A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,56

compile came across the fax in her father’s office shortly after dinner. She desperately needed the distraction, but felt a little guilty at the size of the stack that finally printed out. The staff had to have worked frantically all day to have pulled so much information together so fast. She emailed them a message of heartfelt thanks for their hard work and settled down in the library to read the briefings.

A commotion at the front door around ten o’clock interrupted her concentration as she sorted the candidates into possible-yes, undecided and definite-no piles. One of the bodyguards stuck his head into the room. “Guy at the door named Gabe Dawson. Says he’s your boyfriend. Wants to see you.”

“Tell him I’m not available.”

“Roger, ma’am.” The guy backed out and closed the door behind him.

Wow. That had been easy. She should keep a couple of giant bouncer types around more often to get rid of people she didn’t want to deal with.

It didn’t take long for her cell phone to ring. She didn’t even bother looking at it. She knew who was calling. Gabe. The phone even sounded angry as it rang. She let his call go to voice mail before she reluctantly listened to what he had to say.

“Seriously, Willa? You’re going to hide behind a bunch of thugs? What the hell did I do to you? I thought we had something great going. But I guess I was wrong.” The earlier worry was gone from his voice, replaced by cold fury.

Remorse speared through her. Had she overreacted this morning? Had he merely spoken thoughtlessly in his worry for his ex-wife? It wasn’t a bad thing that he still cared about Melinda’s safety, was it? Maybe all it meant was that he was a decent man who would worry about anyone in the position Melinda was in. For all Willa knew, Gabe was the closest thing to family Melinda had.

* * *

Okay, she felt bad now for siccing the bodyguards on Gabe. But the fact remained, he wasn’t a marrying kind of man and never would be. Sleeping with him had been great. Epic, in fact. But at the end of the day, she wanted more. And more was something Gabe Dawson couldn’t and wouldn’t give her.

Chapter 12

Willa narrowed her choices for possible candidates to endorse down to two men. But without meeting them and personally gauging their ethics and morals, she wasn’t willing to throw the powerful Merris name behind either man. Those cynical letters on her father’s computer fresh in her mind, she was determined not to send a business-as-usual politician to Washington if she could help it.

She had to admit that having a congressional staff was handy. Amber assured her it would be no problem to set up meetings with the two candidates. In fact, the girl gently assured Willa both men would leap at the chance to speak with her. She was Senator Merris now. She kept forgetting.

The first candidate, a man named Kevin Mc

Conahhay, stopped by the mansion on his way to a campaign appearance in Denton. She winced as his garishly painted campaign bus pulled up in front of the Merris mansion. People were going to assume she’d already endorsed the guy. His politics were actually fairly close to her father’s, although McConahhay was spending more time talking about himself than any actual issues.

From the moment he rounded the corner into the library, she didn’t like the guy. It didn’t help matters that his first words were a booming, “So here’s the little lady keeping my seat in Washington warm for me.”

He was a good ol’ boy all the way. Not that all good ol’ boys were all bad. But this one left a decidedly sour taste in her mouth. He just assumed that, as the candidate her father’s party had hastily chosen to replace John Merris, her endorsement was in the bag. He talked so much about himself and his extensive connections to the oil industry that he barely allowed her to get a word in edgewise. No question about it, he would operate in Washington the exact same way her father had—playing lobbyists off against each other, trading favors under the table and getting as rich as possible while in office.

The second candidate, a man named Thomas Montoya, was in Dallas campaigning, and rightfully surprised that the daughter of his political rival was calling him. He immediately invited her to attend a fund-raising dinner he was having tonight. Wary of