True North (Compass series Book 4) (9 page)

Rey grips her arm and leans down to speak in her ear, though his enunciation is better than perfect and his voice is pitched so I can hear him.

“The extent to which you were not supposed to be here tonight cannot be overstated.”

She nods and licks her lips, a nervous flicker of her tongue. Suddenly the hallway seems endless, like the space-time continuum has ceased to exist. Which makes as much sense as running into my ex-wife in a fetish club. On a Tuesday.

Pressly and I can’t stop staring at each other. This is unreal. I’d thought we’d run into each other at some point, had dreaded the day for the first few years after the divorce. But when I hadn’t seen her walking down the street or at any of the events I couldn’t avoid, it had started to seem like a dread borne of pure paranoia and I had too many real things to worry about. It eventually became less of a fretful nightmare and more of an idle daydream.
What if
…

But here she is, in the flesh. And flesh is accurate. All plump and creamy where she isn’t slickly red, I want to eat her up. Except…

“What are you doing here?”

This unmistakably caveman part of me has roared to life and wants to drag her out by the hair. Not to my cave, even, just out of here. What
is
she doing here?

At my snarled question, her expression morphs from bewildered to defensive and her hand comes to her hip, resting on that damnably tight skirt.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

My face flushes with blood because what the hell
am
I doing here? And how is it fair that I want to be here, but don’t want her to be? My hands itch for her, for the feel of her skin underneath my fingertips, and I step forward, my hand out.

Only to be rebuffed by the iron bar of Rey’s arm, his hand planted firmly on my chest, holding me back.

“You can’t touch her. And if you ever want to come here again, you can’t make a scene. So make your choice and make it wisely.”

I do want to come here again. I don’t want to make a scene. But the urge to touch her is overwhelming. I close my hands into fists and draw my shoulder blades together. I think I would feel better if I could touch her. Make sure she’s okay. It’s this funny urge I’ve always had where Press is concerned, and it’s back with a vengeance. If she’d been out late, if she’d been upset, or that day her phone had died and I couldn’t get ahold of her for three hours—when she’d finally arrived home, I’d taken her into my arms and didn’t let go for a good five minutes. Even if I know in my brain that she’s okay, my body won’t believe it until I can touch her, hold her, feel her heart beating and her skin warm against mine.

Pressly huffs a sigh and lays a hand on Rey’s outstretched arm. “It’s okay. He can touch me. Not a lot,” she warns, tilting her chin up and making eye contact with me. She remembers, and she’s going to give this to me.

Rey drops his arm warily and doesn’t move from Pressly’s side. I should be insulted—does he think I’m going to hurt her?—but if he’s been her bodyguard, I can’t complain. I’d want someone to protect her, keep her safe.

She said not a lot so I can’t wrap my arms around her, hold her to my chest like I want to, so I rest my hands on her biceps, squeezing lightly to prove to myself that she’s real and that she’s okay. She smiles at me when I do, perhaps a little indulgently, but I don’t care. I’m just glad she’s letting me touch her.

“I’ve got to get back,” she says, tipping her head toward the room she came out of. I reluctantly peel my fingers off her and let her go. Back into that room, back to—who is she with and what is he doing to her? The extent to which that’s not my business is not even funny. I wish it were.

She smiles at me, her heavily made-up eyes darting to the side before she hugs Rey again, whispering something that makes him laugh before he lets her go.

“Be good, be careful.” He taps her on the nose, and she laughs, grabbing his finger and kissing the tip.

“Do I get to have fun too?”

“Always.”

She casts one last glance at me, performs this flirty half-twirl that calls attention to exactly how short her skirt is, and then flounces into the room, shutting the door after her.

I stand there, dumbfounded, until Rey clears his throat.

“I really do apologize about that. She’s never here on Tuesdays. Ever.”

“But she does come here sometimes?”

He gives me that slightly exasperated look that I hate, the one that doesn’t quite say
Do the math, dumbass
. But close. Too close.

“Yeah, right. Need-to-know and I don’t need to know.”

