Private Politics (The Easy Part) (2 page)

They had definitely been receiving more corporate money than in the past. Much of it came from groups with names like Harding Investment Group and R. Cross LLC rather than the big, well-known foundations, the ones who funded shows on public television and conducted their business out in the open.

No, the increase in corporate money coincided with YWR spending a lot more money on lobbying—most of it going to Ryan Scott—the lobbyist who was their go-between with the Foreign Affairs and Appropriations committees.

Alyse tapped her fingers on her desk, appreciating the press of the wood. Ryan’s relationship with Geri already raised the hackles of a lot of people around the office. Were the two of them together? Was that even appropriate? But he did a good job and nobody really
knew
if anything was going on, so nothing got said.

Lobbyists, and the shadow government they were part of, controlled the money in Washington—that
everyone
knew. The money was obvious. Wolf Blitzer talked about it on CNN. Candidates were asked about it during presidential debates. Reports were produced and hands were wringed about the money.

But the money was a red herring. What really mattered was that lobbyists controlled the information. Members of Congress and even their staffers tended not to understand the minutiae of the issues they worked on. They often left the little details, which was to say the text of bills, up to lobbyists. Once someone had cache with a committee and its staff, he could influence—control, even—legislation.

But even if Geri and Ryan were together, even if Ryan were exerting a little too much power in the Foreign Affairs Committee, what were dummy corporations doing giving YWR money? What did the money represent?

There was no way around it, what she was looking at seemed
bad
. Not like a little bad. Not like accepting a venti latte when you knew you’d only paid for a grande bad. No, really, potentially illegally bad.

She flipped through the pages again and again and trying to figure out how to explain what she was seeing, but nothing came to mind. She shoved the papers into her purse and almost ran from the building.

Outside, there wasn’t any comfort. March in Washington, DC, was not the prettiest month. The barely lit sky resembled wet cement. The wind cut through her coat, which she pulled tighter around herself as she flew down the sidewalk. She concentrated on the sound of her feet snapping out a harsh beat, trying to ignore the pages burning in her purse against her hip. There had to be some explanation.

She fumbled with the keys to her apartment minutes later. Wrenching the door open, she found Millie and Parker curled up together on the couch looking distressingly calm and cute. They were just staring into each other’s eyes like besotted teenagers and it made her want to scream.

All the emotion came out as a strangled, “Hi.”

They startled at her voice and when Millie turned, Alyse could tell her roommate picked up on the look in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, sitting up and pulling out of Parker’s arms. “You look terrible.”

The outside matched the inside these days. Convenient. She ignored Millie’s question and asked, “You’re a lawyer, right, Parker?”

“Nominally.”

“Well, let’s hope that’s enough. I, uh, think YWR is breaking the law.”

Chapter Two

Liam Nussbaum’s fist hovered a few inches below the number on the door. To say that Parker’s phone call hadn’t made a lot of sense would be an understatement. His friend had claimed Alyse was in trouble and needed his expertise in corporate giving law. He had an expertise in corporate giving law? News to him.

But over the last six months, it wasn’t like he’d displayed a lot of sense where Alyse Philips was concerned. The girl was the most ridiculously perfect creature he’d seen outside the pages of a magazine. Tall, blond and stylish—so sophisticated and fashionable even he couldn’t miss it. The kind of girl his college roommates Parker and Michael had routinely hooked up with, only about four times better-looking. The slightest edge of NYC in her voice, the way he felt her smile in his gut and the intelligence she tried so hard to hide until it flashed out: everything about her drove him insane.

Like a puppy dog, he’d followed her around and panted and wished and pined. Of course she’d pretended not to notice, but he’d persisted, hoping that one day she’d look up and realize that she wanted him for...well, at least a night. For months this had gone on until Millie and Parker’s engagement dinner the night before, when she’d flirted back.

Just maybe
, he’d thought.
Maybe
. There’d been precisely ninety seconds when he thought that his rotten luck with women might be ending, before she’d invented some excuse and left early.

No!
came the inevitable answer from the universe and that was fine. He couldn’t attract someone that hot. Someone that vivacious. Someone like her. But knowing it meant he was done trying. Done with anything other than polite detachment where she was concerned.

And yet here he was. She’d snapped her fingers and...no, not really, Parker had called, but still, he had come running. He was a fucking idiot.

Inside the apartment, he could hear the ebb and flow of Alyse and Millie’s voices. Millie’s little soprano sounded entreating, whereas Alyse’s alto quavered. Had he ever heard her anything other than strong? Maybe she was genuinely upset. What had happened?

Then he heard the rumble of Parker’s laughter and the knot in Liam’s stomach released. Things couldn’t be dire if his friend was joking. Did he have to go through with this? Surely she could get herself out of whatever this was without him. She must have lots of fancy lawyer friends better equipped than him to help her with whatever this was. She was a spoiled rich girl hoping he’d bail her out and this time, he was done. He nodded and resolved to go, then the door flew open.

