Also by K.A. Linde
The Record Series
Off the Record
The Avoiding Series
Avoiding Commitment (#1)
Avoiding Decisions ( #1.5 )
Avoiding Responsibility (#2)
Avoiding Intimacy (#2.5)
Avoiding Temptation (#3)
Following Me
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2014 K.A. Linde
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
ISBN-13: 9781477823880
ISBN-10: 1477823883
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014901936
To The Campaign. For yard signs, Ye Olde, and meta conversations.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 ELECTION DAY
Chapter 2 CHRISTMAS BOMB
Chapter 3 ALL THAT MATTERS
Chapter 4 VISION
Chapter 5 ALL THE WRONG REASONS
Chapter 6 TRUST FOSTERS TRUST
Chapter 7 CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Chapter 8 SNOW DAY
Chapter 9 Q&A
Chapter 10 BIN 54
Chapter 11 INTERVIEW
Chapter 12 TWENTY-FIRST
Chapter 13 SLIP THROUGH THEIR FINGERTIPS
Chapter 14 EDITOR
Chapter 15 DROPPING THE BALL
Chapter 16 NOTHING ELSE EVER HAD
Chapter 17 REMEMBERING HISTORY
Chapter 18 LOUD AND CLEAR
Chapter 19 THE BOUTIQUE
Chapter 20 THE BANQUET
Chapter 21 HE HAD IT COMING
Chapter 22 MELODRAMA
Chapter 23 TRYING TO FORGET
Chapter 24 MISTAKES WORTH MAKING
Chapter 25 TALK FIRST
Chapter 26 ACT LATER
Chapter 27 OATMEAL
Chapter 28 AROUND THE BLOCK
Chapter 29 MISDIRECTION
Chapter 30 HIGH STRESS
Chapter 31 BRADY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter 1
ELECTION DAY
I can’t believe you dragged me to this party,” Victoria said.
Liz’s best friend was standing against the bar with a drink in her hot-pink-manicured hand. She looked as gorgeous as ever in a skintight black dress covering her voluptuous body, and bright red heels to match her cherry red lips.
“You’re the one who said that you wanted to go out with me tonight,” Liz reminded her.
“I didn’t know it was to a newspaper party . . . on election night.” Victoria tossed her dark brown hair off her shoulder and looked at Liz beneath thick black lashes coated in mascara.
“I’ve only been working toward this, oh, I don’t know, all year.”
Victoria shrugged. “Some things are important to you and some things are important to me. At least we both agree on alcohol,” she said, holding up her glass.
Liz giggled and took a sip of her drink. “Liking the effects of alcohol and liking alcohol are two different things.”
“That’s like saying liking the way Hayden kissed you and liking Hayden are two different things.”
“Coming from the girl who will kiss anyone!” Liz cried. Gah! Did Victoria have to bring this up again? How often had they had this conversation since she and her editor at the paper had shared that heated kiss over the summer?
Giving up Brady had been bad enough.
Her affair with the State Senator Brady Maxwell had lasted the length of the summer, and in that span of time she had fallen unequivocally in love with him. In love with a man whom she couldn’t be with because she was a reporter, a liability to the campaign, a liability to everything he had worked for. And then on the night of his primary victory Brady had given his acceptance speech, proclaiming her, in all but name, as the person who had made him believe completely in this journey he was on. It was in that moment of clarity that she had known what she had to do.
If she forced Brady to decide between her and the campaign, it would have hurt him; and if he chose her and lost the campaign, he would resent her. She hadn’t been okay with either of those scenarios. So Liz had taken the choice into her own hands and walked out on him, and she hadn’t heard from Brady in the two and half months since she had left. Two and a half agonizing months.
“I can kiss whoever I want, Liz,” Victoria said.
“Like the Duke Fan?” Liz chided, shuddering.
“Yes, I can’t believe you are so freaked out that I went on a date with someone who goes to Duke.” Liz just shrugged. “And anyway, you’re the one swooning over your Hayden Lane.”
Liz’s eyes shifted from Victoria to Hayden, standing only a few feet away lost in conversation. If he heard a whisper of this, Liz would kill Victoria.
She wasn’t ready for a relationship or really anything else with Hayden—or anyone. Victoria didn’t understand why, but then again, she didn’t know that the guy Liz had been seeing over the summer had been Brady Maxwell. No one did. Certainly not Hayden. He didn’t even know she’d been seeing someone.
That had made it difficult to explain why she wouldn’t go out with him. It wasn’t like she could just come out and say she was too emotionally bruised by a certain sitting State Senator and was stupidly hoping that he might come find her. She had tried sidestepping Hayden when he had asked her out, but then she’d had to tell him something, and none of her excuses seemed to be good enough. How long could she keep a guy at bay after kissing him the way she had in front of the Lincoln Memorial in D.C.?