“No, of course not. But you understand what I’m saying.”
“If the good senator has any regrets,” he said snidely, “I imagine they have to do with leaving office and losing some of that power and constant media attention. I think that’s the whole reason behind this book, and the whole reason for sending you here. His illegitimate son is the only surprise the old man has left to get people’s attention.”
Natalie disagreed with him, though she didn’t say so. She truly believed Chaney wanted to meet J.T., to know what kind of son he and Lucinda Rawlins had produced together. He’d made his own attempts and had been rebuffed, and so he’d turned to her to get the information for him.
“You’re very close to your half brother, Tate, and your nephew, Jordan.” When she paused, a wary look turned his brown eyes a few shades darker and cranked up the intensity in his gaze a few notches. “You have eight half brothers and sisters and seven nieces and nephews on your fa—on the Chaney side of the family. Do you have any interest in meeting them?”
“You’ve met them, haven’t you?”
She nodded. She’d had the dubious pleasure of spending weeks with every one of them.
“Do I have anything in common with even one of them?”
As far as she could recall, not one of the Chaney offspring had ever held a job. Oh, they’d been given titles in the family business and positions in their father’s campaign, but they were empty titles, responsibility-free positions. None of them had actually worked at anything beyond enjoying life to the fullest as one of the privileged elite. They partied. They indulged their every whim. They spent their father’s money as if the supply was inexhaustible—as it seemed to be. They carried on scandalously and considered themselves above the dictates the rest of the world lived by.
“Other than the brown hair and eyes, no,” she admitted. Then she smiled. “Of course, I don’t know that much about you yet.” But she knew enough to be certain that he wasn’t the typical lazy, self-centered, greedy narcissist the rest of the Chaney children were. She knew they would have no more interest in claiming him as their half brother than he had in being claimed.
“Are your mother’s parents still alive?”
The abrupt subject change made her blink. “I—I don’t know.”
“Why haven’t you found out?”
“I don’t even know where they lived.”
“You know their names?”
“Yes, but—”
“You found me, when I would have preferred to remain lost. Surely, if they’re still living, you can find them.”
“And what would I say?”
“How about starting with, ‘I’m your granddaughter’? Then moving on to ‘I’m fascinated by families and thought it was time to get to know my own.’”
Natalie’s laugh felt choked and phony. “Remember—I ask the questions and you answer them.”
His shrug was every bit as enticing as it had been earlier by the truck, with his shirt off. “Have you never even thought about tracking them down?”
“No.”
“Why not? Their problem was with your father, not you. They would probably be thrilled to meet their youngest daughter’s only child.”
Maybe, she admitted to herself. But her father would go ballistic if he ever found out. He’d made it clear enough when she was a child that her loyalties belonged to him, no one else. His parents, her mother’s parents—who needed them? They had each other.
But she had never really had him.
She cleared her mind. “Back to the Chaneys…”
“Let’s stick with the Grants, or actually…what is your grandparents’ name?”
“Stevenson.”
“You have a whole family out there somewhere. Wouldn’t you like to meet the Stevensons?”
“Wouldn’t you like to meet the Chaneys?”
“Aunts, uncles, cousins…”
“Half brothers, half sisters, stepmothers—several of whom are just about your age.”
“You think I’d be interested in one of the old man’s ex-wives? How sick would that be?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Not in the Rawlins family.”
Natalie took a few moments to eat, polishing off half of the sandwich and the chips and both cookies, then pushed her plate back. “What kind of schedule do you keep?”
“I get up around five-fifteen and work until everything that needs doing is done, and I’m usually in bed by ten.”
Some days she awakened with an excess of energy and did everything that needed doing, too. Other days she hung around her apartment, not getting dressed or combing her hair, eating junk food and taking naps between movies on TV. She considered those days the refilling-her-creative-well days. No doubt J.T. would think of them as damn-what-a-lazy-slug days.
“You don’t have a regular quitting time?” she asked.
With a brow raised, he reached for her plate. When she nodded, he took it and his own plate to the counter. After putting the remaining sandwich half in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, he returned. “I usually quit around six or six-thirty, depending on what I’m doing. Sometimes I have to work later. Occasionally I can quit earlier.”
“Doesn’t leave much time for a social life.”
He shrugged.
“You’ve never been married.” She waited for his nod. “I assume there are women in your life. Anyone in particular?”
For a long, still moment he simply looked at her. Though her gaze remained steady on him, some part of her mind noticed that it wasn’t as cool in the house as it had initially seemed, coming in from the searing oven outside. In fact, in the past few minutes she’d gotten distinctly warmer, almost uncomfortably so, and found herself wishing for a blast of chilly air, an industrial-strength fan…or maybe a cold shower.
“You don’t really think I’d tell you if there were, do you? Considering who—or rather what—you are….”
Though his tone was mild, his words measured, Natalie felt the insult’s sting. “This may come as a surprise to you, J.T., but not everyone regards reporters as the spawn of Satan.”
“Not everyone has one sticking her pretty little nose into their personal lives.”
She smiled smugly. Every Chaney male eventually got around to a compliment of some sort—though she had to admit, J.T. was the first one to select her nose. The number-one son had liked her legs, number two her breasts, number
