The Power and the Glory Page 15

  That was why she was holding off making any decisions at all—beyond keeping that meeting next week with Kelly—until she’d had time to process and heal. She didn’t want to make emotional choices she might regret later.

  A picture of Brady, his father and grandfather at the victory party last night took up a fourth of the page. The caption beneath read A Family Affair, and a sidebar outlined the Marshall family’s long history in politics and hinted it was a trend they expected to continue.

  Brady looked happy, if a little tired. And he wasn’t wearing a tie, which struck her as significant even though she knew it wasn’t. I’m losing my mind. She flipped the paper over.

  Rain splattered on the bookstore’s front windows and the occasional rumble of thunder rolled overhead. It was a dreary, nasty day that matched her dreary, nasty mood—a mood made even worse by the knowledge she could be winging her way to a sunny tropical locale with Brady right now.

  Let’s not play the “if only” game. Life presents us with choices. We make them and live with the consequences.

  The weather kept most people indoors, so the bookstore was empty except for Aspyn and one of Margo’s Reiki clients waiting for Margo to finish up with the current one. Aspyn’s bad mood made concentration impossible, so she grabbed her coffee cup, went to the couch next to the magazine display and pulled one at random to flip through.

  The bell over the door dinged and Aspyn closed the magazine, thankful for the possibility of something to do. “Namaste,” she called out. “How can I help you …” She trailed off as she saw Brady standing on the mat, the rain dripping off his hair and coat. “Oh. Brady.”

  “Aspyn.” He shook his head, sending water flying. His face was unreadable, giving her no clue why he was here. And she was having a really hard time coming up with a reason. Any reason.

  Be an adult. “Is there something particular you’re looking for? Cleansing crystals? Maybe a relaxation CD?”

  “I’m looking for you.” Her heart stuttered at the force in the statement. “It’s time for us to talk.”

  She tidied the magazine rack, even though it didn’t need it. “I’ve pretty much said all I have to say on the subject.”

  His jaw was tight. “A courtesy you haven’t extended to me.”

  “There’s nothing left to talk about.”

  “I disagree.”

  She shot a look over where Margo’s client waited, the woman studiously pretending she was reading the back of an incense box. Great. An audience.

  Aspyn forced herself to sound lighthearted. “You’re right.” Brady looked shocked. “I do need to thank you for contacting Senator Peters’s office. I have a meeting with one of his aides next week.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it.” His voice dropped a notch. “But that’s not what I want to talk about.”

  She took a step closer, keeping her back to the woman. Dropping her voice to match his, she said, “Tough. I don’t work for you anymore. The election is over, so there’s no need for us to talk about anything. Unless, of course, you have metaphysical needs or interests the store can assist you with.”

  The muscle in Brady’s jaw twitched. “Aspyn …”

  “Aspyn?” Margo asked at the same time. She waved goodbye to the first client and motioned for the other to go back to the treatment room. Then she faced them both, the serene smile on her face telling them both to behave. “Is everything okay? I’m sensing a lot of tension.”

  “Everything’s fine, Margo. Brady was just leaving.”

  “No, I’m not,” Brady snapped. “I need to speak to Aspyn for a few minutes. Privately,” he added.

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” Margo agreed, and Aspyn gasped at the betrayal. “Y’all can use the back room. I’ll just lock the front door while I’m with my client.”

  “Margo—”

  “I’m not going to have you two cluttering up my space with all that negative energy. Yours has been bad enough today. Go and finish your conversation, okay?” She smiled as she said it, but the warning was clear.

  “Fine.” Aspyn sighed. No way out but through. “Brady? This way.”

  Brady’s wet shoes squeaked on the concrete floor of the back room that doubled as a stock and break room. Confused at the noise, Aspyn stole a glance at his feet. He was wearing some kind of sporty hiking boot. And jeans that were damp at their frayed hems. She didn’t know it was possible for him to leave the house in anything other than a suit—much less on a weekday. He unbuttoned the dressy raincoat that was every inch D.C. standard-issue to reveal a sweatshirt underneath. The contrast was disconcerting, to say the least.

