Author: K.A. Linde

“I’m okay,” she said softly, taking his hands in hers.

They were still shaking. She knew what had just happened. Their cover had been blown. Brady was going to withdraw from her. Tonight was their last night. She knew it just by looking at him. And yet she was more concerned with comforting him than worrying about that.

“Are you going to be okay?” Liz asked, sliding her hands up his chest and running her hand along his jaw. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his soft lips. It felt like good-bye.

“Let me deal with Heather and Elliott, okay? Don’t go anywhere,” he pleaded. She wasn’t sure how he expected her to go anywhere when she didn’t have a car, but she wasn’t planning on leaving him alone.

“I won’t. I’ll be here, Brady,” she said softly, trying to stay strong for him. “But what does this mean?”

“Don’t worry.” He kissed her hard. “Nothing is going to happen to us. I’m going to deal with it.”

“Brady,” she said, knowing that couldn’t possibly be the case.

“Baby, stop,” he said, clutching on to her. “I can’t handle this with all of those questions in your eyes. Just trust me.”

Liz nodded slowly. “Okay. I trust you,” she whispered as the front door banged open again.

Brady pulled away from her with a soft smile. “I’ll be right back.”

Liz watched him walk away from her as Heather entered with the short, beady-eyed guy Liz had seen following her around the past couple months. He must be Elliott…whoever Elliott was. Neither of them looked pleased.

Brady slid the office door open, and Heather and Elliott walked inside. Elliott shot one nasty look in her direction before passing Brady.

Liz sighed. Great. She was the bad guy in this.

Brady followed behind them and slammed the door shut with such ferocity it hit against the other door and popped back open.

She heard voices from the other room, which had to mean that they were yelling at one another. She glanced around and wondered whether she should put her dress back on and get ready to go. She was certain that by the end of this conversation, she would be saying good-bye to Brady and someone would be driving her home.

Liz tiptoed forward toward the door. She would rather hear everything that was being said than wait for Brady to tell her the sad news. What could be the worst thing that could happen if she got caught—she couldn’t see him anymore? That was already a real possibility.

Liz tried not to make a sound as she peered through the small opening in the door and listened in on their conversation.

“How long has this been going on, anyway?” Heather demanded. She was standing in front of the bay window, her arms crossed over her chest, leveling a hard stare at Brady.

“I don’t see how that is relevant information,” Brady growled.

“You’ve been off your game, Brady. Don’t think we haven’t noticed,” she said immediately. “Has it been going on all summer? Is this why we made that stupid appearance on campus? Because if you changed my fucking travel schedule for your little fuck buddy, I’m going to…”

“What?” Brady yelled. “What are you going to do if I changed anything for her?”

“Be fucking pissed off!” she yelled back.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Elliott said, placing his hand on Heather’s arm in an attempt to calm her down.

“He’s ruining everything, Elliott,” Heather grumbled. She turned away from them both. “I thought we were all in this together.”

“I’m not ruining anything. You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Brady said.

Liz gave a sharp intake of breath. She hoped it wasn’t heard from the other room, because Brady had surprised her. She couldn’t tell whether he was defending their relationship or simply saying that this hadn’t leaked to the press yet, so the campaign was still safe. Either way it was surprising. She felt as if everything was ruined.

“I’m blowing this out of proportion,” Heather said, whirling back around. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? You are sleeping with a college reporter, for Christ’s sake. Have you even read her terrible articles? Do you even care what she thinks of you? I read everything out there. It’s in fucking print that she thinks you’re a joke. Don’t come at me with some I want some pussy remark and expect me to take this lightly.”

“Really, Heather? How long have we been working together? Have I ever been the guy to jump at some random pussy? Honestly?” Brady asked, his voice cold and hard.

“Both of you stop it,” Elliott said, standing between them. “As your lawyer, I strongly encourage you to reconsider your position and calm down.”

His lawyer. Well, that makes more sense. He is skeezy enough for the job, Liz thought.

Brady took a few steps away from them, placed his hands on a shelf, and took several deep breaths until his hands stopped shaking. “Fine,” he said finally. “What are you guys doing here anyway? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yates dropped out,” Elliott told him.

Liz’s mouth popped open. One of the competitors in the primary had dropped out of the race. That meant Brady had only one other opponent, Charles Hardy. This significantly increased Brady’s chances of winning. Hardy was a seasoned politician, but he didn’t have the financial backing, the charisma, or the name that Brady had.

“He dropped?” Brady asked, stunned by the new development.

“Yes, we drove all the way over here, because you weren’t answering your phone. We thought you would be interested to know what your competition looks like,” Heather told him. “It’s a different ball field with only one other guy. That makes it a horse race. We can win a horse race, Brady. We can win.” She whispered the last phrase as if she wasn’t sure he understood what it meant. This clearly meant a lot to her too.

