faced his wife.

“I need to talk to you, Jill.”

There was an almost imperceptible shift in Jillian’s expression, a slight hardening, but she didn’t say anything and Beau wasn’t in any rush to tell her.

Watching the excruciating scene, John tried to blend into the paneling.

Beau, to his credit, held his wife’s gaze even when understanding began to dawn in her expression…even when she gasped…
even when the tears formed in her eyes and she hugged her arms to her belly as though she could protect herself.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Not again.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” Beau’s face crumpled but he didn’t cry and didn’t make excuses. Maybe he had none left, having used them all up the last time. His Adam’s apple bobbed in a rough swallow. “I’m sorry.”

John didn’t snort, but it was a near thing. Sorry. Talk about your understatements. Beau was broken, the perfect specimen of a self-destructive personality, and beyond fixing. If only Jillian would write him off for good.

Then Liza’s face intruded on John’s thoughts. He thought of all the risks he’d taken and was still taking to be with her and decided maybe he wasn’t the one to weigh in on crazy behavior where women were concerned. But when he caught a flash of Jillian’s despair, he wanted to kill Beau all over again and any sympathetic impulse he’d felt crumbled to dust.

Jillian turned away from Beau and stared down at the rug’s floral pattern, her expression vacant. Several tears fell, unchecked, and lingered on her cheeks. She looked utterly miserable, like an abandoned child, and John’s throat burned with stifled emotion.

He ignored the impulse to touch her because he knew it would make things worse. Better to take his cues from her, wait to see what she needed.

She’d better not take the SOB back again, though. There was a limit to how many pep talks John could give and how many times he could pick up the pieces of her broken heart.

Never again.

Suddenly Jillian stared up at Beau, and there was nothing vague about her now, nothing weak. “Who?” Her voice shook with anger. “Tell me who.”

Beau hung his head in a pretty good impersonation of an ashamed man, but, hell, he’d had so much practice with his penitent act it was hard to tell. After several false starts, he finally got his mouth to work and said the name that would fan this flame into an inferno.

“Adena Brown.”

John kept quiet; Jillian blinked.

“Adena?” Jillian tested the name to make sure she’d gotten it right.

Beau nodded, his nostrils flaring.

“But…”

Flustered, Jillian ran both hands through her hair as she struggled to get her mind around it. No doubt she was matching dates with deceptions, lies with opportunities. She turned to John, stammering in her confusion.

“They said that there are pictures of you and Adena, not Beau—”

“She came to me last night, Jill, and we talked in the garden. That’s where the caterer shot the pictures. We never saw anyone.” John scrubbed a hand over his face. “Anyway, she told me everything. The guilt was killing her, I guess, and it didn’t help to see you and Beau together at the party. She said Beau broke things off a while back. She asked me to forgive her because she knew she’d let me down and was afraid of damaging the campaign if it came out.” He trailed off and shrugged. “And then she quit so she could go home and tell her husband. Fix her family, if that’s possible.”

More blinking from Jillian, more staring at the ground. When she looked up at Beau again, she’d aged a thousand years and horror filled her face. “You had an affair with the woman we hired to get your butt out of the sling from the last time you cheated on me?”

Beau stood tall before his wife’s rising hysteria and faced her like a man. The only sign of emotion was the sheen of moisture over his bright eyes. “Yes.”

“Are you going to defend yourself?” Jillian screamed.

“We’ve had problems for a long time, Jill,” Beau said. “We’ve never dealt with them. It’s not about the other women—”

Jillian blanched. “So this is my fault?”

“Of course not,” Beau told her. “But I don’t know how to reach you anymore, Jill. You’ve shut yourself off ever since—”

“How dare you blame me?”

Beau stared at her. “I don’t know how to get you back, Jill. I don’t know where my wife has gone—and I need you.”

“We can’t get anything back.”

Beau stilled and John could almost smell the man’s fear. “What…what are you saying?”

Silence rang through the room for several long seconds, and then, with shaking hands, Jillian swiped at her tears, all business now.

“I want a divorce.”

“No,” Beau said.

“You need to resign,” Jillian told him. “Don’t put the party—or the state—through any more scandals.”

“Jill—”

“Do it now, so John can salvage the primary.”

