Disclosure of the Heart (The Heart Series) (4 page)

“
Desnudate mi reina. Quiero verte desnuda
.”

Of course I obliged and wiggled off my panties. What woman wouldn’t? Phone sex with Juan Carlos was great, and it was downright awesome when he spoke Spanish.

Chapter Three

T
HE
F
OLLOWING
M
ORNING
, I was determined to remain focused on the two most important things in my life: my boyfriend and my career. Those were solid. I should nurture and enjoy them. Because my job was so all-encompassing, keeping busy with work was easy. And to make sure Juan Carlos didn’t leave my mind, I’d occasionally look at his photo or send him a short text. All in all during that morning, I did pretty well at concentrating on what really mattered—until I caught a glimpse of Adam as he walked into the briefing room.

The same simple question from the day before came to mind:
Why?
Why was he in my life again? Was he just passing through? Or was there a reason?

I sneered, a little annoyed with myself for even wondering that. Since I was young, I’d hated the saying that everything happened for a reason—like there was some invisible metaphysical hand maneuvering us through life. If fate existed, it sucked. When I was sixteen, my mom, my sister, and I had been in a horrible car accident. My mom and I had lived. Lauren hadn’t. There was no good karmic reason for that.

While I believed in an afterlife that had to be better than a mortal one, I didn’t believe God called anyone home early or designed our daily life. Humans had free will, which left our lives up to chance. In my mind, the world was random. Otherwise bad things would never happen to good people, and innocent little girls would never be killed by drunk drivers.

I snuck another look at Adam, whose head was down as he flipped through his reporter’s notebook. He was doing his job, just like I was doing mine.
See. No reason
, I told myself. There’d been no cosmic realignment that brought Adam back into my life. I simply needed to have that coffee with him like I’d told Lisa I would. Then I could live in the present when I saw him every day, rather than plunging back into a past that was long gone. I vowed to myself I would talk to him that day.

As usual during the briefing, I ended up fielding some questions from Univision’s Antonio De La Fuente. Matt always handed the podium over to me whenever we dealt with the Spanish-speaking press. You could say we were pandering to Latinos whenever I answered questions in Spanish, but I liked to think it was better for everyone if we were accurate and effective in all our communications.

Personally, I liked talking with Antonio because he was friends with Juan Carlos. So when he came up to me after the briefing, I was happy to answer his follow-up questions. He was still a Latin flirt, of course, and he couldn’t help but end our conversation with a little wink.

Continuing to smile as he walked away, I looked over to see who was next in line to speak with me. My grin froze when I saw it was Adam, and the surprise caused me to softly exhale. Every sane woman thought he was attractive, but did they also have a physical reaction to him? He stirred something in me. Was it my body remembering what we used to do together, or was it that he’d filled out since he was seventeen and I appreciated the difference? Whatever it was, it felt dangerous.

“I only speak English,” he said.

He touched his tie like he’d admitted to a shortcoming, but it only drew my attention to how well-dressed he was. Seeing him so urbane, I didn’t believe that English was his only language.

“Really?” I asked.

“Maybe a bit of French.”

Shards of forgotten memories reconfigured in my mind, and I could clearly envision his French workbook sitting on my childhood desk. My smile grew. “I think I remember that.”

He laughed and gradually locked eyes with mine. He was silent for a few seconds before saying, “Hello, Nicki. It’s so good to see you again.”

It was a formal yet sincere-sounding introduction, and I responded in kind. “You, too, Adam.”

“Your Spanish sounds lovely. Where did you learn to speak it so well?”

“Over the years, and then I…and also my…” Getting into a lengthy discussion about my time in the Peace Corps didn’t seem appropriate at the moment, and words completely escaped me when I thought of mentioning Juan Carlos. This was certainly the wrong time and place for that. It was the right moment, though, to pose the question, “We should probably go for coffee one day, don’t you think?”

“Yes, that would be nice.” He crossed his arms, looking far more comfortable with the situation than me. “But how about lunch instead?”

Lunch. Lunch was longer than coffee. It was more intimate than coffee, too, though it was still completely innocent and professional. I slowly nodded.

“I dare say you’re busier than me,” he said. “So you tell me when.”

“Oh, I think it’s always going to be crazy for me around here. We can go whenever.”

“How about tomorrow, then?”

“Sure. So far I’ve only eaten lunch at the White House Mess. I’ve seen a salad bar around the corner not far from Blair House.” I figured a salad bar was lunch, but only a step above coffee as far as intimacy.

“The White House Mess? You need a proper lunch, then. Maybe the Old Ebbitt Grill?”

I knew the name of the restaurant. A Washington institution and hardly a date place. It was the kind of establishment an aristocratic BBC reporter would take an administration official. I played it cool. “It’s not too far away, right? I don’t know my way around DC yet.”

“Just a few streets over.”

“Is one o’clock all right?”

“Certainly.” He then ripped a page from his notebook and began writing. Handing it over to me, he said, “Here’s my mobile number in case you need to get hold of me.”

I took the paper and stared at it for a moment. His handwriting was the same, though a little messier. Back at the apartment, I had earlier samples. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve gone home and compared them. Not that I wanted to. They were tucked safely away with all the other emotionally charged mementos of my life. Best to keep them out of sight.

