Bishop (Political Royalty Book 3) (2 page)

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S
HEP WAS WELL and truly fucked. It was funny how the things he imagined always felt different when they actually happened. He got the nuance wrong. What had seemed justifiable instead felt foolish. Allowances he’d made for himself shifted from savvy to convenient and in the most recent case, even reckless.

He walked back into the makeshift war room with his wife on his arm and set about getting ready to make his statement to the press. Beyond some inane chatter about the girls’ schedule, Sandra hadn’t said a word to him on the short walk. She knew there was something between Haven and him. She might not know for sure how far things had gone, but she knew where they were headed.

She wouldn’t say anything publicly. Hell, he wasn’t even sure she’d bring it up with him privately. The one thing he knew for certain was that she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her chance to become first lady. She might find a way privately to make his life a living hell, but if he was being honest, things between them had been so cold for so long, he couldn’t be sure she cared enough to muster up the energy. Sandra was practical in a way few people recognized. If it didn’t serve her interests, it didn’t get her attention and if it did, her scattershot focus turned laser precise. It was too soon to see how this situation would play out and regardless of everything, he hated the idea that he’d hurt her. If he’d hurt her.

None of that changed the fact that he loved Haven and had no intention of giving her up.

He wasn’t a child. He could wait for what he wanted. Now that he’d found her, he’d wait forever if he had to. That didn’t mean she’d be willing to stand by and watch him play happy family for the press. Or help win him the White House to watch Sandra move in and start redecorating.

He loved Haven and he knew she loved him. But he couldn’t see where that got either of them beyond being strapped with a whole lot of heartbreak. He’d had glimpses of what it could be like, what his world could be like in her arms. He knew what it was like to have her see him—really see him for who he was, not for who everyone expected him to be. It was a thousand times harder knowing she was so close and that being with her was so much more than he’d ever imagined, but now that he’d felt it, he couldn’t turn away. Maybe love endured—outlasted everything else, like an ache that never left, a hole that constantly emptied without ever filling up. But he wasn’t convinced it conquered all. Nothing in his experience had borne out that saying. He couldn’t see what a win looked like from where he stood.

The door to the suite opened and his head shot up, hoping for a glimpse of Haven and knowing before he looked, she wouldn’t be there. Justin stepped inside, scanning the room until he found him. Shep could only guess at how much the other man knew. He was more than Haven’s assistant. He was her best friend and loyal in a way he’d rarely seen. Of course, that could be because Shep had spent most of his life in politics.

“They’re ready for you and Mrs. Walker downstairs, Senator,” he said, his expression giving away nothing.

Shep nodded and turned to round up Sandra but she was already closing the distance between them, a smile plastered on her beautiful face. Her gaze met his and for a fraction of a second, the mask slipped and he saw pain in her eyes. It was gone so quickly, he wondered if he’d actually seen it. It didn’t stop the guilt from settling over him. He wanted Haven. He loved her, but he wished there was a way out of this mess without hurting the mother of his children.

“Let’s go talk to the people who’ve come to support you,” she said, tucking her hand under his arm the way she had a hundred times before, so familiar and at the same time different.

This time there weren’t any cameras around and her touch felt proprietary. In every way but the one that mattered, she owned him and her place at his side. And they both knew it.

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T
HE CROWD CHEERED as they entered the ballroom, and Sandra beamed at his side, blooming at the attention. Shep scanned the edge of the room for Haven but didn’t see her. Standing in front of the podium, seeing the shadowy figures silhouetted by the bright lights pointed his way, he opened his mouth to give his abbreviated stump speech. He got as far as thanking the volunteers and the voters, but then he caught himself, pausing for a moment as the silence dragged on. It had to be worth something. The pain, the work—all of it had to be worth something or why was he doing it? He didn’t need money. He didn’t need the power—not for himself anyway.
So why was he standing here in front of the nation, asking them for their support?

Everyone in the audience had gone still and he could sense rather than see the media lean in as he stood on the temporary stage without saying anything. Sandra stepped close enough to touch his back and give him a little pinch. Motivation with a side of pain.

“I was going to give my normal speech, but then it occurred to me, y’all have heard it already. Some of you more than once.”

A smattering of laughter broke out around the room, and he smiled at the faceless shapes.

“So,” he said, finding his footing. “I’d like to do something a little different tonight. I’d like to read you some numbers, because what goes better with drinking and dancing than statistics.” The laughter was louder this time, dying down quickly as he held up his hand. “We’ve spent a lot of time this past week talking about what a family is or isn’t and what’s the
right
way for them to be. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I think you probably know better than the government how to handle your families and your different roles in them.

“What we need government for is to take care of the things that make it easier for you all to do what you do. Things like making sure our roads and bridges are safe, and that our economy stays strong so you have jobs to be able to support your families, whatever they look like. That we’re safe from outside threats and respected in the world as the superpower we undoubtedly are.” He waited, letting them parse through what he said. None of it had been earth-shattering, but he wanted to make sure they were with him before he went on.

“But we need our government to take on the big ideas. To pull us together to do the things we can’t do by ourselves. America has always done that. From the moment those men and women got together in Philadelphia and ironed out the ideas that became our Constitution through the race for space, we have always stood on the edge, leading the way to a better tomorrow for everyone. It’s the reason people want to come here. The reason they’re willing to risk everything for a chance to live here.” He caught himself before he said
within our borders
. He’d already drifted further into immigration than he intended. He wanted to get them thinking about the
shining city on the hill
, not engage them in concerns over border security.