“I’ll resign, but this marriage isn’t over. It’ll never be over.”

“It’s over now.”

“We still love each other, Jill,” Beau cried. “Even after everything we’ve been through. You know we still—”

“Our marriage is dead. You’ve killed it,” she said simply. “You’re so broken there’s nothing left to love. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

Beau couldn’t answer.

John watched the spouses stare at each other and witnessed the end of their marriage in those few seconds. He saw Jillian’s quiet fury and bottomless despair and read Beau’s desperation in the man’s tortured face.

He remembered their wedding day, the joy they’d all felt and the hopes for their bright future together, and then he remembered the dark times, the pain. What had happened to them? Where had all that happiness gone?

The chords strained in Beau’s neck as he struggled to hold his emotions in check; John wondered if Beau would survive a divorce. Jillian would, but Beau might well harm himself. Whether it was purposeful or not, Beau Taylor was his own worst enemy and always had been.

“I never want to see you again,” Jillian told her husband, tears spilling down her cheeks. “You’re dead to me.”

Beau’s lips twisted and he blinked furiously. Even John could see the valiant effort he put into not crying. He stared at his distraught wife, his gaze hungry and ruined.

“I’ll always love you, Jill. You’ll be the last thing I think about on my dying day. And it’ll never be over between us.”

He turned and, shoulders squared, left the library, leaving a hysterical Jillian to collapse, sobbing, in John’s arms.

“I’m pregnant. Jesus, God—I just came from the doctor.”

John gathered her tighter. As he had the day their mother died, John held her and told her a lie: that everything would be okay.

Chapter 20

L iza sat at her sleeping father’s bedside and inventoried the indignities that had befallen this proud man in his old age. Alzheimer’s and the disappearance of a lifetime’s memories. The loss of his ability to care for himself. Now, pneumonia and the attendant oxygen cannula stuck up his nose and IV lines stuck in his frail arm. Restraints lashing his arms to the bed so he wouldn’t pull the needle out. A powder-blue gown that gaped open in the back and a hospital door that provided no privacy from the endless stream of medical personnel in and out of his room.

She wanted to bury her head in his blankets and weep for him—and for herself, for that matter—but crying was a waste of time and the Colonel needed her to be strong now.

After leaving the senator and the campaign in Richmond and taking the shuttle back to Washington, she’d come directly here, where she’d sat for most of the day rather than follow up on leads concerning the senator’s evolving scandal. She had no idea what was happening now and couldn’t bring herself to care.

Much.

Just then, the Colonel’s lids fluttered and opened and he
stared at her with watery eyes sunken in his gray face. Dredging up a reassuring smile, she took his hand, which was a little too warm from the fever, and prayed for the oxygen to get some air into the man’s sick lungs and do it soon so his color would return to normal.

“Hello, Colonel.”

He blinked and focused his gaze. “What the hell happened, girl?”

“They brought you to the hospital. You have pneumonia, but you’ll be fine. You’re getting antibiotics and some oxygen.”

“Where’s Mama?”

Liza’s smile slipped. Some days it was harder than others to maintain the lie, and this was one of those days. But she was not going to tell her father over and over again, every time his memory failed, that his wife was dead and had been for decades. Wasn’t a kind lie better than that brand of pointlessly cruel honesty?

“Mama’s resting.” Resting in peace.

The Colonel grunted, looking dissatisfied with this answer, but he let the issue drop. “What the hell’s wrong with you? You look terrible.”

“I’m worried about you,” she tried.

“What else is wrong with you?”

Liza felt her chin quiver and firmed it. Blinking furiously—there was always something so unnerving about her father’s insight, even now—she tried to stay upbeat.

“Well, Colonel, I’ve gotten myself in a real mess this time.” She decided to tell him what had really happened because, hey, what were the chances that he’d remember later? “I fell in love with someone and I think he’s cheating on me.”

The Colonel, who’d been testing his restraints and trying to break free, stilled and stared at her with eyes that were suddenly as sharp and focused as they’d ever been.

“That guy who’s running for president? The senator?”

Surprised, Liza drew back. “Well…yes.”

The Colonel snorted and gave one hand as much of a dismissive wave as he could manage with the restraints and the IV. “That man’s not cheating on you, girl. Trust me. I’m a good judge of character and he’s a gentleman. Not like that jackass you
married. You’ve got that senator’s nose so wide open he can’t see straight. Stop your worrying.”

