Page 17 of Primary Season
“You had to expect something like this,” I finally said. “Sex scandals sell. It’s the dirtiest part of the game, and it’s never dirtier than in the days leading up to the primary.”
“I know.” Kathryn kept looking at the passing streets. “But we had you vetted, and we didn’t find this.”
“Because she made it up. Someone paid her off. Someone got to her.”
“Did they?”
“Jesus, it was convenient.” I sighed. “She took a photo with me after the speech, which they knew would help with the story. That’s all. That’s the extent of it.”
Kathryn raised her eyebrow but didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. You had to marvel at a woman who could put cynical personal gain and a power-hungry nature over so much else in life. I’d heard these kinds of women existed, and assumed a few of my Senate colleagues had married them, but I never encountered one before Kathryn.
She could have written a book on it.
“I’m going to keep up my end of the bargain,” I said as we arrived at the park. “I promise.”
She finally turned from the window, her expression stony and cold. “You better.”
“No one ever said running for president was going to be easy.”
Kathryn narrowed her eyes. “Don’t forget why you’re here in the first place, and why you made it this far. No one believed in you until we did. No one. The Van der Loon name gave you everything.”
The car came to a stop.
“You’d do well not forget that.” Kathryn opened the door with her gloved hand, and by the time she stepped from the car, her entire expression had changed. “Hello!” she said to a few of the voters who gathered to greet us. “How are you?”
I followed her, turned on my own endless supply of political charm, and gave a speech I didn’t remember to a crowd of voters I would forget by the next day. When I got back in the car so we could head to the hotel before a dinner meeting with Henry Morris, South Carolina’s first Democratic senator in thirty years, I checked my phone.
Nothing from Alex except a few bland emails about upcoming events and polling. No change in that, either.
I stared at the screen for a few moments before I figured out what I wanted to type.
I’ve got a lot to say. Meet me tonight? Midnight?
