Loving the Candidate (Capitol Affairs #2) (14 page)

I prayed harder than I ever had before. I begged God and anyone who would listen to bring him back to me. Worn down by the pain and the depression, I was ready to do whatever I needed to get him back. . My grandmother was right; I would do anything for that man. I’d sworn I would never do that for him or any man, yet here I was living outside myself.

For a week, I came home from work and got in my pajamas without eating or taking care of myself. Coffee was all I wanted. Each day Mark stopped by, and each day I thought Alex would come with him only to be disappointed. My heart was broken, and my body fell apart. After the second week, Beulah stepped in. She came over and demanded I get “my ass” up and get in the shower. She practically had to get in with me. I was that weak and emaciated.

“I have had enough of this, do you understand?” she asked, as she helped me dry my hair and get dressed. I reached for my pajamas and she threw them across the room.

“No, you are not going to put that on. These things are going to be burned. Listen. Alex is at the beach house. I have a ticket to Hyannis. He’s been there for a couple of days and I promised I wouldn’t tell you, but I need to. Your flight leaves in an hour. This is pathetic, and I don’t have the patience for it anymore. He’s a wreck without you. You will take your skinny ass to your husband. This is not like you. It needs to stop today. I’ve packed your bag, and I will drive you to the airport. You will not argue with me. You need to be strong and deal with this,” she yelled.

I didn’t have the energy to fight her, and I knew she was right. Sitting in bed all day and crying wasn’t getting me anywhere. Once I resembled a respectable member of society, she drove me to the airport.

“Thank you,” I said with all my energy.

“Don’t thank me. Fix your marriage, Prudence, and then fix yourself. Don’t end up like me, or worse yet, your mother. You two were made for each other. Toby would be pissed at both of you. I love you, Prudence, and Alex is the only thing that seems to make you happy. Go get him, get through this, or end it and move on.”

She kissed me and I boarded the plane to go to my husband. I never dreamed he would go to the beach house. Hoping no one would recognize me, I kept my sunglasses and hat on. One minute I cried, and the next I wanted to shoot someone.
What if he didn’t want me? What if this thing with Ashe had ended my marriage?

I took a cab to my grandparents’ beach house. One light flickered through the darkness near the back of the house. Waves lapped the shore, and the night air was bitter cold. I pulled my suitcase after me and trudged up the walkway to the screen door. My legs felt like rubber as I approached and knocked.

Chapter 16

His back was to me, his shoulders were hunched. When he turned, his face told me everything. It showed his anger, love, and need. Mostly, it showed relief. I wanted him more than anything. I wanted him, and no one else.

“Alex,” I said, standing in the spot he’d stood in when he came to get me that time so long ago. The cold ocean wind whipped through my hair, and I felt chilled. That, along with the sight of Alex, sent a shiver up my body.

“What are you doing here, Prudence?” His voice shook. The sight of him sent my inner temperature up about twenty degrees. I wanted him inside me, wanted his warm, soft skin against mine.

“I can’t stay away from you anymore. My heart is broken. Can I come in?” I asked.

He opened the screen door. My heartbeat echoed in my ears. Only the man I loved more than anything could make me so nervous even after all we’d been through. I stood in front of him, cold and bare although fully dressed, yet I burned hot. I looked at him from head to toe. His face was unshaven, his hair unbrushed, and his eyes dark and swollen.

“You look tired and thin,” I said.

“I don’t sleep or eat without you. You look pretty awful yourself. When was the last time you ate?” he asked, turning away from me.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Nothing matters when you’re not with me, Alex. I’ve called you, texted, sent emails, and you won’t acknowledge me. What if I needed you?” I asked. The flickering and crackling of the fire in the other room calmed me enough to talk.

“Come on, Prudence. I think you know I sent Mark over there every day to check on you. Why do you think he was there all the time? I also drove by the house at night to make sure you were safe. I called Beulah twice a day. I checked on you, but I couldn’t face you.” He turned back to look at me, his face desolate and blank.

