“Senator Corners doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.” KC’s mark blew a vapor ring. “He took two mil in donations from Big Pharma and then voted to put a price cap on specialty medications. Didn’t get a second term. Fucking idiot.” The man laughed and slid his vape away.
KC set down her phone on the bar. It had a faux marble case and Swarovski charms, and it immediately began transmitting several more angles of Wally’s dining room with multifocal laser cameras. “Huh.” She scooted closer, letting her hip nudge him. “I’m Caitlin Parr.” She held out her hand, and he shook it, holding it a little too long. KC smiled. “You’re?”
“Kyle Bornakov.”
She smiled again, without even a flicker of recognition at the consultant’s name, though Yardley had told her that she hoped he’d be at Wally’s, given his penchant for gossip. “Here’s where I admit I’m really into this stuff, despite what the bling and the shoes might be advertising,” KC breathlessly confessed.
“I like the shoes.” Kyle grinned. “Into what, baby?”
“The insider politics.” KC laughed again, a confection of naive sex appeal and intelligence. Yardley was not unaffected. “Stuff I’m not supposed to know.”
“There’s all kinds of things a girl like you isn’t supposed to know.”
Lord.
“Tell meonething,” KC said. “Over the clothes only.”
Yardley laughed, forgetting the sound would go straight into KC’s ear, andthatwas when she watched KC’s heart rate do a small rumba.
One of the techs looked at her with disapproval. Oops.
“You’re doing amazing,” she whispered, trying to make up for her handler gaffe. Was this compliment something she whispered to KC at other times? Maybe. She was a little caught up in the high of KC’s unexpectedly self-possessed performance.
“Do you read more on that thing than just Instagram and Snapchat?” Kyle gestured at KC’s giant phone sparkling on the bar.
“I read there was some kind of incident at the Capitol Hill Starbucks today. A witness said an assailant knocked down a woman. This witness had overheard the woman say she was running for Congress.”
Oh, nicely done. Yardley watched Kyle straighten up, his gaze sweeping over KC’s body from head to toe. “You’re a tiny thing, aren’t you?” It was a question that betrayed his growing appreciation for KC.
“But my mind is huge.” KC widened her eyes. “Tell me about Starbucks. Unless you don’t know anything?” She took another sip of the champagne but kept her full attention on Kyle.
“No small talk?” Kyle put his hand on her shoulder, coveringmore square inches of bare skin than was necessary for the purpose of polite attention. Yardley had to bite the side of her cheek to stop herself from making a comment that would prevent KC from living truthfully in these imaginary circumstances.
She should be embarrassed to be jealous of Kyle Bornakov. Her moves were so much better. If she spotted a woman like KC by herself at a bar, she wouldn’t waste time with champagne and generic game. She’d state her intentions immediately and clearly, with solid examples of the pleasures on offer, along with the receipts she could deliver.
Men didn’t know how to do this, bless their hearts.
“Did you walk over here for small talk?” KC asked.
Kyle laughed. “You’re not one of those Capitol Hill gossips, are you?”
“Whoisn’tone of those Capitol Hill gossips?”
“Follow me, hon. We need to take this somewhere more discreet.” Smiling, he beckoned KC to the dining room. When KC picked up her phone, the cameras swooped and blurred before coming back into focus.
The dining area was packed with circular booths filled with men too old for the women sitting next to them. White-coated servers darted between them like pinballs with trays of steaks and bottles of wine. Kyle stopped at a small booth with a discreet RESERVED sign, and KC scooted herself in.
The view tilted to one side as KC angled her head. Kyle had gotten close again in the dark dining room.
“So what happened?” KC asked. “Did a future congresswoman actually get knocked over on her ass? Who did it? Was there really a gun? I mean,somethinghappened. But it’s confusing because it’s Starbucks, not Cafe Milano.”
Good. She’d dropped the name of the spot for District intrigue that Yardley told her about. It telegraphed to Kyle that she knew the scene, and her thirst was serious. It also made Kyle laugh. “What I heard was that Ashley Sterling-Chenoweth Thompson was meeting with a goddamned spy.”
“Ashley Sterling-Chenoweth Thompson?” KC repeated. “That is a lot of name for someone I never heard of.”
“Big money. Her daddy is in finance, and she’s quietly held down the farm, but now she wants a seat at the table.”
“So why would someone like that meet with a spy? You’re telling me stories.”
