The Senator's Daughter (5 page)

She jumped when Crista grabbed her elbow. “Hey, your computer
is ready. Let's get you settled in.”

Alex took a breath, his eyes a dark brew of black and brown. He
and Crista exchanged a meaningful look, and then he turned and left without a
word.

Kat exhaled.

“Don't worry about him—he's that intense with everyone,” Crista
said smoothly. Kat followed her, marveling at how she'd handled Alex. How she'd
been handling him. She wondered whether there was more to Alex and Crista's
relationship than boss and assistant. Hadn't she seen sparks between Crista and
Nathan earlier? Campaigns were notorious for affairs. Long hours working
together with no outside life could pull anyone together. Something flared in
her chest, but she tamped it down. It was none of her business whom Alex dated.
She needed to focus on writing her book.

“So, Crista, what's your secret?”

Crista turned with a puzzled expression. “What do you
mean?”

Kat gave a nervous laugh. “You know, with Alex and Nathan—how
do you get your way with them?”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Kat wanted to run
and hide in her car.
What's with you?
She was not a
gossip, nor should she care about whatever was going on in Alex's personal
life.

Crista motioned toward a desk and Kat sheepishly took a seat.
Crista pulled up a nearby stool and huddled in close.

“You'll hear the rumors soon enough, so I'll just give you the
lowdown. Alex and I were an item, like, two years ago when I worked on the Hill
for Congresswoman Burton. I broke it off. Then this job came up and Alex was man
enough to hire me because I'm the best person for it.”

Kat wasn't surprised given the familiarity she'd observed
between the two of them, but something kicked in her stomach. What man would
hire an ex-girlfriend who'd dumped him? Probably one who still had feelings for
that ex.

“Why did you break up?” Kat couldn't believe she was asking the
question. Despite herself, she was curious about Alex.

“I was getting too attached.” Crista studied the BlackBerry in
her hand.
She
still had feelings for Alex; that much
was obvious. “He's a great guy—don't get me wrong. He treated me so well... It
was the hardest thing I've done in my life. But he was never going to marry
someone like me.”

“Someone like you?”

“Alex has political aspirations. He needs a woman with a
pedigree, like someone with the last name Kennedy. I joke with him about missing
the boat with Chelsea Clinton. He needs a tall, beautiful, impeccably dressed
woman who can stand in front of the camera and talk about world peace and saving
our children.”

She pointed to a stain on her blouse, something Kat hadn't even
noticed. “I'm lucky if I make it into work wearing matching clothes.”

Kat smiled. “Then I'm in good company.” She marveled at the
ease with which Crista spoke about Alex after knowing Kat for all of fifteen
minutes. Kat didn't have any close friends; it had been hard for her to work on
friendships when she was constantly unavailable. The few girlfriends she'd had
when she was younger didn't understand why she had to run home all the time when
they wanted to hang out. Eventually, they stopped inviting her to events,
realizing her RSVP would always be no.

After Crista left, Kat worked on setting up her email and
reading the briefs that various staff had sent her. A frisson of excitement
coursed through her. She'd only studied campaigns from afar. Never had she been
in the throes of something like this.

As uncertain as the decision had felt just a couple of hours
ago, she knew she'd done the right thing. She would be forced to interact with
people other than her students and get out of the house during the summer
months. Normally, she taught a summer class, but this year the political-science
department had decided not to offer courses in order to allow students to work
on campaigns for college credit. Now she didn't have to dread the long summer
months with nothing to do. This would be good for her.

The first email she had was from Alex, sent minutes before
their most recent encounter. She opened it.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Welcome

Kat,

Despite the circumstances, I'm glad you're here. I look forward to
getting to know you. Welcome.

—Alex

PS: Consider changing your name to Kat Roberts.

Kat reread the email. The nerve of him!

“He has a point, you know.”

Crista's voice startled her. She whirled in her chair to find
the woman standing behind her, openly reading the email on her screen.

“Excuse me—isn't it rude to snoop?” Kat winced at her snarky
tone. After Crista had been so open with her, Kat should be a little nicer, but
she wasn't used to such unfiltered sharing.

Crista laughed and gestured around her. “There's no privacy
here on purpose. People jump ship on campaigns all the time. That's why
strategies are closely guarded secrets and Alex and I have access to every email
that goes out on our servers. That's actually what I was coming here to tell
you—and to give you this paperwork to sign, which includes a privacy notice that
says you have none.”

Kat stared at her. Was she serious?

Crista nodded at her screen. “And he's right. The optics would
be much better if you changed your name. Maybe not right now, but closer to the
election.”

Kat didn't have the words to respond to the casual tone Crista
used, as if they were talking about her switching from regular to diet soda
instead of changing her entire identity.

She finally found her voice. “I will not change my name. It's
my mother's name, and I'm proud of it.”

Crista shrugged and walked away.

Kat turned back to her screen and hit the reply button. She
glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one else appeared behind her.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: You are unbelievable

Alex,

Asking me to change my name is not the way to welcome me. The
answer is NO.

—Kat

PS—next time you want to welcome someone, try chocolates. I
prefer mine dark and nutty, none of the sugary, cherry-filled kind.

Satisfied, she took one more look over her shoulder and hit
Send before she could lose her nerve. She immediately went to the next email,
which was from Nathan—a terse note explaining the files that were attached. The
first file hadn't even downloaded when she saw an email pop up from Alex.

Frowning, she craned her neck to peer into his office. He
wasn't there. She clicked the message.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Thick skin

You'll find campaign staff don't have time for sugar coating or
cherry fillings.

