AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I made sure to secure my smile as we met the throng, accepted their congratulations and promises of votes. Although the day and time we had to turn in our applications was public knowledge, no one was there but those my family had bribed into coming. Our little newspaper was in attendance, and our old high school photography teacher who doubled as a photojournalist snapped pictures of me all the way, stopping to tell me that she’d always known I was bound for something big and that she was proud of me.
Half of Lindenbach would disagree. Politics had divided our town for quite some time, the animosity boiling over of late. Mayor Mitchell’s side would rather lick pavement than see me in power, not only because his family had held the office for seventy years, but because my family had played a small part in his demise. Which meant beating Doug Windley wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, even if the liquor store owner was a pompous toady of the former mayor.
As I approached the door, it opened, and out came Doug, his face souring when he saw me.
“Heard you were runnin’. Hoped it was bullshit.”
I wore a placid smile. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I figured you and me’d have a race on our hands, but looks like neither of us stand a chance.”
My brow quirked. “How come?”
A smug sort of anger slid over his face. “Oh, you don’t know? Well, don’t let me spoil the surprise. I’d wish you good luck if I didn’t hate your guts.”
His laughter was a whip crack, biting and bitter as he walked away.
Confused and curious, I stepped up to the door to city hall. A gust of cold air blew my hair back when I opened it, heading for the counter. But Verna was occupied with someone else. A man in a suit stood in front of her, his broad back to me, and the most elegant woman I’d ever seen at his elbow. In her heels, she was nearly as tall as him, with long, shining blonde hair spilling down her back. She wore the same basic outfit as me—tailored shirt, pencil skirt, though I’d break my neck in those shoes—but we looked nothing alike. I was a TJ Maxx clearance rack, and she was an advertisement for Bloomingdale’s.
When my eyes slid back to the man in the middle, my head cocked, brows drawing together. Something about him was familiar to me, though I didn’t know a single human on earth besides Jo’s rich DC boyfriend Grant, who owned a suit like that. It was navy blue and cut to perfection, from his wide shoulders to the taper of his waist.
And then I heard his voice.
“Thanks, Verna.”
Two words. That was all it took. Icy cold slithered down my spine with hot rage in its wake. The heat pooled low in my belly, simmering into something that felt curiously like desire for the man I hated more than anyone in the entire world.
Duke Daniels turned with a snake’s smile on his stupid, beautiful face, stopping me dead. But even with his ample training in law, he wasn’t able to school a flicker of emotion before I saw it. I didn’t know exactly what it was, some churning, swirling mixture of shock and longing and pain. He blinked it away before I got a good chance to figure it out.
Twelve years since I’d seen him. Twelve years since the boy I loved decided he was through with us and started a new life, leaving us all behind.
Leaving me behind.
Fresh fury tore through me.
How dare he show up here, like this, looking like that.
His smile hadn’t budged since he’d fixed it there, with teeth too perfect and lips too wide. His jaw was that of a superhero, well-cut and squared at the chin, his nose both strong and elegant. His eyes were an unnatural shade of green, like Superman’s kryptonite—and just as devastating—lined with dark lashes. They sparked with the intelligence that had won him an academic scholarship to Harvard and the wit that had charmed my heart out of my chest many years ago.
As he approached, I was caught in my shock and rage, stupefied and blinking. I could see the boy he’d once been in the man he’d become, but beyond that glimmer of the past, I recognized nothing. Not in his tidy dark hair or his stride, which commanded attention, exuding power with nothing more than a handful of steps and the gentle swing of his arms.
Aphrodite or whoever she was smiled genuinely, beautifully at me, with bright blue eyes and full red lips. She had to be his girlfriend or his wife—oh God, is he married?—and my mind avalanched thoughts so fast, I was swept away like an unsuspecting Swiss skier.
