lifted me up off the floor.
“You were brilliant,” he said. “We were brilliant. That could not have gone better.”
“Oh, no! Please don’t jinx us again,” I said. “I do think we turned a corner, but let’s not tempt the gods. We’ll watch the news tonight and see what happens tomorrow.”
No sooner than I finished my sentence, Gabriel burst through the door carrying a bottle of sparkling wine and a stack of plastic glasses. “Très bien, excellent,” he said. “I knew we were going to be fine, so as soon as I could, I went out to find something to celebrate with. They call this Champagne…but we will see,” he said, waggling his eyebrows to indicate his skepticism.
We had beaten the devil, for the moment at least, at his own game. As the evening wound down, however, I began to have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew that either Stoner or JP would be waiting for me outside. It didn’t seem possible to escape without one more confrontation. William, sensing my anxiety, was quickly by my side.
“Are you expecting trouble outside?” he asked.
I nodded. “It feels inevitable.”
“We’ll go together,” he said. “Whatever is there, we’ll meet it together.”
I suggested Levi and Gabriel use the back door of the offices to leave. It didn’t seem necessary for either of them to deal with any more trouble tonight. But before Gabriel walked out, I asked for a minute of his time.
“Now that we’re finished with this mess, I want to see that recording,” I said.
“Merde, you are stubborn,” he said, but without a trace of irritation. “Bien sûr, I will ask Aidan to have them ready tomorrow night.”
Feeling victorious, I grabbed my bags, ready to walk outside with William to my car. Time was a marvelous thing, I mused, in its ability to speed up and slow down depending on your adrenaline. Two days had passed with almost no sensation of their conclusion. I wondered if time felt that quick for William, too.
“Sadly, no,” he said, hearing my thoughts. “Not when it’s centuries, instead of days.”
“Does it make you weary?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “I have learned to pass the time gracefully. Come on, let’s go home.”
Unfortunately, as anticipated, both JP and Stoner Halbert were waiting for me outside. I studied the two of them, noting their body language, and got the distinct impression that they had known each other prior to the campaign. They were standing too close to one another to be strangers. Men normally don’t give their personal space away that easily, but these two were standing as close as brothers would. A light bulb went off in my head. Was Halbert so determined to humiliate me that he would ask his friend the reporter to play seducer? Perhaps that’s where the video came in. JP had needed something for Halbert, having come up short in his quest to compromise me. William’s trip to Hearst Castle, it seemed, had saved me on several levels.
“Gentlemen,” William drawled, as he held my hand tightly. “Is there something we can help you with?”
Both men regarded William warily, now unsure of themselves.
“What you do want?” I asked. “The press conference is over.”
“I have it on good authority that you were not even in the house when Lyon made those comments to Levi,” purred Halbert. “My sources tell me you walked out of the fundraiser, and off the job, early for a tryst with your lover. How professional do you think that would look to the world if it were broadcast?”
William started forward, but I put out my arm to stop him.
“I’ve got one better,” I said. “How about I tell the press about your longstanding friendship with JP, a preeminent Silicon Valley reporter, and how you two conspired to have him lure me into his bed to gain confidential information, and when that failed, violated the privacy of two men by secretly videotaping them. What do you think the press will make of that? Shall we have a race to see who can pick up the phone faster? My instincts tell me my story will prove far more damaging to your boss, especially when I tell the press I am engaged to be married—that it had been a surprise proposal that caused me to leave early.”
Two pairs of eyes stared back at me, unmoving. This they hadn’t expected.
“Shall we get started? I’ll start data mining and see if I can turn up any compromising photos of the two of you together