Winner Takes All (31 page)

“Again, I must beg to differ,” he said calmly, watching the play of emotion on her face. “I loved you when you handed Mrs. Hemingway the pen, I loved you when you were spitting Mr. Hammonds at me, I loved you when you were trying to be prim and proper in my mother’s front parlor, I loved you when you were laughing over Ruth and Mark’s honeymoon pictures last night, and I loved you when you had Mrs. Hemingway break up with me an hour ago. If I loved you then, why should I not love you now?”

“But…but…” she stammered, terrified to believe it and yet too scared not to. “I didn’t …you never…”

“After all the times you’ve pushed me away,” he said reasonably, “why am I still here?”

Eva felt a strong compulsion to push him away yet again, to continue to argue or reason with him, but she resisted the urge and let her worst nature win. She would
not
talk him out of loving her. Eva knew very well that she couldn’t do better no matter how many men she met. And she didn’t mean his wealth and influence. No, she knew she’d never find a better human being to love than he.

“I love you too,” she said quietly.

Cole rested his forehead on hers. “I know.”

She rolled her eyes, suddenly feeling happy despite the dreadful circumstances. And it wasn’t just that she knew he loved her, it was the mind-boggling idea that she didn’t have to fight this battle alone. “That arrogance of yours…” she murmured.

“Yes, quite. But that’s not why,” he explained. “I didn’t know how you felt until you tried to kick me out of your life. I thought you were fond of me, but then you didn’t even think of inviting me to your best friends’ wedding—”

She pulled away, laughing. “I’ve already apologized for that.”

He pulled her back. “Apologize again.”

Eva, who would not have believed it possible ten minutes before, perhaps not even five minutes, felt lighthearted enough to giggle. On the day she’d suffered a six-hour Justice Department inquisition, she actually giggled! Then she raised her head and kissed Cole. It was meant to be a quick gesture, a half-hearted apology at best, but as soon as her lips touched his all thoughts of pulling away vanished. He felt so good, she thought, her heart pounding in response, even better than he had yesterday, his embrace having grown significantly more dear for having been so nearly lost.

Cole returned the kiss with an ardor that surprised him. He’d meant to stay aloof and cool and a little detached. She was exhausted from all she’d been through, he knew that. He could see it in every line of her body and in the green depth of her eyes. But she shattered his control. She always shattered his control. As far as he was concerned, Eva Butler was irresistible. She was always too tempting to withstand and right now he was too relieved that she’d given in without a fight to make an attempt. Or, rather, a real fight. The resistance she had put up had been significant, but it didn’t stand a chance against his determination and the knowledge that she must love him terribly to want him gone so badly.

Eva moaned and Cole pulled her closer, tasting whiskey on her breath, another reminder, as if he needed one, that she wasn’t quite herself. He pulled away with great reluctance. “I love you,” he said, tenderly brushing the hair out of her eyes.

Eva found it easier to accept the second time around. “Thank you.”

Cole laughed softly. “For loving you?”

“No, for not believing it, any of it. And for not even asking for an explanation.” She kissed him on the cheek and rested her head against his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said dismissively, leading her to the couch and pushing her down. He wrapped the blanket around her and tucked a pillow under her back. “Anyone who knows you knows it’s not true. Even Mrs. Hemingway, who still resents the smooth way you got past her that first day, recognized it was nothing but lies and fabrication.”

Eva raised an eyebrow. “Mrs. Hemingway’s in my corner?” she asked, not quite able to believe the dour retainer as her champion.

“Mrs. Hemingway, my mother, Ruth, Mark—you’re not in this alone,” he assured her.

She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I know. Thanks.”

“No thanks are necessary. This is what you do when your friends are in trouble: You stand by them,” he explained matter-of-factly. Then he stood up and disappeared into her bedroom. He went to the closet, found a small suitcase and put it on the bed. “If you feel up to it,” he said from the other room, “I’d like to hear what happened today from your perspective.”

Much to her surprise, Eva was happy to tell him about it. So much injustice had been heaped on her head by the Justice Department that she welcomed the chance to vent about it to someone. The defeat she’d felt when she climbed the stairs to the apartment had been replaced by anger.

