The Senator's Daughter (21 page)

She turned away from him. “Tell him I don't need his
money.”

“Believe it or not, I tried. He said you can access it, but
only if you want to. If you don't, it'll become part of your estate when you
die.”

“I'm not some little girl. I can take care of myself.”

“I think this has less to do with you and more to do with the
senator needing to absolve himself of guilt for not being a part of your life.
And I think he really loves your mother.”

She buried her face in his chest. What was she supposed to do?
Could she really trust Alex?

“Kat, talk to me.” He rubbed her arm.

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

“Kat.” His hand was still on her arm. She didn't need to see
his eyes to feel the tension in his body.

“You haven't found a way to tell me this isn't going to work
out.”

“Kat, I love you.”

“But...”

“It's not a simple answer.”

She locked her gaze with his. She was tired of not having
answers. “It's not that complicated. Be a man and tell me to my face.”

He clenched his jaw. “Fine. I'm going to run for office one
day, Kat. That's my life. It'll mean having the media in your face all the time.
It'll mean charity dinners where you can't talk about how you really feel. How
could you be a political-science professor and not talk about your husband or
say negative things about the Republican Party? Can you really give up
everything for me? Give up your beliefs?”

She stared at him. He couldn't be serious.

“Why do you assume I'm the one who has to give something
up?”

The look on his face told her he hadn't even thought about it.
Her chest hurt. Why was she the one who was expected to go with the flow? To
accept the decisions others made that affected her life. “I am a good professor,
on my way to becoming an excellent one. I can influence the hearts and minds of
the next generation. After my book comes out, I may even have opportunities at
some big universities. Can you give up your dreams and support
mine
?”

She didn't know how long they stared at each other. “This is
not the time to have this conversation,” he finally said. He turned but she
sidestepped and got in front of him. She placed a hand on his chest, this time
with firmness.

“No, Alex, I want to have this conversation. Now.”

“Kat, now is not the time,” he said through gritted teeth.

* * *

S
HE
WASN
'
T
GOING
to let
it go. He could see the cold stubbornness in her eyes. He took a breath to calm
the inferno that was flowing through him. The senator was on his way here and
had specifically asked Alex not to say anything to Kat. He had already
jeopardized everything for Kat; the last thing he needed right now was an open
confrontation with the senator.

“Tell me, what are you willing to give up for me? You're asking
me to give up my life. What will you do for me?”

Deep breaths, Alex. You're in control of
your anger.
There was another reason they couldn't be together, one
he had allowed himself to forget in the adrenaline rush of acknowledging his
feelings for Kat. Without calculating the risk, considering the costs and
benefits, and thinking of the long-term strategy, he had acted impulsively.

She stepped away from him, her eyes blazing. “Tell me, Alex,
what is it that you even like about me? Or have you just been using me?
Manipulating me to get ahead in your career. What is it that you're going to
take away from me?”

How dare she?
Was she equating him
to the likes of her former scumbag fiancé? Something erupted inside him. He
grabbed her arm. “Is that the kind of man you think I am?”

He didn't know how long it took him. Far too long to see that
the ice in her eyes had melted. Replaced by something he never wanted to see.
Fear. He let go of her arm and looked down to see her fair skin had reddened
from his touch.

“I'm sorry, Kat.” His voice cracked.

“Alex!” She reached out to touch him but his feet were moving
faster than hers.

He was already in his car turning on the engine when she caught
up to him. He put it in Reverse and screeched out of her street. He couldn't let
his emotions rule him anymore.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I
GUESS
THIS
day can get worse.
Kat stared at the senator and her mother. As if fate were conspiring against her, just as Alex left, the senator had arrived to find her standing frozen on the edge of the driveway. At a loss for what to do, she accepted his invitation to come to dinner. Now she sat across from her parents in a romantically lit Italian restaurant where a musician keyed a love song on the piano. Her brain was still processing the words her father had said.

“I'm sorry—I must have misheard. Can you repeat that?” she asked just to make sure her brain wasn't playing tricks on her.

“Kat, I know this must seem sudden to you, but I think your mother and I should marry again.”

