Chapter Twenty-Nine
Josh
When Monday rolled around, I felt both nervous and excited. I was actually very surprised that I’d managed to sleep the night before. I was usually a terrible sleeper when I was stressed about something, but I’d slept right through the night without any issues whatsoever. I had assumed that it had a lot to do with my state of mind since Reagan had entered my life. We were entering the final days of the campaign, and the election was finally in our grasp. Reagan had messaged me early that morning to tell me that things were looking good for me and that all we had to do was to continue what we were already doing. It was a nice message to wake up to. She always knew exactly what to say to me, and it was good to know that she also wouldn’t tell me something like that if it wasn’t true. She was a stickler for details and spent more time looking up how the campaign was going than she did breathing at the moment.
Reagan had spent most of Saturday with me despite us both saying she could leave first thing in the morning. We’d woken up late on Saturday morning and made love before getting out of bed. It had been a while since I’d had sex with someone upon waking up, and I’d forgotten just how nice it was to start the day off that way. We considered going out for breakfast but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to keep our hands off each other, and we didn’t want the public seeing us. So we decided to stay in. We made breakfast together and sat together in the living room eating, drinking, and going through the newspaper like an old married couple. I kept sneaking glances at her and smiling at the sight of her in my t-shirt. I’d always thought that married life would be boring, and that people weren’t meant to settle down with just one person. But the more time I spent with Reagan, the more I was starting to think otherwise. I didn’t feel like I had to be anyone else but myself when I was around her. I didn’t feel the need to change any aspect of my personality. In fact, I wanted to better myself when I was with her. I wanted to be a better version of myself just so that I could make her happy.
I chuckled as I made my way to work that morning. I was turning into such a softie because of her. And the funny thing was that I didn’t mind it one bit. I couldn’t wait until the election was over. I had already decided that once everything was over, I would pull her aside and ask her out on a real date. I had no doubt in my mind that we would become a couple. I couldn’t wait to stop sneaking around, and I was sure that she couldn’t wait to finally tell Dana about it. I knew it was killing her because she told Dana everything, but I appreciated that she thought too much of the election to ruin it. I promised her the same and hadn’t yet told a soul. Although, unlike Dana, I was sure that Kason wouldn’t be too happy to hear that I was getting involved with someone from work. Especially someone that he had warned me not to get too close to. But Kason could not compare my situation with Reagan to his situation with the cleaning lady. They were two vastly different things. His had been based purely on lust. Mine also included a lot of lust, but it also included something else. Something that I was eager to explore in the very near future.
I got to work and I could feel the pressure from everyone in the office. First, I knew that the election was near because everyone was in the office early that day. Obviously, nobody could sleep in anymore knowing that there was still work to be done. Second, there was a strange buzz in the air, as everyone seemed to be talking over each other at once. The phones also did not seem to stop ringing—this wasn’t unusual except that it very early in the morning for so many. I made my way to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee before the day got ahead of me, and saw Reagan there making one for herself too. I looked around and saw that we were the only two. I quickly rushed up to her, looked around again just to make sure, and planted a quick kiss on her mouth before just as quickly pulling away. It was a huge risk, and one that I probably shouldn’t have even considered taking, but I couldn’t help myself.
She grinned. “That was nice,” she said. “Coffee?”
I smiled and nodded. “I’d love a cup of coffee.”
Just then someone walked in and I breathed out a sigh of relief that it hadn’t been a few seconds ago. I told myself that I was going to have to be more careful. We didn’t have that much longer to wait, and I didn’t want to ruin things in the last day. Not after all the hard work we had put into the campaign.
“This is it!” Reagan said as she handed me a cup.
The two of us walked back into the office talking about how crazy the week ahead was going to be and how we couldn’t let our guard down even once. I told Reagan how grateful I was that she had joined the team and how I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to handle it without her. She’d taken away a lot of the fear and doubt that I had felt before. She’d also taken away a lot of the stress, but that had more to do with our personal time together than our time in the office. I asked her to email everyone in the office and schedule a meeting in an hour.
