Chapter Thirty-Nine

The part of him that felt numb was the worst part of all. Somewhere inside him, some part wanted to be floored by Linda's departure. But he simply wasn't. He kept going, the same as he always did.

It didn't sting the way that he'd wanted. The way that it had before. Maybe it was the time. Maybe a few months wasn't enough for her to dig her claws into his heart and when she pulled them loose, inevitably, there wasn't enough meat there to be pulled out.

But there wasn't enough to hurt the way he wanted to hurt. He just felt… empty. Tired. Something in his chest asked whether it was time to pack it in. Maybe he was just desperate at this point, forcing himself to keep going towards a finish line that wasn't particularly close.

People had been telling him since he first suggested the idea, years and years ago, that there was no chance. There was no making the switch from the business world to the political world, and if you wanted to do it, you had to do it the right way. Work your way up the ladder, pay your dues, and ease your way into it.

Adam Quinn never had any special interest in becoming a Senator. He never wanted to be Mayor or Governor, and the truth was, he didn't want to become President, either. If someone else had come along, someone who would do the job justice, then he'd have stayed out. Happily stayed out.

But they hadn't come along. Things had just gotten worse, and they'd been getting worse since he'd shown up one day as a weird tech-kid in California. Never getting better.

Everyone on the street knew it. Nobody needed to tell them, even as the news was saying how everything was turning around, and this would finally be the time that things would get better instead of worse. Might as well have had the news anchors personally kick everyone in the shins, because it had done equally good for them.

Adam closed his eyes. There was no alternative to just running, and trying like hell to make sure that he won in the end.

Sure, he'd like to quit. Sure, he'd like to just go home. And there was nothing, fundamentally, wrong with that. Plenty of other people, good people, had walked away when there was a brick wall in front of them that they couldn't climb over. But something in his gut told him he wouldn't, and sure enough, he didn't.

There would be other opportunities. He just had to work harder, think smarter, and somehow, he'd be able to replace the work Linda had been doing.

That burned, as well. She was good at what she did, and he didn't want to take that away from her. She'd do as good a job as he could possibly do, she'd do it in half the time, and he'd be able to work on other things. He'd much rather have her than not.

But as much as he'd like to be able to say that he couldn't work without her, he wasn't about to lie. He could do it without her. He could do it without Tom. He couldn't do it without both of them, not likely. But he could do without one or the other without killing himself working.

She deserved to be a lynch-pin. Something he couldn't do without. If that person existed, Adam Quinn hadn't found them yet. He could do any of the work he needed done. The problem wasn't flexibility. It was time.

Even with twenty working hours in the day, he couldn't be everyone, all the time. He could only be so many people.

He settled into the couch. Tom lounged on another nearby. Both of them had large pads of paper set on their laps, though Adam had a laptop open beside him, and he had one eye and his left hand making sure that it was being used regularly. There was too much work to be done to avoid multitasking, especially before he'd found a decent replacement for Linda. If one could even be found.

The press wasn't totally negative, for once. They tried to attack him, of course. There was no way around that. But they looked weak. Ineffectual. He was winning again. Their attacks wouldn't stick, and that was all he needed. He didn't need to get away with murder. Just be able to avoid negative coverage as much as possible.

Linda's picture flashed on-screen. The part of his brain that registered problems started working on fixing it immediately, and another pang of guilt hit him square in the chest. He'd already moved on to solving the problem of how he'd deal with public breakup.

When it was just him, there was no problem. Now that he was Adam Quinn, Presidential Hopeful, he had to deal with other problems. But, with some disappointment, he couldn't help thinking that he would manage it without too much difficulty.

The little tug of sadness that had sunk its barbs into his chest—that, he'd manage with a little more difficulty. But in time, he wouldn't have to think about it at all.