Wendy was making her way around the ball room we used for the conference. It was being reconfigured for dinner.

My engagement dinner.

I hadn't had time to confront Evelyn again, but I had to tell her that I can't do it, politics be damned. People would just have to deal with a single man running for office. Wouldn't my military background and successful business career be enough? I was a billionaire, not some run-of-the-mill local shop owner who barely scraped by.

I bought into this "Perfect Wife" thing all too easily. I let my aspirations lead me more than my intuition, and my intuition has never let me down before.

I know when a deal is right and when a deal is wrong. I just feel it.

Wendy is right and Victoria is wrong.

If we hadn't come back to my home town, I would probably have gone along with the charade because I wouldn't have had any reason to challenge it. On the surface, Evelyn was right - it did look better for a politician to have a wife, it was better to be the "family values" candidate, Victoria was connected, even if she was a vapid waste, her family was very influential in several markets... though, I think they probably were successful because they figured out how to blackmail politicians before they even got into office.

Power corrupts, unfortunately. But it doesn't corrupt Daryl Dinero. Daddy don't play.

Every time I saw Wendy, I smiled at her. She looked great in this new dress. I undressed her with my eyes, and took every chance I had to check out that ass. She knew how to work it, though she feigned ignorance.

I ran into Victoria, but she was busy gabbing away on that damned phone. I hoped the snow would topple the nearest cell tower and she'd be out of luck. She might go insane if she's suddenly cut off in a small town.

I smiled at myself. That would actually be fun to watch.

Not Wendy, though - she's made her way here. I forged a different path, but we've both managed to be successful in our own ways. Maybe it wasn't so bad to stay in this two-horse town.

"Hey, I've got a few minutes, let's find a warm, out of the way spot." Wendy had done her hair and makeup - just a little, enough to enhance what's already there, not to cover up.

Damn, why didn't I ever come back for her all those years? Was I afraid of her? Was I afraid she wasn't interested in me and she wouldn't return my love? Was I afraid she would?

"What do you have in mind?"

"Let's go down to the spooky basement and see the server closet!" She drew out 'spooky' and waved her fingers when she said it.

I didn't typically go into the basement in my hotels unless I was inspecting the place prior to purchasing it. I didn't want any surprises. When I went, though, I never went into the server closet - I'd have no clue what I was looking at.

It was warm and more than a little muggy in there. "Is it supposed to be this humid?"

"No, and you shouldn't keep servers in the basement, either." She looked at me pointedly.

Point taken.

"You spend a lot of time in here?"

"Well, Jeff never came in here because he knew fuck all about the servers, and Lisa doesn't come in here because it's too hot and she's... well, let's just say she's a typical woman of her age."

"You spend a lot of time alone, then?"

She pulled out a keyboard drawer, turned on a monitor and punched in some commands. A bunch of text flew across the screen but it was meaningless garbage to me.

"You know what all that means?"

"Yeah... well, most of it, anyway. It's a lot of system codes and stuff that's getting logged."

"You wanna get logged?"

She looked me up and down. "Daddy, you can lay that log in me any time you want."

I pulled her up and kissed her. Kissed her like I missed her.

Because I did.

I wanted to ask her to come with me, to come away and say goodbye to this place. I could pay for her mom - shit, I could buy that whole damned trailer park and add it to my portfolio whether it was for sale or not - and I could make her... and me... happier than we'd been in a long time.

Why didn't she try to find me all those years? Why didn't she tell me when her dad died and she fell on hard times?

Something beeped and a bunch of red lights started flashing. She pulled away and sat back down at the terminal.

"Oh, c'mon, not again. This damned router keeps going out and the server backup link goes down, not to mention our entire internal network." She looked up at me. "You'd think our wealthy benefactors would bestow upon us a router that was made in the last decade."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll have someone get on that. You need a job?"

The smile faded from her face. She was about to say something when the equipment started to beep again.

"I've got to go. I'll be right back. Hold that thought."

* * *

Since Wendy didn't come "right back," I called Evelyn to tell her that I wasn't going through with her little arrangement.

I didn't get a chance. She starting going off on me as soon as she answered the phone, without even saying hello.

"That little tramp of yours has been digging around in your emails!" Her voice was shrill and I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

"What do you mean? I've been with her. She's just doing some... I don't know, computer stuff?"

"I had the IT manager look into it back in Vegas. All of our systems are connected, we do that right away for security of the casinos."

"You had him look into what, Eve? All those emails you've been sending?"

"What? I told you, I didn't send those emails. It must have been you."

"Evelyn Malieux! You know damned good and well that I run my business through you and my cadre of assistants. I don't have time for email."

The line went quiet.

"Eve?"

"Bob - the IT manager? - Bob told me that someone copied all of your incoming and outgoing emails. And the logs. AND set up an alert to go to '[email protected]' once per day, with the an activity log of your activities as an attachment."

"What are you saying, Eve? English!"

"Your plump little plebeian is spying on you."

It was my turn to be quiet on the line.

"Wendy? Really? She didn't even know I was here."

"Maybe you should rethink our arrangement, Daryl. Victoria is a little lower on the IQ distribution but she's very pretty and ticks all the right boxes. Besides, she's not there to talk, you are. She's eye candy and politically beneficial. She's the Perfect Wife."

The door opened and Wendy came back in. "Sorry that took so long."

"Okay, Evelyn, I gotta go. I'll talk to you before dinner."

Maybe Wendy isn't different, after all. Maybe she's just an opportunist, and using our shared past to trick me.

If she was, she was doing a great job because she had me completely fooled.

"Is the taskmaster cracking the whip again?" She laughed but stopped when I didn't laugh with her. "Why so serious?"

"Why did you ask me if I was sending a lot of emails earlier? Have you been sniffing around my emails?"

She looked a little panicked.

No, Wendy, no. Please don't burst my bubble. I don't want to believe it.

"There was suspicious activity that was tripping our intrusion detection systems. Most of the activity seemed to be centered around your email address. So I asked you. Simple as that."

I didn't believe her. I felt betrayed. Anger welled up inside me.

"Why didn't you come looking for me all those years?"

"Me? YOU were the one that insisted that a long distance relationship wouldn't work."

"But your dad died. He meant the world to you. Your mom fell apart. You said you had nobody. Why didn't you come to me?"

"I already told you-"

"And why are you logging my email activity?"

She stopped and took a deep breath. "Do you trust me?"

"What's that got to do with this?"

"Do you trust me!" Her brows furrowed and her nostrils flared.

"I don't know, Wendy. I've had a great time with you but I don't think you trust me. You don't go logging my emails if you really trusted me." I stood up and went to the door. "I thought you accepted me for who I am, instead of just trying to use me for money or influence like everyone else. Now I find you're trying to dig up dirt on me? Who put you up to this?"

"I do trust you, Daryl - Daddy. I don't have all the details but I'm saving this information because I think Evelyn is crooked."

"Evelyn? Are you just pinning this on her because she had corporate IT figure out you were spying on me?"

"She did WHAT?" She turned and began typing away on the computer, pulled a USB drive out of her purse and plugged it in, kept typing. Lights flashed, the screen had a wall of text flying faster than I could read it.

"What are you doing?"

"Something I shouldn't be - saving your dumb ass."