Power Games

At first she didn’t understand. Then, when she did, relief hit—but it was tinged with an unexpected shiver of resentment. He had assumed, albeit correctly, that she was set on abortion. Was she that obvious? Could he read it in her face?

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

She was definite. She didn’t need Orlando tagging along, holding her hand and saying all the wrong things. It would be a cold contract, not dissimilar to their relationship, in and out in a day and she would deal with it by herself.

She couldn’t think of it as a person, just a thing inside her that wasn’t yet born.

What kind of life could she give it? She wasn’t fit to be a mother, and as for her situation with Orlando—they could never provide their child with anything stable.

‘I’m glad you feel the same,’ she said. It sounded hollow.

Orlando nodded. Out on the street, car horns blared. Normal life continued; it was only their bubble that had burst. Eve didn’t recognise the serious, dark-eyed man in front of her. Their relationship so far had been defined by sex and secrets, by the thrill of the chase and a no-strings respect that left both their consciences clean.

All that had been severed. Always a string would now bind them, the cord of this misfortune, and it would throttle anything they had.

The ending made her sadder than she expected.

‘Is it mine?’

His question came out of the blue. It hit her like a slap, cold and sharp.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Is it?’

‘How dare you. You arsehole.’

‘I had to ask.’

‘No, you didn’t. You didn’t have to at all.’

Orlando sat down, but she pushed her own seat away.

‘You have to admit,’ he said softly, ‘we don’t know each other. I’m checking.’

‘You’re insulting.’

‘So there’s been no one else?’ His voice was quiet. Different.

To her mortification Eve blinked back the hot stem of tears.

Don’t cry! She never cried. It was the sheer injustice of his accusation, this lead weight she had been carrying around, the fear she had faced all alone, no one to share it with until now—and now she had, he had treated her as little more than a slut.

‘Yes,’ she lied. She didn’t know why. She wanted him to be jealous, maybe, or simply to prove him right, to drive him away for good. ‘But it isn’t his.’

Orlando stayed quiet a while before he said: ‘Who?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to me.’

‘The timing’s yours. It’s definitely yours.’

But when she looked up she could see that she had lost him.

Fine—if that’s what you think, think it!

She wanted him to hurt. She was hurt, why should he get off free?

‘I need you to go,’ she said.

Orlando looked like he was about to say something, then he changed his mind.

‘You’ll let me know?’ he said, slipping on his coat and making for the door. His bearing was cool, professional, playing out the motions.

‘Yes.’

‘I guess that’s it, then.’

‘I guess.’

The door opened. ‘Goodbye, Eve.’

Eve didn’t say it back. She waited until she heard the door close, a soft, final hush, and his footsteps travel down the stairs. Only then did she let the tears fall.

13 (#ulink_84e08167-4615-5fdf-a908-9f10b31fab3c)

Washington, D.C.

MITCH CORRIGAN: WHO IS THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK?

In spite of the blonde head plunging determinedly up and down in his lap, Republican senator Mitch Corrigan couldn’t stop staring worriedly at the article that had landed on his desk that morning. He squinted at the byline.

Eve Harley.

Vaguely he recalled her. She had talked to him here at the Farley Senate Building, before he had left for Italy. Tenacious. Persistent. Borderline rude. And now she had published a piece on his ‘hidden persona’. Exactly what he didn’t need.

Mitch squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on the mouth clamped around his dick. His wife’s gem-laden fingers were spread across his thighs, her lips going methodically to work with as much eroticism as a fundraiser bobbing for apples.

Seated at his mahogany bureau, from the waist up Mitch Corrigan was any ordinary politician—tie neat, collar pressed and cufflinks polished. Only his flushed face was a clue to what was going on beneath: pants down by his ankles, shirt untucked, and his wife’s tongue catching and flicking his struggling dick as if it were a melting ice-pop. Finally, Mitch came. It was a ragged, unsettled climax.

He couldn’t stop staring at that venomous write-up.

Mitch Corrigan made me uneasy … He might have been a film star, but the time for acting is over … How can he convince a nation if he can’t convince me?