“How would you feel if your positions were reversed?” He’s trying to get me to think rationally, but that’s a stupid way to put it. I’d want him to help her track me down, give her access to my daily schedule so she could run into me as much as possible, give her a key to my house—our house—so she’d be there when I got home from work. Yes, it had been painful to see her, but I want to do it again and again.

I grunt because I can’t say that. “But you knew—”

“Yes. And I didn’t mention you to her. At some point I would’ve because I wanted to avoid this.” His elegant hand flails between us, the only indication left that he’s flustered by what happened. “But, yes, I know her. And I know you’re her ex-husband.”

An insecure, desperate part of me claws at my throat. What else did she say? How does she think of me? If she thinks of me at all? But I know that’s not allowed. I’ll make myself look bad, like someone who can’t be trusted, if I pursue it. So I let it drop, for now.

“Wasn’t there some rope thing you wanted me to see?”

Not that I care, but I need a distraction and this will be as good as any. Rey nods and gestures down the hall. “Follow me.”

*

Becky’s done a
bang-up job and gotten me in to see Senator Johnson before he goes back to Texas at the end of this week. At least if this fails, I won’t have to see his smug-ass face around in the depressing aftermath. If the world were a perfect place, Johnson would give me a big ol’ yes in the here and now, but I know that’s unlikely. Even if he’s going to agree in the end, he likes to torture people. Or, as he puts it,
consider his options
.

Well, he can consider my face because I made the trip to his offices when I didn’t have to. Give a little, get a little. I can play that game if it’ll get me his goddamn vote. To be sickeningly honest, I’d do anything for it, but to let him know that would be to hand over all my leverage and that, I’m not prepared to do. So I sit at the conference table, my own staffers flanking me, and wait for Johnson to arrive.

I can hear his booming voice when he’s outside the thick wood door, but honestly it sounds like he’s right next to my ear. I know he’s from Texas, but does the man have to be big and blustery about everything?

When he walks in, though, I can tell the answer is yes. He’s wearing a Stetson for god’s sake, with heeled leather boots and a bolo tie. I try not to prejudge, but come on. Could the guy be any more Texas? All he needs is a gun tucked in a holster, but thankfully those aren’t allowed in the Senate office buildings. We’d probably have way more duels if they were.

He settles his bulk on the other side of the conference table, a young guy coming in and planting himself beside him. Unlike his boss, Junior’s wearing a Washington uniform, and I wonder if he’s from Texas at all. But when Johnson introduces him as Rusty Winston, it’s clear he’s from back home but dresses the part of a DC staffer.

“If you don’t mind, we’ll wait another minute. Jose’s whizbang with this policy stuff, and he’s running a little behind. You know how it is.”

I do—staffers are constantly on the move—but that doesn’t curb my annoyance much. “Look, Senator. You may be my first stop, but you’re not my last. We’ve got half an hour to make this conversation happen and then—”

My scolding’s cut off mid-sentence by a commotion out in the hallway and then a slamming open of the conference room door. No embarrassed sneaking in for this staffer. Guy’s got balls, I’ll give him that much.

But it’s not Jose; it’s not even a dude. Nope, it’s really not. A minty green kick-pleated skirt and a fluster of blonde hair rushes through the door, a pile of notebooks and a laptop clutched to her chest and—

No way. Freaking no way. I’ve managed to not run into my ex-wife for six years in this city that feels sometimes like a very small town, and here she is, twice within the space of a week. Once at a fetish club and once in the venerated halls of law-making. One guess where I’d rather see her.

She dumps her things on the table in a way that softens me. She busted her ass to get here. It’s not fair and it’s not rational, but for her I have sympathy whereas for anyone else, I’d want to rip their disrespectful heads off. But Pressly? Makes me want to pull out her chair and give her a glass of water, ask if she’s okay.

