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“I did not lie. I stated the facts in a dramatic way. I want the police to get here quickly.”
“And what if there’s a real crime being committed, like a woman being raped or someone getting murdered?”
“When was the last time something like that happened in this town? Most likely, they’re out patrolling the highway and you just saved a citizen from getting a speeding ticket.”
“That’s Washington logic,” she muttered. He was a typical man, bending the truth to suit himself. If someone got hurt in the process, so be it. Driven by his own needs, he didn’t care whom he trampled along the way.
They heard the scream of sirens. The pounding on the door stopped.
Kat went to the drapes and peeked out. Four police cars came to a stop, and as officers emerged, the reporters began retreating to their vans. She had to admit it was an effective idea, but she still didn’t like Alex’s manipulations. He’d been playing her since they met, and she had to remember that the sincerity in his eyes was also an act.
An officer walked up to the house and she opened the door when he knocked. She ushered him in and then noticed that Alex wasn’t in the living room. Her mother’s eyes flicked toward the bedroom.
Kat explained the situation to the gray-haired, heavyset policeman who patted her hand in a fatherly gesture.
“You’re helping my daughter with her master’s thesis.” Kat blinked back her surprise as he told her his daughter’s name. She was one of the students Kat had recently taken on. “Tell you what—I’m not supposed to be doin’ this, but I’ll ticket them for parking illegally and tell them I’ll arrest them for trespassing if they set foot on your lawn again. I can’t stop them from talkin’ to you, though. And they’ll probably accost you when you leave the house and take pictures with long-range lenses through your windows. Nothin’ I can do about that.”
Kat nodded numbly. This had to be a crazy dream; all she could hope for was to wake up soon.
The cop stood to leave. “And another thing—I don’t think they’re gonna leave you alone until you give ’em a statement. I suggest you either do that or leave town. The dean is mighty upset at you, and we’re a small-town police department. We can’t really protect you or keep comin’ out here every time these reporters cross the line.”
He gave her his card and left. Kat went to get Alex out of hiding and find out why he didn’t want his presence known, though she had her suspicions already. She rapped on the bedroom door and entered without waiting for permission. This was her room. Her house. He had no right to waltz in and demand things from them.
“It won’t end until you deny the claim,” Alex said matter-of-factly. He seemed to take up all the air in the small space. “Nice room, by the way.”
She followed his gaze, considering what he saw. Her bed was made with an old Amish quilt. The dresser held some basics. There were no pictures anywhere, no clothes loosely strewn, no underwear lying around. It was a functional room, one she hadn’t made home yet because it didn’t feel like hers. Yet, for the first time, she felt an energy in here that she hadn’t felt before. Alex stepped toward her and she resisted the urge to back away. She was in the doorway, her hip leaning against the frame.
He reached out and touched her shoulder. She looked at his hand, but the now-familiar urge to smack it away didn’t bubble up. His hand felt strong and warm. Comforting. She frowned.
“I’m not the one you need to convince. I’m ready for us to denounce this whole thing. I’m up for promotion, and the last thing I need is this media circus.” She checked her watch. The APT Committee would be meeting soon.
“Then let’s talk to your mother together.”
She nodded. “Why didn’t you want the police to see you here?”
“If anyone catches wind of me, the story becomes bigger. If you deny he’s your father, but I’m seen here, they’ll say I paid you off.”
“Like you tried to do earlier?”
He opened his mouth then suddenly turned toward the door. “Do you feel that?” He pushed past her and she realized there was a light breeze coming through the house. She followed him into the living room. The front door was open.
“Where’s your mother?”
Kat looked around, her heart sinking. Alex swore under his breath just as Kat caught sight of her mother on the front lawn, her blond hair lit up by several bright cameras.
Without thinking, she ran to the front door, but paused at the threshold. Once she stepped out, her face would be all over the cameras. Alex called to her, but she ignored him and ran to where her mother was standing. Kat wasn’t going to let her face the vultures alone.
Several cameras were trained on her mother when Kat reached her.
