“Nothing happened,” he snapped.

Mads narrowed her eyes to curious slits. “You disappeared fairly quickly after the press conference.”

“I had to take a leak. Or do I need to schedule that with you, too?”

“Okaaay, Oscar the Grouch. What I was talking about was the power of that exchange in the media room. The vultures weren’t laughing at you. They were enjoying the”—she carved a hand through the air—“sizzle.”

“The sizzle?”

“Eli, I’ll let you into a little secret. Politics.” She made a moue of distaste. “Not sexy.” At his acerbic look, she continued. “Oh, you’re sexy and you can usually make a statement about the city budget sound like a reading of Anaïs Nin, but there’s only so far your charisma can carry us. You need a foil, someone to reflect your sexy back at you. People aren’t just talking about Alex Dempsey, they’re talking about you and Alex Dempsey. They like how she stood up to you and they like how the two of you sizzle.”

The sizzle was the fucking problem. “I don’t want to sizzle. I want to win.”

She turned her own iPad around. “Up five points since the night of the fire. Two more than yesterday. That’s all due to Dempsey.”

Point taken. But the idea of trying to corral Alexandra was in a whole other suburb of Nutsville. “She won’t work with us. Why do you think she tried to sabotage that press conference in the first place?”

“What happened to the guy who could talk anyone into doing anything?”

“He’s been beaten down by corporate interests, union fights, and predatory women, including the one who got me drunk twelve years ago and took advantage of me. You were older and I was very impressionable.”

She smiled serenely. These days, they had nothing but fond memories of their misguided drunken attempt at marital bliss, kick-started in the Chapel of Love, two blocks off the Vegas Strip.

“We have information on Caroline Jenkins, information that could bury her.”

“Not going negative, Mads. I said it from the start.”

They had run this argument many times, but no matter how desperate things got, ruining the personal life of his closest opponent was not the answer. Madison knew it was a long shot, but felt duty-bound to remind him on occasion that he was a scum-sucking politician.

“If you won’t use our intel on Jenkins, then dating Alex Dempsey would answer all your problems.”

His pulse quickened. “Dating? I thought we were talking about a few public appearances.”

Madison stood and walked to the window, where she did her best thinking. He braced for the verbal PowerPoint.

“Dating the woman who, one, saved your life, and, two, represents the blue-collar vote that’s been slipping away from you over the last year fulfills two purposes. You show that you have respect for the female firefighters who can do the job as well as any man, and you get an in with the unions. Her last name is an advantage. Combining two great familial legacies of heroism on one ticket is genius.”

Discomfort nagged at his insides. “So, use a couple of dead firefighters to get votes.”

She faced him. “It’s not as if you don’t have your own legacy, Eli. You’re a war hero. Your father was a hero to this city in his fight against the mob. We’re merely amplifying that with your connection to the Dempseys. The polls close on election night, we wait a week or two, then you and Alex part ways.”

Apart from the fact that placing his father on the same heroic stratum as Sean Dempsey and Logan Keyes turned Eli’s stomach, he felt the need to express the obvious hitch in this stellar plan. “I can’t date a city employee.”

Madison grinned. “I checked. There are rules about fraternization between supervisors and subordinates within the same department, but not between you and one of your non—city hall minions. You could bang every schoolteacher and public librarian in Chicago and it would be completely aboveboard.”

Completely. Aboveboard.

Why the fuck was he only learning this now?

Since that night six months ago when they had first clashed at Smith & Jones, he had assumed Alexandra Dempsey was out of bounds. Pussy non grata. Yesterday, he had worried about crossing a line with her, only to find now his behavior wasn’t nearly as egregious as he’d originally thought. No longer taboo, but no less enticing for it.

Keeping the elation out of his voice took effort. “Even if I thought it was a good idea, there’s still the matter of securing Dempsey’s cooperation.”

“You’ll think of something.”

Eli drummed his fingers on his desk as he played out different scenarios. He could threaten the whole damn brood with separation at Engine 6. It had worked before to bring Luke Almeida to heel. Technically, they shouldn’t be allowed to work at the same house, but as they were foster rather than legal siblings, they managed to evade city regulations.

He could demand she play ball—she was a city employee, after all—but he’d rather not come down hard on her. Not when he wanted to do other things to her that involved the word come and hard.

He could finally have her.

No, he didn’t want to bang a teacher or a librarian . . . just one sexy, curvaceous firefighter. But more than that, he wanted to dominate her in a way that made him practically vibrate with need. He could still feel her hot mouth on his, her eager hands scrubbing his hair and claiming his chest. Where the hell had Alexandra Dempsey learned to kiss like that?

Probably with all those dates she was constantly going on. Probably with fuckwads like Michael Martinez. The thought of her with a man like that—with men like that—spiked his pulse to dangerous levels. Cool your jets, Cooper. If he thought about her with someone else, that iPad on his desk wouldn’t stand a chance.

Yesterday, he had told her this thing between them would pass. That he hoped it would. Eli dealt in realities. How to get a vote passed by the city council. Whom to slap down to “persuade” a decision to go his way. Craving a fantasy that was out of reach was a game he refused to play (except during long, steamy showers).

But now Alexandra Dempsey was no longer a fuzzy mirage. She was the woman who would win him the election—and who, until then, would warm up those cold, lonely nights on the campaign trail.

Now he just had to come up with an offer she couldn’t refuse.

“Shitmotherfuckerprickfaceasswipe,” Alex blurted.

If she were more like her brother Luke, she probably would have punched the locker door to punctuate that incredibly articulate outburst. Actually, she was just like Luke. Quick to anger, slow to forgive, but she was trying to be less of a raging hothead lately because it seemed to get her into nothing but trouble.

So, instead, she closed the door on the ketchup-covered T-shirt in her locker and drew a deep breath. As usual, someone was screwing with her. If it wasn’t her rookie status, it was the fact she was one of only 140 women, just 3.4 percent of the total, in the testosterone-soaked CFD. If it wasn’t her Dempsey-hood, it was her refusal to break down like a girly girl when faced with adversity. She deserved her spot on the crew. Her brothers supported her, but some of the other guys, not so much.

Murphy was the worst offender. She’d bet dollars to donuts the Jackson Pollack—inspired tee design was from him. He was always making cracks about her being on the rag if she looked at him crooked, like that could be the only possible reason his face offended her. He was sly about it, too, keeping his comments for when they were alone. A subtle invasion of her environment.

Complaining would make her look weak. Getting her brothers involved would draw accusations of whining. She didn’t want to rock the boat. Lately, all she had done was rock the boat. Feeling glum, she headed to the lounge, where she was greeted by hoots and slow, insolent claps.