“
Sudden
is not the word I was thinking,” she muttered as she took a sip of her wine. She looked at her mother, who must've known this was coming because she seemed remarkably composed, even excited. The senator had led up to his explosive statement with a long preamble that Kat had largely missed as she went over her conversation with Alex. What had she done? She had been spoiling for a fight with him, taking out the anger she couldn't unleash on her mother. Not that he didn't deserve it, the way he assumed
she
would have to make sacrifices for them to be together.

The senator was looking right at her. “I know this must seem...”

“Crazy? Impulsive? Nonsensical?”

“Kat!” The admonishment came from her mother. Kat gave her an icy glare.

“Please, Mother, tell me what else you've kept from me. I'm obviously missing some pieces of the puzzle here.”

“Kat, let me explain.” The senator's soothing voice broke the staring contest between her and her mother. He took a breath and put his hand on Emilia's. She rewarded him with an adoring look that made Kat's stomach bottom out. “Your mother called me almost a year ago. She was worried that if her Parkinson's got worse, you'd work yourself to the bone to take care of her. She wanted to make sure I knew about you and that I'd be there to take care of you.”

Kat took another sip of her wine to keep from making a biting comment. She needed to hear the full sordid story, understand the full depth of her mother's betrayal.

“I was angry at first, but then I realized that I wanted to know you, to be a part of your life. We were talking about the best way to tell you all of this.”

“And you figured CNN could do your dirty work?” The words were out of her mouth before she could bite her tongue. Her mother flinched and the senator pursed his lips but continued on.

“I had pictures of you, and a letter from Emilia when she first contacted me. I must've been careless with it. I didn't think about the documents until the story leaked.”

She narrowed her eyes. It seemed too convenient.

“So why not come clean when the story broke? Why not tell me everything?” She directed the question at her mother, who had been lying to her for three years about the Parkinson's and for months about everything else. She shouldn't be surprised. This was the woman who'd managed to keep the identity of her father secret for thirty-five years.

Emilia dropped her gaze. “I didn't know how to tell you. It seemed easier to go along, to encourage you to get to know your father.”

“So what's the grand plan here?”

She looked at both of them. A man she hardly knew and the woman she thought she knew.

“Kat, your mother and I share the kind of love most people never get in their lives. Reconnecting with her has brought me more joy than I've had in years. I don't want to waste another minute. I want to be with her.”

“How does she fit into your election plans? And your run for president?” She gave her mother a look. “All of a sudden you're okay with dealing with the media? Hosting fund-raisers? Being Martha Stewart?”

The senator leaned forward. “Things are different than they used to be. A candidate's wife doesn't have to do as much as she used to, not if she doesn't want to. Emilia can stay in the background.”

Kat shook her head. Her mother couldn't possibly be falling for all this.
Nope, she is.
The adoring puppy-dog eyes her mother was giving him said it all.

“What's the rush?” she asked, changing tack.

“There's none. We're not talking about getting married tomorrow. But we wanted to tell you what we're planning. I asked your mother to move into the house with me.”

Kat focused on the chicken marsala she'd ordered. None of them had touched their entrées. She speared a piece and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly, trying to find the words that would magically make her mother understand reality. They ate in silence.

“So let's play this out here. You're going to move into the big McLean mansion. Who will take care of you? Make sure you take your pills?”

Her mother's eyes flashed to her, a clear warning.

“I'm capable of taking care of myself. I've been honest with Bill about my conditions.”

“Really? You've told him all about how I have to cancel plans or put my life on hold to make sure you take your meds? Or how you pretend to take the pills and I come home to find ketchup all over my bed?”

Her mother set down her fork and knife with a clank. The senator set down his own utensils and reached over and squeezed her mother's hand. Emilia gave him a grateful smile and Kat's heart contracted painfully.

“All these years, Kat, I've been enabling you to use my illness to avoid getting close to anyone. I want you to live your life.”

Kat shrank back, tears welling in her eyes.
I'm the one in the wrong here?

“Mom, that's not fair. All I've ever done is protect you.”

“Is that what you think you're doing now?” Her mother's eyes shone and the senator put an arm around her.

He looked at Kat. “Your mom has been honest with me about everything. There's nothing you can say that'll scare me away.”

What did she need to say to get through to them? She turned to her father. “How will you continue to campaign? Will she sit at home while you traverse the state leading up to the election? If she's not going on the campaign trail with you, she'll be at home, all alone.”