  “This is much better,” Brady said.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “You’re obviously still angry.”

  “Ya think?” Aspyn leaned against a stack of boxes. “Sorry, but nothing has changed since last week. I don’t like being used and lied to. So yeah, I’m still angry about it. Don’t tell me you’re surprised by that.”

  “You are the one person who never fails to surprise me.” He sounded amused, and his humor only confused her. “I didn’t realize you could carry a grudge.”

  “Turns out, they’re not that heavy. So, yeah, I can carry this one for a while.”

  He snorted and pulled out a chair, offering it to her.

  “Brady, no. We can’t just sit and chat about this like it’s business as usual or something.” She stood up straight and lifted her chin. Do not engage was another lesson she learned from the campaign. She needed to swallow her anger and quit being so combative if she wanted through this quickly. “I do appreciate you calling Peters’s office, and if it’s a peace offering, I accept. We’re even. No need to worry about it anymore. I don’t intend on blabbing anything about you or us or the campaign to the media, so no worries there, either. I wish you well in the future, and now we can go back to our own lives.” Proud of her little speech and how well she’d held it together, she straightened her spine and let the silence fall between them.

  Brady lifted an eyebrow. “Are you done?”

  Her balloon of pride deflated a little. “I guess.”

  “Good. Because I’d really like to talk now, and I’d like you to listen.” He waited for her nod. “We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up the list. Yes, I did send the information over to Kelly. I’ve known her since college, but I didn’t call in any favors. Your work stood on its own, so if she contacted you, rest assured you had something in there that caught her eye. No, I didn’t do it as a peace offering, but I was trying to make amends for the mess by living up to my end of our first deal. You do deserve to be heard, and Peters’s office is the best recipient for your message.”

  Lovely. Now she felt petty as well. “Thank you, Brady, for telling me that. It means a lot to me.” She pushed off the boxes and took a step toward the door.

  “Not so fast. I still want to address the other part of your complaint. The personal, you-and-me part of this that’s all tangled up with the nonpersonal stuff.”

  Ouch. The thought hurt too much. “Please believe me when I say that I really, really do not want to dig through that.” That was the truth. She wasn’t ready to be an adult about it. It was still too raw.

  “Oh, but we are.”

  His supercilious tone destroyed her decision to be non-combative. “No, we’re not.”

  Brady cursed and caught her arm as she tried to brush past him.

  She heard the jingle and turned around as Brady removed his hand from his pocket with a sly smile. Her jaw dropped when she saw the handcuffs dangling from his finger.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  The look on Aspyn’s face was priceless. “Yes, I would. I’ve found this is an excellent way to force someone to listen to you, and, damn it, Aspyn, I want you to listen.”

  “It’s illegal to restrain someone. It’s kidnapping.”

  “I didn’t press charges.”

  “I didn’t put handcuffs on you.”

  “Then d
on’t make me put them on you. Sit.” Aspyn’s lips pressed into a thin, mutinous line. “Please,” he added.

  Shooting daggers at him the whole time, Aspyn stomped over to the table and sat. He stifled a laugh as she put her hands on either side of her thighs and eyed him with distrust.

  Lily’s warning hadn’t prepared him for how difficult this would be—how difficult Aspyn could be—and suddenly his carefully planned statement designed to appeal to Aspyn’s rationality seemed woefully inadequate. He put the handcuffs back in his pocket and some of the ire went out of Aspyn’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about your position with the campaign. I’ve been in the bubble too long, and it’s skewed my vision on how other people might perceive things differently than I do. No one should have their passion and enthusiasm played with like that. Call me any name you want for doing that to you. I deserve it, and you can stay mad at me about that for as long as you like. I know I can’t undo it, and I’m told there’s really no way to make up for stomping on someone’s optimism, but I fully admit I was wrong.”

