Private Politics (The Easy Part) (22 page)

Brushing off the sting of Liam’s repudiation, Alyse got to her feet. “We’re going to sit on the other side of the fountain. You two can deliberate. If you want to chat, meet us over there whenever you’re ready. If not, just leave.”

She strolled across the plaza without a backward glance, aware that Liam was following her only because of the shuffling sound behind her. When she picked one of the cold green benches where she could keep an eye on Geri and Ryan, Liam sat a little closer than he had before.

“How do you think it’s going?” she asked.

“As well as it could.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their coffee and watching the traffic zip around the circle in its complicated patterns. Almost normal. Things between them were almost normal. Whatever that even meant. She didn’t know how to make it better.

I’m sorry
wasn’t enough. So inadequate. And what could she do that would convince Liam? He wasn’t a grand gesture type. He wanted honesty and commitment, but why would he believe them even if she offered them now?

When Alyse couldn’t bear to be alone in her thoughts any longer, she asked, “What do you think are the odds that they agree to help?”

“Better than I would have thought. They’re scared.”

“If they say yes, what happens next?”

Liam laughed and for the first time all morning, he looked like himself. If he’d thrown his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close, it would be like the fights and the breakup never happened, but of course the odds of that were nil.

“I don’t know. I was bluffing. I’m not a journalist or a lawyer. I’m an overgrown political nerd who stumbled into this and is hoping to ride it into the big leagues. A place I probably don’t deserve to be.”

“Liam.” Something in her tone arrested him, because the look he gave her heated her from the inside out. “You keep telling me to believe in myself. Do I need to reflect all of that back to you? You run an immensely successful blog. You’re combining journalism and commentary, navigating a changing media scene. You have a staff and you manage them beautifully. I think—”

Liam shook his head and waved a shoulder at Geri and Ryan walking over to them.

Geri sat with a huff and began speaking almost immediately. “The thing you have to know is we didn’t come up with this plan. Rynsburger did. He proposed it to Ryan, who thought of YWR because—” Ryan reached out and squeezed her hand, “—well, he just did. And I agreed only because I thought it would be undetectable. I thought it would help pad our lobbying budget and increase Ryan’s time with the committee, which would be bound to help us indirectly. I never meant to harm YWR. You have to believe that, Alyse. I love our work. I believe in our mission. I would never hurt the organization on purpose. I also never meant to involve you. I—I’m truly sorry we’re having this conversation, that you found out at all. I’m so embarrassed.”

She buried her face in her hands and let out a little sob. Ryan pulled her close and muttered something soft Alyse couldn’t make out.

Alyse swallowed and looked away. Okay, so there was a distinct possibility Geri was the best actress on earth. And even if the tears were real, surely they were motivated by the legal and professional consequences barreling toward her as much as anything else. But in that moment, watching her cry, Alyse felt sorry for Geri.

It had been such a screwed-up two weeks.

Before Alyse had a chance to response, Liam said, “You’re going to want to lawyer up and go to the auditors and investigators. Today if possible. They’re going to want to move quickly because Rynsburger knows there’s a whistleblower.”

“He knows?” Ryan blanched beneath his fake tan.

“We think he does, anyway. But if you can, give me some leads. Is there anything public I could look into to lay some groundwork? Anything you know about him?”

Ryan bit his lip and nodded. “Here’s what you need to know about Rynsburger...”

Chapter Twenty-One

Liam had the distinct impression Alyse was trying to drive him insane. He was on the brink. She and Millie were making dinner—a rare Sunday evening meal at their apartment and not with Parker’s family—and while Millie was sensibly dressed for the foul late March weather, Alyse’s indecently skinny jeans and tank top would have been better suited to the beach. Or his fantasies. Any place other than her kitchen when he couldn’t, shouldn’t, be watching her.

Worse yet, the straps of her shirt would not stay in place. Even now, the left one dangled between her shoulder and elbow. He’d seen more of her—lots more of her—but something about her tousled hair and disheveled shirt combined to become way more seductive than it should be.

He was tempted to yank the strap up, or perhaps to yank her entire shirt off, except he wasn’t going to do either because he was keeping his hands strictly to himself. His eyes were another matter.

