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“You’re making a mistake, Lee.”
“I have a business to run. But it’s been good talking to you, Brian.” And with that parting line, he hung up. Daniel tried to turn his attention back to the latest reports on the marketing campaign for the Beaumont Brewery’s launch of a new craft beer. But for once, Daniel couldn’t focus.
He found himself staring at pictures of Christine Murray as his mind spun out all of the possibilities. Naïvely, Daniel found himself hoping that her father’s opponent would leave Christine Murray out of it. He went back to his search results. There wasn’t much. There was an announcement that her child had been born, a daughter. There was a teaser article that suggested she was going to sign for the next season of Ballroom Dancing With Superstars—but that was from the previous season. Clearly, she hadn’t.
After digging deeper, he found what he was looking for—a small bio with the standard headshot attached to the First City Bank of Denver’s website. It had to be her—those blue eyes were unmistakable. She was a loan officer at the First City Bank. And she was in Denver? He’d been out of the game too long—he hadn’t realized she was so close.
Christine had nothing to do with her father—especially not if she had been in Denver for the last year and a half. She might not get dragged into this special election.
But Daniel knew that wasn’t how things worked. The opposition’s campaign manager would size up the competition. It would take all of twelve seconds to dig up every piece of useful information he could on Clarence Murray and when he did, Christine would be at the top of that list.
They would come for her again.
Daniel didn’t like guilt. And he shouldn’t care.
But he stared at the small picture on the bank’s website. She didn’t look trapped in that photo. She looked cautious, though. She looked like a woman who believed putting any picture of herself on the internet was inviting abuse.
If Daniel had any faith in Clarence Murray actually being a spiritual man, he might try to convince himself that Murray would close ranks around his daughter, try to protect her.
But Brian White wouldn’t allow that to happen. Christine Murray was a liability. Daniel was willing to bet large sums of money—and he had large sums of money to bet—that Brian would attack her first. He would make an example out of her to show that Clarence Murray did not engage in nepotism and stuck by his beliefs.
Daniel picked up the phone and dialed the executive office. “Yes?” his half brother, Zeb, said into the phone. “Do you have those numbers?”
Daniel absolutely should not get involved. But two well-funded, cutthroat political campaigns were about to descend upon Christine Murray. “Not yet. I need to be out of the office for a little bit—hopefully just a couple of hours, but it has the potential to become more involved.”
Zeb was quiet for a moment. “Everything okay?”
They had a tenuous relationship that was part stranger, part boss, part brother. The familial bonds felt awkward for both of them. “It should be. But if it becomes more involved, I’ll let you know.”
Zeb chuckled. “Yeah, that was reassuring. Good luck.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it.”
Which didn’t change the fact that he was going to need all the luck he could get.
* * *
Christine Murray looked longingly at the coffeepot in the break room. She needed something stronger than green tea, but she had learned the hard way that if she had coffee this late in the day and then nursed Marie at bedtime, the girl would be bouncing off the walls all night long.
Not that Marie would sleep, anyway. She was teething—again—and all Christine could do was cling to her sanity in a blind stumble toward the weekend, where she would at least get to nap when Marie went down in the afternoon.
It was days like today that she gave thanks that she was a loan officer instead of a teller. She’d always liked being a teller—the job had paid her way through college. But she did not have it in her today to be perky.
Tea in hand, she settled in at her desk and stared at her computer without really seeing anything. She allowed herself a moment of indulgence to think what if. What if Doyle, her fiancé, had stuck by her during her father’s last campaign? What if they had gotten married like they planned? What if she had some help with Marie?
But if she was going to dream about the impossible, she might as well go all out. What if her mom hadn’t died? What if her father hadn’t been on a quixotic journey toward political office for the last fifteen years? What if she had grown up in a normal household with normal parents?
Her phone rang, snapping her out of her reverie where life was perfect and everybody got at least seven hours of sleep every night. “Thank you for calling First City Bank of Denver, this is Christine. How can I help you?”
