Page 19 of The Senator's Secret
“Expecting anyone else?” he asks, suddenly on alert.
“No.”
“Well the cat is out of the bag on you and the high-profile senator,” he explains. “It wouldn’t surprise me if someone was here to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.”
I let out a sigh, already hating the direction my life has taken. “I can handle it.”
“I’m sure you can,” Carter says. “But just in case you can’t, I’m here too.”
As he pushes past me toward the front door, I see the muscles in his broad back flex and play under his white T-shirt. Carter is over six feet tall, and while he’s as sweet as a teddy bear, he strikes a formidable pose.
“Well, all right then.”
“Hello,” he says as he pulls open the front door.
“I’m here for Ms. Sanders,” someone says from behind the wall that is Carter.
“And who might you be?” he asks, sounding more than a little intimidating.
“My name is Logan, and I’m a staffer for Senator Chancellor,” he explains. “I have urgent business with Ms. Sanders. May I please come inside?”
“If you’re not who you say you are, I’m going to beat the shit out of you,” Carter explains.
“I understand.”
Carter seems to assess the situation before stepping to the side and letting a terrified-looking blond man who’s all of about twenty years old. My guess is he’s not even a staffer; he’s a college intern. And if it turns out he’s an intern for any news agency, reputable or otherwise, he’s as good as dead.
The young man—Logan, he called himself—adjusts his tie as if it’s strangling him. He’s of a slim, swimmer’s build and looks as if he borrowed his dad’s suit. He’s actually kind of adorable in a boy next door kind of a way. And he keeps eyeing me and Carter as if he’s about to shit his pants.
“So, what do you do for Senator Chancellor’s office?” I ask him with a gentle smile on my face. I guess I’m the good cop to Carter’s bad cop today. That’s a fun switch.
“Errands. I’m an intern,” he explains.
“And where are you studying?”
“NYU,” he answers.
“My alma mater.”
“I know,” he says with a sudden smile that lights up his whole face. “You’re a legend in the Law Department there.”
“Really?” Carter asks, warming to the idea of good gossip. “I always figured Clark Kent here was damn near perfect. Tell me she almost got expelled for partying or was the princess of the panty raids and everyone tried to break into her dorm room.”
“Oh yes!” Logan rallies to his cause. “Did you know she staged sixty-seven protests her senior year alone?”
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?” Carter drolls. “That was incredibly anti-climactic.”
I clear my throat to stop this walk down memory lane. “And then Senator sent you to me because…?”
“Oh yes! I’m sorry,” Logan rambles before holding out an unmarked package to me. It’s just a manila envelope; there are stacks of them in every office in the country. It shouldn’t scare me. But the last one I received changed my entire world, and not for the better. I shake my head to clear my thoughts before pushing a less than natural smile back onto my face and reaching for the envelope.
“Thank you.”
“Senator Chancellor said to tell you that he had to work late and to make yourself at home. Here are your keys to the brownstone, and he said to tell you that he included the security code in a personal note inside,” Logan happily explains while I grow increasingly angry, and my smile turns more and more brittle. It’s becoming harder to hold on to. It wouldn’t surprise me if steam was shooting out of my ears as we speak. After he insisted I move in with him—today—he won’t even be there? “Here is my card as well, should you need anything else.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, taking the card from his outstretched hand.
“I’ll see that Ms. Sanders has everything else she might need for the day,” Carter explains as he pulls his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and slips one of his own business cards from it before handing it to Logan. “I’m the Executive Assistant to Ms. Sanders. Should you need anything from her in the future, please reach out to me beforehand.”