Lee was right: being an uninformed public citizen really had come back to bite me in the ass.
Muriel barreled on: “‘Apparently, the powers that be have a rollicking sense of humor—or they’re rooting for Grover Mane—because Arthur and his paramour were caught in a state of undress thanks to a freak lightning strike that started a fire in the upper levels of the hotel. Although rumors of Arthur’s playboy past have dogged his candidacy (as they once did, coincidentally, to the now-married Governor Mane), Arthur’s team has repeatedly assured high-profile backers the rumors are unfounded.’”
“Playboy past?” I echoed, but nothing could deter Muriel from finishing.
“‘These latest snaps,’” she read, “‘are going to discredit their claims that the young Arthur, despite his age, is a mature, stable presence Texans can count on. With little more than two months until election day, the stakes couldn’t be higher.Especiallysince the latest poll numbers show Arthur’s approval ratings rising while Mane’s are slipping, evidence the public has been warming to Arthur’s new restrained approach. The governor’s campaign is sure to pounce on this opportunity to undermine their junior foe, leaving all the politicos in Austin wondering: Just who is this mystery woman, and what kind of sordid tell-all is she about to spill? The hunt for the lady in red is on.’”
One night. One measly, should’ve-been-privatenight out, to accomplish aprivategoal, and now I was Hester Prynne fromThe Scarlet Letter. What if my students’ parents saw this? What if Principal Zimmerman saw it and decided firing me was the easiest way to cut the budget? This was a disaster.
It hit me that Muriel and Gia were both uncharacteristically quiet, so I broke my thousand-yard stare-off with the phone to glance at them. They were both gaping.
“I’m sure you have questions,” I said tentatively, and that was it. The floodgates opened.
“How long have you been dating this hunk ofman-meat?” Muriel’s scarves flew as she gesticulated wildly at the wordman-meat.
Gia hit me on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us you had aboyfriend?”
“Why didn’t tell us he wasfamous?”
“Why didn’t you tell us you owned a dress like that? Good God, honey.”
“Why didn’t you tell us—”
My cell phone buzzed violently, interrupting the barrage. “Oh, thank God,” I said, and leaped across the desk to seize the lifeline. Then I looked at the screen.Blocked Number.That couldn’t be good. But it was either Door Number One—the Muriel and Gia Inquisition Experience—or whatever mystery lay behind Door Number Two. I decided to take my chances.
I waved Muriel and Gia silent. “Hello?”
“Good morning,” said just about the crispest, most assured voice I’d ever heard. “This is Nora Igwe, Logan Arthur’s chief of staff. Am I speaking with Alexis Stone, alias—” She paused, as if double-checking her notes. “Ruby Dangerfield?”
5
An Indecent Proposal
Someone had scratched out the conference room sign at the LoganArthur for Governor headquarters and written in “War Room.” And, judging by the sea of faces staring back at me from across the table, they were taking the war part seriously. Their tense expressions, plus the fact that someone had hastily erased all the whiteboards—I could still make out bits of campaign strategy—were starting to make me suspect the enemy in this situation was me.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” said Nora, from her seat at the head of the table. The crisp, assured voice on the phone had turned out to belong to a beautiful Black woman wearing a sharp magenta suit and long, dark locs twisted into an elegant bun. She had a dazzling smile she’d flashed exactly once, when she’d greeted me at the door of the campaign’s downtown headquarters (just two blocks from the Fleur de Lis—ugh, there’d been so many clues) and ushered me through an office full of gawking people wearing bright blue Arthur for Governor shirts. Nearly ten of them had filed into the conference room after us, settling into seats around the table. Either I was an all-hands-on-deck sort of problem, or they expected a show. Despite being full, the room was unnervingly quiet. Everyone was waiting for something.
The door to the conference room flew open and Logan barged in. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, sounding harried. “Phones are ringing off the hook.”
Ah. Right. What we’d been waiting for.
“I can only imagine,” said Nora dryly, tapping her manicured fingers on the table.
Logan made his way to the opposite end of the table, nodding at each person as he passed. He looked just like I remembered, like the photograph had captured: tall and darkly handsome, with the intensity of a rushing train, a face I wanted to run from and throw myself in front of in equal measure. The creases under his eyes had only deepened, and his stubble was now the beginnings of a beard. Unfortunately, I found I liked that even better. He looked an order of magnitude more tense than he had on Saturday night.Well, buddy, welcome to the club.
He was pointedly not looking at me. I took his cue and tried to pretend he wasn’t there, but there was no fooling my body. Even without looking, his presence gnawed at me. Under the table, I bounced my leg.
“Okay.” Nora put down the phone in her right hand, then the one in her left (wait—had she been typing on two phones at the same time?). “Let’s get down to business.” She looked at her gathered colleagues. “For those of you just getting looped in, this morning we woke up to a crisis comms situation. The ever-delightful Daniel Watcher—” She paused to allow for the groans that echoed around the table. “Yeah, that’s right, our good buddy Daniel got hold of some pictures of Logan from this weekend, and they’re going viral.”
Oh, God—they were?
“Other outlets are picking up the story,” Nora said. “We’re expecting hit pieces fromTexas Monthlyand theStatesmanat minimum.” More groaning.
“Sex sells,” lamented a pale young slender staffer. He smoothed a hand over his perfectly coiffed black hair. “Trust me, I would know.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “It’s earlier in the day than I normally say this, but: can it, Cary.”
I couldn’t help looking at Logan, but his face was a stony mask. What was he thinking? Is this why he’d run when he saw people taking pictures—because he’d been embarrassed by the idea of them catching us together?