Eva ran through the day’s events, starting with David’s speculation that morning that something big was going down and the dismissive attitude she’d taken. How ironic to think about that now in light of recent events. She ran through Murray’s questions, explaining the slow way horror and understanding had penetrated.

“I had no idea when they showed me the first email what was in store—or that they had a folder an inch thick full of more emails supposedly from me,” she said now, bitter at the recollection. “And they never once gave me the benefit of the doubt. They just kept asking the same questions over and over again, as if my answers would change the more times they asked. Innocent until proven guilty. Ha!”

She railed against the inadequacies of the Justice Department—“Their coffee is shit, by the way”—and when she burned off her anger, she lamented the lost illusion of her promotion. How proud she’d been to get it and how devastated she was to know she didn’t deserve it.

While she talked, Cole packed her bag. He threw a week’s worth of clothes into the suitcase and zipped it up. Then he went into the bathroom and collected her toiletries. Eva didn’t notice. She was lying on the couch with her eyes closed.

“No wonder Ethan thought I’d be open to dallying with the boss. I’d already demonstrated myself to be entirely without morals. He probably thought sleeping my way to the top was the only route I’d consider,” she observed with a harsh laugh.

Airing such negative thoughts had the converse affect of improving Eva’s mood, and she sat up, feeling hungry for the first time in hours. She recalled the limited choices in her fridge and rejected every one. It would be far better to order in. But what was she in the mood for? Sushi? It was an extravagant expense, but if she couldn’t treat herself to a decent meal on a day like this, when could she. Eva got up to fetch her stack of menus by the front door. As she flipped through them on the couch (Uyee? No, there was too much mayo in the tempura roll. Tomoe? Hmm, last time the Philadelphia roll was a little skimpy on the cream cheese), she decided to take another stab at reasoning with Cole. She was no longer on the verge of complete and total collapse, which should probably strengthen her argument.

“Cole,” she called, wondering for the first time what he was doing in her bedroom, “I really think we should at least discuss some sort of arrangement in which we play down our relationship for the press.”

Cole stuck his head out from the other room. “Give it up, Eva.”

“No, seriously,” she said. “I’m not saying we should break up or even take a break—I don’t think I could stand that now—but there’s no reason to flaunt our relationship. We’ll stay in a lot, and you can go to functions on your own. I probably wouldn’t be any good at socializing anyway while this is hanging over me. We can meet secretly in dark alleys and send each other coded messages. Who knows? It could be fun.”

“We don’t have to go out at all if you don’t feel like it, but we’re not going to sneak around. How’s that going to look to the guys at the Justice Department?” he said with a wry smile.

Eva hadn’t thought about that. “Hmm, excellent question. While I’m devising another scheme to save your reputation, what would you like for dinner”—she managed to whittle the choices down to two Japanese restaurants and she held up menus for both—“sushi or sushi?”

He smiled. “Let’s go with sushi. There’s a great place around the corner from me. We can pick it up on the way home,” he said, grasping her suitcase in his hand.

Eva, busily scanning one of the menus for yellowtail and scallion, didn’t look up. “I am home.”

“No, you’re not.”

She glanced at him quizzically. “Yes, I am.”

“Nope, you’re coming with me.”

“Damn it, Cole, haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said?” she asked frustratedly.

He blinked in surprise. “Of course. You want to keep a low profile and not go to any Hammond Communication functions. That’s cool with me.”

“Keep our relationship’s profile low. Me staying with you is definitely high. I’m still not convinced I should be seeing you at all.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

Cole sighed. “Two reasons. One, it’s too far from me, and two, the sharks are already circling.”

Eva didn’t understand him. She got number one quite easily enough and was warmed by the idea that he wanted her near. She felt exactly the same way, although she wasn’t about to give in to it. But the second reason didn’t make sense to her. “The sharks are circling?”

“Yes, the press. There were two photographers waiting downstairs to get a shot of you. By morning there will be a dozen more.”

