Campaigning for Christopher by Regnery Katy

Author:Regnery, Katy [Regnery, Katy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Family Saga, Contemporary, Romance, Sagas, Genre Fiction, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: Katharine Gilliam Regnery
Published: 2015-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Damn it.

He’d missed it on Monday because he was so furious with her and so distracted by her appearance. Not to mention, addressing the press had been her idea, so he hadn’t questioned her comfort level. On Tuesday, she hadn’t been expected to speak publicly, and he suspected she’d been more comfortable on Thursday because she was with little children in a cozy music room. So today was the first time he’d really noticed.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re afraid of public speaking?” asked Christopher as they left the museum together half an hour later.

Their fingers were still entwined, and though they weren’t on display, which meant the pretense wasn’t required anymore, he didn’t break the contact, because he liked touching her. Because, fuck it, it felt nice, and he was just going to leave it at that.

“It completely terrifies me,” she admitted as he opened the door to the courtyard and they stepped into the bright, warm sunlight.

“But, last Monday . . .”

She took a deep breath and nodded as they walked down the stairs and into the gardens at a far more leisurely pace than when they’d arrived. “I gave my first press conference. And yes, I was petrified.”

“Jules,” he breathed, as the pieces came together in his head.

She was terrified of public speaking, and yet her first public speaking engagement was to hundreds of reporters, on live TV, explaining away a scandal. Despite the fact that standing at a podium had rendered her speechless and frozen twenty minutes earlier, she’d somehow found the courage to walk into his campaign headquarters last week, and, with his blazing anger as her companion, managed to speak off the cuff to a pack of rabid reporters, reversing the debacle she’d caused.

“Trial by fire,” she said, laughing ruefully.

“How’d you do it?” he murmured, turning her to face him at the foot of the stairs.

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, dropping his eyes and looking down at her broken shoes. A moment later she lifted her chin, her black eyes swimming with tears as she met his steady gaze. “I had no, um, no choice. I had to . . . I had to try to m-make things right.”

He stared at her, blown away by her bravery, even as he tried to reconcile the girl she was now to the girl who had taken pictures of him prone on his brother’s couch.

“I wish I could . . . I don’t trust you,” he blurted out, almost more to himself than to her, and wishing—for the hundredth time—that they’d met a different way.

“That’s because I don’t deserve your trust.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to earn it?”

“Because I am.”

Clenching his jaw so tight that it ached, he searched her face, feeling angry and sorry, longing and pissed, frustrated and—for the first time—tender toward her. And he didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it. Even as he leaned into Hurricane Jules, he sensed its danger, and that made him wary .

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