Indecent Proposal (26 page)

Dad used to love nature shows and she remembered being sick once, a real bad stomach flu that required the couch so she wouldn’t wake up her sister and the big yellow Tupperware bowl by her side, endless glass bottles of 7UP and Dad keeping watch in his easy chair.

In the middle of the night the fever broke and she woke up to a dark room with the television muted.

On the screen were mountains rising up out of the sea. Green, forested cliffs and endless blue water dotted with ice.

“They’re called fjords,” Dad whispered from his spot in the easy chair. “Glaciers made them.”

Glaciers made her and Harrison. They were gone now, but the deep and far and wide distances had been scraped away and sex wasn’t going to bring them any closer.

It is better this way
, she thought, stepping backward into the shadows of the hallway.

Tuesday, September 10

Harrison heard what she said. He did. They were supposed to pretend that nothing had changed. That the sex, and the comfort and care she’d shown him, had not happened. He understood that was what she wanted.

And he even understood why she would think that was for the best. She had a future she needed to protect, a home with warmth and love, and he was the guy who’d destroyed his sister’s chance at happiness.

So he got her reluctance.

But he could not seem to get on board with it.

The morning of the fundraiser he set a plate with a scrambled egg on it next to her teacup and the prescription bottle. It was a peace offering, kind of.

And a statement that he could not totally pretend everything was the same as it had been yesterday.

He didn’t know what he wanted from her, but he did know that this weird half-in/half-out relationship was not it.

But she came out of her room, grabbed the teacup and the bottle, shot him a wan, close-mouthed smile, and then disappeared back into her room, ignoring all of his symbolic scrambled-egg messages.

Right
, he thought.
That was lame
. He got that. If he was going to entice her friendship and trust out of hiding, he needed better bait.

She avoided him the rest of the day, coming out in time to leave for the fundraiser in a strapless black dress that ran over her body like ink.

“You look beautiful,” he said, wishing he had more words to tell her how he felt. How she moved him.

She smiled, but didn’t look him in the eye.

“You clean up nice yourself.” She reached over and adjusted his tie. It was one of those sweet moments between wives and husbands, even fake ones, that he’d somehow gotten used to. That he found himself longing for.

He reached for her hand but she was moving out of reach. Looking more nervous than usual.

At the hotel, Wallace called him aside.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.

“What kind?”

“Brody is here. He’d like to see your sister.”

“Have you told her?”

Wallace laughed and held up his hands. “That’s your job, man.”

In a moment of clarity, he realized he couldn’t let his mother’s behavior be his default position anymore. Protecting the family name at the cost of the family was ridiculous. And if Brody was back here for a second chance, could it be a second chance for him, too.

Harrison walked down to the loading docks near the kitchen. He pushed open the door, letting in an eddy of hot air and stink from the dumpsters. At the sound of the door opening Brody spun to face him, his face alight with hope that crashed and burned at the sight of him.

“Not who you were expecting?” Harrison asked.

“I’m here to see Ashley.” His words were like a planted flag. And the way he stood, arms over his wide chest, legs braced for whatever might come his way, it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere until he saw her.

“I gathered.” Brody looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Or perhaps been near a mirror.

“Look, man,” Brody said. “Nothing is different. I could still get pulled in on this weapons thing. I’m still me, and she’s still her, but … I love her.”

Harrison nodded, leaning against the cement door frame.

The truth was he wasn’t so far ahead in the polls that this wouldn’t matter. It would. Glendale would use this and there would be another series of smear ads on television, with plenty of attention paid to the fact that Brody had dark skin, something that still mattered in some parts of the country.

But his sister’s happiness felt bigger than his election. Than appeasing people he didn’t know.

“What makes you think she feels the same?” he asked. “She waited for you, Brody. Showed up here wrecked because she didn’t seem to mean much to you.”

He’d used Ashley to protect himself before and that mistake was hard to live with. He wouldn’t make it twice. He was here to serve Ashley. To see her happy, and if that meant Brody, then he’d deliver Brody.