This announcement only cemented her conviction that they shouldn’t be together and he could see the resolution jump back into her eyes, but Cole wasn’t going to stand for it. He’d had a hard day, too. It was nothing compared with hers, of course, but it hadn’t been easy for him to sit in his office on the twenty-seventh floor and wait for news. Cole was a man of action, and doing nothing had been difficult for him. He couldn’t very well barge into the offices of the Justice Department, but he had wanted to. With everything inside him he’d wanted to knock down the door and rescue her. He hadn’t been able to help her then, but he would do what he could now: make sure she ate a decent meal and took a hot, soothing shower and went to bed on a soft mattress with a goose-down pillow under her head.

“Eva, this isn’t up for debate,” he said, striving for patience. It wasn’t her fault that he’d felt ineffectual for most of the day. “You’re either coming home with me or I’m staying here with you. My apartment is larger and isn’t being staked out by TMZ
,
but I’m perfectly happy to set up camp here. It’s your decision.”

There was something about his tone that gave Eva pause and stopped her from arguing further. She didn’t understand his determination, but she had the sense to realize that something other than plain orneriness was driving him. “All right, all right,” she said, giving in with what she thought was a modicum of grace. “We’ll stay at your apartment. Let me just pack up some stuff.”

He patted the luggage. “Got you covered, kid.”

She could see that he did. “I suppose it would be good to get out of here. I should probably call Ruth before I leave.”

He shook his head as he picked her coat up from the floor. “You can do that from the car.”

“All right. I suppose I should put on some disguise so the reporters won’t recognize me,” she said, only half in jest. She had a ski cap that would hide her face.…

“Don’t worry about it. We’re leaving through the back entrance. James and I sussed it out before I came upstairs,” he said encouragingly as he helped her into the brown wool coat.

Once she had her coat on, she turned around to look at him, trying to imagine him and his driver skulking around in the garbage-ridden courtyard between her building and the one behind it. He was a little more disheveled than usual and there were lines of worry between his eyebrows, but he wore a reassuring smile. It was familiar and dear and so reassuring that Eva couldn’t resist. She had to put her arms around him and give him another hug. “I didn’t do it,” she said solemnly, seriously, into his shoulder.

“I know.”

She tightened her arms. “I love you.”

“I know that, too.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Twenty hours later
Ruth was wearing a hole in Cole’s living room rug. She refused to sit down, no matter how many times Eva entreated her to.

“You’ve got to relax,” Eva said, putting a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies on Cole’s red coffee table. She didn’t know how an event like this—really, a council of war—was supposed to proceed, but putting out snacks seemed to her like the most logical thing. One always entertained with refreshments. And, besides, she’d needed something to keep her busy this morning while Cole was at work. He’d cut the day short, as had all the council members, but for several hours that day she had been alone with her thoughts and determined not to brood. Hence the chocolate chip cookies and the sugar cookies and the gingerbread cookies and the little marzipan angels with cherry smiles. She had hot chocolate warming on the stove, but nobody seemed interested. They all preferred coffee with their homemade sweets.

“I can’t relax,” Ruth said, frustrated and almost annoyed at the suggestion. “They can’t get away with this. I won’t let them.”

Eva smiled as she imagined the diminutive Ruth charging the Justice Department with a Gucci umbrella and a bottle of pricey designer water from the Swiss Alps. “If you sit down, we can discuss this reasonably and maybe come up with some sort of plan.”

“She’s right,” said Mark, who knew exactly how his wife felt. It was hard to sit still when someone you loved was being used. Worse than used—being set up to take the fall for a crime she hadn’t committed.

“I can discuss this reasonably, even with her pacing back and forth,” said Loretta Hammond as she reached for a gingerbread cookie. “These are wonderful, Eva. I didn’t realize you could cook.”

Eva smiled at the compliment. “Not quite cook but I can follow instructions if the steps are numbered.” Actually, now that she thought about it, she probably should have made a pot of Earl Grey tea and finger sandwiches: cucumber and cream cheese, chutney and egg salad. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon. Too early for dessert.