But I'm all for a woman who likes dark and nutty.

Sent from my BlackBerry

Her face heated. She minimized the message and looked behind
her before she reread it. Was he flirting with her?

“Here you go.” She nearly jumped out of her chair as one of the
campaign staffers she'd met earlier appeared. He handed her a BlackBerry. “It's
all set up for you. Use this instead of your personal phone from now on—hackers
are likely monitoring your text and phone messages so they can sell something to
the media.”

She opened her mouth to ask the pimply-faced intern if he was
serious, but he turned and left before she had a chance. She deleted Alex's
emails and went back to reviewing the documents Nathan had sent. Whatever game
Alex was playing, she would not indulge him.

Hours passed like minutes. Kat immersed herself in the policy
briefs she'd received. The analysis was fascinating and unlike the academic ones
she was accustomed to. Nathan's arguments could almost convince her the IED bill
was justified.
Almost.
She made several notes for
her book.

When she looked at her watch, she realized with dismay that she
wouldn't have time to go home and make it back before the scheduled call with
her father. She walked to Crista's desk and asked if they could move the video
chat to another day. Crista handed her a tablet computer. “Here, this works on
cellular. You can take the call from your car so your mother won't find
out.”

Kat blew out a breath. “What exactly do you know about my
mother's situation?”

Crista continued tapping away at her computer. “Everything. We
researched you when the news story broke and were able to get the claims made on
your health insurance, so we're aware your mother is on mood stabilizers. I
assume that's why you need to go home.”

Fire erupted inside her. Kat gripped the tablet so hard, her
fingers whitened. “That type of information is private. How did you get it?”

Crista turned in her seat, finally focusing her eyes on Kat.
“Don't be upset. Privacy is an illusion. We hire a firm to do investigations for
us—every high-profile campaign does. In this electronic world, information is
abundant.”

Kat muttered her thanks for the tablet and rushed out to her
car. Someone had moved it to an underground parking spot the senator used when
he needed to come in and out of headquarters without battling the media. She was
shaking with anger, but there was no point in taking it out on Crista.

It took her several minutes of clicking her electronic key to
find the car, but she was relieved not to encounter a horde of reporters waiting
for her when she did. She sat with her hands resting on the steering wheel.
Something buzzed and pinged in her purse, and she reached inside to retrieve the
BlackBerry. It was an urgent text from Alex.

You ok? Crista says you seem upset.

She resisted the urge to throw the device out the window. She
tapped back a message.

Privacy is important to me.

The response was almost instant.

We're a small campaign staff. It's not personal.

What did that even mean? Not personal? It was the very
definition of personal. There were at least thirty people inside that campaign
office and they all knew every intimate detail of her life.

She put the phone in her purse and started the car. In two
hours, she would be talking to her father for the first time. She needed to
prepare herself. The BlackBerry buzzed and pinged insistently. She put the car
back in Park and picked it up.

The senator is looking forward to talking to you. Need
anything?

Yes, she needed to go back in time, before the story broke,
when she was all set to get her promotion. A gnawing ache grew in her stomach.
Had she miscalculated? Alex made a good case for how her working on the campaign
was a win for both of them, but she didn't trust him. What was the play? She put
the phone on silent. She needed some quiet time to think.

Kat's mind whirled as she drove home, and she was grateful that
the rush-hour traffic on I-95 had abated. She made it home in less than an hour.
The news vans were gone; they'd left after Alex had made a statement that she
was moving to Richmond to work on her father's campaign. He'd even gotten her to
roll out an empty suitcase when they left the house earlier in the day,
explaining that the media didn't have unlimited resources. They would take the
stakeout to Richmond, and they had. Alex was a smooth operator. Just like
Colin.

She entered the house and found her mother sitting in the
living room with the TV on. Kissing her on the cheek, Kat noted her color was
better.

“How're you doing?”

Her mother's eyes were bright. “You didn't have to come back
early. I took my meds.”

Kat raised a brow. Every evening was a battle to get her mother
to take her medications. There had been several days when she'd actually
resorted to mixing them in her food or tea. But the pillbox containing her
mother's daily medications was empty. Nothing in the trash. Had her mother
flushed them down the toilet? Kat didn't want to re-dose her—too much was just
as bad as not enough. She'd learned that the hard way. In the past year, the
medications had gotten more complicated than ever. Her mother's doctor seemed to
be getting stricter about dosages and schedules for both sedatives and mood
stabilizers.

She went back to the living room and sat with her mother.
Emilia was in better spirits than Kat had seen in months. They watched the news
in companionable silence. Her name was mentioned in a three-minute story but it
had stopped being top news. Alex had made a statement outside headquarters a few
hours ago saying that the campaign had asked Kat to write an honest report on
her father's defense policies. She rolled her eyes.

“He's quite the charmer, isn't he?”

Kat couldn't agree more.

“I'm glad Bill is finally going to know you,” Emilia continued.
“I tried contacting him, you know, after the divorce. To tell him. But he
wouldn't take my calls.”

Kat turned to her mother. She'd spent years trying to get her
to talk about her father. “I thought you said you didn't tell him.”

“Because he never gave me the chance. He was so angry with me
for leaving him.”

Kat's eyes widened. She'd always thought it was her father who
broke things off. “Why did you leave him?”

Her mother sighed. “We had a whirlwind romance in college
during our senior year. He asked me to marry him on our third date. Graduation
was coming up, and he wanted me to come with him, to his home in Northern
Virginia, so we could be close to DC. I hardly knew him, but he was charming and
so handsome. I was young and didn't know any better. After we were married, it
all started.”