“Twenty-one thousand people die every day as a result of hunger-related issues. Most of them are children. Just think about that for a moment. That’s one person every four seconds. Or to make it easier to picture, thirty-five 747s. The ones where they really cram you in, where you can’t help but get to know your neighbor better than you want to.” The audience chuckled and he gave them a moment. Nobody wanted to be lectured about things they didn’t think they could do anything about. Nobody wanted to be lectured, period. He had a fine line to balance between empowering people for change or just pissing them off so much they moved away from him.

“Two hundred and ninety-two school buses.”

The crowd went silent.

“Most of those people live in other parts of the world but not all of them. Some of them live here. Next door to us. Seven 747s worth every year. I’m not in any way, shape, or form minimizing the number of deaths from war, terrorism, gun violence, or any of the other ways our loved ones are taken from us. I can already picture the headlines in my mind.” He gave a shudder and felt the audience relax a fraction. “This message is too important to get hijacked. I’ll let the press sort out those statistics.”

He shot a look in the direction of the press gathered together to the right of the room. The challenge was deliberate. He counted on them to cite the statistics he couldn’t begin to say from the stage without having himself and more importantly his message crucified by the Collins team and every other Republican who wanted a piece of him. Gun violence deaths alone would start a tidal wave of debate he’d never dig out from under. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one who told voters more US citizens died of hunger than from terrorist attacks, including in 2001 with the 9/11 attacks. The press could handle that part.

“Imagine what we’d do if seven 747s fell out of the sky over our country every year. What would we be willing to do to make that change? What if every day, thirty-five planes went down across the planet?” He gave the murmurs a moment to quiet and then he looked straight into the heart of the crowd.

“I know what we’d do and so do you. We’d figure out what was wrong and we’d change it. We’re Americans.” He shrugged his shoulders at the inevitability of his statement and sent up a silent prayer that the audience felt it too. “It’s what we do. We see a problem and we fix it. We see a wrong and we make it right. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do in November.”

The crowd exploded in applause and for the first time since he started speaking, Shep relaxed, confident at least some of his message got through. He might not be able to hold Haven in his arms right now. The thought tightened something around his heart and he concentrated to keep his smile from slipping. But he could be the man she believed in. The one she saw when she looked at him. A better man than the one he was. Maybe then the pain and the heartbreak would be worth something. He could do what he set out to do from the beginning—leave the world better than he found it.

H
AVEN SLID THE DOOR TO the darkened room shut behind her and followed the glow of the computer screen to the makeshift work area. She set the pizza box on the desk and pulled up the only other chair. She was still a little amazed she’d been able to lure Owen out of his cave so she’d have immediate access to him and his numbers on primary night. In reality, he’d done a remarkable job turning the room into a miniature replica of his normal workspace. At least the parts she’d actually been able to see.

“The numbers haven’t changed,” he said, reaching for the pizza without bothering to look at her.

“I know. I didn’t expect them to. You told me they were right. I believe you.”

She was on the fence. She wouldn’t have hired him if she didn’t believe he was the best at his job, but she also wanted to win Florida. Bad. Even more so now that the whole Walker thing had gone upside down. She couldn’t think about him walking away from her with Sandra on his arm, or of the two of them standing on the stage downstairs. So she’d throw herself into her work. And push everything else, including her heart, aside for the moment.

He made a noncommittal noise and continued to pound the glowing keys on the keyboard balanced on his lap. She watched for a moment, trying to make sense of the screen in front of her, but whatever he was working on went far beyond her skill set.

“Can you show me the county-by-county projections for Florida?”

“Why?”

She fought the urge to smack the back of his head.

“Because the actuals are coming in, and I want to compare them in real time,” she said, managing to say the words without gritting her teeth so hard they cracked.

He glanced away from his screen long enough to look at her like she was an idiot and the urge to smack him grew to an almost overwhelming intensity.

“I did that already.” He pulled a notebook she hadn’t seen in the dim light out from under the pizza box and handed it to her. “The tab should already be open.”

He turned back to his screen and she shifted her chair away from him to save both of them. The smart-ass endangered himself every time they were in the same room. Restraint on her part was the only thing that saved him. She flipped open the notebook and waited a second for it to wake up. Deadpool’s masked face popped up on the screen and she rolled her eyes. She tapped the tab at the bottom of the screen and a window opened, showing the polling analysis Owen had done superimposed over the SBE county-by-county results.

It was a thing of beauty. With a few clicks, Haven could see exactly how the projected results lined up with the actual counts. She scanned through the results, caught between admiration for Owen’s work and the growing surety he’d been right. They were going to lose Florida. It would be close. Very close, but close didn’t count in the winner-take-all state.

The ad buy and additional man-hours weren’t a complete waste. They’d built momentum they should be able to capitalize on in the general, but it sucked for the primaries.
God, she was starting to sound like Owen.
She had to get out of the dark before her eyes got the round-eyed look of those lemurs that only came out at night.

A loss in Florida meant instead of talking more like the presumptive nominee, Walker was still deep in the fight. She blew out her breath, working through the delegate counts in her head. Hell, he was in for a fight either way. Collins had been running neck-and-neck with him in the delegate counts for weeks. But elections were Newtonian in some respects. An object in motion and all that. Momentum mattered and winning both Ohio and Florida would build a tsunami of momentum. Hoping she might have misread the numbers and knowing she hadn’t, she glanced down at the screen in time to see the results from Dade County fill in.