The Senator's Daughter. Sophia Sasson
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now, she could barely afford to pay the rent on this place, let alone get an apartment for her mother. Emilia Driscoll hadn’t been able to hold down a job for over a year now. The move to Hillsdale had been hard on her, and Kat didn’t understand why. Her mother was from Virginia; Kat’s aunt lived a short distance away. When Kat had accepted the position at Hillsdale College, she’d expected her mother to be thrilled. Instead, she had mumbled something about the past coming back. At the time, Kat had wondered if her father was still around. It was the only thing that explained her mother’s reaction.
She went to the bedroom to find her mother still fast asleep. Kat closed the door and sat on the bed. Wisps of blond hair stuck to her mother’s forehead, so she pushed them back. Emilia had been a beautiful woman once, with long, flowing hair, bright blue eyes, rosy cheeks and a full body. Now her hair was thin and falling out. Her slim body was all bones. Kat could never get enough calories into her. She couldn’t let the media anywhere near her; they would eat her alive.
“Mom, I need you to wake up.”
Her mother moaned and turned away from Kat, but she shook her until Emilia’s eyes fluttered. “Katerina, what time is it? How long have I been sleeping?” She rubbed her eyes and blinked at the sunshine streaming through the window.
“Mom, it hasn’t been long. I’m here because there’s a problem. I need an answer to a very important question, and I need you not to lie to me, okay?”
Her mother sat up in bed and frowned. She was lucid and calm. Good—the drugs had taken effect. “Katerina, what is it?”
Kat swallowed. There was no time to ease into this. “Remember how you told me my father was a politician?” Her mother shrank back, her lips pressed tightly together. It was her normal reaction, but Kat wasn’t going to let her shut down this time. For once, she had a different way of asking the rote question. “Mom, is Senator William Roberts my father?”
Her mother paled and she clutched the bedsheet to her chest.
“Oh, no. It’s happened, hasn’t it? He’s come to take you from me.”
“I’M WORKING ON IT.” Alex bit his tongue, literally, to keep his tone polite. The Republican National Committee had been riding him ever since they figured out Roberts was going to be the make-or-break candidate for control of the Senate. The rest of the races were a foregone conclusion. Only a third of the Senate was up for reelection every six years. Virginia had been a predictable race, as Senator Roberts was well liked, but a new challenger had changed all that. Now the race was close. Tight enough to be within the polling margins of error. If Roberts lost, the powerful Senate would go to the Democrats.
“The senator needs to focus on his trip. Convincing the Egyptians to give us the technology is critical for the bill,” he told the RNC chair as calmly as he could. The senator didn’t need to deal with a media crisis. The whole point of his trip to Cairo was to get a firm commitment from the Egyptian government, which was not currently a friend of the United States, to turn over the specifications for new robot detectors that could clear IEDs. As an active senator, Roberts was both campaigning and trying to get his bill passed before the election. It was Alex’s job to make sure he was successful in both endeavors. IEDs were the biggest killer of American soldiers, so for every minute that soldiers were using old equipment, someone was dying.
“I’ll handle it. This isn’t my first campaign.” He stabbed the end button on his BlackBerry without saying goodbye. He wouldn’t distract the senator. The Egyptians had initially agreed to sell the technology for an exorbitant amount of money but were now reconsidering the deal under significant pressure from other Middle Eastern countries not to sell to the US. The senator was fighting overseas, so it was Alex’s job to deal with the battleground that was Washington politics.
This was a big ticket, his first national effort, nothing like the small-time campaigns he had been running. He was almost a Washington insider, not just—pull yourself up by the bootstraps, young man—hanging around the elite. No longer the token senior staffer, the one people turned to when immigration was the issue du jour. He wasn’t even Mexican. His mother was from El Salvador, a woman who legally immigrated. Yet that fact was often overlooked. All his life, he’d been around men in power. They saw him as the stereotypical son of the cleaning lady, out to work hard and make a name for himself. Good for you, boy.
The party leaders were waiting for him to fail. Senator Roberts had hired him when it was going to be a simple race. Still, he’d kept him on even though the party leaders were putting pressure on him to replace Alex. Those smug men. Alex knew that if he didn’t control this media nightmare, and fast, the RNC leaders would slap him on the back and tell him he’d fought a good fight, then give him a fatherly smile and suggest he go back to the minor leagues. You’ve made your mother proud, son. They’d blame him for the bill not passing, a bill they supported only because the Democrats were against it. Men like that always won. But he wasn’t a helpless kid anymore; he was a grown man who was going to fight back and beat them at their own game.
He rubbed his temples. His first thought had been that this had to be a woman looking for her moment in the spotlight, so he’d brought the campaign checkbook and the standard nondisclosure agreement to get the situation resolved quickly. But this was clearly not the usual deal.
First of all, CNN normally gave the RNC more notice for a story like this, hoping to barter for an even bigger scoop. This time it was a call for comment as they were going to air. Second, they refused to even hint at their source. No “senior White House officials” type of disguise to indicate where the story had come from. Third, the woman hadn’t given an interview. If this were the familiar get-rich-quick scheme, she would’ve been in front of the cameras talking about emotional damage. Her photos would be picture-perfect. Instead, they were using a mug shot from the college website, and the Twitter photos were even worse. Could this be the real deal? She’d seemed genuinely distressed when he found her.
He clicked on the BlackBerry again and eagerly read the email he’d been waiting for. The plastic squeaked as he sank deeper into the couch. It can get worse.
The bedroom door opened and Kat emerged, closing it softly behind her. She was even paler than before, and far more beautiful in person than in the pictures on TV. Her blue eyes were clear and expressive, her long blond hair haloing her delicate face. A naturally beautiful woman who would be stunning if she was done up right. Yet he could tell she wasn’t the type to make sure her nails were polished, hair blown to perfection and clothes immaculately pressed. She wasn’t someone you put in front of the cameras.
“So?”
He already knew what she was going to say, but he needed to hear her version of it.
“Can I get you some coffee?”
He raised an eyebrow then stood.
“I’ll help you make it.”
“No, you sit here. I’ll be right back.”
He thumbed through the remaining messages on his phone. He’d made a rookie mistake. He should’ve sent an unknown staffer to deal with this. Yet something about her picture had gotten his spidey senses tingling and he’d decided to deal with it himself. In hindsight, he realized that if the media found him here, in her house, the story would gain even more steam. He’d already taken a chance driving her from the college. Even with his hat, he couldn’t be sure someone hadn’t recognized him. Kat needed to make a statement, and soon. He didn’t have time for coffee.
Thankfully, Kat returned quickly with two mismatched mugs. She handed one to him. “I have cream and sugar if you’d like.”
He shook his head. He’d learned to drink his coffee plain black. Hard to deal with creamers and sugar packets while on the go.
“So?”
She sighed and leaned back into the squeaky couch, wincing at the sound. He expected her to take her