Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,46
wanted, he was ordering steak from an Italian place his buddy Ed said had spectacular food. “So what do you want to eat?”
“Carbs,” she answered. “Lots of carbs. Meat. And dessert.” She sketched a smile. “Now that you mention it, I’m starving.”
“Okay,” he said easily, gently turning her around so they could make their way back to the SUV. She stumbled and he put his arm around her waist. It wasn’t a hardship. “Carbs and meat it is. What kind of security guy would I be if I saved you from the bad guys but let you starve to death?”
Washington, DC
“Well, that went well,” Court Redfield’s campaign manager said, tablet in hand. Scott Petrie had been hired on the recommendation of one of Court’s golfing buddies and it had been an inspired hire. Petrie was efficient and ruthless and Court’s polls had risen a percentage point each week Petrie had worked for him.
Court had just finished an interview on CNN and he had no idea how Petrie had done it, but all the questions had been softballs, pitched gently. The interview had been a love fest and he was certain the polls would rise more quickly now.
They were on a roll, he could feel it. If you paid attention, you could feel it like a good surfer can feel the building up of a big wave, even through the board.
If only he didn’t have this goddamned mess to deal with. If only he could concentrate on the campaign and not have to worry about Hope Ellis, who was supposed to be dead but wasn’t. Goddammit.
And worry about his son, who could never know the truth.
Petrie followed him into the dressing room, silently ticking off items. “Here,” he said, “we’re already trending on Instagram and Twitter.” He tilted his tablet so Court could see … what? Basically hashtags, phrases and numbers. He was tired and it looked like hieroglyphics to him. He wasn’t good with this stuff. He couldn’t read it easily like Petrie and his generation could. But he couldn’t let on that it was nonsense to him, either. One of his main rivals had been pilloried in the press, print and especially online, when he accidentally mentioned listening to your Walkman. Rex Henry, now known everywhere as T-Rex the Dinosaur. It was Petrie who’d started the meme, the instant he heard the interview.
Petrie was the master of trolling.
Now Court made a point of being photographed either with a tablet or his cell in his hand.
“Great,” he said, pushing the tablet away. He sat down and instantly the makeup people surrounded him like gnats. In a flash, he had a makeup cape on and a woman with a very nice rack he deliberately didn’t look at was smearing some cream on his face, then removing it with cotton balls. He hated the fuss but at least he didn’t have to talk to the makeup people.
Petrie hovered, shifting out of the way of the makeup people dancing around. Petrie wanted to talk but goddammit, that’s why Court hired the man in the first place. To take care of this shit for him.
And he needed to find out what Resnick was doing.
The makeup crew was fast. The cape was whisked away and Court stood up and turned to Petrie and spoke loudly. “Write up a report and email it to me. I need to get home, my wife’s not feeling well and she’s my priority.”
Petrie’s eyes dropped to the tablet. He nodded and moved away. Statements like that in public had been Petrie’s idea. Court’s wife was fine — her priority was a divorce in case he wasn’t nominated. She’d ride to the White House if she could and if he didn’t make it, she had her divorce lawyer on retainer. She was his third. He couldn’t afford a fourth, not with the wave of morality he intended to ride all the way to the top.
In the meantime, Court never neglected an opportunity to let slip how tight he and the She-Devil from Alabama were.
It didn’t help that Bard hated her. He’d hated number two as well. And he blamed Court for his mother’s death.
It was Bard who was his main worry. Bard, son and heir of the Redfield dynasty, who wanted nothing to do with it and especially nothing to do with him. Bard, who’d joined the Navy to get away from him.
Voters could deal with three marriages. They’d done it before. Hell, everyone Court knew had been divorced at least