“Fuck you.”

“And I ain’t been featured in People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue.”

“Jesus.”

“Twice,” Brady tacked on with smug grin.

Throwing the scotch would be a waste of good liquor, so Eli lobbed a cushion, which Brady caught with ease.

Eli sipped again, relishing the burn down his throat, taking a moment to find his way in the conversation. “That’s what I’m worried about. That I’m all shiny surfaces, too glib and shallow for a woman like that. Or that it’s all she’ll see. I fessed up not just so that I could make this black cloud that’s followed me around forever disappear, but also so I could be worthy of her. Look at her people, what they did, what they do.” He had never had to fight to impress—or win—a woman before. Low-down, in the dirt, bare-knuckled combat. The notion that looks, charm, or sheer willpower might not be enough was sobering.

Brady squinted at him, looking as thoughtful as Eli had ever seen him. “Has she seen you at your worst?”

From the cavalcade of stunts he had pulled to make her his to confessing how he had covered up his father’s crimes, Eli would say Alexandra had seen a side of him that was not exactly exemplary.

He nodded.

Brady dropped his gaze to the tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. “What you’ve done for me and your country, what you’ve done for this city, and what you did in that press conference . . .” He met Eli’s gaze head-on. “I’d say that she’s also seen you at your best. And if she can’t put all those parts together and understand the whole messy, fucked-up, human picture, then she hasn’t seen you.”

 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Drake, headquarters of the Cooper campaign, was a madhouse. City hall staffers, grasping hangers-on, sharp-clawed media, political wonks—you name it, everyone who wanted to either bask in Eli’s victory or wave him on to the gates of hell was here. His revelation had thrown the race wide open as the city grappled with what it meant for their vote. Was he a charlatan like his father or merely a good man trying to make the best of the bad hand dealt to him? Since the polls had shut an hour ago, the decision was balanced on a knife’s edge, too close to call.

No one who could help was answering Alex’s calls. Kinsey couldn’t get ahold of Madison, and Alex had tried to call Eli but he wasn’t picking up. Just hearing his voice on the message sent her stomach into a lurch. So cool, so dominant. So Eli.

After her shift at the bar, she had tangled up the sheets and lain awake all night thinking. Thinking was not something she did well. Snap decisions? She was a pro, but a clear analysis of what was good for her? Not her strong suit. A visit to Sean and Logan’s snowy graves in Roseland had helped some to unravel the knotted ball of thoughts. What Eli had done, the blow he had dealt to his campaign and his political future . . . she had to believe he did it for her. Coming clean was his way of showing her he had changed. That she had changed him.

He had taken a risk when the reward was unknowable. Possibly negligible. She needed to risk it all right back.

He was likely holed up with a team in a hotel room, ready to descend to pump his fist in victory or hang his head in defeat. Trying to look like she had every right to be here, she approached the elevators with a vague plan to get off at each floor above fifteen and drop-kick anyone standing sentry in a suit and dark glasses.

“Are you a guest at the hotel, miss?” A suit, likely CPD, halted her progress at the elevator bank.

“No, I’m . . .”—America’s Favorite Firefighter, the mayor’s savior, Eli Cooper’s woman—“I’m not.” Doubts furrowed soul-deep ruts in her mind. She was nothing. She had no right to be here, no reason to expect Eli would see her. Surely he would have answered her calls if he wanted her here? Come see her if that media room confession was his way of saying he truly loved her?

She gave what she hoped was a winning smile. “I need to see the mayor.”

Dark Suit twitched his nose. “Only people with clearance can see the mayor.” Pronounced da mayor.

“Have we got a problem here?”

Alex turned to the sultry voice to find Madison Maitland, looking less like the cool, sophisticated campaign manager and more like a woman on the edge. At least three hairs were out of place. Alex’s day had started off as a crapfest, and now it had just gotten ten times worse.

“I need to see Eli,” she said, trying to infuse Dempsey bravado into that statement.

Madison stared at her, her lips sealed, her perfectly plucked eyebrows veed in thought.

“Okay.”

Alex flinched. “What?”

Madison flicked a glance at Suit ’n’ Glasses. “She’s clear to go up.”

He opened his mouth to protest but shut it at whatever he saw on Madison’s face. The woman had the crush-your-balls look down.

They stepped into the elevator together. There was no Muzak, no talking, just staring at their fun-house mirror reflections in the brushed stainless steel. Anything to avoid the shit ton of awkward that was stinking up the space.

“How are the numbers?” Alex finally asked, because the elevator was making the slowest ascent ever.

“It’ll come down to the last precinct, the last vote.” Madison sounded strangely energized. The elevator reached the eighteenth floor. The doors fell open. Another security guard checked and nodded at Madison while coolly assessing Alex.

Madison walked into the corridor, with Alex following.

The elegant brunette stopped and faced her. “He made a deal with Cochrane last summer so you wouldn’t be sued. Kinsey’s handling of the video and that petition kept your job, but it was Eli who fixed it with Sam on the lawsuit. Let himself get pulled deeper into that fucker’s web. I knew Cochrane had something on Eli but he never told me what it was. What his father had done.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “You wouldn’t believe how impressed he was when he saw that video of you cutting up Cochrane’s car. He thought you were so brave.”

Alex snorted, her eyes filling with tears. “Not so brave when someone else has to clean up your mess.” Kinsey and Eli had done that for her, and she had spent months blaming other people for her crazy behavior. As if her loyalty to her family excused everything. And then she had castigated Eli for his loyalty to his own family.

Now this. He had thrown himself on his sword because he loved her more than he loved being king. And she loved him. So much. No trick, no manipulation. Her imperfect hero.

“That’s what we do for the people we love,” Madison said, a genuine smile now lighting up her sharp-boned face. “We make sacrifices, clean up messes, lie, cheat, steal to win them. He didn’t know it at the time, but the moment he met you, he was a goner.”

Alex’s heart threatened to bust out of her chest. How wrong to feel this much joy when Eli’s election chances were still teetering on the brink. But her heart had always been her biggest liability—and her largest asset. It got her into trouble and steered her to this man.

“I’ve cost him the election.”

Madison shrugged, put her hand on the doorknob to a room at the end of the corridor. “Possibly. But he’ll be the first person to say he won the true campaign anyway.”

Eli was glued to the TV in the hotel suite, waiting for the last few ward results to trickle in. What the hell were the counters doing down there? Eating fucking pizza instead of tallying the damn ballots, he’d lay odds.

It was much too close. But when you threw a wrench in the works like he had, then it was always going to be a Sisyphean task. For every voter who admired his honesty there were two who thought the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. For every woman who swooned at his romantic gestures there were three who hated that his heart belonged to another.