Loving the Senator (Capitol Affairs #1) Read Online Free Page A

mess. It’s nuts around here right now. I’ll be glad to get settled in my new office soon.” As he spoke, he straightened his tie and smiled.
    “You’re banged up pretty bad, Alex,” I said, wanting to touch him.
    “It’s no big deal. I’m just sore. I’m lucky it wasn’t worse. My car’s banged up more than I am.” He sipped his glass of water while looking me over from top to bottom and trying not to make it too obvious.
    “How did you explain this to Jade?”
    The air between us crackled with electricity.
    “Jade is history. She left me at the party. It’s better this way. It was time.” My face flushed.
    My phone vibrated in my purse, but I silenced it.
    “Do you need to take that?” He nodded toward the phone.
    “No, they can wait.”
    “I wanted to ask you something for a long time. Now since this whole election thing is over, I guess it’s okay for me to discuss it.”
    “Ask me anything, Prudence.” His tone contradicted his words, as if he anticipated the question he knew I would eventually ask.
    I shifted nervously in my chair. “Why were you in Ohio with my mom?”
    He grabbed his glass of water, took a long swig, and walked to the window, looking out.
    “I went to law school in Ohio, and our families were close. Both my father and your grandfather were senators at the time. They vacationed together, and we spent many weekends at their house. After your mom ran away, your grandmother found out about your mom’s drug use. She was mortified to learn she had a child and was living in a trailer in Ohio. She asked me to find you and bring you and your mom back to her. She thought since I went to school with your mom, and we were the same age, I could convince her to come home.” He stopped talking, and I had the impression he had much more to say.
    “You weren’t in a relationship with my mom?” I asked shifting in my chair again. I had to know if he had banged my mom back in the day, even though I hated having that image in my mind.
    He turned quickly towards me.
    “Dear God, no. When I got there and saw what a mess she was, and what was going on in that trailer, I wanted no part of what she was offering. My focus was on getting both of you, if not just you, out of there and to Beulah’s.”
    He paused for a minute again, took another sip of his water, and sat on the edge of his desk. He continued as I cleared my throat in preparation for what came next.
    “She tried, several times to get me to do things with her. She was relentless sometimes. Your mom was not the same person I remembered when we went to school together. She was unrecognizable to me and I felt so sorry for both of you. When I tried talking her into taking you to your grandmother, she flipped out. The next day I found her unconscious, overdosed on heroin,” he said. He kept his eyes on me the entire time he talked.
    “I remember that day. My best friend Veena came home with me, and you came to tell me they’d taken my mom to rehab. You offered to take me to visit her the following week.”
    “Yeah. Within a day after she got out, she used again. I even took her to an AA meeting, but she snuck out and met a few of her friends and back to drugs she went. How is Veena? Do you still talk to her?”
    I could tell he felt guilty, like maybe he didn’t do enough. But he was wrong. He had done more than he realized. More than my own family had done for me, and my mom.
    “I haven’t seen or spoken to Veena since I left. I tried to contact her, but I have never heard back.”
    Suddenly, I was very out of sorts. I hadn’t expected to dredge up old feelings. Veena was my best friend in school and lived in the trailer park with her grandmother and sister. We were inseparable most of the time, and she was with me the night my mom told me to get out. I missed her terribly and would love to see her.
    “Why didn’t you just bring me back here and not tell her? You could’ve sneaked me out of that hell while she was in