“What does Alex think?” Brady asked, his voice betraying how hopeful he was about the outcome.

Liz had heard Brady mention Alex, his campaign manager, before. He didn’t like to talk about him or really anything about the campaign much when they were together, but she had gathered that Alex was a strategy man. He preferred to work behind the scenes and let Brady and Heather take the front on anything in the spotlight.

Heather glanced at Elliott and he nodded. “He said it’s a go. You push hard the next couple weeks…and I mean hard, Brady, not what you’ve been doing all summer. If you do that, you have it in the bag, and Alex knows his shit,” Heather said.

“Then I’ll do it,” Brady said simply, like it was the easiest decision he had ever made. “I’ll do whatever it takes to win. You both know that.”

“Then you’re going to have to get rid of the girl,” Heather said plainly.

“Heather,” Brady growled.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with her. Even if she hadn’t written those articles about you, she wouldn’t be an ideal choice. She’s too young, and she’s still in school. Brady, you need someone who makes you look electable, not someone who makes you look like you’re robbing the cradle,” Elliott piped in.

Liz felt as if she had been punched in the gut. Well, there it was all laid out before her. She was too young and didn’t make him look electable, aside from her slamming articles.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Brady asked, shaking his head.

“Brady, you want to win. So stop fucking around,” Heather cried. “This election is important.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he yelled back at her. “Why does everyone think that I’ve forgotten? I’ve been giving everything I have to this campaign, and I’ve been doing it for a long time now. I know what’s at stake, all right?”

“Then you’ll get rid of her?” Elliott asked, lacking any compassion in his voice.

Liz felt as if she were sitting with her head resting under the guillotine, waiting for the blade to slice down. It was over. Both of them had told him it was done. That was that.

She couldn’t even breathe. She had to hear him say it. She had to listen to him agree even if it would break her.

“No,” he said softly, his anger tightly controlled.

Liz wasn’t even sure she heard him right, her heart was beating so loudly in her ears.

“What?” Heather and Elliott blurted out at the same time.

“She’s not going anywhere,” he said, meeting their gazes head-on.

Liz stood very, very still. Was he…No, she couldn’t have heard him right…

Heather rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, please, you’re not going to risk everything for her.”

“You’re being irrational, Brady,” Elliott said.

“I fucking love her, okay?” he yelled back at them without any restraint. “So she’s not going anywhere…I love her.”

Liz stumbled backward away from the door she had been peering through. Her body tumbled forward through the entranceway to the living room, and she collapsed onto the couch, panting. Her mind was whirling all around her, and her hands were shaking.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God, she thought over and over again.

He loved her. Brady loved her. He had told them no. She couldn’t comprehend all of this right now. She just couldn’t.

He had never told her that he felt that way. She couldn’t have even guessed that he would feel that way. Her heart was fluttering all over the place, and she half felt as if she might throw up.

What would she say if he told her? What was he going to say when he came back out of that room? She couldn’t let him know that she had heard. She had to pretend she hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted her to eavesdrop. She had thought it was because he was going to give up on her, but it was actually because he loved her. She couldn’t even think the word without stumbling over it.

Liz heard the voice grow louder and the sound of the doors sliding open. She tried to calm down by breathing slowly and steadily, but she wasn’t sure if it was working. Would he know that she had heard him or would he assume she was freaked out? Because she was really freaked out.

The front door opened and closed a second later, and then Brady appeared again in the living room. The anger was gone from his face, but she wasn’t sure what it was replaced by. She usually could read him so well, but it was different now. He loved her.

“You’re still here,” he said softly, walking over and taking a seat next to Liz on the couch.

“I told you I wasn’t leaving,” she murmured, her voice shaking. She couldn’t keep it steady, and she knew it made her sound scared.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out and taking one of her trembling hands in his, “you’re not going anywhere.”

“What did they say?” she managed to get out.

“A lot of bullshit, but we got it worked out. Ted Yates dropped out of the race. I have a pretty busy month ahead of me leading up to the primary,” he told her.

“He dropped out?” she asked, hoping she sounded surprised.

“Yeah, you’ll hear about it tomorrow. I have a press conference at eight in the morning.”

Their conversation stalled and she waited for him to say something. She didn’t expect him to blurt out how he felt, but she was waiting for something…anything.

She asked the inevitable question. “What are we going to do now that they know, Brady?”

He paused before looking up into her eyes. She saw it then, what she hadn’t been able to figure out before. Holy shit! He loved her. He actually did. She swallowed hard and tried not to cry.

“Nothing is going to change, baby,” he said, reaching out and running his hand across her cheek. “They want me to win, so they’re going to make sure it doesn’t get out.”