Liza gaped at him, too stunned to reply.

Could it be true? It wasn’t a good idea to rely too much on an Alzheimer’s patient’s perceptions of reality, but the Colonel had always been a shrewd judge of character, and he had warned her in no uncertain terms not to marry Kent in the first place. Goodness knew he’d been right about that.

Could he be right about the senator?

“Where’s Mama?” he demanded again. “I’ve got to pee and someone needs to help me get these straps off.”

So much for his moment of lucidity.

If there was one good thing about her quitting her job, Liza decided, it was having more time for her father, who needed her now more than ever. How did she think she’d’ve managed his care if she’d had to move to New York to anchor the evening news? People managed their parents’ care long distance all the time, sure, but the guilt would’ve eaten her alive. Thank goodness she wouldn’t have to go down that road now.

Getting to her feet, she rang for the nurse. “Mama can’t come,” she told him, “but I’ll get someone in here to help you.”

Following a fair amount of fussing and commotion, Liza grabbed her purse and left the room while someone came in to assist her father. She was just loitering in the hall by the waiting area, wondering how long things would take, when Takashi, who was at the station, called on her cell phone.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said by way of greeting.

All Liza’s earlier turmoil came rushing back in a crashing wave. All kinds of terrible scenarios ran through her head as she headed for the waiting area, each more horrifying than the last:

Adena had confirmed her affair with the senator.

Three other married women had also admitted affairs with the senator.

The senator routinely had affairs with staffers.

The fact that none of these scenarios jibed with her observations about him did not keep her stomach from churning or her heart from skipping every other beat.

“First things first,” Takashi said. “How’s the Colonel?”

“Better. What’ve you got?”

“Well, I talked to Adena’s assistant, who wouldn’t say a thing, even off the record, and Adena’s spokesperson hasn’t returned any of my one thousand calls.”

“Oh.”

“I talked to my source with the senator’s private security firm, who, obviously, is speaking on condition of anonymity—”

Would this man please get to the point while they were still young? “Yeah, yeah, I know. He signed a confidentiality agreement and doesn’t want to be fired. So what?”

“I’ll tell you so what. It might interest you to know that even though it’s a poorly kept secret that the senator spent last night with you in the cottage at Heather Hill—”

Oh, God. Her face burned to cinders.

“—he swears that that’s the first time since they began working with the campaign back in October that he’s been with a woman. Except for the night he snuck out to your house, that is.”

Liza tried to process this information. “So…you’re telling me…what?”

“I’m telling you,” Takashi said, “that unless the senator is significantly better at sneaking around with Adena than he is at sneaking around with you, those pictures do not show a man with his mistress.”

“But…what do they show?”

But Liza already knew. Her gut was telling her, and so was the senator’s voice in her head: I was comforting her. Had he…actually told her the truth? Stunned at this inconceivable possibility, Liza collapsed in a chair and stared at the nearest coffee table with unfocused eyes.

John—funny how she thought of him as the senator when she wanted to keep him at a distance and John when her heart wouldn’t let her—hadn’t lied to her.

Relief washed over her, so blessed and powerful it would’ve knocked her on her butt if she’d been standing. Pressing a hand to her heart, she tried to keep it inside her chest, where it belonged.

“So what’s going on?” she wondered. “What’s the big scandal?”

“Aren’t you watching TV?”

“No.”

This seemed to be too much for Takashi, and she heard the exasperation in his voice. “Have you not been watching the news this afternoon while you’ve been sitting by your father’s bedside?”

“Of course not. Why would I do that? So I can drive myself crazy?”

“Crazier,” he muttered. “Turn on the TV.”

Liza punched a button on the wall-mounted TV, and an unbelievable scene came into vivid color focus. It was the governor—jerk—standing on the driveway of the governor’s mansion—flanked by several members of his staff. A bunch of reporters were shoving their microphones and digital voice recorders in his face.

Liza checked the red Breaking News crawl at the bottom of the screen, blinked and checked it again:

Governor of Virginia resigns amid cheating scandal.

Liza gasped. “Oh, my God.”

