The Marriage Agenda (9 page)

He hadn’t a clue what she expected she’d get out of the deal. Guilt niggled. She opted to change the subject. “Well, considering orgasms are forbidden…”

He leaned close. So close, she could see nothing more than the golden flecks in his honey-brown eyes. “Not forbidden. Any time you want one, you just say the word.”

Chloe stared him down. “This may come as a complete shock to you, but when I’m not winning a certain bet, I can handle
that
perfectly fine without your help.”

“Sounds like an event not to be missed.” He punctuated his soft words with an even softer kiss, leaving her acutely, painfully aware of why she had been avoiding him.

She swallowed. “You do realize you don’t have to keep up the act in private, right?”

“What act?” His surprise seemed genuine, which only muddled things more. How could he not realize what he was doing to her?

“This whole touchy-feely thing.”

“I told you it’s not an act.”

“And I told you not to do anything you couldn’t take back.”

“Dammit, Chloe.” Knox stood and crossed the room. He paused at the window with his back to her for a minute before he spoke. His words were soft. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve seen Rex treat my mom like she was an inconvenience. Everything nice he ever did for her was for show—if no one was watching, he turned it all off. Seeing my mother go through that…well, that affected me. How could it not?” He turned and looked at her. “Obviously I never planned to get married, but I did.
We
did. I don’t want you to think for a moment I don’t…appreciate you.”

Appreciate. Well, that’s just great.
It should have been. Hell, it would have to be. She stood. “I’ll give you credit for one thing.”

“What?”

“That woman you eventually fall in love with? You’re going to be amazing.” She paused, trying to force the emotion from her throat. It didn’t work. Ah, hell. She’d already lost her heart. What was a little dignity gone, too?

She had to choke out the words, but she said them anyway. “I just hope she knows how lucky she is.”

Chapter Twelve

The damned house was too small. Thirteen rooms and not a single molecule of oxygen to be found.

Knox had crowded them all out.

Even when he wasn’t there, he filled every room. All Chloe had to do was glance in the direction of their bedroom to picture him emerging from the shower, water droplets clinging to his broad chest. The kitchen reminded her of how he leaned against the counter in the mornings, treacherously sexy with his sweat pants riding low on his hips. Even the way he came home in the evenings and immediately lost his tie, as if he was completely human under the requisite politician façade, made her feel all hot and mushy inside.

She was spiraling hard and fast into forbidden territory, and the reality check she so desperately needed wouldn’t be found under his roof.

Guilt nagged at her. He had promised her a story and given her access beyond her wildest dreams. Would he have done that if he had known his father was her target all along? Despite the fact she planned to follow to the letter her arrangement with Knox, she knew if she found something on Rex, it would be a betrayal of Knox’s trust.

To that end, she almost laughed. A politician who trusted a reporter. It probably wouldn’t be his first mistake, but there remained a very real possibility it would be his last, at least insofar as his political aspirations went. Rex hadn’t fallen…yet. He’d stumbled, but he’d landed fat and happy on a ledge, with no idea of how far he had to go.

Chloe knew. She just needed to prove it. She
would
prove it. But could she live with herself thereafter? She squared her shoulders and decided it didn’t matter—not if she was able to give back to her grandmother what Rex and Pactron planned to take away.

The farm.
Last Chloe checked, there had been air there. Lots of it. After the fight with Pactron, her grandmother had moved to a retirement home not far from her property, and though only a month had passed since Chloe had visited, with everything that had happened in her life since then, it felt like years. The town was far enough from the stink of DC for Chloe to take a deep breath.

It was far enough from Knox.

He wasn’t home, so she scrawled a quick note and left it on the counter. It would have to be good enough. Talking to Knox—even via text—would not be conducive to her search for oxygen.

She had one foot in a sneaker before she realized she wore old jeans and a tee. Now that she was one of the almighty Hamiltons, she had an obligation not to look like a complete slob when she went out, but she wasn’t exactly headed to the White House. The rural one-horse town in which her grandmother lived was a good two hours outside the beltway, and Chloe had no intention of spending that two hours in heels and a dry-clean-only outfit.

Jeans would be just fine.

She grabbed her keys and was precisely ten feet into her escape when she ran into Knox. Literally. She bounced off that ridiculously hard chest and backpedaled to achieve a safe distance, but he had already grabbed her arm, steadying her, his grip depriving her of an escape.

“Everything okay?”

“Sure.” The word sounded as painted and fake as any she had ever uttered, but maybe he was busy and wouldn’t notice.
Please let him be busy.
The man had much bigger things to worry about than—

“Where are you headed?”

