LITMIR.BIZ

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the way to welcome me. The answer is NO.

      —Kat

      PS—next time you want to welcome someone, try chocolates. I prefer mine dark and nutty, none of the sugary, cherry-filled kind.

      Satisfied, she took one more look over her shoulder and hit Send before she could lose her nerve. She immediately went to the next email, which was from Nathan—a terse note explaining the files that were attached. The first file hadn’t even downloaded when she saw an email pop up from Alex.

      Frowning, she craned her neck to peer into his office. He wasn’t there. She clicked the message.

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      Subject: Thick skin

      You’ll find campaign staff don’t have time for sugar coating or cherry fillings.

      But I’m all for a woman who likes dark and nutty.

      Sent from my BlackBerry

      Her face heated. She minimized the message and looked behind her before she reread it. Was he flirting with her?

      “Here you go.” She nearly jumped out of her chair as one of the campaign staffers she’d met earlier appeared. He handed her a BlackBerry. “It’s all set up for you. Use this instead of your personal phone from now on—hackers are likely monitoring your text and phone messages so they can sell something to the media.”

      She opened her mouth to ask the pimply-faced intern if he was serious, but he turned and left before she had a chance. She deleted Alex’s emails and went back to reviewing the documents Nathan had sent. Whatever game Alex was playing, she would not indulge him.

      Hours passed like minutes. Kat immersed herself in the policy briefs she’d received. The analysis was fascinating and unlike the academic ones she was accustomed to. Nathan’s arguments could almost convince her the IED bill was justified. Almost. She made several notes for her book.

      When she looked at her watch, she realized with dismay that she wouldn’t have time to go home and make it back before the scheduled call with her father. She walked to Crista’s desk and asked if they could move the video chat to another day. Crista handed her a tablet computer. “Here, this works on cellular. You can take the call from your car so your mother won’t find out.”

      Kat blew out a breath. “What exactly do you know about my mother’s situation?”

      Crista continued tapping away at her computer. “Everything. We researched you when the news story broke and were able to get the claims made on your health insurance, so we’re aware your mother is on mood stabilizers. I assume that’s why you need to go home.”

      Fire erupted inside her. Kat gripped the tablet so hard, her fingers whitened. “That type of information is private. How did you get it?”

      Crista turned in her seat, finally focusing her eyes on Kat. “Don’t be upset. Privacy is an illusion. We hire a firm to do investigations for us—every high-profile campaign does. In this electronic world, information is abundant.”

      Kat muttered her thanks for the tablet and rushed out to her car. Someone had moved it to an underground parking spot the senator used when he needed to come in and out of headquarters without battling the media. She was shaking with anger, but there was no point in taking it out on Crista.

      It took her several minutes of clicking her electronic key to find the car, but she was relieved not to encounter a horde of reporters waiting for her when she did. She sat with her hands resting on the steering wheel. Something buzzed and pinged in her purse, and she reached inside to retrieve the BlackBerry. It was an urgent text from Alex.

      You ok? Crista says you seem upset.

      She resisted the urge to throw the device out the window. She tapped back a message.

      Privacy is important to me.

      The response was almost instant.

      We’re a small campaign staff. It’s not personal.

      What did that even mean? Not personal? It was the very definition of personal. There were at least thirty people inside that campaign office and they all knew every intimate detail of her life.

      She put the phone in her purse and started the car. In two hours, she would be talking to her father for the first time. She needed to prepare herself. The BlackBerry buzzed and pinged insistently. She put the car back in Park and picked it up.

      The senator is looking forward to talking to you. Need anything?

      Yes, she needed to go back in time, before the story broke, when she was all set to get her promotion. A gnawing ache grew in her stomach. Had she miscalculated? Alex made a good case for how her working on the campaign was a win for both of them, but she didn’t trust him. What was the play? She put the phone on silent. She needed some quiet time to think.

      Kat’s mind whirled as she drove home, and she was grateful that the rush-hour traffic on I-95 had abated. She made it home in less than an hour. The news vans were gone; they’d left after Alex had made a statement that she was moving to Richmond to work on her father’s campaign. He’d even gotten her to roll out an empty suitcase when they left the house earlier in the day, explaining that the media didn’t have unlimited resources. They would take the stakeout to Richmond, and they had. Alex was a smooth operator. Just like Colin.

      She entered the house and found her mother sitting in the living room with the TV on. Kissing her on the cheek, Kat noted her color was better.

      “How’re you doing?”

      Her mother’s eyes were bright. “You didn’t have to come back early. I took my meds.”

      Kat raised a brow. Every evening was a battle to get her mother to take her medications. There had been several days when she’d actually resorted to mixing them in her food or tea. But the pillbox containing her mother’s daily medications was empty. Nothing in the trash. Had her mother flushed them down the toilet? Kat didn’t want to re-dose her—too much was just as bad as not enough. She’d learned that the hard way. In the past year, the medications had gotten more complicated than ever. Her mother’s doctor seemed to be getting stricter about dosages and schedules for both sedatives and mood stabilizers.

      She went back to the living room and sat with her mother. Emilia was in better spirits than Kat had seen in months. They watched the news in companionable silence. Her name was mentioned in a three-minute story but it had stopped being top news. Alex had made a statement outside headquarters a few hours ago saying that the campaign had asked Kat to write an honest report on her father’s defense policies. She rolled her eyes.

      “He’s quite the charmer, isn’t he?”

      Kat couldn’t agree more.

      “I’m glad Bill is finally going to know you,” Emilia continued. “I tried contacting him, you know, after the divorce. To tell him. But he wouldn’t take my calls.”

      Kat turned to her mother. She’d spent years trying to get her to talk about her father. “I thought you said you didn’t tell him.”

      “Because he never gave me the chance. He was so angry with me for leaving him.”

      Kat’s eyes widened. She’d always thought it was her father who broke things off. “Why did you leave him?”

      Her mother sighed. “We had a whirlwind romance in college during our senior year. He asked me to marry him on our third date. Graduation was coming up, and he wanted me to come with him, to his home in Northern Virginia, so we could be close to DC. I hardly knew him, but he was charming and so handsome. I was young and didn’t know any better. After we were married, it all started.”

      Her mother stared at the TV. Kat picked up the remote and turned it off. “What started, Mom?”

      “First, his mother told me I needed to change the way I dress. Be more like Jackie O. She took me

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