Out in the lead was a brown-haired reporter with perfectly styled hair and enough makeup to paint an entire canvas. With her skintight suit and stiletto heels, Kat thought she looked like a doll. “Ah, Miss Driscoll, I...”
“It’s Dr. Driscoll or Professor Driscoll,” Kat said evenly, surprised at the strength in her voice.
“Dr. Driscoll, Mrs. Driscoll, thank you for speaking to us,” said the reporter in a sugary voice.
Before Kat could say anything, her mother spoke out. “I have a statement to make, but I won’t answer questions.” There was silence among the reporters and Kat could almost see the cameras zooming in on her mother’s drawn face. “Kat was conceived when Bill and I were still married. We decided to divorce, and then I found out I was pregnant. I chose not to tell Bill. He’s never known about his daughter, and Kat has never been told who her real father is. There is no more to the story, and we want nothing from the senator. We ask you to please leave us alone.”
Every reporter spoke at once, but Kat put her arm around her mother and turned her, intending to walk back into the house. No such luck. The reporters formed a circle around them, hurtling questions at lightning speed. Her mother froze. Kat sensed panic seizing her.
“Please, let us through,” she said firmly. The reporters ignored her, slowly closing in on them. Her mother was breathing faster and faster, and Kat knew she was close to losing it. She tightened her grip and spoke more firmly. “Please let us through.” The note of desperation was clear, but it was drowned out by the cacophony of reporters. She barely heard them as her heart drummed in her ears. How were they going to get out of this?
Suddenly, the crowd separated, like the biblical parting of the Red Sea. Kat looked up to see Alex push through. He walked confidently up to them, flanked Emilia’s other side and put his arm around her, laying his hand on top of Kat’s and squeezing it reassuringly. They pushed toward the door.
The reporters stayed close, sidestepping to keep up with them, lobbing questions at Alex, which he calmly ignored. He stopped a few steps from the door and held up his hand. The crowd fell silent. “The senator is on a flight. He’ll comment when he lands. I’m here to make sure these good people aren’t unnecessarily harassed. Mrs. Driscoll will not be seeking child support. In case you hadn’t noticed, Dr. Driscoll is a grown woman. No further comments right now.”
He was smooth as silk, his lies sounding as authentic as the truth. Once they stepped over the threshold, Kat slammed the door and threw the dead bolt.
She let out a long breath, the tightness in her chest easing. “Thank you.”
He gave her a hard stare. “That was not a good move.”
Her mother looked like she was about to collapse, so Kat took her to the bedroom. The doctor had warned her against using sedatives, but she felt her mother needed one now. Or maybe she needed her mother to take one. The situation was getting more out of control by the minute. Kat took a pill from the locked cabinet in the bathroom and gave it to her mother, urging her under the covers to take a nap. Once Emilia was tucked in, Kat went to the living room to find Alex standing in front of the TV.
“They interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to air your statement.”
“It’s time for the truth to come out,” Kat said simply. She didn’t agree with her mother’s impulsive behavior, but Emilia had been remarkably brave and articulate in front of the cameras, showing more strength in the last five minutes than Kat had seen in her for the past several years.
“Well, it’s now an even bigger story than it was before. Congratulations. Until something blows up in the Middle East, the president has an affair or there’s a school shooting, the media will be playing that clip of you and your mother every thirty minutes.”
Where was the guy who came and saved them from the reporters? Kat stepped up to him, her feet planted wide. She put one hand on her hip and shook a finger in his face.
“My mother told the truth, something I know you’re not familiar with in DC. Now that it’s clear we’re not on the same side, why don’t you get out of my house and go back to your lair.”
He carefully placed the remote he was holding on the coffee table and gazed at her with a bland expression. Every cell in Kat’s body was as taut as the strings of a guitar. Breathe, Kat. This was no different than handling a rowdy classroom. Hold your ground. He took a small step in her direction, closing the distance between them so his chest was no more than a hair’s width away from her. Heat emanated from him, and her own temperature rose a few degrees. Normally she’d shrink away from a man standing this close to her, but she lifted her head so she could continue to gaze steadily into his eyes. Let me see the fire beneath your cool exterior.