  Aspyn’s eyebrows went up, but she didn’t say anything.

  Okay. Now for the hard part. “Among the many skewed perspectives I don’t share with others is the separation of my personal life from everything else. When your family is public fodder, you learn to draw lines around yourself and make a clear distinction between the public you and the private you—at least in your own mind, if nothing else. My relationship with you had nothing to do with the campaign or politics or public opinion or anything else. And it never occurred to me that you—of all people—would make that connection when I didn’t.”

  Aspyn’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by me ‘of all people’?”

  “You’re the one who from the get-go didn’t want our relationship known at HQ or elsewhere. You were very clear on that. I assumed you keyed into that same separation of the two that I had.”

  “Oh. That makes sense.” Her mouth twisted, and he saw more of her anger deflate. “Then that’s my bad. I apologize for conflating the two and getting bent out of shape over it.” She took a deep breath and smiled the fakest smile he’d ever seen on her face. “Well, I’m glad we cleared that up …” She rubbed her palms against her jeans and stood.

  “Aspyn. Not so fast. I’m still not done.”

  “Then could you please just get to your point? This is all very fascinating, and I’m so glad you can be dispassionate about it, but I can’t. I’m hurt and I’m still not over that yet.”

  There was the hint and opening he needed. “And there’s my point. I understand the anger and I deserve it. But ‘hurt’ means there’s more to this than just you feeling like I used you in some political game.”

  Aspyn rested her chin in her hands and rubbed her fingers across her eyes. “Fine, who needs pride anyway?” she mumbled to the tabletop. Then she sat up and looked him squarely in the eye. “I understand that I’m not good enough for you—”

  That was out of left field. “What the hell …?”

  “You’re a Marshall. I get it. You can’t really go out in public with somebody like me.”

  This conversation had just taken one hell of a sharp turn in the wrong direction. “Whoa, wait just a—”

  “It’s okay. I’m proud of who and what I am, but … You need a Jackie Kennedy. I get that. It’s really okay,” she rushed to assure him as his head threatened to explode. “It was just, at the time, I kinda felt like there was more … I mean, a possibility. No, that’s not what I mean, either.” She ran her hands through her hair and tugged at the curls.

  “What do you mean?” When she didn’t answer, he moved to kneel next to her chair. “Aspyn?”

  “I started to think there was more to us. More than just the sex. That’s my fault, I know, not yours—”

  His heart finally started beating again as Aspyn rushed ahead, completely exonerating him from her “misunderstanding of the situation.” He started to laugh.

  Aspyn interrupted herself to frown at him. “I don’t really see this as funny, Brady. I—”

  He cut her off with a kiss, holding her until the tension began to leave her body.

  “There’s a lot more to us.”

  Her eyes were wide and soft. “R-really?”

  “You are the only person I trust to know that not only will I eat quiche, I actually like it. You make me see things in a whole different light, and I realize you’re the only person whose opinion of what kind of man I am matters at all to me. I hate the fact I’m sleeping alone and for the first time in my life, I’m lonely. I miss you.” Aspyn’s lower lip started to tremble. “You don’t have to forgive me, and I’m not asking you to, but I am asking you for another chance. I need you to come back so I’m not half-dead anymore.”

  She blinked, and for a moment he thought he was getting through. Then she frowned. “But your family …”

  Sometimes it was tough to be a Marshall. “Will adore you. Lily and Ethan and Granddad are already on your team, and the rest will follow. You’re rather irresistible. And I would know, since I tried to resist you and failed.” He cocked his head. “You may not like them very much, though …”

  “I’m sure they’re all lovely people, but that’s not what I mean.”

  He wished he could make sense of this conversation. “And that would be …?”

  “You’ve got a great career ahead of you. Someone like me … Well, I would be a liability. An embarrassment looking for a place to happen.”