The governor had that Hall-of-Shame hangdog expression all over his guilt-ridden face, but his voice was strong. “—inexcusable behavior. I would like to apologize to the other family, which has been greatly affected by my selfish actions; to my wife, who did not deserve this betrayal; and to people of the great state of Virginia, who put their faith in me.”

He paused to take a deep breath and swipe at his nose. “Because I do not want my behavior to serve as a distraction to my state or to the party in this election year, I’ve tendered my resignation, effective as soon as Lieutenant Governor Bradshaw can be sworn in tomorrow morning. I’ll have no further statements.”

With that, the disgraced governor ignored the reporters’ shouted questions, turned and walked back up the driveway toward the mansion in the background. The coverage switched to the anchor back at the studio.

“Oh, my God,” Liza said. “Adena and the governor? Is this for real?”

“He hired her to dig him out of his hole the last time he cheated on his wife. Guess they made the most of all that quality time they spent together, eh?”

“I hope that was some good sex,” Liza said. “Because it’s cost him his career. Idiot.”

Takashi snorted. “I don’t get how another guy this smart could do something this stupid. I thought he’d run for president one day.”

“Where was Jillian? I didn’t see her waiting in the background and doing the dutiful, stand-by-your-man thing.”

“She did that the last time,” Takashi reminded her. “I’m betting this is it for her.”

“Oh, my God.” Liza knew exactly the sort of ugly scene that had to be going on inside the governor’s mansion right now. She’d lived it herself. “Poor Jillian. I don’t think she’s—wait. What’s this?”

She stared at the TV again, where the scene had changed and now showed an unsmiling Senator Warner striding across the tarmac with an overnight bag slung over one shoulder and something gripped in his hand. He impatiently paused for the reporters’ shouted questions and submitted to their microphones, lights and cameras being shoved in his face.

“We need to make this quick, guys,” he said. “I need to get back to Washington.”

“Senator, what’s your reaction to your brother-in-law’s resignation?”

The senator’s frown deepened. “I think he did the right thing, and I commend him on doing it so quickly. Obviously my thoughts are with my family now, my sister.”

“What about your senior adviser, Senator?” asked another reporter.

“As I’ve said before,” the senator said, his jaw tightening, “I’ve accepted Adena Brown’s resignation, and I wish her and her family the best. I don’t have any more comments about that.”

He edged toward the plane, but the reporters had one more question for him.

“Senator, we’ve been hearing rumors that a special relationship has sprung up between you and Liza Wilson. Would you care to comment about that?”

Liza’s jaw dropped. She watched a smile soften the corners of the senator’s eyes as he tried to control the beginnings of a grin. The many lights on his face illuminated the flush that crept up from his neck, and Liza knew that the whole world could see it.

Oh, God. The cat was out of the bag now, wasn’t it?

“Liza Wilson is a fine journalist,” the senator said, “and she’s had my butt in the fire for most of this campaign—”

The gathered reporters and Takashi laughed; Liza couldn’t breathe.

“—and you folks need to excuse me because I’ve got a call to make and a plane to catch.”

Then the senator waved goodbye and Liza saw the flash of his iPhone in his hand. A wider shot showed him striding across the tarmac and up the steps of the plane while simultaneously punching a couple of numbers and putting the phone to his ear.

The coverage was just switching back to the anchor in the studio when something happened that stopped Liza’s heart:

Her phone beeped, indicating she had another call.

She and Takashi both gasped. Neither of them spoke.

The phone beeped again.

Takashi recovered first and she heard the wry amusement in his voice. “I think that’s for you. You may want to answer it.”

“Bye,” she said quickly and clicked over. “Y-yes?” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hello?”

“It’s John.”

“Hi,” she breathed.

“How are you, darlin’?” he asked, and she heard the smile in his voice, the huskiness just for her.

“Shaky.”

“How’s the Colonel?”

“How did—” she began.

“I know everything. How is he?”

“Better. But he’ll be in the hospital for several days while they give him intravenous antibiotics.”

“Good. Will you be home when I get there?”

“Get here?”

“I told you I was coming for you tonight.” There was a slight pause, during which she felt him silently dare her to deny or contradict him, but neither of those thoughts crossed her mind. “I’ll be in the motorcade. You don’t have any problems with that, do you?”