Chloe looked down at her jeans and paid a little too much attention to the rip in one knee. She’d seen a similar flaw on a new pair that sold for a few hundred bucks, but she’d gotten hers the old-fashioned way.

“I’m going to visit my grandmother.”

His eyes immediately clouded with concern. “Doesn’t she live near…? Is she okay?”

Her field of vision narrowed slightly at the way he switched gears. Was he thinking of where they’d met…or of the site of the coal plant that had been approved under Rex’s watch? “She’s fine. I just need a bit of a reality check.”

“You’re not changing your mind, are you?”

He’d stopped short of reminding her she was contractually obligated not to.

“No, I just want some air.”

His brow lifted. “We have air here.”

“Your air reeks of politics.”

A corner of his mouth quirked. “I suppose it does.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me—“

“I’ll come with you.”

“What?”

He yanked off his Lorenzo Cana tie and tossed it aside as if it hadn’t cost more than her monthly apartment rent. “It’s early, and I’m free the rest of the day. Do you mind?”

Of course she minded. Two hours in the car with him to revisit the place where they’d fallen in love? Or where she had.
Only you.
Chloe pressed her lips together and stared at the man who didn’t want to love her. “Not at all,” she lied.

“Give me a minute to change. I’ll drive.”

So much for air. She watched him go, thinking she should call Toby and tell him to invent something for Knox to do that afternoon, but then she would have to explain why she didn’t want to be with Knox, which really wouldn’t bode well for her position as campaign wife. Of course, if she gave it the right spin… What politician didn’t love a good spin? Knox should be schmoozing someone other than her—anyone other than her. Kissing babies. Something, anything other than heading for the hills.

She palmed her cell phone, but that was as far as she got. Knox reappeared in three minutes flat, now wearing jeans and a nearly threadbare T-shirt that was the same color as the baseball hat he’d donned.

Oh, God.

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat and failed. He was the man she’d met that night at the bar. The one who had taken her hand and slow danced through the fast songs. The one who’d made love to her all night to the sound of a scratchy radio. The one—

“Chloe?”

She found her voice. “Are you sure you have time? We’ll be gone the rest of the day.”

“I’m sure.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were pulling onto the highway. Despite their unnerving proximity, she was beginning to relax. Knox didn’t try to engage her in conversation, rather he passed the time singing along with the radio, tapping his fingers and shooting crooked grins her way at a pace far too frequent for her already unsteady heart.

She watched him from behind her sunglasses and wondered just who the real Knox was. The polished politician or the guy who had bypassed the car’s air conditioning in favor of a windows-down, windblown cruise in a backward ball cap. The man who was devastating in a suit, but who dropped jaws in dressed-down mode. No more than he wore those jeans, they should have been stiff, but no. The well-worn denim fell against him like sin, fitting him just as naturally as that handmade Italian silk tie he’d tossed on the granite countertop.

“How’s your grandma been?” he asked. As if he knew her. As if he had a right to ask, after his father had somehow been instrumental in throwing her off her land.

“Fine,” she managed.

“If you’re worried about the retirement community, I’ve looked it up. It’s a good one.”

“I’ve been there before,” Chloe said, her words a bit harsher than she’d intended. She’d found the facility to be clean, well-staffed, and beautiful—very much a home-like environment with friendly residents to boot. But it wasn’t the farm.

It wasn’t home.

Knox didn’t push the issue, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he realized the well-publicized Pactron bid had taken her grandmother’s land. She suspected not—Knox seemed far too transparent to hide such knowledge—but she couldn’t discount the fact that he was Rex’s son. Dishonesty tainted the gene pool.

“Will your grandmother be able to come to our reception?”

Chloe snorted, then covered it—albeit poorly—with a coughing fit. Her grandmother would sooner strut naked down Main Street than step foot in a Hamilton function—especially after Chloe had shared her suspicions about Rex—but she didn’t tell Knox that. If she did, she’d have to tell him why, at which point his generosity with his files would turn to ice. She opted for the noncommittal. “I’m not sure she’s up for the drive.”

The truth was, when her grandmother found out about the marriage, she’d probably borrow a cane and chase Knox from the building. Chloe would have to figure out a way to keep them apart, at least until she figured out how to break the news gently—and preferably from a great distance. He could walk her in the building, but there was no way she’d let him past the front desk.

A little over an hour later, the feeble granny theory was blown to hell.

Chloe stared slack jawed at the receptionist. “What do you mean she’s not here? Where is she?”

“At a bocce ball tournament. She’s one of our star players.

“Bocce ball?”

