Private Politics (The Easy Part) (18 page)

She allowed herself to giggle. “You’re familiar with
Eloise
?”

He shrugged. “I have female cousins. It’s a long-ass book.” They both laughed now. “They all wanted to be her, but all I could see was how lonely she was.”

Alyse’s shoulders tightened. Lonely didn’t capture the half of it. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want to tell him as that she didn’t have the words. She hadn’t really told anyone.

He rested his mouth against her neck, not kissing her precisely but sending tingles down her back. “We don’t have to talk about it now, babe, but at some point, I’ll want to hear about it. I also want to hear about what you want for the future.”

The future? Hadn’t she described that to him earlier? Unless he meant... To clarify, she asked, “In terms of family?”

“Yes.”

The word sent more shivers down her spine. Shivers that led to more shivers that led to nothing.

She pressed back against to him and he mirrored the gesture. It would have been impossible for them to be closer. Not here.

He wanted to know about what she wanted in terms of a family. Numbness gripped her limbs. Cold, maybe. Or perhaps sensory overload. Shock was always an option. It had been a hectic couple of weeks.

It didn’t seem to be fear. No, her heart wasn’t racing. She couldn’t taste adrenaline. Her stomach felt fine. She was just numb.

She couldn’t feel anything, but she couldn’t process it either. He wanted to know what she wanted in terms of family? Like whether she thought pancakes or waffles was the ideal Saturday breakfast? Like whether she was committed to Montessori preschool? Like whether they should have children together?

Her heart wasn’t racing, no, but she couldn’t draw a full breath. She concentrated on her hands, still wrapped around the cold metal railing, until she felt anchored in the moment again. Not wanting that to happen again—whatever that was—she simply refused to think.

For a long time, they stood huddled together in the darkness.

Her arms really were getting cold but she wasn’t ready to let the moment pass. “What about you? What do you want in terms of family?”

He licked his lips and the warmth from his mouth burned like a mark on her skin. “I want one. Wife. Kids. Sooner rather than later.”

“The whole big white church wedding,” she teased, struggling to keep her teeth from chattering.

“The whole big white synagogue wedding. Not to put too fine a point on it.”

He was Jewish. Liam was Jewish.

She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. She was a New Yorker. Many of her childhood friends were but somehow the news came as a shock.

Realizing she hadn’t responded, she said, “Right. Yes. Of course.”

Speaking rapidly as if he had caught on to the shock under her words, he said, “I’m more culturally Jewish than anything else. I mean, my family doesn’t really care either way.”

“I’ve attended my share of seders, Liam, I get it.”

An awkward tension settled between them. Down on the river, a boat passed and some music drifted up to them. A fragment of some jazz standard Millie would know all the words to.

Without considering, Alyse asked, “Isn’t Judaism matrilineal?”

“Uh, yes.”

“So your mother must want you to marry a Jewish girl.”

He wrapped his arms around her and laughed a bit. “At this point, she’d settle for me getting a dog. She just wants me to be happy.”

“I’m way better than a dog!” she protested.

“She would love you. Will love you.”

“Will?”

“Yes. Will. If you want to meet her.”

Did she want to meet his mom? Did she want this with him? Did she want this at all?

She wasn’t sure, so she said instead, “I’m cold. Are you ready to go?”

Without a word, he led her back through the building to a cab. For the ride back to Liam’s neither of them spoke, as if they knew something had shifted between them in the dark.

* * *

As they walked through the door of his apartment fifteen minutes later, Liam said to her, “That dress looks complicated. Do you need any help getting out of it?”

The gleam in his eye was hopeful and very naughty. Only a few hours before, Alyse would have loved it. But now she was still numb.

“Uh, no. I’ve got it.” She walked into his bedroom, grabbed pajamas out of her suitcase and headed for the bathroom.

Before she could get in and shut, well,
him
out, Liam barricaded the door with his body. He put one hand up on either side of the jamb, forming a boundary she couldn’t have squeezed past. He gave her the sheepish smile of apology he performed so well.

“I did it, didn’t I? I pushed too far too fast and now you’re terrified.”

“I’m not sure what I am.” She spoke honestly.
Muddled
, she wanted to say.
I’m muddled.
And cold.
Please let me be
. But at the moment, not saying anything seemed safer.

“Tell me one thing you’re certain of. About me. Tell me one thing you’re certain of about me.” His eyes were pleading and serious.

She clutched her pajamas to her chest and looked into his brown eyes. This was a game she didn’t want to play but simply couldn’t avoid, not when he’d asked.