Standing in the entrance was the spoiled rich girl in question. He inhaled and couldn’t remember what came next.

She hadn’t changed out of her work clothes, but there was something disheveled about the slim skirt and fluttery top, though he couldn’t quite place what it was. Her hair, pulled back in some kind of knot, was coming undone, as if she’d tried to run her hands through it. It softened her.

As did the expression on her face. Honest to God, her chin was trembling as if she were about to lose the grip on her composure. She had a garbage bag in her hand, which explained why she’d opened the door. But the real reason he couldn’t look away was her eyes—slate-blue wells brimming with moisture.

When she saw him, she blinked furiously and one rebel tear made an escape down her cheek. Swiping at it with her free hand, she managed something like a smile. She looked relieved. She saw him and she looked
relieved
. Damn it.

“Liam. You came.”

“Hey, what’s up?” he said. He sounded normal and not like he was about to lose it at the sight of her crying, which he was.

“I think...YWR is breaking the law,” she said. Her voice was shaking, all heartbroken and weak, and he wanted to just hold her.

“Ahh,” he said, “is that all? Working for a corrupt organization? Now you’re officially a Washingtonian.”

She closed her eyes, leaned against the jamb and emitted the saddest, least persuasive laugh he’d ever heard. At least he thought it was supposed to be a laugh. Whatever it was, it’d stopped the tears.

“Let me take care of that. I’ll be right back.”

He pulled the trash from her hand, letting his fingers brush over her knuckles in the process and sending a jolt through his body. God, he was
such
a moron when Alyse was within fifty yards of him. He touched her and his brain checked out. How could kissing her be a good idea? He’d probably never recover.

Halfway down the hall, next to the elevator, he found the garbage chute. The rusted creaking brought him back to sanity. What was he doing throwing her trash away? Holy hell. He could not function around her.

Ten minutes. He was staying ten minutes. Then he was going to march himself to a bar and find a girl—any girl—to kiss and erase Alyse from his mind.

He swung the door to the apartment open, and found Parker on the couch, surrounded by about half a dozen throw pillows, with Millie perched on his knee. One of her arms was crossed over her chest, and the other proffered a steaming mug to Alyse who was standing in front of the TV and loudly, fully laughing now. Except he could tell that she wasn’t.

She’d put on a mask over her upset. But the set of her chin was too tight, the tenor of her voice was too high and there was still something simmering in her eyes. Unease. Discomfort. She was never uncomfortable; it was her greatest gift and most attractive quality. He dropped onto the love seat in the corner.

“Want a beer?” Parker asked, one of his hands lazily drawing circles on the small of his fiancée’s back.

There was a time when Liam had thought this—Parker finding a girl and settling down—would never happen. It had occurred in a big, surprising rush. The sight of his friend in the dedicated-boyfriend role still made Liam happy, but it also...didn’t.
He
was supposed to be the nice guy in the Three Musketeers. The solid one. The dependable one. The one without a fear of commitment. How come Parker freakin’ Beckett was engaged before him?

“Uh, no. I can’t stay long,” he bluffed. He turned toward Alyse. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, from the beginning.” The words were unemotional and firm. He’d just have to fake it ’til he managed to feel like that toward her.

“Okay, but I’ve got to warn you, I don’t think I understand all of it,” she said with another unconvincing, carefree laugh.

He glared, not so much at her as at the rug. She wasn’t an idiot. He’d heard her critique the role of aid in the developing world as smartly as anyone he knew. She had a knack for cutting through the crap in a story and articulating the central argument concisely. She was also extremely savvy about people’s motivations and goals, which was what made her a good fundraiser. The “oh, I don’t know, mister” act broke his heart and pissed him off.

She sobered a bit and began to explain. “I was working on getting ready for the annual audit and I found these.” She sighed and pulled a stack of papers from her purse. “They’re donor receipts,” she said as he took them. “None of them individually is that odd, but all of them as a group...something’s not right.”

He examined the pages. Together, they represented several million dollars in donations given to the nonprofit she worked at. Each came from a company he’d never heard of.

After flipping through the papers, he asked, “Who are these folks?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. When I looked them up online, I found some websites, but they just aren’t consistent with groups who would have this kind of money and who would give it to us. The sites all look the same. One still had up
lorem ipsum
under ‘about.’ I sincerely doubt that R. Cross LLC has anything to do with Cicero.”

He smiled at her joke for a flash before saying, “Okay.” He drew the word out, trying to buy himself time to think.

He hadn’t been trained as an investigative journalist. He was a blogger. He never worked with material like this. He played at this sort of thing while trying to keep his blog afloat. He had a real investigative guy on staff and in a few minutes, he’d call Doug up and get his take, but based on Alyse’s face, wary and tense as if she might start screaming at any minute, there was more.

“What else?” he prompted.

She waved at the papers in his hand in sharp, jerky swipes. “My signature is on some of those letters. I wrote them. I approved them. I was...involved.”