  “If anything, you’ve proven ‘someone like you’ is an asset to the political system. And anything short of an all-out scandal isn’t even enough to warrant warming up the spin machine for. We Marshalls are tough to embarrass.”

  “You say that now—”

  Enough. “Aspyn, look at me.” He cupped his hands around her cheeks and felt the dampness on her skin. “You’re worrying over details and completely avoiding the main issue.”

  Lily hadn’t been kidding at all. Not only was he having to grovel, he was going to have to go out on the ledge first—with no guarantee she’d join him there. “I love you, Aspyn.”

  Aspyn couldn’t breathe. Her heart was so full it squeezed all the air out of her lungs, and her blood pounded in her ears. Surely she hadn’t heard him correctly. Men like Brady Marshall didn’t fall in love with women like her. She lacked a pedigree, social standing, a similar belief system. It was the definition of insane.

  She loved him so much it hurt to be without him, but she never dreamed he might be able to love her. At most, she’d hoped he might be looking for something a little longer than short-term, but actual love …

  “Did you hear me, Aspyn?”

  “I think so. You love me?”

  “Yes. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake …” Brady pushed to his feet, took her chair, hauled her into his lap and kissed her until she was breathless. “I love you. I can’t be any clearer than that. And I’d really appreciate it if you could end my suspense.”

  “You are the most frustrating man I’ve ever met, and I definitely couldn’t have found anyone more different—or difficult—to get involved with. It’s absolutely insane, but I’m in love with you.” Saying it out loud seemed to change everything—making it all feel real.

  Brady’s grin could melt glaciers into little happy puddles. It was certainly putting a happy warmth in her chest—one that only grew when he kissed her with enough emotion it left her reeling. “Thank God,” he mumbled against her neck.

  A huge clap of thunder shook the building, and Aspyn laughed. “Is that a ‘you’re welcome’ or some kind of omen?”

  “I think it’s a reminder we could be on Kauai right now.” He kissed her again, more playfully this time. “How quickly can you get packed?”

  Happy couldn’t begin to describe the feeling tumbling through her, and the look in Brady’s eyes let her know she wasn’t alone i
n those feelings. And that made it much harder to say, “I can’t. My parents are in town.”

  That got Brady’s attention. “Your parents flew back from Haiti because you—”

  “No,” she hurried to assure him. “Just a regular visit—although slightly brought on by recent events. They’re proud of me, though. They think I’m one hell of an activist.”

  “You are. You changed my thinking, that’s for sure. So when do I meet them?”

  She nearly choked. “You want to meet my parents?” The implications of “meeting the parents” was scary enough, but her parents? Yikes. “You do understand what you’re in for, right?”

  “It seems only fair since you’ve met my family. Anyway, I’m rather curious about the shoes-to-tiger-habitat connection.”

  “I’ll remind you of that later. Once they’re done with you.” She didn’t know whether to be happy or worried, but found herself leaning toward cautiously optimistic. “I’ll call them and see if they want to have lunch tomorrow—if you’re free that is.”

  “Since I’m currently unemployed, I have all the time in the world. I’m also free tonight.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

  Brady’s slow, sexy smile sent flutters through her. “Oh, what am I doing tonight, then?”

  Aspyn wrapped her arms around him, savoring the feel of his body while her hands searched quickly. Brady was a second too late picking up on what she was doing, and the handcuffs were hers. She moved off his lap, perching instead on the table to examine the cuffs. “Funny you should show up with these. I’m quite intrigued by the possibilities. Always have been.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m game anytime you are.” He frowned. “Those are for strictly recreational use only, you know, not—”

  “I think I’ve told you all I needed to for the time being. And hopefully I won’t have to resort to drastic measures to get you to listen to me in the future.” She twirled them on her finger. “Would you really have cuffed me if I’d tried to walk out of here?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s a moot point now.”

  “Not to me.” She lifted her right wrist and snapped the cuff on.