“We’ve got this,” I said to her, and she beamed at me.
“Good to see you looking so confident.”
“Confident, but not cocky,” I said and smiled back.
“Ah, you’ve come along way,” she said. I felt that she wanted to say more, perhaps flirt a little, but she knew she couldn’t. She flashed me a smile and told me that she would see me in the conference room in an hour.
An hour later, we were all gathered inside the conference room. I looked around at all the faces and was surprised to see how many people were there. Even during our regular meetings, we didn’t have everyone in the office at the same time, and it was nice to see how many people were involved in the work. I told them all how grateful I was, and did a little speech about how it couldn’t have happened without them. I explained to them how crucial this last week was and then opened up the conversation to any questions or concerns. The meeting took about an hour, and as I waited for everyone to walk out, a woman I didn’t recognize all that well told me that she thought Reagan should get a prize for how much she had done for the campaign.
I beamed at her. “You’re absolutely right. I think she came at the right time too. She totally saved our butts.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed the difference since she joined. People have worked harder, and the mood has lifted. She definitely knows what she is doing.”
“Thanks for mentioning it. I’ll make sure that she knows how much it means to us all,” I said. Oh, I was looking forward to telling her alright. No, I was looking forward to showing her!
I walked back to my office and sat down, ready to start on some of the work for the day. Ralph came in moments later with a frown on his face.
“What’s wrong? I thought the meeting was a good one,” I said.
“It was. But I spotted some woman trying to steal some papers from us.”
“Some woman? What woman? And what papers?”
“Dark brown hair, uh . . . she was wearing a green coat.”
I gasped. That was the same woman that was telling me how impressed she had been with Reagan.
“What happened?”
“I caught her taking some papers. She ran off before I had a chance to get to her. I followed her out, but she was gone. I have no idea where she went. I looked up and down the road but couldn’t find her, so she had obviously planned an escape route from the start.”
“And you don’t know what she took?”
“No. I have no idea. I’m assuming she was from Frank’s team or something. That’s the only thing it could be. What she took I honestly don’t know. Maybe she was looking through our desks when we were all in the conference room.”
“She spoke to me after the meeting. I thought she was just a freelancer or something. I know that we’ve hired a few people that only come in a few days a week. I figured she was just someone I haven’t had a chance to meet formally. Or someone that I just haven’t dealt with much. The last thing I would’ve expected was that she was here for any other reasons. I can’t believe this.”
“She spoke to you? What did she want?”
“Nothing really. She was just telling me how impressed she was with Regan.”
“Reagan? What does she have to do with anything? Maybe she was just trying to throw you off. Make you think that she was part of the team or something.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I’m going to go around and see if anybody has any notes missing. Will you do the same?”
“Yeah, I was about to do it.”
I walked out the office and started walking around, asking people if things were missing and helping them look through their desk. I made my way over to Reagan’s desk and saw that she wasn’t there. I felt strange going through her things without her, but after asking Ralph, I found out that she was out for the day attending to meetings. I had no other choice but to look through her desk. Reagan was very tidy, so it didn’t take me long to look through all her papers. It also didn’t take me long to discover something that she clearly didn’t want me to discover. It was hidden under a pile of paper and I would never have seen it had I not been rummaging. The papers were from a private investigator called Mack Leary, and they went on in detail about the current situation with my mother—a fact that I had not told anybody about. There was no reason for Reagan to know about it other than her digging into my past to retrieve it. There was also no reason for her to dig into my past unless she was not on my team at all. Was Reagan planning to unleash this in the final few days just before the election, and right when it was too late for me to come back from it? A sudden memory of her talking to Frank Hirshman at the gala came flooding to the forefront of my mind. I thought of the way he had looked at her, and how she had smiled back at him. Everything came crumbling down around me as I realized that Reagan was not who she said she was. Reagan was a spy. And I had officially been duped. I wasn’t sure which emotion was stronger at that moment—anger or sadness.