Chapter One
Now — Election Night
They say behind every good man is a good woman. That’s sometimes true.
In this case, behind one particularly good man is a real fucking bastard.
That would beme.
A bastard extraordinaire, as Owen dubbed me so many years ago. But he also knows he’d never be where he is without me. We both know that. All I did was watch him, figure out what he wanted, needed, and loved…and then gave it to him.
With a few strings attached, of course.
I wouldn’t be a bastard if I didn’t do that.
I grew up the youngest of seven boys in a house that valued stereotypical masculinity above all. My dad was Airborne. My mother was an Army brat. I wanted to go to college, but if I’d broken from family tradition and failed to enlist after that, I would have faced life-long shit from my family.
So I enlisted. Unlike my brothers, who took ROTC in college, I go in straight out of high school to get it over with. Earned me a Purple Heart for my efforts, which got me a medical discharge, a disability pension, the adoration of my family…
…and led to me meeting Owen at the start of our second year of college at USF in Tampa, where we were randomly assigned as roommates in the dorm.
In retrospect, I’m good with that trade-off.
The main obstacle in my path to winning Owen’s heart was Susannah Joleen Evans. Which, all things considered, wasn’t nearly as difficult to overcome as I’d thought it’d be.
There’s a reason Owen and Susa call me the bastard extraordinaire—it’s because Iama bastard.
They’re absolutely right.
Unfortunately, I learned the hard way early on that being a bastard was the only way to survive. It would also be the only way to get what I really wanted.
I wanted Owen.
* * * *
The three of us have a tradition now on election nights. We rent space for that night’s party at the same downtown Tampa hotel we’ve always used, and we reserve a suite there for us for after the party. Once the results are in, and the party ends, and we can finally peel ourselves away from the supporters and campaign staff and press to retreat to the safety of our suite, I’m usually reflective.
Tonight, the night of Owen’s re-election, is no different.
It’s hard to remember the man I was twenty years ago when I first crossed paths with Owen at the beginning of our second year of college at USF in Tampa.
By the time I met Owen, nearly every last bit of good has been burned from my soul. What little good is left is scorched, seared, and I show it to no one.
That’s what it feels like, anyway.
The perfect emotional makeup to be an attorney, it would seem. Cold, calculating, exposing no weakness.
During my first year of school, I keep to myself, study my ass off, and while I’m pleasant to my immediate fellow dorm occupants, I enforce a polite distance. I keep what little vulnerability I have left locked down tight.
I pretend my nightmares are about what happened that day in the desert, and sometimes they are.
Mostly, they’re not.
I hated the roommate I was given my first year. Sure, I could havenotturned him in to the RA for underage drinking in our room.
But by turning the kid in and getting rid of him, it meant I had a room entirely to myself.
I wasn’t going to complain aboutthat.