Knox didn’t hide his bemusement. “It’s a game where you throw balls across the lawn—”

“I know what it is,” Chloe snapped, though she hadn’t a clue. Her grandmother was throwing balls across a lawn?

The receptionist, a middle-aged woman with a Maybelline problem, focused most of her attention on Knox. She didn’t stoop to batting her eyelashes, but she wasn’t far from it. “Was she expecting you?”

Chloe ignored the question, which wasn’t directed at her to begin with. “When will she be back?”

“They’re scheduled to return tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow?
Where are they?”

“Pennsylvania. They made regionals,” the woman said brightly. “Can I give her a message for you?”

Her grandmother was at a bocce ball tournament in
Pennsylvania
? Chloe hadn’t been so dumbstruck since Knox had proposed, and before that…well, she couldn’t remember. She shook her head. “No, no message. Thank you.”

She turned, only vaguely aware of Knox threading his fingers through hers as they walked back outside.

Halfway across the parking lot, he spoke. “I take it you didn’t know she played bocce ball?”

“She does crossword puzzles.”

“Is there some sort of law against doing both?”

“This isn’t funny.”

He stopped and tugged her around to face him. “Actually, it’s somewhat hilarious. You had this poor woman pegged for a crossword existence, and she’s off playing in the bocce regionals.”

Chloe wanted to lay into him and tell him just how not hilarious the whole mess was, but it didn’t happen. Instead, her breath caught and she was struck for the umpteenth time by how unfairly attractive he was. Would looking at him ever fail to wreck her? The frustration that had been building since he interrupted her escape softened. “I guess it might be a little bit funny,” she admitted.

Knox squeezed her hand and grinned devilishly. “Want to go find her?”

To Pennsylvania? With
him
? “Actually, I have a better idea.”

Ten minutes later, they navigated the long driveway to her grandmother’s old farmhouse, the car finding every rut. Other than the overgrown grass, it looked as it always had.

When Knox stopped the car, she got out and waded through the knee-high lawn to the wide, wraparound porch. Her sneakers were silent on the old boards, but she nevertheless heard phantom echoes of the slap of bare feet and the very real rumble of a distant summer storm. She reached out and gingerly brushed the petals of a rose that had bypassed the trellis and bowed gracefully into the open space, permeating the air with its fragrance.

She looked up as Knox joined her. “When I was nine,” she said, “I was running out here when a thorn caught me on the cheek. After that, she checked every day to make sure none of the branches made it past the railing so it wouldn’t happen again.”

“If that had happened to me, I probably would have been grounded—first for running, then for any damage I caused the bush.”

“Tell me you’re joking.”

He shrugged. “Only a little.”

She inhaled the sweet scent of the rose, her thoughts heavy. Maybe growing up Hamilton wasn’t all the tabloids made it out to be. She’d always thought of it as a privileged existence, but perhaps reality was more sterile than enviable.

Outside the tunnel of climbing roses, the wind picked up, bringing with it the promise of rain. The old porch swing creaked in the breeze and overhead a sheet of the aluminum roofing groaned. For nearly eight years, that had been the song of her life.

Her heart hurt.

Knox walked over to the swing and, after a moment of inspection, sat. With his long legs stretched in front of him and his arm across the back of the bench, he looked as if he belonged there.

“My grandfather used to sit like that,” she said. “And my grandma would fuss around him, sweeping beneath his feet and icing the tea and tending to her plants. He would eventually get her to slow down and join him, but the next night, he’d have to convince her all over again. I think that’s the only time she ever sat still.”

“Yet you’re surprised by bocce ball?”

She turned her attention to a nearby climbing rosebush, carefully tucking the vines to their side of the railing, just as her grandmother would have done. Then she realized that in time the house and the bush would be gone and her small gesture would be erased. Her vision wavered with unshed tears.

“Chloe?”

She blinked back the moisture in her eyes before she looked at him. She didn’t trust herself to speak, but she didn’t have to say a word.

“Join me?”

Refusing would have been a lot easier than saying yes, but the man inviting her to sit wasn’t the one the world saw.

He was the one she loved.

It didn’t matter how pointless her feelings were…they were as honest as they came, and this was a moment she’d never get back. She released her hold on the stem and eased next to him on the old swing. Countless times she’d watched her grandparents sit there and wondered if she would ever find the kind of love they had.

She had. He’d just never love her back.

Another gust of wind blew, and with it came a smattering of fat drops. They made a racket against the metal roof. “I love that sound,” she murmured.

“How many times have you sat out here watching the rain?” he asked. He eased his fingers through hers and stroked her hand with his thumb.

“Countless.” She melded against him, finding contentment before registering she’d be far better off on the opposite side of the porch.