Their faces were barely an inch apart. Something shifted in his gaze and his expressionless eyes turned into a warm chocolate brown. Her own nerves tingled as she caught a whiff of his spicy aftershave, and she couldn’t help but look at his mouth. His lips quirked in response and she immediately forced her eyes upward. What am I doing?
It wasn’t like she hadn’t dated since Colin. Well-meaning faculty members had a never-ending stream of friends and relatives to set her up with, and she’d been on plenty of first dates where the conversation dried up long before dessert arrived. So, okay, she hadn’t really allowed any of those guys to go beyond a peck on the cheek. And none of them made her toes curl, but whatever she was feeling was a result of adrenaline. Too much was happening all at once.
Alex took a deep breath, and she could feel his controlled exhalation. She should step back. Away from the tempting smell of his aftershave. Away from his comforting warmth. Her legs refused to move.
“I’m not going anywhere. The senator knows about you now, and he wants to talk to you and your mother.”
She stepped back. “You lied to me. I thought you said you didn’t have a way of reaching him, that he was on a plane.”
“He is.” His tone kicked up an octave, almost imperceptibly so. “Planes have Wi-Fi these days, and he has access to his email. I didn’t want to bother him with this, but after your mother made that statement...”
“You had no choice because we aren’t just a minor nuisance anymore.”
“That’s not—”
“You lied to me earlier. You told me—”
“I told you he was on a plane.”
“Right, not a technical lie in DC, but in the real world, we’d call that dishonest.” She balled her hands into fists so he wouldn’t see her shaking. “Now leave, before I call the sheriff to escort you out.”
“Kat...”
“Dr. Driscoll!”
“Fine, let me—”
The shrill ringing of a phone interrupted him. The APT Committee! She flew to her purse and dug it out.
“Katerina Driscoll,” she answered with as much normalcy as she could muster.
“Professor Driscoll, it’s Dean Gladstone.”
He was the only dean at Hillsdale; he didn’t really need to specify, but he always insisted on formality in a school where everyone referred to each other by their first name. Kat suspected he did it to remind people that he alone had the power to change the course of their lives.
She checked her watch. The APT Committee wasn’t scheduled to meet for another ten minutes. As usual, the dean got right to the point.
“We’ve decided to postpone the APT meeting. Yours was the only application we were considering, and I didn’t think it was in your best interest to have the meeting today.”
Her heart stopped. “So what does that mean for me?” She managed to control the tremor in her voice.
“Professor Driscoll, I’ve personally reviewed your application and I have concerns.”
She swallowed. It was happening all over again, just like it had with Colin. The media were blowing up a story, and she was paying the price. It had taken all of her savings and months of effort with a lawyer to get a small-town newspaper article retracted and deleted from the internet. No amount of money and lawyers could do that with a story this big; this would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“You’ve obviously worked very hard, but I’m trying to raise the caliber of faculty in this school.” Kat’s heart sank. He’d canceled the meeting because they weren’t going to give her the promotion.
“It’s hard for our little college to compete in Virginia when we have big-name universities that attract both students and faculty. We must ensure that our professors are of the highest standing.” He spoke with the kind of fake British accent that ivory-tower professors often put on. She felt like Maria in The Sound of Music getting a lecture from Mother Superior.
She sat on the bench next to the entryway and let her head rest on the wall behind her. The dean had obviously made up his mind.
While he droned on about his standards for faculty members, Kat’s mind wandered to thoughts of the senator. After all these years of wondering which shadowy politician was her father, she finally had the truth. What was he like as a man? Would he have stood by her mother if he’d known she was pregnant? Would her mother be the same woman if he’d been in their lives? Would Kat’s life have been different? Would she have picked a better man than Colin if she’d had a male role model growing up? These were all questions she’d asked herself a thousand times before, and she never came up with any answers. But maybe now...
