Chapter 17

Friday, September 6

The morning that Harrison was leaving for Bishop, Arkansas, it was raining. A dark day pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows, and a fog obscured the view of the city and the trees she’d gotten used to in the last few days.

And oddly, it matched her mood.

It was weird that she would be alone here. In his house. Without him.

“Other than the Voters luncheon, you won’t have anything on your schedule,” Harrison said, putting his suitcase by the door. “Have you called the doctor?”

“I have an appointment tomorrow.”

He nodded, as if that were all that needed to be said about that.

For all their team spirit, the baby was still a no-man’s-land between them. Never discussed. Sometimes she got the sense that he wanted to change that, ask her about it, be involved, but perversely she wouldn’t allow it.

She had to stop herself from getting sucked so totally into this huge life of his. He could use her for the campaign and she could like it, even love it. The meetings and the events. The glitter by association. The teamwork. It was exhausting, but she felt like she was a part of something.

And that was seductive.

But something had to remain hers; not everything could be used as fuel for his campaign. And the baby was what she was clinging to. The baby and her red teacup and being stubborn and perverse for the sake of being stubborn and perverse.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Sleep, mostly. I have to call my landlord and end my lease.”

“What about your stuff?”

“My brother is going to box it up for me.”

“He can send it here?”

“He was going to deliver it personally and then stick around for a week,” she said, straight-faced. “He can sleep on the couch, can’t he?”

“Is that a joke? That’s a joke.”

“Is it?”

In the end she couldn’t keep a straight face and they both smiled, cracking the strange tension of his leaving and the doctor’s appointment.

From the back bedroom she’d been calling home, she heard the ringing of her cell phone.

“I need to go get that,” she said, putting down her teacup and ducking out of the kitchen and away from Harrison.

The room was dark, the curtains still drawn. The bed she slept in was shoved in the corner, covered in amazing gazillion-thread-count sheets and blankets. In the corner was a treadmill, which might explain her husband’s physique if it weren’t covered top to bottom in boxes.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed her phone from the windowsill where it was charging.

The number had a Philly area code.

Nora. It was Nora. She must have gotten word from the bank that the mortgage had been paid and maybe that a bank account had been set up in Olivia’s name.

She suddenly had two hearts, one in her stomach the other in her throat.

For a moment she allowed herself to imagine the words coming out of Nora’s mouth: Come home. We miss you.

“Hello?” she said, her eyes closed, daring to hope.

“What the hell have you done now, Ryan!” Nora snapped.

“What … what do you mean?”

“I got a call from the bank today. I have to go down there and sign papers because the mortgage has been paid off and an account has been set up in Olivia’s name and I’m in charge of it?”

“Why are you making this seem like a bad thing?”

“How’d you get the money?”

Don’t, she told herself. Don’t make it worse. Don’t be awful just because she is. But in the end, she’d bitten her tongue enough in the past few days and she couldn’t anymore.

“Well, you’d never believe this, but I made enough sucking dick—”

“Ryan!” Nora exhaled, long and slow. “Can we talk seriously?”

“You’re the one who called with accusations, Nora.”

“Okay. How did you get this money?”

“I married Harrison Montgomery. It’s all part of our prenup.”

The shocked silence on the other end of the line should have been satisfying, but her world was too messed up. “You married him?”

“I did. If you ever read a newspaper, I imagine you’ll see my picture.” She almost told Nora about the baby, but the poor baby had been through enough the past few days.

“Are you … okay?”

Ryan closed her eyes against the sting of tears, but somehow that wasn’t enough. She had to climb up onto the bed and lie there in a fetal position, her head buried in the mound of blankets on the unmade bed.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully, unsure of where that would get her with her angry sister.

“Are you in danger?”

My body, no. My heart, maybe?

“No. I’m … he’s nice.”

“And you’re such a good judge of men?”

“I would have thought you’d be grateful!”

“Don’t tell me you did this for us?”

“Who else would I do it for?”

“Yourself! Oh … God, Ryan. I don’t … what the hell am I supposed to say to that?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, beyond exhausted. Beyond defeated. “Can we start with thank you?”

“Fine. Thank you.”

The connection buzzed with silence. “Dad … Dad misses you. Olivia’s harassing me all the time to get you to come home …”

“What are you saying, Nora?”

“I’m saying come home.”

She lifted the phone away from her face and covered her mouth with her hand so her sister wouldn’t hear her sobbing.

“Ryan? You there?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice thick, and she knew Nora could tell she was crying. “Thank you, but I can’t right now. In a—”

“What?” Nora’s tone was sharp. Hurt.

“I can’t come home right now. I’m in the middle of this campaign …”

“Six years you’ve been begging to come home and now you’re too busy? Isn’t that just fucking like you?”

“Nora, I can’t just walk away.”