“Good afternoon, Ms. Murray.” Something in the man’s voice set her teeth on edge. “We haven’t been properly introduced but my name is Brian White and I’m calling on behalf of your father, Clarence Murray,” he added, as if Christine could possibly forget who her father was.
She slammed the phone down before she even realized what she was doing. She would never forget the name of the man who had ruined her life.
Brian White had been a campaign manager for the opponent in her father’s last attempt at higher office.
The phone rang again and she knew it was him. She didn’t want to answer it but she was at work. There was a chance that someone was calling about a loan. So, squeezing her eyes shut, she answered.
“Ms. Murray—I believe we were disconnected.”
The bottom fell out of her stomach and she sat bolt upright at her desk. “What do you want?”
“Ms. Murray. There is no need to sound alarmed,” he went on in that slick voice, which of course only scared her more. “Your father has asked me to reach out to you.”
“Oh?” Her voice wavered, darn it all. “He couldn’t bother to call me himself, I guess? I’m only his daughter, right?”
Mentally, she high-fived herself. She was still getting used to standing up for herself. She was not going to cower before political consultants or campaign managers or even her father.
That victory was incredibly short-lived because she realized a call from a campaign manager could only mean one thing. One terrible, awful thing.
“Your father is going to be running for the US Senate seat in the state of Missouri—were you aware that it recently became open?”
Christine did not throw up all over her desk. Score one for adulting. “I was not.”
“Sex scandals are such a tricky thing to negotiate. And the people of Missouri are going to be looking for someone with an unimpeachable character and record—someone like your father.”
Maybe she was so tired that she had fallen asleep at her desk and was having a nightmare. Wake up, she told herself.
Brian White kept talking. “What we’d like to do is make you a part of this campaign. A redemption story, if you will.”
Oh, God. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Because she had a very good idea of what a redemption story would look like to her father. There would be a public confession of her many, many sins. Probably something resembling a walk of shame. And that was just for starters. Her father would expect her to go on talk shows and accompany him on the campaign trail. Knowing him, he would expect her to find a nice man and then make Marie legitimate by getting married.
Her heart was going to beat itself right out of her chest. She had to physically hold on to the desk to keep from falling out of her chair when Mr. White said, “Oh, I think you will. You’re a very important part of your father’s campaign and he insists on bringing you back into the fold.”
She hadn’t heard from the man since his last concession speech—a garbled screed against sin and the devil where he had apologized to his faithful believers for his daughter, who had stained his quest for truth, justice and the American way. “He’s had almost two years to bring me back in the fold and he can’t even bring himself to do it. He has to get his lapdog to call me.”
White chuckled. “I can see this is a bad time. I’ll call again in a couple of days, when you’ve had time to think the proposition over. You are going to want my help, Ms. Murray. Because without it...”
It wasn’t so much a threat as a statement of fact. She was about to lose control of her life all over again and for what? For her father’s misguided attempts at winning a political office?
Last time had been bad enough. Her every misdeed, her every bad picture—all that had suddenly become fodder for the gossip mill. The television commercials had been the worst—her photos had been distorted so she looked like a stupid cow chewing cud instead of a woman who was six months pregnant. It had been the darkest time of her life.
This time would be so much worse because they wouldn’t just come for her. She had survived that kind of attack once before. It was awful and painful, but she had survived.
No, this time they would come for Marie. Her precious little girl.
Christine hung up the phone and somehow made it to the ladies’ room. She locked herself in a stall and sobbed. Why was her father doing this? Why was he doing it to her? She knew Clarence Murray didn’t love her. But surely he had a little human decency—just enough that he would want to shield his only granddaughter from the media?
Oh, who was she kidding? Her father had never considered anyone else’s needs. The only thing that mattered was what he decided God had meant for him to do.
“Christine? Are you okay?”
