every word. She was tempted to do as he wanted—cross the room, remove his mask and remove hers as well—but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even trust herself to kiss him goodbye. It had to be a clean break for both of them. “And you sure you don’t want me to pay for the room?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“At least let me give you something toward it and—”
“No,” he said, declining her offer.
She didn’t know how much time passed while they just stared at each other. But she knew she had to leave. “I have to go now,” she said, as if convincing herself of that.
He shifted on the bed to take the rose, and offered it to her. She closed the short distance between them to retrieve it. “At least let me walk you to the door,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I’ll see myself out.”
And then she quickly walked out of the bedroom.
Reggie pulled himself up in the bed when he heard the sound of the hotel door closing. He sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling a sense of loss that touched his very soul and not understanding how such a thing was possible.
He stood up to put on his clothes, and it was then that he snatched off the mask. It had served its purpose. He reached for his shirt and tie and noticed something glittering on the carpet. He reached down and picked it up. It was one of the diamond earrings that she had been wearing.
He folded the earring in the palm of his hand. He knew at that very moment that if he had to turn Atlanta upside down, he would find his Wonder Woman.
He would find her, and he would keep her.
Three
“So, Libby, how was the party?”
Olivia, who had been so entrenched in the memories of the night before, hadn’t noticed her father standing at the bottom of the stairs. She glanced down at him and smiled. “It was simply wonderful.” He didn’t need to know that she was speaking not of the party per se but of the intimate party she’d gone to at the Saxon Hotel, with her mystery man.
It had been just before six in the morning when she slipped into her father’s home, and knowing he was an early riser, she had dashed up the stairs and showered. She had also put in a call to Terrence, leaving a message on his cell phone that it was okay to delete the text message she had sent to him the night before. And then she had climbed into bed. By the time her head had hit the pillow in her own bed, she had heard her father moving around.
She had enjoyed the best sleep in years. She had awakened to a hungry stomach, and the last person she had expected to meet when she took the stairs to go pillaging in the kitchen was her father. Typically, after early morning church services on Sunday, he hit the country club with his buddies for a game of golf. So why was he still here?
Orin met his daughter on the bottom stair and gave her a hug. “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I felt kind of bad that I couldn’t attend the ball with you, but I did have to work on that speech.”
She looked up at him and, not for the first time, thought that he was definitely a good-looking man, and she was glad he took care of himself by eating right and staying active. “No problem, Dad.”
Not wanting him to ask for details about the party, she quickly asked a question of her own. “So why are you home and not out on the golf course?”
He smiled as he tucked her arm in his and escorted her to the kitchen. “Cathy threatened me with dire consequences today if I left before she got the chance to come over and go over my speech.”
Olivia smiled but didn’t say anything for a moment. Cathy Bristol had been her father’s private secretary for almost fifteen years, and Olivia couldn’t help but wonder when her father would wake up and realize the woman was in love with him. Olivia had figured it out when she was in her teens, and when she’d gotten older had asked her brothers about it. Like her dad, they’d been clueless. But at least Duan and Terrence had opened their eyes even if her father hadn’t. Cathy was a forty-eight-year-old widow who had lost her husband over eighteen years ago, when he died in a car accident, leaving her with two sons to raise.
“So when is Cathy coming? I’d love to see her.”
Her father smiled. “Around noon. I’m treating her to lunch here first before I put her to work.”
“To review your speech?”
“Yes,” he said when they reached the kitchen and he sat down at the table. “She’s good at editing things and giving her opinion. As this is my first speech, I want to impress those who hear it. It will be one of those forums in which all the candidates speak.”
Olivia nodded as she grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl on the table and sat down across from him.
Orin frowned. “Surely that’s not all you’re having for breakfast.”
“Afraid so,” she said before biting into her apple.
“You’re so thin,” he pointed out. “You should eat more.”
Olivia could only smile. There was no way she could tell her father that she had eaten quite a lot last night. After making love several times, they had ordered room service, eaten until their stomachs were full and then gone back to bed to make love some more.
Deciding to get her father off the subject of her weight, she said, “So, tell me something about this guy who has the audacity to run against my father.”
Orin leaned back in his chair. “He’s one of those Westmorelands. Prominent family here in Atlanta. He’s young, in his early thirties, and owns an accounting firm.”
Olivia nodded. She recalled the name, and if she wasn’t mistaken, Duan and Terrence had gone to school with some of them. They were a huge family. “So what’s his platform? How do the two of you differ?”
“On a number of issues, we’re in agreement. The main thing we differ on is whether or not Georgia can support another state-financed university. He thinks we can, and I don’t. We have a number of fine colleges and universities in this area. Why on earth would we need another one? Besides, he’s inexperienced.”
Olivia couldn’t help but smile at that, because her father didn’t have any political experience, either. In fact, she and her brothers had been shocked when he’d announced he was running for a political office. The only thing they could come up with as to the reason was that his good friend and golfing buddy Senator Albert Reed was retiring and wanted someone to replace him whom he knew and could possibly influence. Not that her father was easily influenced, but he was known to give in under a good argument, without fully standing his ground.
“And young Westmoreland will run on his name recognition since he has a couple of celebrities in the family. One of his cousins is a motorcycle racer, and another is an author.”
And your son just happens to be a very well-known former NFL player, she wanted to say. Who you have called upon to appear at a couple of rallies. So you are just as bad.
Olivia said nothing but listened as she took another bite of her apple. At least she tried to listen. More than once
