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Kat wasn’t surprised given the familiarity she’d observed between the two of them, but something kicked in her stomach. What man would hire an ex-girlfriend who’d dumped him? Probably one who still had feelings for that ex.
“Why did you break up?” Kat couldn’t believe she was asking the question. Despite herself, she was curious about Alex.
“I was getting too attached.” Crista studied the BlackBerry in her hand. She still had feelings for Alex; that much was obvious. “He’s a great guy—don’t get me wrong. He treated me so well... It was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. But he was never going to marry someone like me.”
“Someone like you?”
“Alex has political aspirations. He needs a woman with a pedigree, like someone with the last name Kennedy. I joke with him about missing the boat with Chelsea Clinton. He needs a tall, beautiful, impeccably dressed woman who can stand in front of the camera and talk about world peace and saving our children.”
She pointed to a stain on her blouse, something Kat hadn’t even noticed. “I’m lucky if I make it into work wearing matching clothes.”
Kat smiled. “Then I’m in good company.” She marveled at the ease with which Crista spoke about Alex after knowing Kat for all of fifteen minutes. Kat didn’t have any close friends; it had been hard for her to work on friendships when she was constantly unavailable. The few girlfriends she’d had when she was younger didn’t understand why she had to run home all the time when they wanted to hang out. Eventually, they stopped inviting her to events, realizing her RSVP would always be no.
After Crista left, Kat worked on setting up her email and reading the briefs that various staff had sent her. A frisson of excitement coursed through her. She’d only studied campaigns from afar. Never had she been in the throes of something like this.
As uncertain as the decision had felt just a couple of hours ago, she knew she’d done the right thing. She would be forced to interact with people other than her students and get out of the house during the summer months. Normally, she taught a summer class, but this year the political-science department had decided not to offer courses in order to allow students to work on campaigns for college credit. Now she didn’t have to dread the long summer months with nothing to do. This would be good for her.
The first email she had was from Alex, sent minutes before their most recent encounter. She opened it.
From: ASantiago@SenatorRoberts.com
To: KDriscoll@SenatorRoberts.com
Subject: Welcome
Kat,
Despite the circumstances, I’m glad you’re here. I look forward to getting to know you. Welcome.
—Alex
PS: Consider changing your name to Kat Roberts.
Kat reread the email. The nerve of him!
“He has a point, you know.”
Crista’s voice startled her. She whirled in her chair to find the woman standing behind her, openly reading the email on her screen.
“Excuse me—isn’t it rude to snoop?” Kat winced at her snarky tone. After Crista had been so open with her, Kat should be a little nicer, but she wasn’t used to such unfiltered sharing.
Crista laughed and gestured around her. “There’s no privacy here on purpose. People jump ship on campaigns all the time. That’s why strategies are closely guarded secrets and Alex and I have access to every email that goes out on our servers. That’s actually what I was coming here to tell you—and to give you this paperwork to sign, which includes a privacy notice that says you have none.”
Kat stared at her. Was she serious?
Crista nodded at her screen. “And he’s right. The optics would be much better if you changed your name. Maybe not right now, but closer to the election.”
Kat didn’t have the words to respond to the casual tone Crista used, as if they were talking about her switching from regular to diet soda instead of changing her entire identity.
She finally found her voice. “I will not change my name. It’s my mother’s name, and I’m proud of it.”
Crista shrugged and walked away.
Kat turned back to her screen and hit the reply button. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one else appeared behind her.
From: KDriscoll@SenatorRoberts.com
To: ASantiago@SenatorRoberts.com
Subject: You are unbelievable
Alex,
Asking me to change my name is not the way to welcome me. The answer is NO.
—Kat
PS—next time you want to welcome someone, try chocolates. I prefer mine dark and nutty, none of the sugary, cherry-filled kind.
Satisfied, she took one more look over her shoulder and hit Send before she could lose her nerve. She immediately went to the next email, which was from Nathan—a terse note explaining the files that were attached. The first file hadn’t even downloaded when she saw an email pop up from Alex.
Frowning, she craned her neck to peer into his office. He wasn’t there. She clicked the message.
From: ASantiago@SenatorRoberts.com
To: KDriscoll@SenatorRoberts.com
Subject: Thick skin
You’ll find campaign staff don’t have time for sugar coating or cherry fillings.
But I’m all for a woman who likes dark and nutty.
Sent from my BlackBerry
Her face heated. She minimized the message and looked behind her before she reread it. Was he flirting with her?
