Cruel Truth Read online

Why had he made me curious?

  Sam,

  * * *

  I don’t know what you need to discuss with me. But can’t you do it in an email?

  * * *

  —Lark

  Translation: Get this over with. You are killing me slowly.

  Lark,

  * * *

  I could. I’d rather do it in person. I owe you that much.

  * * *

  Please.

  Sam

  He owed me that much? What the hell did that mean? Was this about the club? Was he finally going to explain why he’d run out?

  I chewed on my bottom lip. It could just be a line to get me to agree to see him again. I didn’t know why he needed it, but I didn’t really understand Sam at all anymore.

  Sam,

  * * *

  Fine. I’m signing off now.

  * * *

  —Lark

  I exited out of the email and returned to my work, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. Now, I was wondering what he wanted to talk about. And despite it all, I felt nerves take over. Wondering if this was good or bad or somewhere in between.

  All I knew was that I wanted answers.

  I probably should have just gone for that damn coffee. Then I’d have them now. I wouldn’t have to wait until after this very, very long day. But I’d dug my grave. Time to lie in it.

  It was another late night by the time I was finally able to leave. Aspen had left ten minutes earlier with the promise of seeing me bright and early to manage setup. I shut down my computer, stuffed everything I would need for tomorrow in my bag, and then stepped out into the hallway. I half-expected Sam not to be there and that I’d imagined the bizarre emails we’d sent back and forth that morning.

  But no. He was there, waiting for me.

  I forced my eyes to remain on his face and not examine the gorgeous body wrapped in a suit that fit him like a glove. The Sam I’d known never even owned a suit. He’d come straight off three years of construction work with his father and joined Woodhouse’s campaign to try to find purpose before applying for law schools. He wore blue jeans and flannel button-ups. His hair was always a little too long, falling into his eyes. He drove this ancient pickup truck that I swore was going to fall apart at any moment. I’d insisted we drive the Subaru I’d convinced my parents was a low-key alternative for Wisconsin winters.

  Somewhere underneath the new facade was the same old country boy who had tried and failed to hide his Southern drawl. Who had carved me a lark with his own two hands and given it to me as a present when he found out my birthday was coming up. I still didn’t know where he’d found the time.

  I wished that I could reconcile that thoughtful and endearing man with the one who had left me…and the one standing in front of me.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said with a half-smile.

  I have.

  I shook it off. “Burgers?”

  He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Have you been to Buns before?”

  “Yeah. Once or twice,” I said, falling into step beside him as we exited the office. “The best part of the city is that everything is open late. There’s always something to eat on the campaign schedule.”

  “I’ve noticed that. Not like Madison, where we essentially had three choices.”

  “Three excellent choices though.”

  “True enough. I still have dreams about Pel’meni’s dumplings.”

  I groaned. “Me too. You’d think I could find Russian dumplings that compared. But nothing is like Paul’s.”

  “At least it’s not just me.”

  We crossed the street and headed north toward Buns. Sam held the door open for me, and I stepped into the brightly lit burger joint. I ordered my burger. No mustard indeed. I was quick to grab a water and pay for mine before sinking into a booth in the corner.

  Sam dropped down across from me with his own water, and our burgers appeared a few minutes later.

  I would have thought after all the back and forth between us, this wouldn’t be comfortable. That somehow, it would be awkward. He’d ditched me at the club. And then I’d tried to blow him off today in our emails. But this actually felt exactly right. We’d done just this every night for nearly a year in Madison. Some activities were just ingrained with certain people.

  I polished off my burger in record speed. “God, I just realized I haven’t eaten in, like, twelve hours.”

  “You? I’m shocked.”

  “I sometimes just forget food when I’m this intensely focused.”

  He frowned and nodded. “I remember.”

  Silence stretched between us for the first time. Sam seemed to be stalling. I didn’t know what he needed to tell me. But I wanted him to just say it.

  “So…you wanted to talk to me?” I nudged him.

  “Yeah, I do,” he said.

  He glanced up and met my gaze. And it was then that I knew something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

  “Just tell me.” My stomach churned.

  “I have a girlfriend,” he said in a rush.

  My stomach dropped entirely out of my body. “What?”

  “I was trying to keep my professional and personal life separate.”

  “You failed,” I spat.

  A flush suffused my features. I knew my freckles were making it all the worse. I was angry and ashamed and humiliated.

  No wonder he’d run out on me at the club.

  We’d almost kissed. We were inches away. He’d expected a guys’ night out, and he’d gotten me instead.

  And still…he hadn’t told me then about the mysterious girlfriend. How convenient.

  Sam nodded with a deep frown. He dug through his bag and pulled out the paperwork that Aspen had handed out this morning to everyone who would be working at the fundraising banquet. He flipped to the second page and pointed at a name—New York City Symphony Orchestra.

  “She’s in this orchestra,” Sam said with a pained expression. “She’s going to be at the banquet tomorrow. And I didn’t want you to be blindsided.”

  “Like I am now?” I hissed.

  “Yes,” he muttered.

