“You didn’t even ask her yourself?” she asked, surprised. How did all of this work?
“No. I’m too busy to date, or at least that’s what I tell my press secretary.”
“Does she want you to date?” Liz asked, concerned.
Brady shook his head solemnly. “She doesn’t want me to date. She wants me to get married.”
Liz let out a peep at that word. Married! He couldn’t get married!
“Don’t worry,” he said, planting a kiss on her lips. “That’s not on my horizon for a long time. She can’t badger me into something that extreme. That’s not like a date at a gala.”
Thank God! Liz thought.
“So…why were you flirting with my brother?” he asked, a storm cloud forming over his features. So that was what he had been holding back when he’d had his campaign face on while talking to Clay.
“I didn’t know he was your brother. Nor did I know I was flirting with him. I was trying to defend you,” she said, pointing her finger into his chest.
“Defend me? Why would you need to?”
Liz bit her lip. Whoops! Maybe she shouldn’t have said that. It was clear that there was something wrong between him and Clay. But she had already put one foot forward; she might as well take the step.
“He was talking about you and the campaign and politics in general. I didn’t know who he was, but they weren’t exactly uplifting words,” she said as tactfully as she could.
“Fucking Clay,” Brady said, shaking his head. “He needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. I promise he was trying to charm you.”
Liz swallowed and didn’t say anything. Charm ran in their family.
“I would stay away from him.”
“I probably won’t see him again anyway, will I?” she asked. “He’s at Yale. He should be going back soon.”
“Not soon enough, unfortunately,” Brady said.
Liz wanted to ask what the problem was between them, but it didn’t really seem like the time. There were other more pressing concerns…like where they were going from here.
“Brady, what are we doing?” she asked, trying to keep from choking out the words. She couldn’t ask too much. She couldn’t push too hard. She couldn’t lose him.
He opened his mouth to say something and was cut off by a sharp rap on the door. Brady hung his head and sighed. “That’s my cue. Can we finish this conversation later?”
“Will I get to see you later?”
Brady smiled that gorgeous smile he seemed to reserve specifically for her and pulled something out of his tux. Liz peered down into his hand and saw a little silver key. She glanced up at him, confused. “What’s this?”
“A key to my house.”
Liz’s throat went dry. A key. To his house.
She had never been to his house. She wasn’t allowed to go there. They had always met somewhere that couldn’t be tracked or traced…somewhere the campaign couldn’t find them.
“What’s that for?” she whispered, not able to tear her eyes away from the key.
“That’s where I was planning to have you stay tonight.”
Liz’s eyes slowly rose to his and her mouth popped open. He bent down and kissed her lightly.
“That is—if you still want to.”
He slid the key into her palm, and she closed her hand over the metal, feeling the light weight in her hand.
“I want to,” she responded.
“I have a driver tonight, and he can take you. I’ll see you tonight, baby.”
He placed one more kiss on her lips and then exited the room. Liz stared down at her hand. She had a key to Brady’s house.
Liz left the bathroom a few minutes later and walked back into the gala ballroom. Her heart beat a soft rhythm in her throat from her time with Brady, and she couldn’t seem to relinquish that feeling. Her emotions were swirling around inside of her like a tempest raging through a storm. She couldn’t believe Brady had given her a key to his place. He was slipping. They were both slipping away from their arrangement. The more he let her in, the more she craved from him. Even though she was still mad about Amber, their conversation had tempered her anger so completely that all she could think about was getting back to Brady’s house as quickly as possible.
Chris smiled at her as she walked toward him. She wondered what he thought had happened back there. He must think they had worked everything out or he wouldn’t look so smug. At least he was a good friend to have arranged a way for them to talk.
He handed her a drink as she approached. “I thought you’d want another,” he said with a wink.
“Yes, I would,” she said, taking it and sipping on the whiskey sour.
The key felt like the business card Brady had given her the first time they had met and he had told her to call him. She couldn’t stop feeling like the tiny thing was weighing her bag down.
The next hour was a blur of Brady, taking pictures, shaking hands, schmoozing all around. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from him, and Chris wouldn’t let her have more than one more drink. Apparently she hadn’t been as sober as she had thought when she had met Chris the first time. He was probably right about it anyway; she shouldn’t trust herself to drink in this environment.
Someone handed Brady a microphone and he gave a short speech thanking everyone for being in attendance. A series of other officials spoke after him. It was the same thing from everyone. They all wanted people to donate money to Brady for his campaign. They wanted to take him from a candidate to a shoo-in.
Liz already thought he was. And she had before she had become completely and totally biased.
After the speeches, music streamed through the speakers and the lights dimmed. Everyone began to mingle around the room and some of the younger crowd started dancing. Chris disappeared for a second to get another beer, and Liz thought about leaving early anyway.
She just needed to suck it up and see the evening for what it was. She had gotten herself into this mess. She hadn’t thought that she would want anything more from Brady Maxwell than what he had offered her that morning in the diner…that she would want a real relationship. And it hadn’t mattered, until it did.
Liz found Brady in the crowd standing with his family, Amber, and some official Liz didn’t know. Savannah was speaking and Brady was laughing at whatever she said. At least he got along with his sister. She wondered if he and Clay were too much alike, or if their animosity ran deeper.
Brady said something to the official as Amber spoke with his wife. She wondered what it would be like to stand there with Brady and entertain the wives of officials while he spoke to the husbands. Would she enjoy doing that? A chill went through her. She was getting way ahead of herself.
His eyes found her across the room and she saw his mask fall when he smiled at her. Their eyes locked and her cheeks flushed. He wanted her. She could see it in that one look.
Liz licked her lips. He nodded once, as if he understood what she was implying and turned his attention back to his sister.
She needed to leave. She couldn’t stand here any longer. She wanted to be in his bed, snuggled up against his chest, enjoying the time she could have with him. She didn’t want to see him parade around a room with someone else. Even if he had no personal feelings toward Amber, it still made Liz feel disgusting. She understood his position, but she didn’t have to like it.
“I think this is the last one for me tonight,” Liz said, setting down her empty glass.