“Should we allow that?”
Carter shrugged. “Better than a bar fight.”
For a brief time, Eliza had completely forgotten the fight. “How’s the campaign?”
He hesitated with his answer, then said. “Not good.”
My fault.
“I feel responsible,” she admitted.
“You do?”
“Well, yeah… If I hadn’t taken Gwen there, you guys wouldn’t have followed. One thing lead to another and all that. If there’s something I can do to help.”
Eliza considered repeating her words when Carter stood staring at her. Somewhere in his head, he was thinking up something and struggling with the image it created.
“Carter? Are you okay?”
“Uh huh. Just thinking if there is something you can do.” His words came out slow and steady.
“Right. I was there. I know you didn’t start the fight. I could tell a reporter.”
“Uh huh.” He kept staring and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“Know what?” he repeated her question.
“You’re not making any sense.”
He snapped out of his thoughts. “When are you leaving tomorrow?”
“In the afternoon. I’m flying out with Sam and Blake.”
“So you’ll be in L.A. after that?”
“It’s where I live, Hollywood. Not all of us have the funds to charter a private plane.” Eliza used the nickname Samantha had given him when they met. His big-screen good looks were every producer’s wet dream. Instead of searching for fame, he picked law. Yawn!
“Right,” he said with the smirk returning to his lips. “I have a press conference in two days at the Beverly Hilton. Can you be there?”
She swallowed and felt her palms dampen even more. “To explain what happened?”
“If need be.”
What could she say? It was her fault he needed the press conference. She had to do something to make it right. “Yeah. I can be there.”
Carter let loose a full smile, the one Hollywood would love to have.
“You should get back to your date. I’ll bet she’s looking for you.”
Carter tore his eyes away from her and glanced around the room. Eliza noticed his date laughing at something another man was saying. “Looks like someone’s moving in,” she told him, nudging his arm.
“She cut me loose. They can move in all they want.”
Eliza stared at him. “She dumped you?”
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change. Kathleen obviously wasn’t that important to him. Or maybe there was more to the dump.
“Wait, she didn’t dump you because of the election did she?”
He shrugged.
A strange weight fell on Eliza’s chest. A mixture of relief that Carter wasn’t attached, which was completely unwanted on her part, and dose of what a “rat” Kathleen must be to dump a guy for such a shallow reason. If his date knew Carter at all, she knew that beyond his often arrogant demeanor he’d protect a woman despite how the media would take it. Guys like Carter didn’t exist outside of books.
“She’s not good enough for you anyway,” Eliza mumbled.
“What was that?”
“If a woman is only with you to be the first lady of California, then you don’t want her.” Kathleen was leaning into a Texas cowboy in a five-hundred dollar suit. Probably has an oil field.
“Is that so?” Carter asked.
“Yeah. That’s so.”
The music playing in the background stopped, and the emcee for the event picked up the microphone. “Well folks, looks like we need to do a little cake cutting so we can let the hosts run off and start their third honeymoon.”
Eliza glanced up to find Carter observing her. He smiled and offered his arm so the two of them could help at the cake table.
As Eliza slid her hand along his arm, an electric current fluttered in her chest and raised gooseflesh on her skin. Her already warm body heated with his simple touch and tightened in all the right places.
Chapter Five
“I need your help.” Eliza stood in Samantha and Blake’s living room pleading with Gwen.
“You need my help?” Gwen sat taller and lifted a manicured eyebrow high. She appeared just as surprised to hear Eliza’s request as she was in giving it.
“Shocking, I know. But you have experience with this kind of thing and I’m clueless.” Eliza didn’t like asking for advice, but she didn’t have a choice.
“What experience?”
Eliza lifted her hand to her mouth and nibbled on a fingernail. “Carter asked me to join him at a press conference tomorrow. I don’t know what to wear—don’t know what to say. I don’t want to come off as some hick. Lord knows those pictures of us in the parking lot were less than flattering.”
“I thought they were splendid,” Gwen said.
“For a jeans and beer ad maybe. This is a big deal for Carter. I should look…I don’t know, dignified. I’m good at evening gowns. I can do casual. But a press conference? Not a clue.”
Gwen placed a hand on her chest. “I’m proud you came to me.”
Oh, good. “So you can help?”
“If there is one thing my mother taught me, it was how to handle the media.” Gwen stood and stuck out her hand. “Come. Let’s start with the perfect clothes.”