“She means everything to me,” Brody said, his voice low and rough, conveying enough emotion that it made Harrison uncomfortable. Brody wasn’t a man who lied. Or exaggerated his feelings. The ache rolling off of him was real.

“And I’d like to prove that to her if I could just …” He pointed at the kitchen over Harrison’s shoulder. “Get inside.”

“I can’t guarantee she’ll agree,” he said. “But I’ll see what I can do. Wait here. I’ll send someone with her answer.”

So after he made sure his sister wanted Brody there, he surprised everyone at the fundraising dinner and let him back in. Like a Trojan horse of potentially bad press, he let Brody in to the event to see Ashley. To give Brody a shot to make it right.

A shot for both of them to make something right.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Ryan asked him when they were backstage watching Ashley, his bright, wide-eyed, optimistic sister, make her way through the crowd with Brody, her dark and dangerous foil, at her elbow.

“Does it matter?” he asked. “Look at her—she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

He turned to find Ryan watching him. There were times when she dropped that wall she had erected, when she was so utterly and totally revealed to him that he couldn’t believe there was any point to pretending they didn’t want each other. Didn’t like each other.

“I’m really proud of you,” she said. Previous to this moment he’d never thought that was something he needed—to make her proud. He’d never really thought of making anyone proud, and the second she said those words, he realized he never thought of it because he’d never had it in his life.

It was like a unicorn.

And God … he’d had no idea what he was missing.

“Ryan,” he breathed, curling his fingers through hers until their palms touched.

At his touch, while he was feeling so exposed, she just locked herself down. Closed up. Vanished behind a fake smile, taking with her the pride and all that connection, leaving him on the outside.

They both waved and smiled under hot lights that suddenly felt ice cold.

Chapter 20

After the fundraiser was over, the lights turned off, the stage partially dismantled, Ryan all but ran from Harrison. From that arm around her waist, the heat of his body at her side, the way he sometimes watched her as if she were a riddle he was trying to figure out. Which was hilarious. She wasn’t the one with different personas.

She was just Ryan Kaminski trying to make this shit work.

Her purse and comfortable shoes were in the suite they’d been using as a staging area and she headed up there, her feet and head aching. All she wanted was to go home, pull the covers over her head, and sleep for a week.

That wasn’t entirely true; she wanted to go home, pull the covers over her head, and talk to her sister. The Nora from years ago, who had good advice and loved her.

I miss my sister
.

She stopped for a second, her hand braced on the burgundy wallpaper in the hallway. There was a raised pattern on it, interlocking squares, and she traced it with her fingers until she could move again. Until she could breathe past the rock on her chest.

Nora
, she thought,
I wish …

She forced herself to keep moving forward, her heart a shriveled raisin in her chest, ruined by wishes.

She walked in just as Ashley and Brody were walking
out, and everyone stopped on either side of the threshold.

Brody, even more handsome, more austere up close, slipped his arm around Ashley’s waist, a silent show of support. Ashley leaned back just slightly against him and the two of them wore their happiness, their affection for each other, like his-and-hers matching sweaters.

It would be nauseating if she weren’t so damn jealous.

“Hi,” Ryan said, holding out her hand to shake Ashley’s, like a job applicant. Part of her yearned for the job, of sister or friend, or something to this woman that Harrison so clearly loved. And the other part was exhausted by all the yearning. Furious over its sudden appearance.

Stop wanting shit, Ryan
.

“I’m—”

“The wife no one told me about.” Ashley slung her purse over her head so it hung across her chest and then pulled her long brown curly hair out from under the strap. Brody smoothed it down her back.

“I … no one told you? Harrison …”

“They don’t tell me anything.” Ashley shook Ryan’s hand, giving her a long, appraising up-and-down. “This is Brody. My …” She glanced at him. “What do I call you?”

