LITMIR.BIZ

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And this you tell me not two weeks after you threw yourself at the boss, presumably because you’d like to get some of him, too. Let’s talk about who’s ‘coarse.’”

      She was silent. Stricken.

      “Well,” Mowery said, “it’s not pretty, but it could work.”

      “It will work. Jack will pay dearly to keep such information quiet.” She straightened, eyed him coolly. She wanted him to think he was in control, not that she was a complete ninny. “If you’re not convinced, walk out of here now. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”

      He gave a curt laugh and started back down the hall to the living room. Without turning around, he motioned with one finger for her to follow.

      Barbara joined him. She had to stiffen her muscles to keep herself from trembling. Goose bumps sprang up on her arms from the air-conditioning. She was cold now. Dehydrated. Not nervous, not afraid, she told herself. She was absolutely positive this was the best—the only—course of action.

      “Here’s the deal, Barbie. In for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t do cold feet.”

      She raised her chin and met his gaze directly. “I’m not some weak-minded twit.”

      She sat stiffly on a chair and crossed her legs and arms, steeled herself against the cold of the air-conditioning, the itching, stinging bug bites, the insidious feeling that Mowery knew more about her than she realized. She had to remember the kind of work he did, remain on her guard.

      Slowly, her shivering subsided.

      “Did you fuck the son,” he asked, “or are you just making that up because Jack doesn’t want you?”

      She remained calm, practicing the restraint she’d learned in twenty years as Jack Swift’s most trusted aide. “Men like you don’t understand loyalty and service, true commitment.”

      “Damn right we don’t.” He grinned, deeply amused by his own wit. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You can have whatever little fantasies you want, Barbie.”

      “I’m not a woman taken to fantasizing.”

      Indeed not, she thought. She wouldn’t have gone to Jack if she hadn’t believed with all her heart, soul and mind that he wanted her to speak up, finally, after all these years. She didn’t invent this sort of thing, not after two decades in Washington. She hadn’t misread the cues. Jack Swift simply wasn’t prepared to act on his own feelings. He had run. And now she needed to turn him back in the right direction, back to her.

      Darren jumped up, grabbed both her hands and lifted her onto her feet. Her breath caught. What now? What was he doing? He was very muscular and strong. She could never physically overpower him. She had to rely on her wits, her intelligence and incredible self-discipline.

      There was nothing sexual in the way he held her. “How long has it been, Barbie? How long since you’ve had a man?” He squeezed her waist, choking the air from her. “Not since Colin Swift? Not ever?”

      “That’s none of your business.” She kept her tone deliberately cold, in control. “Our relationship is strictly professional. We are partners in a scheme to blackmail a United States senator. That’s all.”

      He squeezed harder, painfully. She couldn’t move. “No surprises, Barbie. Understand? If this is going to work, I know everything.”

      “I told you—”

      “Did you have an affair with Colin Swift?”

      “Yes.”

      This had to be a test. She didn’t know what to do to pass. Run screaming? Beg him to make love to her? Slap him?

      No, she thought. Hold your ground. She wanted him to underestimate her, not to think he could roll over her.

      “You stereotype me at your own peril, Mr. Mowery,” she said. “I’m not some dried-up prune pining for a man I can’t have.”

      “Where were you last week?”

      “On vacation. I hit outlet stores all over New England.”

      “Vermont?”

      “What?”

      He moved his hands higher, squeezing her ribs. “Did you go to Vermont?”

      “I can’t breathe—”

      “You can say yes or no.”

      She nodded, gasping. “Yes.”

      “Did you see Lucy Swift?”

      She shook her head, unable to speak.

      “She decided to go to Wyoming at the last minute. She paid top dollar for the tickets. She took her kids. I want to know why.”

      “I can’t—breathe—I—”

      He eased up, just slightly.

      Barbara coughed, gulping in air. “Goddamn you—”

      “Tell me about Lucy.”

      “I don’t know anything. You’ll have to ask her yourself. I went outlet shopping in Manchester one day. That’s all.”

      Lying to him was dangerous, Barbara thought, but telling the truth had to be more dangerous.

      He traced the skin just under her breasts with his thumbs. He had no sexual interest in her. His focus on his mission was total. He wasn’t that complicated a man, Barbara thought, and she wasn’t that undesirable a woman. Obviously his obsession with Jack Swift was something she needed to better understand.

      His gaze was cold even as he released her. “Arnica,” he said.

      She rubbed her sides. “What?”

      “Rub in a little arnica oil for the bruises.”

      She headed back to the bathroom. This time she didn’t throw up. She washed her hands, closed the lid on the toilet and sat down. She was risking everything. She had a stimulating career, a nice apartment, a fabulous set of friends. There were men who wanted her. Good, successful men.

      She didn’t have to let a scummy Darren Mowery fondle her in her own living room.

      After Jack had dispatched her, so politely, as if she were pathetic, she’d learned he was seeing Sidney Greenburg, a curator at the Smithsonian—fifty years old, never married, no children. Why her? Why not Barbara?

      Sidney was one of Lucy’s Washington friends.

      I could have married Colin. I didn’t have to wait for Jack.

      “Barbara?”

      Darren was outside the door. She didn’t move.

      “Here’s how it’s going to go down,” he said. “I’ll approach Jack. I’ll put the squeeze on him. He’s not going to risk his own reputation or sully his dead son’s reputation. He’ll pay. And you’ll get ten percent.”

      She jumped up and tore open the door. “Ten percent! Forget it. I’ll call the police right now. You’d have nothing without me. I had the affair with Colin. I have the pictures.”

      “You won’t call the police,” Darren said calmly.

      “I will. You’re threatening a United States senator.”

      “Barbara. Please.” He was cold, supercilious. “If you make one wrong move once this thing gets started, I’ll be there. Trust me. You won’t want that.”

      Her stomach turned in on itself. She clutched it in silent agony. What if Lucy went crying to Sebastian Redwing because of her harassment campaign? “Bastard.”

      “Bingo. You got that one right.”

      Barbara held up her chin, summoning twenty years of experience at using other people’s arrogance to her own advantage. And to Jack’s. “Jack couldn’t

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