“Yes, I was safe, alone, crying and distraught. I don’t understand how you could be so upset. Nothing happened, nothing. You know it didn’t. Why won’t you believe me? I believed you when you lied to me about Stella. Look at me, Alex; I’m still the girl that you’ve always loved. Tell me what to do, and I will do it,” I said, wanting so bad to wrap my arms around him. His clothes, wrinkled and dirty, hung off him and he looked like he needed a shave and dinner.

“You kissed him. I saw it. I walked in on you with your lips on him. I can’t get it out of my mind,” he yelled. He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the ground.

“I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me, forcefully. I think if you hadn’t walked in when you did, he may have raped me. I was terrified. I told him no over and over. He trapped me in the kitchen and said vile things. Horrible comments about my mother and me. I didn’t want him to touch me, let alone kiss me. He grabbed my face and wouldn’t let it go. He hurt me. Come on, Alex. I would never touch him. I’ve wanted you my whole life. You are my soul, my life. Why would I give you up for Ashe Burton, or any other man?”

He searched my face. He saw the truth in the way I looked at him, the way my eyes focused on him.

“I was so angry at him for betraying me, for ruining our friendship. If Mark had let me, I’d have killed him. The horrible things he said, and how he hurt you. He could have ruined my campaign. This idiot could have destroyed everything you and I worked for. He had been like a part of the family,” he said

“I know what he did, Alex. I lived it too.”

“My heart broke when I saw your lips on someone else’s. It reminded me of the time I saw Trevor touching your legs, begging to get in bed with you. No one is allowed to touch what is mine,” he said, as he inched closer.

“No one touches me but you, Alex. But I’m not your possession; I’m your wife. No one has my heart, my body, my being, but you. Don’t you know that? How can you even question my love for you?”

“I pushed you on him. I know that. I was gone and I used him to look after you.”

“First of all, I don’t need looking after. I’m a grown woman and one who doesn’t need a big, strong man to take care of her. Yes, you pushed me away for months during the campaign. You left me alone at night with him and wouldn’t touch me. It was a hard adjustment, but I get it now.”

“Nothing like that is supposed to happen to us, campaign, or no campaign. I know I didn’t act right. We couldn’t even be in the same room without getting all hot and bothered over each other.

I closed my eyes, and tears ran down my cheeks in salty lines, to my lips. I wanted him to hold me so bad. I hugged myself to hold in my despair and hurt.

There was silence between us, and Alex stared at the ground.

“The night you came home to me when you were out campaigning, you had never wanted me more. It was the most wonderful night, besides our first time. I don’t know why you came back to me. You never told me,” I cried. The tears streamed down my cheeks, taking my mascara with them in long, black lines.

He moved closer to me and grabbed my hand. It burned from his touch.

“I will walk away right now and you can be done with this. Your secret, everything will go with me. If our age difference is hurting your campaign, I can go. If there’s someone else, be honest. I love you so much I will live without you, if it helps your career or makes you happy,” I yelled.

“Tell you I don’t love you or want you? I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. You were this poor, scared little girl with green eyes that were so alive. You grew into this beautiful, intelligent woman I couldn’t stay away from. God knows how hard I tried to stay away from you. I tried to keep you away from me, and I died inside. That night I surprised you, I wanted every part of you. Yes, I didn’t tell you why I flew home that night to be with you. It would have hurt you. You want to know why I came back?”

“Why, Alex? Tell me. Lay it all out on the table.”

He looked down.

“I came home to you because…” He let go of my hand and looked away from me.

I knew. He didn’t have to tell me, and I knew. My whole body went cold and numb.

Chapter 17

“Don’t let me find out about it later on down the road. Don’t you dare make me look like the simple, naive wife of a politician standing next to her man, pretending everything was perfect. I’m already someone I swore I wouldn’t be. I don’t ever want to be that way again.” I steadied myself against the wall.

The silence in the room was deafening. He couldn’t tell me.

“You cheated on me, didn’t you? You were with someone, and the guilt you had was too much. You had to race home and make love to me to help you forget what you did, by fucking me like you never had before. Didn’t you, Alex? You cheated on me.”

The thought of Alex in bed with someone else drove me insane.

“No, no. I didn’t cheat on you. I didn’t have sex with anyone. I haven’t had sex with anyone but you since the first time we were together.”