“I—that is, you’re nice. Not in a colorless way. You’re just nice. You like things. You like people. You like life. And I like that. I...don’t. I’m not. I’m more strategic.”

He kept his hands braced in the doorway but his expression softened. “Okay, good. I’m nice. Tell me something else.”

Alyse kept a tight hold on the clothing, but her arms fell to her stomach. “You’re smart. Not just smart, but I like how your mind works. You always have something to say that’s thoughtful and different. I’m curious about what you think about, well, everything.”

He smiled and her stomach flip-flopped. “That one is mutual. Tell me one more thing, Alyse.”

“Um...” Feeling brave she said, “I want you. I do. I—”

He reached for her and she went to him without hesitation.
This is a bad idea.
The words flew across her mind, pushed out ahead of a wave of volcanic emotion and sensation. Her pajamas, cast onto the floor in an instant, were trampled.

She shoved his jacket from his shoulders and ran her hands over his torso. He ran his over her body, searching for her zipper, which he tugged at. As her dress slithered into a black pool at her feet, she giggled. It turned out it hadn’t been complicated to get it off at all.

Buttons, knots and closures all yielded before their hungry hands. They were naked and in his bed in a few breathless minutes.

Whatever else was true between them—and she still couldn’t say, no matter how addled the boy made her—they had chemistry for days. The Curies had nothing on them.

His face was buried in her stomach. “I’m sorry, so sorry, I pushed.” The words were whispered between kisses. The man found a way to make her stomach—her stomach!—erotic. Alchemy.

She shifted his hair between her fingers and ran her nails over his scalp. “It’s okay.”

And it was. It was Liam. He did things wholly or not at all. She should have known. His mouth was everywhere, his hands were everywhere and her desire for him was limitless. Nothing else was terribly important.

They kissed for what seemed like hours. Short kisses. Long kisses. Until she’d almost forgotten how numb and overwhelmed he could make her feel. His certainty and desires about the future and her own insecurities blurred into hot cravings.

For once, she didn’t try to hurry him along. The hard press of his body against hers was enough. The sensations ringing through her body kept the fears contained. She ran her fingers down the channel in his back, scrolled her emotions against his skin and reveled in the glorious need she felt for him.

At last he hovered above her and dug in the nightstand for a condom. He was under the impression he was going to take control of this the way he had everything else. And that was a step too far. She needed some choices and some power too. Two could play at the withholding game.

Snatching the package, she pushed him onto his back and straddled him. He looked pleased, which wouldn’t last. He didn’t know what she had in mind.

It all started well enough. She rolled the condom down his length as she positioned herself. His head fell back as he sighed in anticipatory pleasure, but rather than proceed, she pulled away to kiss down his neck. He exhaled deeply and squirmed beneath her. She was fairly certain she’d taught him that trick. It didn’t work any better on her than it had on him.

Pausing over one pink nipple, she whispered, “Frustrated?”

She tongued him before he had a chance to answer. He made an indecipherable noise. She was going to go ahead and put that down as affirmation. She moved to the other nipple.

As she licked, she rolled her hips and brought him back into precisely the place where he wanted to go. With a swivel, she slid just onto the tip. His fingers flexed into her in relief. And just when she should settle all the way on him...she pulled off and away.

This time, he groaned. Loudly. He was unmistakably frustrated.

She moved up his ear and nibbled gently.

“You are...you’re a tease,” he panted.

“Yup. I am.”

His hands fisted in her hair and he hauled her around to kiss her. It was not a patient kiss. It was the kissing equivalent of jumping into the deep end of a very cold pool, but that was sort of like their entire relationship.

She broke off and reached between them to position him again.

“Please,” he whispered. He didn’t push her. He’d given up control. He’d begged. That was a start.

Still not giving him what he wanted, she said, “This is a metaphor.”

“A what?” He raised his head off the bed. “My higher order thinking is nil. Use tiny words. Short sentences. Better yet, lecture me another time.”

“We move when I’m ready, Liam.”

His head dropped back on the bed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She leaned forward onto her arms and for the space of twenty-five heartbeats they traded breaths. His hands rubbed up and down her back in long, smooth strokes. She’d admitted things to him that she hadn’t told anyone. For days, they’d been sharing a bed. And this—open, needful but unsatisfied—was more intimate than anything they’d shared so far.

If this was all that was required, they could be together. They were good at this. This made sense. But this wasn’t everything, was it? Lovers had to take their relationship out of the bedroom sometime. Out there, she would hurt him.