“Here you go.” She nearly jumped out of her chair as one of the campaign staffers she’d met earlier appeared. He handed her a BlackBerry. “It’s all set up for you. Use this instead of your personal phone from now on—hackers are likely monitoring your text and phone messages so they can sell something to the media.”
She opened her mouth to ask the pimply-faced intern if he was serious, but he turned and left before she had a chance. She deleted Alex’s emails and went back to reviewing the documents Nathan had sent. Whatever game Alex was playing, she would not indulge him.
Hours passed like minutes. Kat immersed herself in the policy briefs she’d received. The analysis was fascinating and unlike the academic ones she was accustomed to. Nathan’s arguments could almost convince her the IED bill was justified. Almost. She made several notes for her book.
When she looked at her watch, she realized with dismay that she wouldn’t have time to go home and make it back before the scheduled call with her father. She walked to Crista’s desk and asked if they could move the video chat to another day. Crista handed her a tablet computer. “Here, this works on cellular. You can take the call from your car so your mother won’t find out.”
Kat blew out a breath. “What exactly do you know about my mother’s situation?”
Crista continued tapping away at her computer. “Everything. We researched you when the news story broke and were able to get the claims made on your health insurance, so we’re aware your mother is on mood stabilizers. I assume that’s why you need to go home.”
Fire erupted inside her. Kat gripped the tablet so hard, her fingers whitened. “That type of information is private. How did you get it?”
Crista turned in her seat, finally focusing her eyes on Kat. “Don’t be upset. Privacy is an illusion. We hire a firm to do investigations for us—every high-profile campaign does. In this electronic world, information is abundant.”
Kat muttered her thanks for the tablet and rushed out to her car. Someone had moved it to an underground parking spot the senator used when he needed to come in and out of headquarters without battling the media. She was shaking with anger, but there was no point in taking it out on Crista.
It took her several minutes of clicking her electronic key to find the car, but she was relieved not to encounter a horde of reporters waiting for her when she did. She sat with her hands resting on the steering wheel. Something buzzed and pinged in her purse, and she reached inside to retrieve the BlackBerry. It was an urgent text from Alex.
You ok? Crista says you seem upset.
She resisted the urge to throw the device out the window. She tapped back a message.
Privacy is important to me.
The response was almost instant.
We’re a small campaign staff. It’s not personal.
What did that even mean? Not personal? It was the very definition of personal. There were at least thirty people inside that campaign office and they all knew every intimate detail of her life.
She put the phone in her purse and started the car. In two hours, she would be talking to her father for the first time. She needed to prepare herself. The BlackBerry buzzed and pinged insistently. She put the car back in Park and picked it up.
The senator is looking forward to talking to you. Need anything?
Yes, she needed to go back in time, before the story broke, when she was all set to get her promotion. A gnawing ache grew in her stomach. Had she miscalculated? Alex made a good case for how her working on the campaign was a win for both of them, but she didn’t trust him. What was the play? She put the phone on silent. She needed some quiet time to think.
Kat’s mind whirled as she drove home, and she was grateful that the rush-hour traffic on I-95 had abated. She made it home in less than an hour. The news vans were gone; they’d left after Alex had made a statement that she was moving to Richmond to work on her father’s campaign. He’d even gotten her to roll out an empty suitcase when they left the house earlier in the day, explaining that the media didn’t have unlimited resources. They would take the stakeout to Richmond, and they had. Alex was a smooth operator. Just like Colin.
She entered the house and found her mother sitting in the living room with the TV on. Kissing her on the cheek, Kat noted her color was better.
“How’re you doing?”
Her mother’s eyes were bright. “You didn’t have to come back early. I took my meds.”
Kat raised a brow. Every evening was a battle to get her mother to take her medications. There had been several days when she’d actually resorted to mixing them in her food or tea. But the pillbox containing her mother’s daily medications was empty. Nothing in the trash. Had her mother flushed them down the toilet? Kat didn’t want to re-dose her—too much was just as bad as not enough. She’d learned that the hard way. In the past year, the medications had gotten more complicated than ever. Her mother’s doctor seemed to be getting stricter about dosages and schedules for both sedatives and mood stabilizers.
She went back to the living room and sat with her mother. Emilia was in better spirits than Kat had seen in months. They watched the news in companionable silence. Her name was mentioned in a three-minute story but it had stopped being top news. Alex had made a statement outside headquarters a few hours ago saying that the campaign had asked Kat to write an honest report on her father’s defense policies. She rolled her eyes.
“He’s quite the charmer, isn’t he?”
Kat couldn’t agree more.
