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“Sorry,” Daisy said. “This is all so new for them.”
“Don’t apologize, I completely understand.” Jack took his hand from the receiver. “Stuart? You still there?”
“Oh, you’re done now? I mean, this is just your entire career.”
Jack rolled his eyes at the man’s melodrama. “I understand what’s at risk here, Stuart.”
“I don’t know if you do. Ten minutes ago, Aaron Leary tweeted his concern with what he sees as ‘morally irresponsible behavior’ in the future governor. He’s particularly worried about the example you’re setting not only for the kids involved, but also for all the fine children of our state.”
Of course he had.
Jack could see the motive behind the tweet and it sure as hell wasn’t pure moral outrage. Aaron Leary was posturing. Jack would take bets that Leary would be announcing his own intentions on running against Jack in the party’s primary election next spring. He and Leary had knocked heads many times in the past couple of years and it was an understatement to say there was some bad blood between them.
“It’s ridiculous. This all has been completely blown out of context. Why can’t I just go out there right now and explain everything?”
“That’s the last thing to do right now, Jack. We’ll make a statement and soon, but short of you marrying the woman and taking the wind out of their sails, let’s first make sure we have a clear plan in place. Let me meet with the team here, and we’ll call you back soon.”
Plan? What kind of plan did they need when it was all a big misunderstanding? He supposed this was what he was paying Stuart for, anticipating every possible outcome and having solutions.
“Okay. But I want to get ahead of this within the hour, Stuart. This doesn’t just affect me,” he said, meeting Daisy’s gaze.
“We’re on it. Oh, and I should warn you. I got a call from the highway patrol. In light of your impending promotion, they’re sending a couple of troopers out as part of your security detail. They’ll be there this afternoon.”
Jack sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Got it. Thanks for the warning.”
He palmed the cell phone and crossed the room to join Daisy on the couch. She was so quiet now, pensive as she waited to hear any word of what was going on. Who knew what she was feeling in the face of this sudden unwanted attention, but he was certain stunned and numb was a start.
“I’m afraid that it looks like, for now, Lily and I aren’t going anywhere. My advisor thinks we need to come up with a game plan before we make any moves. I’m sorry, since I know that our presence here was not what you had planned as part of your week.”
“Game plan?” she asked, her voice oddly high and strained. “And what kind of game plan is that exactly?” Daisy jumped to her feet and pointed toward the windows with flourish. “Because right now there’s a circus camped out there who seem to have nothing else to do but make a lot of crazy and insane insinuations about me, about you, about us. No concern if this is true or anything. I don’t see why we can’t just go out there and set the record straight. Oh, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, but my phone has blown up with calls and texts from anyone I’ve ever known wanting to know if it’s true I’m on some romantic getaway with the soon-to-be governor—a little fact you forgot to mention to me by the way.”
Her eyes blazed with her frustration and fury, her cheeks flushed with color that instead of being intimidating, made him bite back a smile at how alluring and cute she was at the same time.
He got it. She needed to vent. It was a lot to process. “We’re going to figure this out. My staff will probably make a formal press release explaining how this is all a mix-up. How we are just two relative strangers who arrived for a nice, quiet vacation with their respective families only to find that the place was accidentally double-booked.”
She paced the floor, pausing to peek through the blinds before flipping back around. “And do you think that will be enough? They’ll pack up and leave us in peace? Retract everything they’ve said so far?”
He hesitated. Would they just take his word for fact?
The hard truth was that despite his attempts to keep his private life just that—private—there had a been a few persistent news channels that were always looking for something juicier to report to their viewers and readership. Especially if it pertained to his love life—what little there was. Last he’d heard, one of them had offered up to five grand for any personal details about what dating the lieutenant governor was like. Any included photos fetched a premium price.
Would these same news channels, now, in the face of this unfortunate mix-up, choose to believe the best? That it was an innocent mistake? Or would they prefer to run with the more salacious even if untrue story that the soon-to-be governor and his secret girlfriend—along with their families—were busted shacking up over the holiday weekend?
He hated to admit it, but his bets were on the latter. And people like Aaron Leary, with a stake in the game, would be sure to capitalize on that.
“I won’t lie,” he said carefully, meeting her gaze. “There will be a few people who, no matter what we tell them, will decide the worst. They’ll believe our excuse is merely a cover-up after being busted. But even if that were the case, the chances are that, eventually, another news story will make this all fade away in time.”
“And until then, I’ll be facing a lot of unflattering and outright hateful comments. And my kids…they’re going to be drawn into this, too.”
“We’re talking worst case here. A lot of people aren’t really going to care. We’re both single. We’re adults. It isn’t the most unheard thing in the world for a couple who a
re dating to take their families on a joint vacation. This isn’t the 1950s, after all.”
“But we do live in a state that is conservative by most people’s standards. And you’re forgetting. You’re the governor now. Or will be. You’re going to be held to a higher standard.”
It was true. But more to the point, even before this broke, he had known he was going to be in for a tough and competitive campaign for the next year. Many, even in his own party like Leary, would be looking for any chink in his armor to draw blood. And that was just in the primary, not even the general election.
Which all meant that resolving this situation was not going to be as easy as he would like.
