Page 76 of Kiss Me Now
“Sherrie, this is Brooke Spencer.” Sherrie’s face didn’t change expression to give away that she knew who Brooke was. Good. Sherrie was getting better all the time. “Brooke, this is my assistant, Sherrie.”
“Nice to meet you,” Sherrie said.
But Brooke ignored that. “Rink?”
“Oh, that’s just business. A case,” Sherrie said, waving her hand like she could swat away his name.
“Senator Rink?” Brooke’s voice had gone tight and quiet, and she looked pale. She turned to me. “You’re investigating Senator Rink?”
Sherrie and I exchanged glances. Wecouldtell Brooke since Rink wasn’t our client, but that didn’t mean we should. Not unless she wanted to help bring him down. I quickly catalogued what I knew about her so far. She had an NDA with Rink, and she couldn’t speak about him without nullifying her settlement. But she also had a strong sense of right and wrong that might make her anxious to help.
“Yeah, we’re investigating him,” I said quietly.
“I’m going to go eat my lunch before it gets...uh, I’m going to go eat.” Sherrie stepped out and closed the door behind her.
“How much do you know?” Brooke asked.
I hesitated again, unsure how to navigate this.
“How much?” she repeated.
“More than you would want to tell me,” I acknowledged.
“Did you bring me here to try to get more dirt on him?”
“Brooke, no.” I leaned toward her across the desk. “Of course not. I didn’t even know you were going to be in town until a couple of days ago.”
“So? How would that stop you from charming me into your office?”
“I swear to you, until I got up and walked out the door to find you in the zoo, I had no idea I was going to do it.”
“Right. Well.” She folded the paper around her barely eaten sandwich. “Thanks for lunch, but I lost my appetite. Think I might go back to the zoo and check out the snake house.”
I winced. “Brooke, that’s not—”
“It’s fine, Ian.” She rose, hitched her purse over her shoulder, her hand on the door before I could even round the desk.
“Brooke, wait. Hear me out.” She paused, not pulling the door open yet. “I don’t know what Rink did to you, but I’m dead sure he was guilty of something. Probably something bad.” A brief flicker of pain crossed her face. “We’ve got a shot of bringing him down. If I had to guess, Sherrie was coming in to tell me that she’s found a victim to come out publicly against him.”
Brooke flinched at the word “victim.” It was so slight, but I was watching her too closely to miss it, and I hated thinking of her in that context. “We’ve been looking for someone willing to speak out against him, and we’re hoping that once the first woman comes forward, it will give other women the courage to do the same thing.”
Her face hardened. “So if I don’t want to speak out against him, it’s because I’m a coward?”
“No! No, of course not. It’s smart. It’s self-preservation. But the risk to you—to any of you—goes down with every witness who comes forward. This is the beginning of the end for him, Brooke. You can be part of that.” I’d heard enough from the women we’d found to make me sick to my stomach, to make me angry enough to yank the senator from his expensive Mercedes and pound him to a pulp in the driveway of his townhouse, maybe with Landon and his baseball bat to make sure he got the message.
“You will never know what he cost me.” Her voice was cold but her eyes blazed. “But I rebuilt myself out of ashes. How dare you ask me to light myself on fire again? I’m done, Ian. I’ll see myself out.”
“Brooke, let me—”
“No. Stop. I’m going to walk back to the zoo, pick up my car, and drive home. All the way home. I’ll see myself out.”
I followed her out of the office then stood helplessly and watched her leave. I knew if I tried to say anything, it would only infuriate her more. When the elevator doors slid closed behind her, I bit out a curse and sagged against the wall.
“What happened?” Sherrie asked.
“I told her we were looking into Rink and that we only needed the first witness to start a chain reaction that would blow up his career and take him out of commission for good. She said I was as good as calling her a coward for not speaking up and accused me of trying to blow up her life again.”
Sherrie didn’t say anything, just gave me a look full of concern and sympathy.