It was Sue, a teller who was Christine’s best work friend. How long had she been in there? She dried her eyes on industrial-grade toilet paper and opened the door. “I’m fine.”
But even as she said it, Sue gasped and recoiled in horror before throwing her arms around Christine’s shoulders and hugging her. “Oh, honey—who died?”
Christine almost laughed because if she didn’t, she would start crying again. “It’s nothing.”
The ramifications of her father’s latest campaign began to spin out for her. The bank’s owner, Mr. Whalen, would not appreciate this sort of attention. She might have to uproot her life. Go somewhere new and start over.
The prospect was daunting. With what money? She had a couple hundred socked away in the bank, which was not a heck of a lot. She didn’t want to have to give up her life, her identity—to say nothing of her privacy and sanity—just so her father could lose a campaign again.
What was she going to do?
One of the reasons she had moved to Denver was that fewer people knew who she was. Murray was just another last name here.
So Christine did what she had to do—she lied again. “I’m hormonal and Marie is teething and I’m so tired.” Not that it was much of a lie. She merely left out the bits about political intrigue.
“Here, let me fix you up.” Sue produced her purse, which was sixty-three percent makeup. Christine felt a moment of longing for those days. Currently, her purse consisted of diapers, wet wipes, bibs, crayon stubs, random Cheerios and things she didn’t want to think about. Glamour and beauty were low on her list right now.
Still, there was something comforting about letting Sue apply under-eye concealer and powder her face, especially since Sue was relatively close in coloring to Christine and was only a few inches shorter—they’d been able to swap clothes a few times.
“Am I in trouble, do you think?” She had no idea how long she had been hiding in the ladies’ room. All she knew was that Brian White and Clarence Murray and the media couldn’t reach her in there. If she did not have to pick up Marie tonight from day care, she would never leave the ladies’ room. This place was her sanctuary.
Except for the small detail that she was still at work. “There’s some guy out there waiting to talk to you.” Christine must have looked stricken because Sue quickly added, “He’s not mad or anything. He’s hot. Tall, dark—extremely handsome. I didn’t see a ring.”
It was all she could do to get her mouth closed. “You checked him out?” But even as she said that, she felt the weight on her shoulders lighten ever so slightly. After Brian White had ruined her life, she’d looked him up on the internet. He was not tall. He was not dark. No one would ever accuse him of being handsome. The man was short, pudgy and balding.
Which meant that whoever was waiting for her at her desk was not a campaign manager representing her father.
“Of course,” Sue said. “Wait until you see him. I bet he’s a male model. Maybe even a movie star—he’s that hot.”
Christine snorted. She didn’t need hot—she needed help. Real, tangible help. She needed someone who would get Brian White and her father to leave her alone. She needed someone who could help her protect Marie. She needed brains and brawn. And she needed enough money to pay for all of that.
She might as well ask for a unicorn for her birthday. “We don’t give out loans based on hotness.”
“We should. There,” Sue added. “You look human again.”
Christine hugged her friend and strengthened her mental resolve. “Thank you. I better get out there and meet Mr. Hot.”
If she couldn’t get through one day at a time, she’d take it one hour at a time. One minute at a time.
Sixty seconds. She could do this.
God, she hoped.
Two (#ub25c68ad-0ef7-5b4b-bc0c-b002dc4257be)
Her courage fortified and her under-eye bags hidden, Christine headed to her desk. She rounded the corner and pulled up short—Sue had not been lying. The gentleman waiting for her was beyond hot. His dark hair was perfectly slicked back, giving him a smooth look. And was that suit custom-made?
Even though he was casually sitting in the chair in front of her desk, one leg crossed over the other, she got the impression of a knife—sharp and potentially dangerous. When he noticed her, he came to his feet like a cat uncoiling from a nap. She revised her earlier opinion. He was not potentially dangerous—he was dangerous.