“Do what you want, Ryan. You always do.”

Nora hung up and Ryan did, too, and pushed the phone away, as far as she could.

“Ryan?” It was Harrison and she lay there, stretched out across the bed, watching him in the doorway. “Was that your sister?” He knew she’d been waiting for Nora to call.

Flush and wicked with some reckless wind, she did not sit up.

Fuck you, Nora. Fuck. You. I do what I want? Hardly!

But maybe it was time to start.

Harrison was nice.

And her sister made her feel like shit.

And in the end, really, wasn’t this what she was good at?

“Yes,” she answered. “It was Nora.”

Harrison stepped into the room. She stretched out her leg, loving the way he could not stop his eyes from following the movement.

“I want to give you these,” he said, lifting a set of keys and a scrap of paper. “The keys to the condo and the code for the garage. I’ll have the car, to get Ashley. But in the future you can use it whenever you need it.” She took the keys and the scrap of paper and set them down on the windowsill with her phone.

“Would you like to sit down?” she asked.

To her great surprise, his weight made the mattress dip and she scooted up to higher ground so she wouldn’t roll into him.

“Are you okay?”

She pushed her face into the sheets for a second, wishing she could just melt into them.

“Not yet,” she said, her voice muffled in the sheets. “But I will be.”

“What did your sister want?”

She tilted her head to see him. “The bank called about the mortgage and the account set up for Olivia.”

“She wasn’t happy?”

“Nora might be physically incapable of happy.”

“I’m sorry. I know you had hoped …”

“She told me I could go home.”

“Really?” Oh, he sounded so happy for her. How novel to have someone happy on her behalf for once.

She waved her hand, as if dispersing that happiness like a swarm of little bugs. As if it didn’t matter, as if it didn’t sit on her heart hard enough to leave marks.

“What about you?” she asked. “Are you happy to go see your sister?”

He nodded, his face different … calm, relaxed. Sweet.

“Tell me about her.”

His smile was fond and it made her chest squeeze with envy.

“Ashley’s … better than the rest of us. She sees the best in people. Works hard on behalf of people who most of the world forgets. She can be brave and headstrong and trouble … lots of trouble.”

“I think I would like her.”

“You probably would. Are you missing yours?”

“Every—” Her voice cracked. “Every day.”

Harrison shifted on the edge of the bed so he faced her more fully, and she wanted to touch him and be touched by him. She wanted to feel good and wanted. To make someone else feel that way.

She wanted what they’d had in the hotel room.

“Will you tell her about me?” she asked, wanting to matter. To someone. “Your sister?”

“I’m guessing she knows already. The news.”

“Right,” she said, embarrassed. “Of course.”

For some reason, in this hushed room with both of them wearing so little, she found it hard to hold on to her defenses. They rolled off her fingers like marbles. Hard and real, but irrelevant.

“That night,” she whispered, “at the hotel, it wasn’t a lie. Not for me. I didn’t know who you were. I wanted … I wanted you for you.”

“I know.”

“Now you know? What’s made you change your mind?”

“You.” His hand was an inch from hers. Less than an inch. If she moved her finger she’d touch it, and what kind of domino effect would that have? If she touched his hand, would he touch hers? Would he touch her face, her neck, her breasts? The sudden ache between her legs? “You can put on a show, but I don’t think you’d lie.”

“Was it a lie for you?” she asked him.

He lifted his hand and it stalled halfway between them.

Do it, she thought, please. Touch me.

And then he did. With a tender hand he stroked back the hair on her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. She swallowed a gasp, like some still and silent thing just waiting in the deep for a spark to bring her back to life.

And his touch was that spark.

“No. It wasn’t a lie. I wanted you and that night, I think I would have done anything to have you. But I’m not that man,” he told her. “I’m not … Harry.”

“Are you sure?”

His smile gave her that familiar gut punch of happy. “You’ve met my family.”

“You’re not your family.” That came out a bit more fierce than she’d expected. She could blame Nora for that. And for this painful compulsion in her body, that in the dark landscape of the last few months was too bright.

“I’m not?” His thumb traced the side of her face, touched, just briefly, the corner of her lip. “I’m sure most of the time that is all I am.”

Her breath shuddered in her lungs and she felt brave, of all things.

“Don’t you wish—”

“I was someone else? No. Not really,” he said, cutting her off. His blue eyes the color at the center of a flame.

She thought he might kiss her and she thought she might let him.

But then he stood. His touch gone. The moment over.

“But I was a different man that night, and it was nice,” he said at the door, his hand against the door frame.

She knew better, she did, but somehow Ryan wasn’t totally convinced.

Saturday, September 7

It seemed like her appetite returned just as a small silver bowl of peach cobbler was set down in front of her at the League of Women Voters Annual Community Luncheon. She’d picked her way through the crab cakes and a wedge salad, but not even sitting next to Patty could kill her sudden hunger for the cinnamon ice cream on top of peaches that literally melted in her mouth.