He couldn’t be with her without being all the way with her. Without wanting a family and planning a future. Those things weren’t on her menu, not now. She’d worked hard for her boundaries. They represented hard work and denial. She couldn’t just abandon them. She wasn’t sure what she’d be left with.

And yet...she couldn’t deny him. She didn’t want to. The man was a conundrum.

“Please.”

The word was so soft he might not have known he’d said it. He might not have said it. They were so close, so open, he might have merely thought it. The barrier between them was as transparent as tissue paper and as unbreachable as steel. Except for this.

Without breaking their connection, Alyse shifted her weight and let gravity guide him into her, until they were joined fully. Liam pressed her against him so firmly it almost hurt and sighed in a release of a rush of gratitude and relief that slayed her.

She pulled away from him and, slowly, started to move.

She wanted to close her eyes. She couldn’t. He looked certain. Adoring. She suspected her eyes were dopey with desire, that all the things she wanted to hide from him were written on her face. His fingers tangled with hers and pressed into her hips. They moved together in a primal dance. No hesitation. No second-guessing. No numbness.

It took forever. Not forever in a bad way. The pace was unhurried. Slow and very gentle. An August breeze through Central Park moving the leaves one at a time. It was making love and she knew it.

Not wanting to think, she kissed him. A kiss to drive away the feelings and confusion. And it, like all tactical kisses, was doomed to fail. It was Liam. He was all or nothing. She was a compromise wrapped in a girl. Shoving the thought away, she concentrated on his arms, banded around her waist and the absolute perfect feel of their bodies joined together.

When Alyse finally came, she pitched forward against his chest, whispering his name and letting him control the last few thrusts until his own climax found him.

Boneless, satisfied, collapsed on top of him, she knew she should get up to hang up her dress, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d regret it in the morning, but for the moment, she couldn’t budge.

The last thing she remembered before drifting off to sleep was Liam whispering against her hair, “We move when you’re ready.”

Chapter Seventeen

Liam fumbled with his keys and pushed the door to his apartment open with one hip, his hands occupied with coffee and bagels.

Late the night before, Liam hadn’t been able to sleep. The residual fear and energy from the almost-meltdown with Alyse followed by the incredible sex, perhaps. Whatever the reason, he had published the Ryan Scott story.

When his phone had woken him hours later, it had been Doug calling to congratulate him on taking the risk. The response to the story had been swift and positive. It might actually be the story that put Poindexter on the map—just like he’d always wanted.

To make up for leaving her and to thank her for the story, Liam had picked up coffee on his way back. He could easily fall into this routine. Making love to Alyse, slipping out early to get caffeine and returning to cuddle before work. Maybe, just maybe, she’d consider scrapping her plan to stay in her apartment alone for moving in with him in a few months.

A smile tugged at his mouth. How had he gone from “she’ll never go out with me” to “please move in” in a week?

He set the cups down and turned around into a wall of accusation.

Alyse had dressed. Hastily by the looks of it. Hair messy and unbrushed, no makeup or jewelry and eyes flashing a challenge.

“Do you mind telling me what the hell this is?” she demanded.

She held her phone out to him. The browser was pulled up to a Poindexter article. He took it from her and read,
One lobbyist has been setting the Foreign Affairs Subcommittees on fire of late
... It was his story. He wasn’t sure why she was mad.

Sensing the danger, he said slowly, “The Ryan Scott profile. You know, the one I was working on. The one you suggested I research and write.”

He flashed a smile at her, but she didn’t say anything and so he read on. Maybe he’d missed a typo?

Blah blah...Scott started his career at Cunningham Sloane
,
but has since carved out a niche lobbying for international NGOs like Young Women Read
,
Inc.
Blah blah...while he has a reputation as a closer
,
some have suggested...

After a minute, he glanced up into her peeved, pretty eyes. “Yeah, I published it last night. It seemed necessary to preserve the cover story with Ryan, plus it was ready to go. The response has been really positive. It’s going to help the blog out a lot. What’s the problem?”

“It’s on the Internet! And it’s not just some fluff piece about Ryan Scott. It connects him to YWR.” Her voice was scary still. Not so much angry as the stage past anger. The place where one isn’t debating action so much as taking it. How had this progressed so quickly? None of it made any sense.

“He
is
connected to YWR. That’s public knowledge.”

“This piece, the whole tone of it, suggests something bad is going on,” she said with a scoff. “It’s very suspicious. Hell, it names Marc Rynsburger as someone else connected to Ryan Scott.”