“I’m glad Bill is finally going to know you,” Emilia continued. “I tried contacting him, you know, after the divorce. To tell him. But he wouldn’t take my calls.”
Kat turned to her mother. She’d spent years trying to get her to talk about her father. “I thought you said you didn’t tell him.”
“Because he never gave me the chance. He was so angry with me for leaving him.”
Kat’s eyes widened. She’d always thought it was her father who broke things off. “Why did you leave him?”
Her mother sighed. “We had a whirlwind romance in college during our senior year. He asked me to marry him on our third date. Graduation was coming up, and he wanted me to come with him, to his home in Northern Virginia, so we could be close to DC. I hardly knew him, but he was charming and so handsome. I was young and didn’t know any better. After we were married, it all started.”
Her mother stared at the TV. Kat picked up the remote and turned it off. “What started, Mom?”
“First, his mother told me I needed to change the way I dress. Be more like Jackie O. She took me shopping. I hated those clothes—they were itchy and uncomfortable. Then Bill took me to a cocktail party where they were talking about the Cold War. I spoke up and told them what I thought, that we needed to focus on jobs at home, not on stockpiling weapons and hunting down spies.”
She shook her head. “Bill laughed at me, called me a silly woman. I was so embarrassed. When we got home, he told me I had no business making those comments. My job at those parties was to smile and look pretty.”
Kat’s heart ached for her mother. For most of Kat’s life she’d been sick, but once in a while when her medication was just right, Emilia showed Kat a glimpse of the intelligent and vibrant woman she was. She had often wondered whether her mother would have been a different person if she hadn’t been heartbroken over her father.
“There was always something. I didn’t know how to host a proper dinner party or smile properly when the photographers snapped our picture. I started staying home more and we drifted apart. I could tell I wasn’t the wife he’d hoped for. Then one night I heard his daddy tell him that I was going to ruin his dreams of becoming president. He told his father he’d made a commitment to me, and as a good Christian, he wasn’t going to break his marriage vows. He said he’d just have to give up his dreams. That’s when I left.”
Kat put her arm around her mother. Emilia wiped her eyes. “I loved him, Kat. I wasn’t going to be the reason he didn’t become the great man I knew he could be.”
“Did you tell him why you left?”
Her mother nodded. “I told him we weren’t right for each other, that he needed to marry a woman who could be his first lady. He was so angry with me...wouldn’t talk to me after I left...said I’d abandoned him. Then you came and I had a new purpose in life. By then he’d remarried and had a perfect new wife. I saw them on TV, the perfect couple. She looked great on camera. I figured if I said anything he might sue for custody, and I’d lose you, too.”
So that was when it had all started. Kat’s aunt had told her that undiagnosed postpartum depression had made her mother spiral out of control. But what if it was heartbreak, too? She squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying. “I don’t have to do this, Mom. I don’t need to know him. I’ll quit the campaign.”
Her mother grabbed her arm. “No, Katerina, I want you to know your father. I should have found a way to tell him. You need him now.”
Something in her mother’s tone gripped her heart. “What do you mean, Mom?”
Her mother shook her head. “It’s time, Kat. It’s time.”
Kat wanted to press her mother, but a look at the wall clock told her it was almost time for the video call with the senator. Muttering an excuse about a grocery-store errand, she left. She drove to a nearby coffee shop and parked in a dark spot.
After powering up the tablet and following Crista’s instructions to sign into the video chat app, all she had to do was wait. The senator would initiate the call. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she was sure he’d be able to hear it on the other end. She took out the BlackBerry to distract herself and noticed several messages from Alex. She must’ve missed them when she was talking to her mother.
Do you want to come to DC tomorrow? Briefings on the IED bill.
Would be good experience for you.
Hello?
Good material for your book.
Kat? I see your BlackBerry is online. Are you ignoring me?
This is not how I expect my staff to behave.
She’d seen the other staffers constantly glued to their phones, but she refused to use the holster that would let her clip it to her person. Crista went as far as to say that she only wore clothes that allowed her to attach the BlackBerry. Kat thought about how to play this with him. Going to Washington, DC, tomorrow? It would be a three-hour drive for her, and she’d have to leave well before dawn to avoid the horrendous rush-hour traffic in DC. It was a long trip for one day. But she would get to spend it with Alex, away from campaign headquarters. Maybe she could grill him about his endgame, find out what he was up to with her.
She thought about how easily she’d melted under his intense gaze. Was it a smart idea to spend more time with Alex? She punched out a message.
Chill. My BlackBerry was in my purse.
His response came seconds later. The man must have lightning-fast fingers.