Her mother shifted in her chair. “How's that different from what I do now? You go to work all day and I sit alone in that house with nothing to do. These last few months, I've had purpose, a reason to live.”

She couldn't deny that, against all odds, her mother was doing far better than she had in years.

“And I don't plan to leave your mother all alone in that big house. She doesn't have to get in front of the cameras, but she can travel with me when I'm gone for long periods.”

Kat shook her head. They made it sound so easy. Her mother had kept secrets from her for years. Kat's entire life had been planned and organized around her mother. The career in academics where time away from home was minimal, superficial friendships, the constant worry. She'd done it all for her mom.

She lined up her fork and knife neatly on the plate, wiped her mouth with her napkin then set it on the plate and stood. “I wish you both the best of luck. Let me know when you're moving out.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“A
LEX
,
M
'
BOY
, I
NEED
to talk to you.” Alex looked up in surprise at the senator's jovial, booming voice.

He had barely spoken to Alex in the past few weeks. Alex had heard about the senator's plans to marry Emilia during a senior staff meeting. For two years, he'd been the senator's confidant and adviser. Senator Roberts didn't make a move without running it past him. Now Alex was nothing more than the hired help. He'd made a mistake in being honest with him. He had been firm in saying that he could never consider a future with Vickie, especially knowing how he felt about Kat. As a result, he was no longer the senator's inside man.

He stood as the senator walked up to his desk. He waved to the couch and the senator sat, unbuttoning his jacket as he did so. “Six points down in the polls and only three months to go,” he said without preamble.

Alex nodded. They'd expected a bigger bump after the IED bill passed, but the bill had actually backfired; with the country's tolerance for troop deployment at an all-time low, voters were seeing Senator Roberts as way too war friendly. Yet another reason why the senator had cooled toward Alex. Crista had the senator making nonstop stump speeches; his kids were campaigning; there was a full schedule of media interviews.

“I wouldn't be doing anything differently,” Alex said quietly.

“Oh, I know Crista's doing a bang-up job, but I was thinking, it might help if we had some other folks campaigning for me.”

“We've already done appearances with the governor, major city and town mayors, and the congressional representatives.”

The senator nodded. “What if we brought old Lacey out of retirement?”

Alex's stomach clenched, sending a fire into his chest. He dug his fingernails into his hand.

“Sir, Lacey hasn't been governor in twenty years.”

“Yes, but he has been the most popular governor Virginia has ever had. He's the only modern governor to have successfully won two terms.”

Virginia gubernatorial terms were limited to four years with no succession. A governor could run again after a four-year hiatus, but Lacey was the only governor to have done so successfully in recent years. The man was so popular that he'd been encouraged to run for a third term, but had instead gone for a presidential nomination, which he lost.

“So have Crista schedule it with him.”

“She's tried, but he won't do it.”

And that was why the senator had come to Alex's office rather than summoning him to his own.

“You've got history with the governor. I understand your mom worked for him. Could you call him?”

Alex shook his head, using every last ounce of self-control to keep his voice even. “Sir, we didn't exactly part on good terms. I don't think it would help to get me involved.”

The senator furrowed his brows. “Is this about me taking you off campaign duty?”

Alex sat up straighter. “No, sir. I...”

“Because I called the governor when I hired you. It was in your background report that you lived in his house as a child, and I wanted his impression of you. He had only good things to say about you and your mother.”

His mouth soured. Of course the man had only good things to say about them. Alex was a well-behaved boy. He'd sat silently while his mother was taken advantage of and hadn't acted out of turn by pounding his fist into the man, no matter how many times he'd wanted to.

“Alex, I'm going to trust you to convince the governor to join me at the big speech I'm giving in Richmond next week.”

He didn't need the senator to say the next part of the sentence. The
or else
was understood. The senator stood to leave. “Oh, and another thing—I asked Crista to plan a wedding for me and Emilia. I'm thinking mid-October. It'll be good press coverage.”

Something squeezed deep inside his chest. He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he couldn't help it. “Sir, are you sure this is a good idea? Would a public wedding help Emilia's mental state?”

The senator waved his hand dismissively. “She'll handle it.”

Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He'd given up too much to throw it all away now.