This astonishing woman had shone light on his darkness, love on his blackened soul. Not her dead father and brother, not her CFD connection. Just Alexandra. And his heart ached for her.

He looked up to find Madison facing him, sadness haunting her eyes. “If I marry again, I’d like my future husband to look at me how you looked at Alex Dempsey. It’s what every woman deserves.”

Shit. So self-absorbed in his own problems, Eli had taken an age to realize how truly high up the scales of idiocy he had climbed. He was the worst friend ever.

“I’m sorry, Mads. I’ve been an insensitive ass.”

Lowering her gaze, she smoothed her skirt, picked some lint off it. “You’re a man, Eli. Insensitive ass is the job description. It’s my own fault. I thought if I pushed you toward her, we’d be killing two birds. A benefit for the campaign and you’d get her out of your system. Then you and I could go back to . . .” She palmed her brow, her distress palpable. With a mental hitch of her bootstraps, she morphed into tough broad Mads. “Don’t fret your giant, arrogant head. My feelings, my problem. I’ll get over you.”

There was nothing he could say that would make this situation better, so he kept his mouth shut. She walked to the door, pride in her stride, and turned when she got there.

“These oh-so-romantic gestures with the buildings are all well and good, and they certainly don’t hurt your campaign, but you’re not going to win her with flash. You can’t just Eli Cooper this problem into submission.”

“Then, what?” He felt like a cad asking the woman who still loved him, the woman whom he had never loved enough, how he could win the heart of the one he loved more than anything. But Mads had always given him the best advice. He doubted that would ever change.

“She needs what every woman wants, Eli. For you to walk into a room and see only her.”

Alex pulled on the tap for a pint of Guinness and let it settle for the requisite couple of minutes. Dempsey’s was half full. Not bad for a Monday night in February with no Hawks or Bulls game, ten below outside, and the general malaise of a city knee-deep in the armpit of winter. Tomorrow was Election Day, and the mayor was poised at a healthy 58 percent in citizen flash polling. As he only needed 50 percent plus one vote to get an absolute majority, the lead was considered virtually insurmountable.

“Not out celebrating with your boyfriend?”

Alex let go of a sigh, which turned into a growl because this was the kind of night, month, and year she had been having. “Murphy, my man, what can I get you?”

He climbed onto a stool, that dumb Irish potato head of his eyeing the draft beers like he didn’t already know what he was going to order.

Guinness, she mouthed just as he said, “Sam Adams.”

Huh, maybe an old dog could be taught a few new tricks.

A couple more of the Engine 6 crew trickled in. Derek Phelan took a seat beside Murphy and ordered a Bud. Gage brought a crate of Blue Moons up from the cellar and unloaded them into the bar fridge.

All around her, life kept calm and carried on, and she was supposed to be okay with it. She had her job. She had her family. Soon, she hoped, people would forget her part in the silly season entertainment.

She would not forget.

He would be a permanent fixture on the news for the next four years. He would be mentioned with disgust whenever a pay contract or the firefighters’ pensions were on the bargaining table. She would need to quit listening for his laugh. She would need to stop searching for his smile.

God, how she hated him, but mostly she hated this side of her he had unveiled. This weak, needy woman who wanted those long fingers plundering her body and the safe embrace of his made-for-her arms. All attached to the body of a Norse god with the mind of a sewer rat. She had let the domineering parts of his personality slide—his relentless pursuit of her, his crushing of the competition, his control of her in the bedroom—because it was sexy to be wanted that way. But she couldn’t be with a man who traded on the so-called heroism of the man who fooled the world. If he couldn’t see that, then Eli Cooper was not the man she thought he was.

The weather outside can bite me . . . The misery index inside was twenty below.

She looked around, craving a distraction. Derek to tell a dumb joke, Murphy to poke at her so she could whip out the bitch-slap, Kinsey and Darcy . . . to come rushing in like there was a flash sale on Victoria’s Secret undies?

“Did you see it?” Darcy shrieked, her eyes alive with excitement.

“Of course she hasn’t seen it,” Kinsey said. “Would she be standing here as calm as a Hindu cow if she had seen it?”

Everyone stared at her.

“Hindu cows are revered and safe from danger,” Kinsey clarified. “Hence, their calm.”

Okay. “What am I supposed to have seen?” If Eli Cooper had sent her another text-by-building, she was going to be furious, then thrilled, then furious again.

“Eli called an impromptu press conference.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Was I the subject of this press conference?”

“No,” her girls chorused.

Oh. Well.

“Didn’t mention you once,” Kinsey said, rubbing it in, a devilish gleam in her hazel eyes.

Disappointment chilled the space around Alex’s hammering heart. Eli giving up on the woo so soon was more disheartening than she expected.

Darcy handed over her phone. “Watch.”

Murphy and Phelan leaned in, Gage laid a chin on her shoulder, and she angled the phone so they could all see it better, then pressed the play button on the screen. The video started with Eli striding into the media room at city hall, a god among mortals, dressed impeccably, except his tie was askew and his hair looked like it did after a vigorous bout of debate. The horizontal kind.

Had he already sought out familiar female comfort? There was no sign of Madison. Maybe she was rearranging her clothing back in the mayor’s office.

“I have a prepared statement. I won’t be taking questions.”

His voice was low, dangerous, and as always, demanding of the fullest attention. A shiver of dread passed through her, like someone had danced on her grave.

“Almost four years ago, a few weeks after I took office as mayor, I came into possession of certain information about my father, Weston Cooper. This information, after I’d verified its accuracy, confirmed that my father had been engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Ronan Cutler, who was being investigated by the state’s attorney’s office at the time. The conspiracy involved my father revealing the moves of law enforcement and ensuring decisions by the state’s attorney’s office would be settled or manipulated in favor of Mr. Cutler and his associates. When my father decided to end this relationship, he was murdered by Mr. Cutler along with my mother.”

The hitch in his throat at the mention of his mom ripped Alex’s heart out of her chest.

“Although I had this information, I chose to keep it to myself for largely selfish reasons. I had just been elected and I convinced myself that it would have no bearing on my ability to do the job. I was my father’s son, but I did not emerge from the Chicago political machine, and in my hubris, I believed that I was above politics. I could separate myself from the past. From my father’s misdeeds.”

He paused at that moment. Looked out at the media vultures, but it was as if he didn’t see them. It might have been her imagination in thinking his eyes tilted toward the camera.

Toward her.

“I was wrong. My father’s false legacy as a great man gunned down for doing his job has gained me considerable political capital, even to this day. My use of it is an insult to the brave men and women who have and continue to put their lives on the line in the exercise of their duty every day. I have not engaged in any illegal activity, though I recognize that this claim might be suspect considering the source. But I have lied to people I cared”—he paused—“care about and manipulated the public trust. So yes, in that sense, I am my father’s son.”