I don’t have to, though, because Rusty’s doing it for me and I find myself more than a little jealous. Especially when she gives him one of those patented Pressly Allwyn smiles, one that infects the whole room.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. Jose got food poisoning and asked me to fill in. I told him those yogurt parfaits looked suspect, but he didn’t listen. I—”

She turns a freshly apologetic smile on me, and it suddenly vanishes, as do her words. I can see the ones she wants to say springing from the top of her head as if they were in a cartoon bubble:
“What in the fresh hell are you doing here?”

I struggle to keep the censorious frown on my face. It’s hard with her all agog. I want to smirk and say, “
Fancy seeing you here
,” but that’s not allowed either. Luckily, the senator pipes up before I can say anything stupid.

Looking back and forth between us, Johnson seems to expect a skirmish to erupt. “Mr. Lewis, I believe you know Pressly Allwyn?”

She leans forward across the table and offers her hand, which I take, shaking for all I’m worth, trying not to grind my teeth while I reply.

“I do, indeed, Senator.”
In the biblical sense, you asshole.
“Ms. Allwyn, a pleasure to see you again.”

She nods silently and then sits down, arranging her piles and pulling out a notebook to flip to a blank page. She looks up expectantly, only a hint of red blooming on her cheeks. “Let’s get on with this then, shall we? We’ve got some ground to cover.”

I spend the next thirty minutes laying out my reasons why Johnson should support this bill, why it’s good policy for everyone, never mind for his district. For every counterpoint Johnson or his staff bring up, we’ve got answers because we’re prepared. And at the end of the meeting, Johnson does as I knew he would.

“We’ll have to consider this carefully. You understand this is a pretty large shift in policy, and as much as I’d like to help the veterans in my district, it’s not something I can shake on right here.”

Of course it’s not, you stuffed shirt sonofabitch.
But I tighten my jaw silently and shake his hand on our way out. He turns back to his private office and I turn toward the door, but before I can get very far, a small hand grips my forearm.

“I need to talk to you.”

Her tetchy whisper isn’t how I’d like to hear Pressly talk to me, but it’s better than nothing so I wave Becky and Naeem ahead of me. “I’ll be there in a minute. Head back without me if you’ve got things to do.”

They look at me with widened eyes, but when I open my mouth to tell them to get the fuck out, they skedaddle before I can speak. And then Pressly and I are alone in the hallway. Not private, by any means, but good enough.

“You needed something, Ms. Allwyn?” I keep the sneer out of my voice but barely. It’s seething regret, pure and simple. I’m not angry with her.

“What the fuck are you doing in my boss’s office, pitching him some bill there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of him supporting? Did you think I’d go to bat for you?”

“I didn’t know anyone who was going to be at this meeting besides the senator. I didn’t even know you worked for him. And besides, you said it yourself—what’s-his-face got food poisoning. You weren’t even supposed to be here. Do you think I poisoned all the breakfast food in the city in the hope that I’d get to sit in a meeting with you? If anyone spiked that guy’s yogurt, it was you. Did you know
I
was going to be here?”

She narrows her eyes, and the corner of my mouth curls up in response. If the shocked drop of her jaw had been any indication, you’d think she’d seen a ghost. So, no, she’d had no idea either. And if she’d wanted to see me, she wouldn’t have had to make someone ill to make that happen.

“See? This is purely…” Serendipity sounds too positive and she might punch me for it. “…happenstance.”

“I don’t want to see you here again.” Her tone is harsh, but it’s laced with something else—fear, maybe? Pain? Whatever it is, it sits wrong in my stomach.

“Press—”

“No, it’s bad enough that I ran into you at—” She cuts herself off and swings her head, looking for any eavesdroppers. “—you-know-where.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen you,
Pressly
, since you moved the last of your things out of our townhouse. Like I said, I didn’t even know you worked for Johnson.” Though it makes sense. Johnson and Pa Allwyn move in some of the same old, rich, white Southern power broker circles. I’m sure all it took was a single phone call to get Press a job, and she’s smart and industrious enough to keep it on her own merits. But that’s not the point. “Even if I had known, you know I have about as much control over the meetings I’m needed at as you do. So I suspect we’ll be running into each other again in a
professional
capacity.”