Page 5 of The Senator's Secret
“Hey, buddy,” I say to him as I gently scoop him up into my arms. “How’s it going today?”
Winks just lets out a happy purr as I carry him into the break room. There is a big comfy recliner that had come from someone’s home, and I sit down in it with my new main man in my lap. Out of my bag, I pull a small throw blanket from my home that smells like me and all the other cats and curl it around us to see what he’ll do, but I never should have worried. Winks settles down as if he knows he’s found his pack.
“I have so much to tell you,” I say in a calm voice. “I went to a gala last night. And I’m pretty sure we got a good foot in the door on the Open Arms project. There’s just one problem.”
The cat looks at me with his big, green eye as if he’s really listening to me explain my problems. I think he just might be. It makes me feel better to think that someone might actually care what I have to say.
“Roughly one third of the backers I need will only support the project if I can get Senator Chancellor signed on as a sponsor. They think it will be good to have his name attached to the project for veterans, and I know they’re right, but I just don’t want to work with him. He’s a stubborn jerk, and I know it will be just miserable working with him. He will boss me around and try to change all my plans and… and… and make me like him, and I just can’t do that. It’ll be all right without him, right?”
“Meow.”
“Well who asked you?” Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m talking man problems with a cat and he has the nerve to disagree with me. What the hell am I going to do? “I’ll just stick to cats. Men always make things complicated. Cats don’t talk back, right?”
“Meow.”
I let out a sigh. “That’s what I thought.”
“Rumors of a Jeffries-Chancellor Wedding Fly”
Chapter 3
The trap
Everything is going to be just fine.
I smooth down my pencil skirt and stand to greet Jules, one of my best friends from college, when the hostess leads her to the dark booth with crisp white linens in the back of one of New York’s most exclusive restaurants.
Jules pulls me into a tight hug before removing her coat and handing it to the hostess to hang up outside our booth before sliding gracefully into her seat. Everything about Jules is posh and polished. Where I feel like a fraud, like a little girl playing dress up in her mother’s fancy clothes, Julia Fairchild is the real deal.
I met her my freshman year of college when I rushed the sororities. She was also a freshman going through the recruitment process. She was a bright light when I was scared out of my mind. Naturally shy, I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking when I promised my mom I would try to make friends. This was so far outside my comfort zone that I never would have been there normally if I hadn’t made a promise.
Jules was a legacy, meaning her mom and both grandmothers had also belonged to the same sorority. Her parents met because their mothers were sorority sisters. Jules knew exactly what sorority she was going to, and none of the overly loud parties, theme T-shirts, or silly songs about friendship and sisterhood scared her or put her off.
She also took one look at me in a sea of freshman women and knew with that one look I was in way over my head. So, in true Jules fashion, she decided that night we were going to be best friends. She ushered me through rush week and new member activities, and without her I probably would have hated college. Instead, I not only loved it, but I made lifelong friendships, Jules included. I love Jules like a sister, so I’m always happy she’s free for our weekly drinks and dinner.
“So,” she says excitedly. If anything, Jules loves life as well. “How are things going?”
I’m not, however, going to tell her that my project is about to sink like a stone. So I smile, open my mouth, and lie. “Things are great.”
She eyes me seriously as the waiter approaches. “We’ll get back to that in a minute.”
“Hi, ladies, my name is Anthony,” he greets on a charming smile. “Can I get you anything to drink from the bar tonight?”
“Yes,” Jules answers immediately as she eyes Anthony like a hungry lion. “We would both like dirty martinis, extra dirty, extra olives, and blue cheese olives at that.”
“Sounds great,” he says. “Anything else?”
“A charcuterie board when you get a chance, and keep the vodka coming. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
I feel my lips press into a tight line as she speaks. I should have known I couldn’t keep anything from Jules. She always could read me like a book.
“Coming right up.”
“So—” She turns her focus to me after Anthony walks away. “—have you talked to Angie lately?”
“Not recently,” I reply. “Last I heard, she was deep in wedded bliss with Cody in some small town in Texas.” Angie, our third friend, left New York when she found her boyfriend banging a nurse at the hospital they both worked at. Her aunt whisked her off to a small town in East Texas, where she fell in love with a retired professional football player. I have a feeling there will be a whole sea of little football-loving babies before long. Their brand-new daughter, Joy, is a fantastic start.
“That’s what I hear,” Jules agrees on a sigh. “I miss her though.”