“Yes.” There was no point denying it. “Look, you’re going to meet with the auditor this morning
with your lawyer
. Not just any lawyer, but Bertram Smyth. You’ve already passed the information you found along. You’ve already blown the whistle. You’ve already decided you don’t have a future at YWR. Things might be happening faster than you would have liked, but the die has been cast.” He considered giving her the last part in Latin, but she didn’t seem like she’d appreciate the joke just now.

For a minute, her mouth tried to form a response to him. Finally, she sputtered, “Argg!” She turned on her heel and stamped back into his bedroom, the bedroom that he’d been thinking about as
theirs
until ten minutes prior.

He followed her.

“My staff has worked on this. I have worked on this. Obviously we were going to write something. It’s a story.” He delivered this explanation to her back.

She sat down by her suitcase and began throwing stuff into it. She’d already packed most of her things. The toiletries that had been mixed with his on the counter in the bathroom had been stowed. The things he’d insisted she put into an empty drawer were crammed along the bottom. Even the book she’d left out on the coffee table was tucked in the outer pocket. All of it had been disentangled from his.

He’d thought their lives had been getting irrevocably tied together and she’d proved him wrong in less than the time it took to make a phone call and get a cup of coffee. Wow. He wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or hurt.

Who was he kidding? It crushed him. She’d done it quickly and apparently so easily.

As she folded her pajamas she muttered, “A story? I’m a story? This was all for a freaking story?” Throwing the pajamas down into her suitcase, undoing all the work she’d put into folding them, she slammed the suitcase lid shut. “You knew my biggest concern was
exactly
this. I didn’t want my name out there. And you made the decision without me. You didn’t think to mention this to me last night?”

“You were asleep.”

“You couldn’t have waited until morning? You couldn’t have waited six hours just to check in?”

He knelt by her and tried to remain calm. She was angry. That made...well, something like sense. She’d spent seven days in a highly agitated state. He’d scared her last night with all that talk about family and marriage. Then he hadn’t warned her about the timing of the story. He got it. She just needed some time to digest.

Unsure how to articulate all of that, he said, “Your name isn’t out there.” It sounded stupid even to him.

Alyse rolled her eyes, folded her arms and looked at the floor. One of her feet knit into a ball, her toes playing with the carpeting. He wanted to reach out and stroke them, but he doubted that would go over well right now.

Several minutes passed. Liam could almost pretend that everything was okay except for the palpable tension. She kept insisting that she was bad at relationships, but right now, he was feeling his own inexperience. His main goal was conflict avoidance. He didn’t know how to fight fairly. He wasn’t sure how to have this conversation without making things worse. All he wanted was for her to stop unpacking and there wasn’t any chance of making that happen.

When she did speak, her voice was more normal. “It’s only a matter of time, isn’t it? This is the first story. Then there will be a story about how Ryan Scott and YWR are being investigated. It’ll eventually come out there was an inside source. I’ll be anonymous at first and then...I won’t be. My name may not be out there now, but in a week? A month? Well, you know how it’s going to turn out.”

She was right. Precisely right. But she’d also made a choice and there were consequences for it. “How did you think this whistleblowing thing was going to go?”

“Not like this.” She latched her suitcase and got to her feet. “I didn’t think
you’d
name me.”

He snapped to his feet. “I haven’t named you.”

“But you will!” She threw this over her shoulder while struggling to pull her suitcases out into the living room.

“You can’t possibly be mad at me about something you think is going to happen but hasn’t happened yet. That’s, that’s illogical.”

“I can live with that.” She struggled to stuff her feet into the shoes she’d left by the door. “I just feel so betrayed.”

“When we had dinner with Parker—what, two nights ago?—didn’t we talk about this? Didn’t we agree to move forward?”

“We were just throwing ideas around.”

That was untrue, but he didn’t want to parse it. Mostly, he was frustrated by her reaction because it meant he was out of things to try to staunch the bleeding. This entire conversation he’d been tossing things into the air hoping she’d swing at something.

Somehow, between when she’d woken up and now, she’d decided to get mad. It wasn’t personal, not really; he was a convenient target for her anger. But he’d sort of had it.

He tried one last thing. “What’s really going on?”

She pulled on her coat and stalked back across the room to snatch her purse off the kitchen counter. “Something must be going on? The story you published this morning isn’t reason enough for me to be mad?”

“Not for the level of rage you’re displaying, no.”

With a deep breath, she leaned against the counter. “I just...I’m going to go home, okay? You said last night we’d move when I was ready and I’m not ready. Say it’s something else if you prefer but I, I’m going.”