The making of spaghetti seemed to require an inordinate number of things from the lower cabinets—which was possible. It wasn’t like he made much spaghetti. Maybe all those pots were necessary. Or maybe Alyse didn’t know her own kitchen that well. He wasn’t complaining, but the crouching and the bending and the exposed shoulders and the perfect hair and the curves he’d had access to for too short a time were distracting.

With a shake he turned back to his laptop. His stuff was spread over Millie and Alyse’s kitchen table: laptop, notebooks, coffee cups, cell phone charger and remnants of an afternoon snack. Since Saturday morning, he and Alyse had been working through the tips Ryan had given them. They had put together a number of stories about the South African construction magnate’s dizzying network of DC connections. The other Poindexter staff had been hard at work too, but she’d been there continually.

They had pieced together a messy influence machine that skirted the line of legality perhaps even crossing it now and again. It seemed highly likely Rynsburger had made illegal contributions to political campaigns, but the guy was good. His earlier FARA investigation had left him spooked and smart. In the absence of a smoking gun, they’d written several smart but careful posts hinting at his activities. Every word was true and carefully cited, but the implications were dangerous and incendiary.

Poindexter had held off publishing any of the new material because Ryan Scott was making a few last contacts with Rynsburger and some folks who worked for him, trying to get something concrete for the investigators.

Once Ryan gave Liam the okay, however, Poindexter was going to launch an entire series of new stories about shady lobbyist dealings, of which the Rynsburger piece was only one.

Liam had been around the business long enough to know such stories were unlikely to make a difference in the cosmic sense, but they were going to make some people very uncomfortable. He could live with that.

“Can you taste this?” Alyse held out a spoon heaping with something red and steaming.

He tasted it gingerly and then lapped up the rest. “Much better than the stuff out of the jar.”

With a satisfied smile she said, “Don’t get too excited. I followed Millie’s directions precisely.”

“Don’t be modest.”

“We both know I never am.”

The weekend had been...confusing. Other than last night, when he’d gone home, he’d been with Alyse since early Saturday morning. She’d been normal, as in before sleeping together normal, but flirty. She’d never lapsed into her lost little girl routine. She’d never slammed on the brakes or pulled away like she had often before. She’d made calls, poured through documents and written thousands of smart words. She’d listened to his theories, asked questions and argued with him endlessly.

It was all very
His Girl Friday
.

Except more confusing because he knew what she looked like naked. He knew how she sounded when she came. And he didn’t think he could scrub those things from his brain, nor did he want to.

But this wasn’t going to work either—this thing where Millie and Parker conveniently ignored the fact that he and Alyse’d broken up. Their friends were still talking about them as “you two” and planning things that sounded like double dates. As if they could be tricked into dating again.

He couldn’t risk it again—a few more days of bliss and then a broken heart. There was no way; he couldn’t recover from that a second time. He wasn’t remotely over the first go ‘round.

As soon as Ryan called and gave him the all-clear, as soon as Poindexter published the new stories, he was going to get out of this apartment and avoid all three of them. Parker with his mischief, Millie with her motherly interventions and Alyse with the throwing of her considerable assets in his direction. Jeez, the woman didn’t really need to add cooking to an already long list of sterling qualities. No! To hell with them all.

“What about this? Is it done? Is it al dente?” Alyse offered him a fork.

He took it and bit down without hesitating, which he then regretted. “Um, no. Not so much. That needs a few more minutes, babe.”

Never mind about the cooking. He wasn’t adding that to her list just yet.

“Sorry!” She handed him her glass of wine to wash it down and turned back to the spaghetti. She stirred the pot vigorously with a wooden spoon—as if lack of stirring had been the problem.

For a long minute, he had trouble swallowing. Not because of the undercooked pasta, but because of the vise-tightness that had stolen into his chest as he’d played this domestic scene with her.

He had said he didn’t want to be a yo-yo for her, but he did want this, did want her. If she turned around right now and apologized, if she asked him to take her back, how could he say no? How would he make up to her the part he’d played in it? Because it wasn’t like he was blameless. He’d pushed and overreacted and generally been an ass. When he wanted so much, when he needed so badly, he was not the best version of himself with her.