“Let’s stick with Brody,” he said with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

“So, not lover?” Ashley teased. Ryan glanced down at her feet, aching inside of her shoes.

“So what’s the story with you and Harrison?” Ashley asked. “Mom told me about the contract.”

“That would be the gist of the story.”

“Do you love him?”

She gaped, no answer available.

“Do you like him at least?” Ashley amended.

She understood what Ashley was doing and why she
was doing it. It was the exact same thing she would have done for Nora, or Wes back in the day.

Ashley had her brother’s back. And as awkward and strained as it was between them, she was glad someone was looking out for Harrison.

“I like him. Admire him. But it’s complicated.”

“I understand complicated,” Ashley laughed. “And I gotta say, you two put on a good show up there. I believed it.”

“That’s my job.” To her horror, her voice cracked.

“Are you okay?” Ashley stepped forward and put a hand on Ryan’s arm, and she found herself wanting to grab that hand and spill the whole story. So at ends, so lost in this thing between her and Harrison and so lonely at the same time, she was unsure of what she would say if she did open her mouth.

So she smiled instead, something she’d gotten very good at.

“Don’t you two have somewhere else you need to be?” she asked.

Brody and Ashley shared a quick glance full of silent conversation.

“Go. Please,” Ryan said before one of them lied and said it was all right. “My problems are hardly worth anyone changing their plans for.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Ashley dug into her bag for a second. “Crap, I was going to get your cell phone number, but I must have left my phone in the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

She took off, leaving Ryan standing there with Brody, whose silence was so pronounced it was a physical thing. She shot him a wan smile.

“You ready for this?” he asked.

“For what?”

“The Montgomery circus.”

“I’m one of the stars, I think,” she said. “The bearded lady or something.”

“It’s different on the inside,” he said. “When they love you—”

“Harrison’s not like Ashley,” she said quickly before he could say another word.

“No one is like Ashley. But Harrison isn’t as cold as he seems to be.”

I know
, she thought.
I know, and it would just be so much easier if he were
.

“And maybe you’re not as hard?” He cocked his head, watching her.

She laughed. “We don’t … It’s not …”
It’s not what you guys have
, that’s what she’d been about to say but that sounded ridiculous, so she just shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

“I was telling myself that, too,” Brody said with a half-smile that was devastating. Good God, the man was handsome. “And you know, fine is plenty until you get a taste of happy. Once you’re happy, it’s all over for you.”

“Okay, okay, I found it.” Ashley came back into the room with her phone. “Give me your number before I run out of battery.”

They exchanged numbers and then Ashley pulled Ryan into a hard, fierce hug and Ryan stood there, wrapped in a sister’s arms again, not her own, but that didn’t seem to matter. It felt good.

And she crept dangerously closer toward happy.

Ryan woke up Thursday night, something she’d been doing more and more of. Heartburn, having to pee, a sudden desperate craving for Oreos dipped in peanut butter—all those things were ruining her sleep on any given night.

She shuffled from her bedroom down the dark hall to the living room, where the television was still on, the volume very low.

He sat in a corner of the couch, his tie pulled loose, the buttons of his shirt open. His eyes riveted to the screen. The light from the television and the latest of Glendale’s last series of smear ads were flickering over Harrison’s face.

The campaign had hit a rough patch. Maynard was not letting up. The op-ed pieces were getting more pointed. He’d been all over talk radio talking about how the Montgomery family had failed the people of Georgia, and that Harrison was no different than his father, and he wanted to see the reign of Montgomerys in Georgia politics stopped.

And Glendale was coming after him with everything they had. Radio ads, billboards along I-75; you couldn’t watch the local news or listen to the radio without three or four ads for Glendale, and at least half of them smeared Harrison.

They did more press. And still more. But the scales were tipping out of their favor.

“Turn it off, Harrison,” she said softly and he jumped, startled. The stony lines of his face curved into a weary smile.

“Did I wake you up?” he hit a remote with his thumb, and the screen went black, the condo plunged into thick darkness.