In almost any other moment, everything that was on her face right now would break his heart. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny. Her chin was set too tight. Her brow was crinkled. She looked like he felt—as if she were trying to intimidate her emotions into submission. It wasn’t working well for either of them.

He suspected she needed some time to adjust but he couldn’t give it to her. “No.”

The word had an almost physical effect on her, as if he’d slapped her. It was a good thing she was propped up against the counter. He repeated gently, “No. You can’t go home. Not now. Not with Rynsburger named publicly. Not with things heating up with the investigation. It’s not safe.”

She shook her head. “Then I’ll go to Margot’s.” At least she didn’t try to argue with him about the danger.

He began crossing the space between them. “Are you nervous about talking to the auditor? Fred?”

“What is there not to be nervous about? The auditor, the publicity, my job, you.” He stopped right in front of her and for half a second, he suspected she was going to lean into him.

Then she shook her head again, as if the gesture was a talisman against everything that crackled between them. Still crackled between them. She might be picking a fight but it was still there.

He latched on to the chemistry. He hadn’t been mistaken. She was upset, she was leaving, but it was only for the moment.

She looked down, away from him, as if it was dependent on eye contact. “Give me some space, okay?” she whispered.

“Last night you said—”

“Last night I told you things were moving too fast. But you touched me and I couldn’t think. Your hands brushed over my skin and I became irrational. I forgot everything and right now is just not a good time for me to forget.”

He knew what she meant. Everything between them didn’t make sense, but if she thought she could talk herself out of it, she was wrong. “Alyse...” He wasn’t even sure what he was asking.
Please don’t leave me.
Yup, that was about the measure of it.

She looked up and it was his turn to stumble back. Her eyes were glazed with tears. She wasn’t sure any of this was right. “I’m not...I’m not walking away.”

She’d said it. This wasn’t the end. That was good. But still, she’d yelled at him. She’d packed. She was leaving, whatever she might call it.

He quirked a brow. “You’re not walking away, you’re just...walking away?”

“I’m just catching my breath,” she countered.

“It doesn’t feel like that. And don’t I get a chance to speak?” He said it mildly, but he did mean to stake a claim. If she was going to insist on some space, at least he should be able to say how he felt about it.

When she didn’t reply, he continued, “I should have told you about the piece but frankly you shouldn’t be surprised. This—all of this—isn’t really about me. Or about us. It’s about you being upset about how things are progressing. I pushed last night so you’re lashing out at me.”

She nodded, accepting this. “You did push.”

“Yes. For the part I played, I am sorry. But you need to accept that right now, you’re overreacting. Or at least reacting to things that are not me. And I’m going to keep pushing, because—”

Before he could launch into the lengthy declaration of love speech that really, he botched the first time, or at least that time at the fountain, she stopped him with a raised hand.

“I know. And the words...I hear them and it frightens me. I’m not...I’m just not ready. Please give me time to be ready. Because I wasn’t lying to you last night.”

Liam’s heart squeezed. Her unwillingness to let him tell her that she loved him hurt more than anything she’d said so far. The only redeeming thing was that she’d started to look normal again and not like an enraged person.

“When?” he demanded. “Which part?”

“All of it. I have never lied to you. But particularly when I told you what I like about you. You’re nice. You’re smart. And I want you. I’m just not sure it’s enough.”

Why couldn’t she have stopped with
I
want you
? Feeling like the air had been knocked out of him, he repeated, “Enough?”

Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it. “That’s my cab. Look, I’m going to drop my bags at home and then I’m going to meet Bertie. I won’t spend time at my apartment alone. I promise.”

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear from her at all. But he wasn’t sure he could handle hearing the explanation for what was or wasn’t enough.

He swallowed, trying to clear the sick taste from his mouth. “You’ll let me know where you are tonight?”

“Why?”

She was endlessly stubborn. He ground out, “Peace of mind.”

“Okay.”

There wasn’t much else to say after that. He helped her down the stairs with her bags. Once everything was stowed in the cab, she stood on the curb and fumbled with her purse. Just when he thought she might disappear without another word, leaving him to wonder if their days together had been a dream, she stepped into his arms and pulled him close.

He instantly clenched her tight and she melted into him. He should have tried this sooner.

For several breaths, it was like she hadn’t decided to leave him. He stroked her hair, which was still a mess. He’d never seen her out in public looking anything less than runway-ready. Maybe he’d been unfair to her.

“You don’t have to go,” he whispered into her ear.

“I do, though.”

She pulled away and slid into the taxi. Before he’d been able to catch his breath, it sped down his street and he was alone again.