But that’s what made their relationship such a difficult riddle. Maybe in the last analysis they were too different. He was open and optimistic, and she was...she wanted to be open and optimistic but she wasn’t yet and he wasn’t sure he could be there for her while she figured it out. He was just too damn exposed with her.

Smooth, cold fingers slipped down the nape of his neck and into his collar. He startled and looked up into her face.

“Your tag was flipped out.” Her hand lingered on his shoulder and it took considerable self-control not to pull her into his lap and kiss her.

She didn’t remove her hand. Each second that passed when she didn’t pull away and he didn’t move cased the heat between them to flare until he was surprised the kitchen wasn’t ablaze.

“How’s the story coming?” she asked finally.

“Fine.”

“Need anything?”

He licked his lips and considered saying,
You
,
forever
, but decided against it. “Nope.”

She dropped her hand—regretfully, he hoped—and turned back to the pot. Over her shoulder, she asked, “No word from Ryan Scott?”

“No, though I’m not surprised.”

Liam turned back to the report open on his desktop—a breakdown of the big lobbying firm’s budgets—but he couldn’t concentrate. He tried to ignore the girl swaying and humming along with the radio next to the stove but it didn’t work. He needed...he needed an election. He’d be able to ignore her in an election season. There was always a
story du jour
to parse, new polling data every hour and a constant stream of negative ads to analyze. So in the fall, he’d be fine. Yup.

He shot a glance across the kitchen to the soft flare of Alyse’s hips, to her fingers tapping out a rhythm on the counter. She’d put on a Latin jazz station for him. She hadn’t asked. She’d remembered and she’d done it because it would make him happy even though he hadn’t noticed at first.

Or not. Not even an election was going to get him over this one.

Just then, his phone buzzed, indicating a text from Ryan Scott.
Smoking gun in hand.
Passed on to the guys.
Go ahead and do your worst.

“We, uh, got the go-ahead,” he told Alyse.

She turned and smiled broadly. “You can publish the stories we wrote?”

“Yeah, Ryan says he got something. He calls it a smoking gun—though he provides no details—so I’m going to set these stories up to publish over the next day and a half. I’m giving you a byline of course. And we’ll work from there.”

“Sweet.”

Liam turned to the posts he needed to schedule and the emails he needed to send. But as he worked, he wondered what came next. That was the entire trajectory of narrative. This, then this, then this. Beginning, middle and end. He and Alyse had a beginning and a middle, but he didn’t understand the end. He didn’t know if he was being smart or stupid, so it was better not to act at all.

For several minutes, they both worked in silence.

“Alyse?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m going to head home.”

She pointed to the mostly finished meal. “But we haven’t eaten.”

“I know.” He felt like a jerk, but he also knew he couldn’t play house with her anymore. He started to clean up his stuff. “I...look, I need to get home.”

“Why?”

It was an utterly logical demand delivered utterly calmly. So he answered it honestly. “Because I’m confused.”

She nodded, accepting this. “This was a shitty time to get together. What happened was...it was just bad timing.”

Liam crossed to the trash can, where he threw some things away, before opening the dishwasher and stacking the dirty dishes inside. “That may be, but we don’t get a do-over.”

They were standing so close now. Close enough that she could have leaned into him. He could have wrapped his arms around her. Physically, it would have been the easiest thing in the world. But something held them both back. Those last six inches might as well have been the first six months he’d known her. The walls between them felt more, not less, unassailable.

“Why not?” She wasn’t upset. The question wasn’t asked in a quavery little girl’s voice. It was the confident statement of someone who knew her worth. Knew also the value of what she was asking for.

“There’s a limit to how many times something can be broken.”

“I was careless. I’m sorry.” In response to this, every muscle in his body twitched and tensed, part happiness, part fear, part exhaustion. For weeks he’d been on edge; he couldn’t untangle all his feelings now. She went on, “I’m ready for it now.”

“We’ll see.” He chuckled without any humor. “Give me a half a second to process this.”

He reached out and ran a finger over her cheekbone. She turned toward his hand and breathed a kiss into palm. The shiver spread from there over his body and burned out through his feet. But he wasn’t kidding. He needed to pause for once with her.

Grabbing his bag he headed out the door and didn’t glance back.