He chuckled again. She liked feeling the rumble of his laughter against her ear. “I never know what to make of you,” he said. “You change positions so often, you’re like a damn emotional whirlwind.”
“Good. I like keeping you on your toes.”
The plane dipped. They were close to the airport. A wonderfully short flight at the end of a very long day.
“Almost home.” Jack squeezed her tighter. “Just you and me, for the rest of the night.”
Caroline still wasn’t a huge fan of air travel. If they took several trips a day she couldn’t dope herself up, which was her preferred method of dealing with anxiety. Jack would hold her if she got uneasy when they were flying, especially during descents. His executive jet wasn’t nearly as good at smooth landings as a giant commercial flight, but she was unnaturally picky about such things. When he draped his arms around her during takeoffs and landings, she truly didn’t give a shit what his staffers thought.
She let herself relax against his chest, glad to have him to herself for the few precious hours before the campaign took him away again. “Good.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Past
Ellen Goldman had a huge lead and a solid lock on her seat in the United States Senate but fundraisers and campaign events were still a fact of life, no matter how secure the political position. She insisted that Caroline still speak at one of the fundraisers she’d planned in Beverly Hills that July, although she made her promise to behave if Jack came along. The two of them had a reputation for being a little too lovey dovey in public when they had a few drinks in them. All the tabloid stories in the world wouldn’t change that aspect of their relationship.
Jack and Caroline arrived in Beverly Hills a few hours before the fundraiser. He took her to Rodeo Drive first. She’d been there once sightseeing, never quite gathering enough chutzpah to step inside any of the stores. Mostly because she was afraid they’d take one look at her and know that she didn’t belong there, even if it was a tourist haven. She expressed those concerns to Jack, who explained to her that things had changed. Walking into an expensive jewelry store as a member of Congress on the arm of a multi-millionaire was much different than when she traveled to Los Angeles as a young, impoverished prosecutor. Jack bought her a ruby necklace, which she now wore along with a lovely new tastefully low cut dress. She tried not to get used to being spoiled, even if Jack enjoyed doing it.
Thankfully his staffers were nowhere to be found since this was Caroline’s show. They had ridden down to the fundraiser alone, making sure to stand several feet apart as a joke. One never knew if there were cameras in the elevator. There had been an unspoken policy in place the past month or so. Caroline and Jack were not allowed alone in any elevators, nor were they allowed to have more than one or two drinks a night while attending their own functions. A frustrating rule since Caroline hated fundraisers and preferred to get through them by not being entirely sober.
She found the media perpetually aggravating; the press couldn’t have cared less about normal people feeling each other up on the way back to their hotel room, and she had no idea how any of their private behavior was relevant to Jack’s campaign. The incident had soured what proved to be a very enjoyable evening once they got back to their room. And now she couldn’t kiss her husband in public and she couldn’t have her Moscato, which made her very unpleasant at times.
“It’s nice that your little minions aren’t hassling us,” Caroline said.
“They’ll be back from Sacramento later and you’ll still have to deal with them tomorrow.”
“Does that mean we get to make out in the elevator tonight? I checked. No cameras.”
“That you could see,” Jack said. “Big Brother is everywhere. And as much as I appreciated that elevator ride in Pittsburgh, I’m willing to wait until we get back to the room tonight.”
“You can hold out for that long?”
“I know you’ll put out.”
“Yes, and the entire country knows I put out. Frequently.”
Jack grinned. “Which makes me pretty damn happy. They know you wear a garter belt too.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Yet another thing the camera had captured. Even the grainiest of footage showed a lot more than she had intended.