He looked down. There it was. And on that one too. “Okay,” he repeated. “So they’re some weird donations. Some suspicious patterns. Could be nothing. Why do
you
think it’s bad?”

She glanced over at Parker and Millie, who’d watched this recitation still as statues. They’d presumably heard it before he’d arrived. Turning back to him, Alyse asked, “Can I trust you?”

He felt anger spear through his chest. What kind of a question was that? Particularly after she’d just laid out all this stuff? But he let go of the emotion with an exhaled breath. She was frightened. Badly so. Also, while he’d spent months watching her, she hadn’t reciprocated. He probably felt like he knew her much more than she knew him.

“Yes,” he said as simply and firmly as he could.

“I wouldn’t have let Parker call him if I didn’t think you could,” Millie offered, shooting him a smile. He appreciated the endorsement, but he wanted to earn Alyse’s regard on his own, not because her roommate stood up for him.

They all waited while Alyse examined him. He sat up a little straighter and pushed his shoulders back. After all, if she was going to look at him, really look at him, for the first time maybe ever, he might as well try to maximize his assets. Such as they were. Never mind, he had no assets, which was the problem, but still, he wanted to look like someone she could trust.

After a beat, she nodded. “I think my boss might be having an affair with our lobbyist. He’s the most obvious beneficiary. These...donations coincide with a big increase in our lobbying budget.”

When she said that, she didn’t appear scared anymore. She looked pissed, a significantly better look on her.

“So?” he asked.

“So? So! They’re funneling money through YWR for corporate lobbying. They’re stealing books out of little girls’ hands for personal gain and hurting my reputation in the process. Liam, I won’t have it.”

Gone was the weepy woman who’d opened the door. She was seriously intimidating when she was angry. She was seriously hot when she was angry.

He grinned at her, backlit and golden and livid, and he
ached
.

Oh well, things were what they were. She’d never see him as anything other than a nerdy friend of Parker’s. There was no hope that they might be different. He was what he was and so was she—that didn’t stop a guy from wishing that for one night, she’d decide to go slumming.

“But where does the money come from?” Parker asked.

The sound of his friend’s voice was a surprise and a distraction. Liam had sort of forgotten that anyone else was in the room, but even with the obvious question posed, he couldn’t bring himself to look away from her blue eyes.

“Any guesses?” he asked.

Still a tower of strength with the barest hint of a smile hovering on her mouth, she shook her head. “That’s what I want you to help me figure out. Well, that and whether I’m ever going to be able to work in this town again.”

With those words, the vulnerability made another appearance, though she smothered it quickly. She was scared at some level and she might have reason to be. She wanted
his
help. If it gave him a reason to spend more time with her, he’d do it, even if it were hopeless and painful.

“We’ll work on it together.”

The mood in the apartment brightened as they discussed how to move forward. He accepted the beer Parker had offered. After they’d settled on a plan, the four of them spent several hours debating the chronic suckage of the city’s NBA franchise, the construction of the purple line of the Metro and a rumor about a cabinet secretary fooling around. The conversation eventually turned to which neighborhood Millie and Parker should buy a condo in.

“I’m telling you, babe, Logan Circle. It splits the difference between Dupont and the Hill...” Parker was saying. Millie was nestled in his side, looking increasingly sleepy.

The person who hadn’t spoken since the shift in conversation was Alyse, who would presumably be left out in the cold no matter where Parker and Millie ended up. She seemed to have relaxed by degrees over the past two hours, the tension mostly vacating her face, but at the mention of Millie’s move, she’d started inspecting her nails.

She sat on the floor. Her shoes were off and long, long legs stretched out in front of her. The girl had seriously arousing feet. Obviously he wasn’t having enough sex. His dry spell must explain his fixation on her.

“It’s such a long walk to the Metro from Logan Circle,” Millie said. “I like the Hill. It’s close to Eastern Market. You can never have too much organic cilantro.” His friend and his girl shared some sort of secret smile at that. Liam felt like an unwelcome intruder on their intimacy, the proverbial third wheel. But what did that make Alyse?

Millie said, “And you could walk to work.”

“But then you’d have a commute,” Parker said.

She shook her head. “I don’t care.”

Parker said, “Plus it’s pretty far from my family.” His mom and grandmother both lived in chic-chic neighborhoods near Rock Creek Park.

During this exchange, Liam watched Alyse as surreptitiously as he could. She kept picking at one nail. There was no way it needed that much attention. “What are you going to do?” he asked her.

She startled at being addressed and looked up at him. “Um, stay here by myself. I’m getting too old for a roommate I’m not sleeping with.”

His cheeks heated. While it made him feel like an idiot, he couldn’t help it. It was probably some sort of payback for all the times he thought about sleeping with her. If his thoughts weren’t so dirty, he wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. It was his own damn fault. Even knowing he should stop, the moment she mentioned sex, his mind went there, to all the dark fantasies he’d expended entirely too many hours on. It was reflexive. And not totally his fault: she looked like she’d be good at it.