“Thanks,” I said, slowly coming back to the present. “There shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s good to have. They’ve handed out my number, right?”

“They have.”

“Good.” He’d always been tall, but now I felt even smaller around him. Like I was powerless. I looked around what was now an emptying room. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, tipping his head to me.

“Bye, Adam.” I smiled, but my teeth clenched as I turned around. In order for me to have a professional relationship, there was no other choice but to break the ice. Catching up over lunch was the right thing to do. I couldn’t believe it was happening, though.
What have I gotten myself into?

When I rushed into the restaurant the next afternoon, the cute twenty-something hostess smiled. “Running late?”

“A little.”

“What’s the name of your party?” she asked, looking down at her register.

“Kincaid. I’m meeting Adam Kincaid.”

Her head rose from the book, and I felt her eyes give me a once-over. Obviously she wanted to check out who was meeting the hot guy for lunch. By the quiet nod she gave me, I guessed she wasn’t that impressed. A little annoyed, I eyed her back and decided she was too pretty to be smart. I may not have been a supermodel, but I wasn’t dumb.

Not wanting to think about it anymore, I asked, “Is he here yet?”

“Yes. I’ll take you back.”

As she led the way, I followed her stilettos, feeling childishly grumpy. When we arrived at the table, Adam stood up and greeted me with a very professional handshake, though his smile was warm. I glanced at the hostess, who appeared to observe it all. She turned on her heel, probably thinking it was only a professional lunch, just as she’d thought.
Fuck her
. Though I had to wonder why I cared.

The first few minutes of my lunch with Adam went along easily as we looked over the menu and ordered. When that was done, I peeked at my phone, mostly out of habit, though it also provided me with something to say.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s rude to check my phone all the time, but I have to keep up with what’s going on.” I shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“No worries. I have to do the same.”

“It’s funny that we ended up sort of in the same field.” I took a sip of water to steady myself.

“Well, I was always going to go into journalism. That’s rather boring.” He eased back in his seat. “How you got to the White House is a far more interesting story.”

“I really don’t think it’s interesting at all. It’s sort of by inertia that I’m here.”

“Inertia? What do you mean?”

“A body in motion stays in motion along a straight line, right?”

“So you started doing one thing—working for James Logan—and didn’t stop?”

“Pretty much. I was in school at UT for a couple of years—”

“UT?” He cocked his head. “Ah. The University of Texas.”

“Exactly. You remember now.” I chuckled.

He laughed as well, but his eyes locked on mine again. I noticed the brown in them shown against his green tie. His tone softened a bit. “Oh, I remember.”

He remembered. He remembered what? UT? Or did he mean something else? Not wanting to dwell on what was most likely a very insignificant sentence, I started to babble. “When I was a sophomore at UT, Mom remarried. His name is Bill Delano, and he’s a successful school superintendent. He really turned around the Houston schools, so he got the opportunity to move to take over the Los Angeles school system. He and Mom moved to California while I was in college. I decided to transfer to the University of Chicago, near my dad. That’s where I started interning with President Logan when he was a state senator. He was friends with my dad.”

“When did you practice your Spanish?”

“The Peace Corps.”

“Really?”

“It was actually at President Logan’s urging. After college, I’d been working for him in the governor’s press office for a few years. He suggested I go in the Corps, so I joined and was in Mexico for two years. I came back to work for him afterward.”

“So you were in the Peace Corps.” He leaned forward as if I’d surprised him. “I thought you wanted to go to law school.”

“I always expected to—my dad pretty much demanded it, but once I was working in politics, I didn’t want to. President Logan had been in the Corps when he was young and recommended it. For me, it was an amazing experience.”

“What made you want to live out of the country?”

“The time was right for a break. Mom was in California, and Dad had married his long-term girlfriend, Michelle. Anyway, it felt like it was time for me to do something on my own.” I chuckled. “And it was only Mexico. It’s right next door. I got to go back home during the year, and both my parents came to visit.”

“Hmm. I don’t remember Sylvia ever saying you lived in Mexico.”

My heart skipped a beat. I always wondered how much Adam’s sister told him about me. It wasn’t like she knew that much, but even though I hadn’t seen her in years, we were pen pals. Did she show Adam my Christmas cards? Had he wanted to keep track of me?

I searched his eyes, looking for an answer, and said, “I kept my apartment in Chicago as my permanent mailing address since I was coming back there anyway.”

“So your time in Mexico is where you got your impeccable Spanish?”

“I wouldn’t call it impeccable. It’s really only passable, but it’s enough to get me around.”

“Antonio seemed impressed.”

“That’s because I have an Oaxacan accent. He’s from there.” I smiled. “Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about your family. I know that Sylvia is in New York.”

“Yes, working as an editor at a publishing house specializing in art books.”

“You know, I’ve never asked her, but does she still paint?”

“A little. Not a lot. About halfway through art school, she said she learned enough about art to know that hers sucked compared to everyone else’s.” He raised a brow. “So now she’s a bloody critic and thinks she knows everything.”