She sat up straight. When the dean paused to take a breath, she jumped in. “Dean Gladstone, I know you don’t like my newfound notoriety, but it could be a real opportunity for the school to gain a national reputation.”
That was what Colin had done, hadn’t he? Turned the media attention to his benefit. So why couldn’t she do the same? Though he was silent, she knew the dean was still on the line because she heard his breathing. So she continued.
“What if I do a few interviews with Senator Roberts and write some articles on this race and the impact of his defense policy?”
“That’s an interesting idea,” the dean allowed. “One significant deficit in your tenure application is that you haven’t written a book.”
Kat bit her lip. She hadn’t written a book because her ex-fiancé had stolen years’ worth of analyses and sold them as his own.
“A book would make your application more competitive, particularly one analyzing your father’s policies and tracking this campaign through the election.”
That was a lot more than what Kat had in mind. Maybe she should’ve thought through this half-baked idea before blurting it out. She couldn’t commit to being away from her mother for an extended period of time. “A book would be hard to write based on a few interviews.”
The dean wasn’t listening. He talked over her. “I have a very dear friend at Harvard University Press, and if you can deliver a book in the next three months, I’ll twist his arm to publish it before the election.”
She closed her mouth. A book? Published by Harvard University Press? In the academic world, that was like hitting the New York Times bestseller list. She might have a chance at living down this story. Other career opportunities would open up; maybe she could even return to a big-time university. But that meant spending two to three months researching with her father...and with Alex.
“Dean Gladstone, covering my father through the election is a longer proposition than what I was thinking.”
“Professor Driscoll, perhaps I haven’t made myself clear, so let me be blunt. Your current application will not get you a promotion. And your newfound notoriety gives me cause to consider whether to continue your contract for next year. I’m giving you a solution—I suggest you take it.”
Kat couldn’t bring herself to hit the end button despite the insistent beeps in her ear telling her the dean had hung up. She closed her eyes. What have I done? If he didn’t renew her contract, it was too late for her to find another position. Her savings account barely held enough money to cover next month’s rent. She couldn’t afford to lose her position. More important, her mother needed the health insurance that came as a benefit.
“I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Kat opened her eyes to see Alex kneeling in front of her. She closed her phone.
“This is none of your business.”
“Actually, it is.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose, then looked up at her. “I’m going to put my cards on the table. No bull. I have a win-win solution for both of us.”
She leaned forward, searching his eyes. He was a charmer, just like Colin. But she wasn’t going to be fooled. Not again.
“The senator’s going to take a hit in the polls with your mother’s announcement. No matter what she said, our conservative state will see him as having abandoned you. The only way to manage the story now is to invite you into the fold. Come on the campaign trail. Take some pictures with the senator so he can show that he’s getting to know his newfound daughter. Your mother said she wants him to claim you, and he’s willing to do that. In return, you can spend time learning about him for your book.”
She stared at him. His eyes were pleading and she could feel herself melting. Alex was a trained liar. This whole situation was his fault. If he hadn’t put pressure on them to lie, maybe her mother wouldn’t have made that impulsive statement. But... She had a chance to find out once and for all why her father had left, and to get some answers to questions that had haunted her life. Maybe it was time she learned to use her situation to her advantage rather than curl up and wait for others to determine her fate.
“I can’t leave my mother.”
“Our campaign headquarters are in Richmond, just an hour from here. The senator uses it as a base to travel through the state. I can situate you there.”
“Is that where you work out of?”
“I split my time between Richmond and DC.”
An unwelcome pulse of disappointment went through her. She ignored it. His not being around was a good thing.
“I have two conditions.”
He lifted a brow, his lips pressing together. “I’m not sure I can meet them.”
“Then I am sure I’ll be slamming the door in your face in a few minutes.”
A vein bulged in his neck and she felt her nerves spark as she took in the curve of his neck and jawline.
“Let me hear it.”
She focused her attention back on the matter at hand. “First, no media. You can take some posed pictures of me and circulate them, with my approval, but I don’t want to be in front of the cameras like I was just now.”
