Page 7 of A Man of Power

Once Aiden walks out of the office, Conner stands and turns to me, not paying an ounce of attention to Harriet who is still standing at the door with her arms crossed. “I hear senators get twice as much…love,” he says. He smirks at Harriet who narrows her eyes at him as he shakes my hand and pulls me in for a bro hug before he walks past my keeper. Harriet’s gaze doesn’t waver from me until he’s out of my office.

“Why you keep company with those two…well, at least with the larger one, I will never understand,” she huffs as I walk over to join her.

“Because…we share experiences no one else will ever understand,” I say solemnly as I follow her to our next meeting.

* * *

My life isa steady stream of meetings, and the sad part is I knew what I was getting into when I decided to run for office, yet here I am, sitting in a meeting with the head of a pharmaceutical company, Confervo Pharmaceuticals. They want to talk to me about a donation to my Senate campaign. It’s one of a dozen fundraising meetings I’ve taken in the last three days. Many of them are medical and pharmaceutical companies. I’ve run on a platform of getting experimental medicine trials to patients faster, knowing that one could have saved my sister had it been approved six months earlier. Kara’s battle with cancer lit a fire under me that still burns brightly.

I detest these fundraising meetings. Political fundraising is a tireless, nonstop, evil necessity to winning a campaign. Everyone wants something from someone around here. It’s one giant chess game and half the time your opponent is only two moves away from checkmate.

“We are really looking forward to supporting you,” Jared Pallin says as he stands to shake my hand. “We hope you’ll be able to support us at the hearing, and I’m sure we’ll be able to assist you.”

“Well, I have the information and will certainly look it over and give it fair consideration,” I state because I never fucking get told what to do, not by an arrogant prick running a billion-dollar corporation. I’m all for business, but no one tells me how to do my job. Some would say I’m being ignorant by not immediately caving to a potential windfall of campaign funding, but I’m smarter than that. You give any funder your word, then you better stand by it, or they will ruin you.

Jared nods and leaves the room. I look over at Alexis. She’s been sitting there staying quiet for the entire meeting. I watched Jared eye-fuck her when she came into the room. I can’t blame the guy; she does look edible today. In fact, she’s looking fuckable every day, and it’s starting to piss me off. I don’t need the distraction. One little slipup could cost me an election, and no pussy is good enough for that.

“What do you think?” I ask her once the door is shut.

She shrugs. “I need to do more research before you can commit to supporting them.”

“It’s just a hearing. There are bigger forces at play,” I state.

“I know that,” she answers, glaring at me. I turn my head to hide my smirk, pretending to glance out my window. Why does riling her up bring me so much joy? I should probably make that the topic of my next therapy appointment.

“Well, have a good weekend,” I say, not bothering to turn back toward her.

“I’m not leaving yet,” she replies as though I’ve accused her of a poor work ethic.

I slowly turn back around. She’s standing by the door with her laptop under her arm. “Why not? No weekend plans?”

“My weekend plans are doing research for you. I’ll be in my office if you need me,” she says as she leaves. I unashamedly watch her ass sway as she walks out of my office. I need to get laid.

Chapter4

Alexis

A desk lampis the only source of light besides my computer screen. My routine has been to come back to the office after my night classes, which I managed to squeeze into only three nights a week. My mother keeps telling me that I’m burning the candle at both ends and I’m going to make myself sick, but I’ll be damned if I fail at this job or school.

It’s late, nearly midnight, and I’ve been knee-deep in research since our afternoon meeting with the pharmaceutical executive. I asked the Congressional Research Service to pull up a number of files for me relating to the company and its products. My gut instinct at that meeting was that something with the executive seemed…off. It might just be that he’s a sketchy businessman. Or perhaps it was the crass way he basically said that he’d offer money for a vote. I’m no novice. I know perfectly well that these types of conversations happen every day around here but that doesn’t mean that I like them. It’s a cycle. Get elected. Then start trying to get re-elected.

Sighing, I take my glasses off and rub my eyes. I should go home, but I want to finish reading this article. It’s from almost a decade ago. Apparently, Confervo was working on some new class of anesthesia medicine that was supposed to be cutting edge. The article describes how their scientists had stumbled upon a combination of drugs that could cause the person to not feel pain, lose the ability to speak or see, but allowed them to move body parts if prompted, and the real clincher, the patients would not remember anything. However, they stumbled into some issues in patients that could see and had flashback memories of their time while under the drug. The research and development were cut off after a two-year study. The company claimed that their staff needed to rework some of the components of the cocktail before further studies could be completed.

I close the document and start reading another about a newer pain medicine that just got FDA approval last year.

“I didn’t know medical trial studies could keep someone so fascinated this late at night,” Sebastian’s voice calls out from my doorway.

I jump and clutch my chest. “Shit! You scared me!”

He laughs as I swivel my chair to face him, pushing my glasses back up as I do.

He’s silhouetted by the hallway light, and he looks dangerous. His biceps are bulging where his arms are crossed. His left quad muscle is outlined by the stretched fabric of his trousers. He has one foot crossed over the other and is leaning on the doorjamb. He has the start of a beard, his face no longer having the clean-cut shaven look it possessed two days ago. Something about that gives him an air of the arrogant and powerful man that he is.

He steps forward and comes over to me, leaning against my desk with his hands. I glance at those hands. They are large; his fingers thick. I follow the veins on his hands up his arms. Where the sleeves are rolled up, I can see a hint of a tattoo. He has a tattoo? I frown and blink, swearing that I’m seeing things, but there it is, black and dark green ink pokes out from below his impeccably pressed button-down shirt. And let’s not start on how good he smells. If fresh pine, sandalwood, and ocean breeze had a baby, it would be his cologne.

“What do you think?” he asks.

I swallow and look up at him. “About what?”

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