  There was regret in his eyes. I felt no sympathy for him.

  “Great.”

  “Lark…”

  “Okay.” I stood from the table, pushing the empty burger basket away from me. “Got it, Sam.”

  Before he could respond, I wrenched my purse out of the booth and walked out of the restaurant. I didn’t need to say another word. He didn’t need to say anything else either.

  I was shaking with anger by the time I made it out onto the New York City streets. I turned northward and just started walking. I knew I’d have to hail a cab before long. I could never walk the entire way to my apartment. But I was so furious right now that there was nothing else I could do but ferociously walk and walk some more.

  Then the anger turned to sadness. My body felt weighed down and heavy. Like I might fall apart at any moment.

  And I vowed that I was never, ever going to let anyone make me feel like that again. Not ever again.

  Part II

  Play By The Rules

  7

  Lark

  The fundraising banquet was the biggest event we’d put together on the campaign thus far. It was a test of how smoothly our team could work as a unit. And how much money we could bring in from huge donors in one evening.

  I had every intention of breaking every record we’d set for ourselves.

  I’d spent all morning helping the advance team prep for the event. Finally, Demi had sent me to eat something and get ready. Apparently, I was a tad bit…intense today.

  No surprise there.

  Not after what had happened the night before.

  Or what I knew I would have to deal with today.

  I even dug through the boxes of clothes and shoes that my mother had left for me. I picked out a stylish little black dress, fitted jacket, and muted black snakeskin pumps. A part of me had wante
d to rebel against all the purchases, but I needed armor for today. And designer clothing was as close as it got.

  With a deep breath, I strode back through the banquet hall and into the back room where I’d left Demi an hour earlier.

  “Oh thank god you’re finally back,” Demi cried.

  “I wasn’t gone that long.”

  Demi shrugged. “No, and you needed the break. But damn, I missed you.”

  I peeled off my jacket and hung it up before turning to face Demi. “I missed you too. What’s up?”

  Demi waved her hand. “Girl, look at you!”

  “What?”

  “That dress! Aspen, come look at this dress!”

  I rolled my eyes as Aspen came into the back room.

  She whistled. “Looking hot, boss.”

  “This isn’t that different than normal,” I assured them.

  “Yeah, sure,” Demi said.

  I shook my head at them. “What’s the emergency?”

  Demi tossed me a headset. “We’re an hour from start time. The interns aren’t answering. We’re down three ushers. I just heard that Mr. and Mrs. Chambliss thought that the two tables they’d ordered were for ten people each and not eight tonight. So now, I have to find space for four extra attendees and figure out how to politely ask for ten thousand more dollars,” she said with an eye roll. “Mayor Kensington will be here in fifteen, and everything needs to be done before then.”

  “You work on the seating chart,” I told Demi and then turned to Aspen. “Can you figure out the usher situation?”

  “On it!” Aspen said.

  She turned to leave just as Robert from the field team, Beth from tech with her social media girl and the photographer, and finally, Sam stepped through the door and into the back room. My eyes snagged on Sam for a second before wrenching away.

  I continued speaking as if he weren’t there, “We’ll send Leslie over to the tables at the end to warm up the Chamblisses, and then I’ll have Shawn do the big sell before they leave. He’s the best at it.”

  “Perfect,” Demi said.

  I slid on the headset and grabbed a clipboard. “I’ve got the interns. Let me know if there’s anything else.”

  “Oh!” Demi cried. “Also, the musicians aren’t in position and haven’t practiced in the space at all.”

  I froze, grinding my teeth together. Right. The orchestra.

  “I can take care of the musicians,” Sam said from where he’d just set up his computer.

  My gaze slid to his, my eyes narrowing. He looked guileless. As if he were just trying to help me out. But I didn’t need his help. I was the deputy campaign manager for the mayor of New York. I could handle anything thrown at me.

  “You do your job,” I told him. “And I’ll do mine.”

  Then I left the room to do just that.

  I strode into the banquet hall decorated with dozens of large, round tables. Red-white-and-blue Mayor Kensington banners hung from the ceiling around the perimeter of the room. A painstaking adventure I’d witnessed earlier this morning.

  Sticking to the perimeter, I angled toward the stage and saw the answer to the first problem. All the field interns were congregated in one corner, chatting rather than working.

  I rolled my eyes. This would be fun.

  “Bailey, Kolby, Marcel, Sonya.” I clapped my hands twice. “Let’s get moving. Headsets on and responsive.”

  Their eyes rounded in shock, and then they immediately dispersed with mumbled apologies. It was like none of them wanted paid jobs at all.

  “Interns are a go,” I said into the headset.

  “Roger that,” Demi said.

  I shook my head and then took a deep breath, continuing toward the stage. I had to put my feelings about the orchestra behind me for tonight. I needed them to do their job. They were getting paid.

  I was nearly to the conductor when the short, squat man tapped his baton two or three times, and the orchestra moved seamlessly into their chairs.

  “It’s a Christmas miracle,” I muttered sarcastically.