“Perhaps smaller bites?” Patty murmured out of the side of her mouth.

“You gonna eat yours?” she asked back, pointing at Patty’s cobbler with her spoon.

The luncheon had been actually quite nice. It was held in a ballroom at the Hilton filled with pink and white lilies and chandeliers and more blond hair than could be naturally possible. Patty, in front of a room full of other people, had been subdued. Chatty, even. And as much as it pained Ryan to admit it, Patty in her natural habitat (which seemed to be a ballroom filled with rich women) was pretty impressive. She knew everyone and was gracious to everyone, particularly the women who looked like they would have happily ignored her.

There was a steady stream of women waiting to talk to her, ask her questions. Ask for help and advice. Noelle, beside her, took steady notes, and accepted business cards from women who wanted appointments.

Patty remembered everyone’s name! It was miraculous.

Patty was kind of the Queen Bee.

And Ryan was a little in awe.

Ryan had her own lineup of women who wanted to talk to her. Most of them just wanted to coo over her ring and ask backhanded questions about Harrison and how they met. She sensed a few astonished and sour grapes and imagined that many of the beautiful and accomplished women in this room had believed themselves perfect for Harrison.

And they would be.

Too bad, ladies! she thought, entertained by the idea that Ryan Kaminski from northeast Philly, with her own potent mix of hot sympathy sex and a defective condom, beat out all these rich women with their pedigrees and diplomas for the most eligible bachelor in Atlanta.

The ballroom was emptying out, and staff in white shirts and black vests came out with the big trays to take away the dishes left on the tables. Luckily, they were starting on the other side of the room, leaving her plenty of time alone with the desserts at the table.

“Can I sit down?”

It was Noelle behind her. Noelle with her terrifying efficiency and her blond hair pulled back in the tightest bun ever conceived outside of the Russian Ballet.

“Are you talking to me?” she asked through a mouthful of ice cream.

Noelle glanced around the mostly empty ballroom. “Yes, Ryan. To you. Can I sit down?”

“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “Hand me that one, would you?” She pointed toward one of the uneaten cobblers on the other side of the table.

“Are you kidding? That’s someone else’s food.”

“She didn’t even look at it.”

Noelle grabbed the silver dish and set it down in front of Ryan with a thump.

“You can have some if you want,” Ryan said, hoping she wouldn’t want any. “It’s really good.”

Noelle put down a stack of files and didn’t so much sit as kind of collapse into her chair.

“Do you have a plan for when this is over?” Noelle asked.

“I’m going to take a cab back to the condo—”

“No, I mean, when this …” Noelle twirled her hand around the ballroom. “When this charade you’re a part of is over.”

“Why?” Noelle, surrounded by the wilting flower arrangements and empty tables, seemed like a sorority sister at the end of a bad night. Ryan put down the silver bowl. “You okay?”

“Like you care?”

She shook her head, marginally entertained at the sudden venom from the quiet girl. At least it was something she understood. All these backhanded women with their double-edged compliments left her off balance.

“Would it be easier for you if I didn’t care?” she asked.

“Why in the world would you care about me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You haven’t done anything to me.”

“My boss wants to annihilate you.”

“Well, I didn’t say I cared about your boss. As far as I can tell, you are not the same person.”

“Oh, God, there are days I’m not sure if we are.” Noelle put her head in her hands as if her skull were just so damn heavy. “I started working for Patty ten years ago, right out of college, and I thought I was so lucky to get the job, to get the chance to work with the Montgomery family. I thought I would be doing something. Something real.”

“You don’t think you are?”

Noelle laughed. Like really laughed. It was very strange. “I’m helping a vindictive and paranoid woman strangle her family. And lie over and over again to the voters of this state.”

“Noelle, maybe this isn’t the best place for this conversation,” she breathed, looking around to see if any of those backhanded women were lurking behind flower arrangements. Was this a mental breakdown? She’d witnessed more than her share of women losing it in public places, but never someone as locked down and together as Noelle. She was blinking a lot, but that could be the bun. Ryan patted Noelle’s fist beside her files. But at first contact, Noelle jerked her hand away.

“No. Don’t. Oh, God, the last thing I need is you pitying me. I’ve made my own decisions. But you need to have a plan.”

“I’ll be okay, Noelle, don’t worry about me. But what are—”

“Patty has asked me to find your ex-husband.”

The ice cream she’d eaten congealed in her throat and she choked. “Paul?”

“I can put her off, but she’ll find him.” Noelle took a deep breath and picked up her stack of files. “You seem like a nice woman. I admire the way you’re not backing down and frankly, I think the best thing for Harrison would be getting away from this family, but it won’t happen. Get a plan. Get one now. And get out.”