“Then what, Alex? Fucking tell me or I walk out of here and you will never, ever see again. I will not put my life on hold to help you become president, only to have someone come out and say they slept with you or blew you.”

He walked up to me. I wanted to touch him. I always wanted to touch him. We stood there, face-to-face looking into each other’s eyes. His eyes told me something had happened.

“The senators, campaign workers, and I went out. We were drinking at a party for Emerson, and Jesus Christ, Prudence. Don’t make me go there.”

I didn’t say a word. My stomach was in my throat, and I thought I would pass out. He was about to tell me something that could change our lives.

“Jade was there.”

I wanted to scream and tear into him. I wanted to punch him and hurt him. I’d believed Jade was out of his life once and for all.

“She was with an older Congressman. She was drinking. He wanted to go up to bed and she wanted to stay and drink with all of us. She wouldn’t stop coming on to me, and she wanted to come up to my room. I told her absolutely not. She told the woman at the front desk she was my wife and had lost her key. She was in my bed naked when I got there. She tried to seduce me. Please don’t make me talk about this.” He ran his hands through his hair, avoiding my eyes.

I said nothing. The picture of Jade naked and near my husband was too much. That woman brought out all my insecurities. My fist clenched. My panic intensified

“She tried to kiss me, said she wanted me. The smell of her perfume snapped me out of my drunken stupor. The image of you came into my mind. She got pissed and threatened to tell you if I refused her. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t touch her. I remember saying your name over and over and she slapped me across the face. Senator Goldberg saw her storm out of my room, shouting and flipping out. I was so upset I flew back home. I had to be with you. I needed to be with you. You are all I ever want, Prudence. I’m sorry for letting my guard down. I was stupid for drinking like that.”

I pounded his chest with my fists. I wanted to hurt him, to make him hurt like he hurt me. I cried and hit him, and he grabbed my arms.

“Why? Why Alex? You knew I didn’t kiss Ashe. You used that to feel better about what you did with Jade. You put me through hell. How can you love me and do this?” I said, in shock. I had known it was another woman, but I didn’t think it would be Jade. I tried to break free from his grasp. I wanted to punch him again, but he held on to my wrists.

“I don’t just love you, I worship you. I love you more than life itself, Prudence. You bring me to my knees. You’re why I breathe. You’re why I’m where I am in my life. I’m so sorry. I wanted someone to blame. I turned it on you, and I ran. I didn’t know how to tell you or how to face you. It killed me. I promise you with every ounce of my being, I did not do anything with her. Like you promised me you didn’t do anything with Ashe. I swear to you on my life, you are all I want. I can’t live without you. Look at me. Look at us. We are both falling apart.”

He still held my arms tight in his hands to keep me from lashing out at him again.

“Look in my eyes, Prudence. Look at me. I’m still your Alex, and I love you more than all of what I have worked for. How could you think there would be anyone, but you? It happens. Women come on to me. Men come on to you too. I saw the way Ashe looked at you. I saw how he watched you walk out of a room. His eyes were on you all the time. You’re a beautiful woman. Hell, look what you do to me. You take my breath away, and I want to be inside of you. No one comes close to you, or ever will, Prudence.”

The tears streamed down his face and he tried to keep talking.

“You’re my everything. The morning he kissed you, I was exhausted and upset over the campaign. It had nothing to do with you or our love. I couldn’t concentrate on it.”

My anger turned into tears and sadness.

Alex let go of my arms and I backed away from him. He wiped his tears with the back of his sleeve. “I will never love anyone ever like I love you. Our age difference means nothing. I know what is between us, something most people never find in their lifetime. What we have is a gift I will cherish. You showed me how it feels to love someone so deeply that nothing else matters. I entrusted you with my biggest secret. I’ve entrusted you with my love. I will always love you. If I could take five years off my life to take all this back I would,” he sobbed.

“Stop it,” I yelled.

“What can we do to make it right? Tell me and I’ll do it. It can’t be too late. The best memories in my life are with you and are about you. Without you by my side I don’t care if I live or die, let alone be the president. Without you, I’m nothing. You were born for me, Prudence. All that we went through was to bring us together.”