  At least something was going right. One fire I didn’t have to fix.

  I should have turned around right that minute and headed back to Demi. I was sure she could use some more help with the seating chart. Beth would want access to Leslie for photographs. Their messaging for the night needed to be on point. In fact, there were a dozen things that I could be doing at this moment.

  Instead, I stared up at the orchestra. Their music was perfectly in harmony. It was gorgeous and so full. I knew why we’d hired them.

  In the thirty or forty members they had sent for this ensemble, only three of them were young enough females who could potentially be Sam’s girlfriend—a tall Hispanic girl on cello, a pale blonde, and a mousy brunette, both on violin in the back.

  I wondered which of the three girls was Sam’s girlfriend. None of them looked like me. None of them looked like his ex, Melissa, whom I’d unfortunately met. I had no way to judge from here. And even if I could, I shouldn’t. I didn’t really want to be the girl judging others on or off stage.

  My stomach turned as I gazed a second longer. I was purposely torturing myself with not knowing. And I’d decided yesterday that I wasn’t going to do this. That I was going to be strong and not let myself think about it. It was why I wore my Upper East Side armor. I needed it. But I didn’t need the subsequent devilish personality that came with it. That was dangerous on so many levels for me.

  With a sigh, I turned away from the orchestra and said into the headset, “Orchestra is rehearsing. Heading your way now.”

  “Actually, Lark, the mayor just arrived. Shawn asked for you,” Demi responded.

  I sighed with relief. That would be better than going to the back room to deal with last-minute fires while Sam was there. I didn’t want to be in the same room with him…even though I knew it wouldn’t be that easy forever.

  “Got it,” I told Demi and then left the ballroom behind.

  I set out to find the mayor. Even though I’d been working for Leslie since the beginning, my nerves still thrummed with excitement when I was in the thick of it all.

  I slid on my game face as I entered the mayor’s inner sanctum. And found only madness.

  Hair and makeup frantically applied finishing touches. Hairspray and setting spray clogged the small room. Christine ran Leslie through the final stages of her speech. She kept correcting emphasis on key words, marking them up, and then handing them back. My boss and Leslie’s campaign manager, Shawn, was listening with half an ear to the speech as he texted relentlessly.

  “No, no, no. We’ve said five times not to use that word,” he said, glancing up from his phone. He was a trim six-foot-four black guy who always ran a hand over his short, cropped hair when he was nervous. Which was always. “The word feminism has negative connotation. Our audience might be fine with it, but if your opponent gets ahold of it, it’s going to be in every ad from now until November.”

  Christine whipped her blue hair—which was shaved on the sides with long, edgy bangs—out of her eyes. “We’re keeping it.”

  “Tonight, we need money,” Shawn added. He pocketed his phone. “If our audience doesn’t like it, then we’re doomed.”

  “Come up with something better for me then.”

  Shawn opened his mouth to respond, but the mayor held her hand up. “Enough. I put the word back in, Shawn. It stays.”

  “With all due respect…”

  Leslie shook her head. Then she looked right at me, hovering in the periphery of the room, waiting to see if there was about to be a showdown. “Lark, come in. Remind everyone why we’re keeping the word in.”

  “Mayor Kensington is most known for being tough on crime, but her other main platform and personal project is promoting female equality. She could talk about how she’s increased the number of female-appointed officials, worked hand in hand with women who want to run for office, and lowered the wage disparity in the city without saying she’s a fe
minist.” I nodded at Shawn. “But it’s a word that stands in for all of her great accomplishments.”

  “I know,” Shawn said with a sigh. “I’m not saying remove that from the speech, just that we replace feminism with advocate for women’s rights.”

  Mayor Kensington closed the speech and nodded at Christine, who promptly exited. Hair and makeup did the same. “It’s fine, Shawn. The fundraiser is our base. If it bombs here, we’ll tone it down.”

  He spread his hands before him. “What if Quinn gets ahold of it?” he asked, referring to our major opposition. “Can you stomach a feminism sound bite for the next six months?”

  “I’ve had to stomach worse,” the mayor said evenly.

  “All right,” Shawn said, knowing when he’d lost.

  “Are we ready?” the mayor asked.

  “Yes, we’re all set,” I said.

  “Mr. Neville is being introduced first,” Shawn said, checking his watch. “We should hustle you down to the stage and get you in position. Go over that line one more time.”

  The mayor smiled at him. “I don’t hustle for anything, except votes.”

  I laughed. “Hardly.”

  “You know me too well, Lark. I hustle for everyone in my city. Just not from one place to another.”

  “Everyone should wait for a lady.”

  She winked. “If they know what’s good for them.”

  We all laughed and walked purposefully down the hallway toward the stage door.

  Leslie touched my arm. “Oh, I meant to thank you for dealing with Court the other day when he came into the office. I’ve been so busy preparing for this that I didn’t get to mention it. I know that’s not exactly in your job description.”

  “I’ve known him my whole life. Handled with ease.”

  “What would I do without you, Lark?”

  “I hope we’ll never find out,” I responded.