The room fell silent again, and Liz was sure people could hear her thoughts. She forced herself to look away from Calleigh’s questioning stare. She didn’t know how much Calleigh knew or if, as Hayden had said, it was all speculation. Either way it wasn’t comforting.
“We heard that we should be having the final results for the Fourth District over there in the Triangle area of North Carolina any minute now. What do you think about this race, Stacy?” the commentator asked his female coanchor.
“Well, it’s really a toss-up, Ryan,” Stacy said, furrowing her brow. “There’s been so much speculation going around about State Senator Maxwell’s bachelor status and the number of women he has been seen with. The question people are asking is ‘Who is Senator Maxwell dating?’ We’ve seen him with a North Carolina state beauty queen, an environmental lobbyist, and a swimsuit model. How many women is this politician dating at once? The campaign has come out and officially made a statement. You can see it here on the left.”
A clip of a campaign’s statement appeared on the screen, and Liz skimmed it quickly as the woman read over it aloud.
“‘State Senator Maxwell has had no official relationships with any of the women that he has been photographed with. They are simply friends who agreed to accompany him to events. He is, as ever, focused on the election.’ Now, that seems pretty straightforward to me, but I wonder how many more women will surface if he wins this primary. There has already been some talk about him having relations with yet another woman.”
“That’s right, Stacy,” Ryan cut in. “Who is this mystery woman? And will more evidence turn up regarding this situation? If it does, this could look bad for Senator Maxwell if he wins the primary today and moves on to the general election.”
Liz felt as if all of the color had drained out of her face. It was all hearsay. Someone had started a rumor that had bloomed into something with the potential to cause chaos. But still, she hadn’t heard about any swimsuit model from Brady. Was that just gossip as well? And why was the news even reporting on this?
She knew why even if it was infuriating at the moment. The race was as much selling a person as it was selling a platform…maybe more so. People could rally behind a compelling candidate like Brady, but with a potential mishap like this, how far would it set him back?
“Oh, it looks like the results are finally in,” Stacy said with a smile.
Liz watched the screen along with the rest of the crowd. She was solely focused on what was about to happen. Brady was going to win. He had to win. This was his dream.
“And it looks like in an incredibly close race with a win by only a thousand votes,” Stacy cheered, “State Senator Brady Maxwell has won the primary. Congratulations, Senator.”
The room erupted into applause. People were screaming, clapping, hugging one another, dancing with strangers—Liz could even see one lady crying on her friend’s shoulder. And all she did was stand there and stare.
Brady won. He had actually won. He had beaten a very qualified candidate, someone who had been working in politics two or three times longer than him. Yet, he had come out on top.
Liz had known deep down that he would win, but still the magnitude of what had just happened washed over her all at once. He had two and a half more months of the campaign to find out whether he won his seat in Congress, but at this point, he had surpassed expectations. If he won his seat in November, he would be the youngest sitting representative. She was so proud of him.
Actually standing there, knowing that Brady was the nominee for the House of Representatives, changed everything. Everything.
He wasn’t just a chance. A hope. He was a sure thing.
And it was in that moment Liz knew that Brady had been wrong the other day. He had been wrong to say that there was never a choice. No matter how stubborn he was in wanting both the campaign and her, there was always a choice. Always.
But the choice wasn’t his. It was hers.
The whole time Liz had been acting as if she didn’t have a choice in what happened between her and Brady. That things would work out or they wouldn’t. That he was the one who would make the ultimate decision to pull the plug. He had set the rules from the beginning in that little diner, and he had been setting them ever since. Brady decided when and where and even who could know that they had a relationship at all. Brady had decided the risks they would take.
Liz had simply acted like a passenger, letting him guide the car wherever it might go. She had been active and even demanding at times, but she never really pushed the limits. She never did anything drastic enough to make him say enough was enough.
But she knew now that she had to make the choice; otherwise Brady was going to keep making it for her. He had been making decisions for her long enough.
What it came down to was that she loved him and he loved her. It was an inevitable, impossible existence where they stood currently. Their feelings bore down on them with a hopeless, crushing desire, with a need that bordered on addiction. It would forever be that need that she felt, that craving to be with him, to be around him because they were never allowed the opportunity to let their feelings bloom and grow. At this standstill, they couldn’t truly develop their relationship.
And the biggest problem. The one above all else was that Brady wouldn’t let her love him.
Plain and simple.
So the choice wasn’t her or the campaign. The choice was whether or not he would let her love him.
And that answer scared her, terrified her.
Because Liz knew that if it was her decision, she would choose his happiness over hers any day.
Chapter 31
BRADY
Brady stared out across the sea of people. The ballroom was full to the brim with his supporters chanting his name, cheering his victory, and waiting for him to give his acceptance speech. He had won the nomination to run for the House of Representatives in his party. He had won.
All of the time, energy, planning, strategizing…everything he had given up had been worth it. The people in his district had voted, and here he was preparing to step up to the podium to accept the nomination. It was surreal to finally have within arm’s reach what he had been working toward all this time.
Yates’s dropping out of the race had helped the situation. He had been a more formidable contender than Hardy, though still Brady had beaten him by only a thousand votes. He wished he knew how much of his success rested on the name his father had given him compared to the amount of effort he had put in himself.
In the end, it didn’t matter. He was still here, exactly where he wanted to be.
“Congratulations!” Heather cried, rushing toward him with a giant smile plastered on her face. It was the first real smile he had seen from her in a while. She had been even more stressed than he was these last couple weeks.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him into a hug, the way she used to when they had been running in smaller races. She didn’t even touch him anymore; she was too worried about appearances.
Brady patted her on the back and Heather released him, looking a bit flustered.
“I knew you could do it,” she said, straightening diplomatically. Even here, right after they had won their greatest feat to date, she still couldn’t be herself. Sometimes he missed the old Heather.
“Thanks,” Brady said, for once not knowing what else to say.