“Ms. Murray.” There was a tone of the familiar in his voice and she felt herself gritting her teeth. Did he know who she was?
“Welcome to the First City Bank of Denver.” Because she was at work, she extended her hand in a polite businessperson’s handshake. “And you are?”
He stared down at her for a moment and she almost got lost in his light brown eyes. Up close, she realized that his hair wasn’t black—there was a hint of red that lightened the color to a deep mahogany. It was a striking look on the man.
Against her will, her pulse began to flutter in her neck. Men generally did not look at her with interest. She was short and chunky and she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure she didn’t have oatmeal stains from Marie’s breakfast on her shirt.
“Lee.” He slid his hand into hers but instead of the acceptable three-pump handshake, he just held her hand, palm to palm. “Daniel Lee.” As he said his name—slowly and carefully—he studied her.
What was this? Was he checking to see what her reaction would be?
She swallowed nervously. Was she supposed to know who he was? Something about him seemed familiar. Maybe he was a movie star? Or at least a cable TV star? But his name didn’t ring a bell. He was so incredibly gorgeous that it was making it hard for her to think.
She should have stayed in the ladies’ room. “How can I help you today, Mr. Lee?” she said, taking sanctuary behind her desk. She felt better with four feet of wood between them.
He stood for a moment too long, staring down at her. Nervously, she lifted her gaze back to him. The suit was most definitely custom-made—the shirt was, also. Those trappings did little to disguise the raw power of his body. Again, she thought of a dagger in a perfectly made sheath. He was the sort of man who always got his way.
The sort she avoided like the plague. Because men like him never cared for women like her and they certainly never cared for babies like Marie. Christine was tired of being collateral damage.
She motioned toward the chair. She couldn’t handle him looming over her.
He sat, somehow making her standard-issue office chair look as regal as a throne. “I don’t think the question is what you can do for me, Ms. Murray. The question is what I can do for you.”
She needed to start carrying pepper spray. “I’m not interested.”
One corner of his mouth—not that she was staring—curved into a deadly smile. Christine was both simultaneously thankful that Sue had fixed her face and upset that she had. If only Christine looked like she was having the worst day of her life, this man might not be staring at her quite so intently. “Are you sure? You don’t even know why I’m here.”
This was something that was different from two years ago. Then, when the reporters had first started showing up at her home and following her to work in Kansas City, she hadn’t been ready for it. Footage of her stammering and looking petrified was all over the internet. Even she had to admit that she looked guilty as sin in those videos.
But she learned how to brace herself for the attacks and how to keep her face relatively calm. She wasn’t the same clueless girl she’d been back then. And besides, she already had advance warning.
“Who sent you? My father?”
That dangerous smile fell away from his face. Ha, Christine thought. She’d caught him off guard and that counted for something.
“No. But I’m going to make an educated guess that you received a phone call today—probably from Brian White.” Although she didn’t want to react, she could feel the blood draining out of her face. This guy knew who Brian White was? “Yes,” he said in a voice that might have been gentle coming from anyone else. “I can see that you did. I was hoping to get to you before he did.”
“Who do you work for?” And as much as she wanted to sound strong and brave, her voice came out shaky. Because how much did one woman have to endure?
Something flashed over his eyes and if she didn’t know better, she would’ve said it was guilt. “I am the executive vice-president and chief marketing officer of the Beaumont Brewery. I do not work for your father, nor do I work for any potential opponents of his. I have no interest in forcing you to publicly...” He waved a hand, as if he could pull the right words out of thin air. “Repudiate your life choices, nor do I have any interest in using them against you.”
Well. At least he hadn’t called Marie a sin. Although “life choice” wasn’t a huge step up.
Wait. Was that why he looked familiar? He was one of those bastards—Beaumont’s bastards. His brother or half brother—she had no hope of ever keeping the Beaumonts straight—had taken over the brewery. She’d only been in Denver for a few months when that happened. And besides, she didn’t drink anymore.
