One Final Step. Stephanie Doyle
he knew that this thing between them was important. He had nothing to offer a woman like her except a whole lot of baggage, but stubbornly he couldn’t drag himself away from what he wanted.
Michael handed the valet his stub and started pacing along the sidewalk as he waited for his car.
Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have lied about the friends thing. Of course he wanted that but he also wanted something more. Maybe this was his chance to have a grown-up relationship with a woman. Something different. Something he’d never really had. He hadn’t lied when he’d said he was tired of Charlene and others like her. He also hadn’t lied when he’d said he didn’t want Madeleine for sex. She was more important than that.
He didn’t have a word for what he and Madeleine were going to be to one another, but he knew he needed her.
She was changing him. Not just his reputation, but changing him from the inside. He was starting to want things he’d never thought were important. Like companionship and having someone in the universe care how his day went. He had thought he didn’t need those things, but maybe he’d been wrong. His vision of the future was suddenly shifting—the life he had thought he was going to have and the life he just might have were different. As long as Madeleine was with him.
He would lie, cheat and steal all over again to hold on to her.
Poor Madeleine. She didn’t know who she was dealing with.
CHAPTER FIVE
“MADDY!”
Madeleine ducked her head a bit and adjusted her sunglasses, confident they covered most of her face as she approached the sidewalk café on Rodeo Drive. Her old friend and coworker was the only person she would ever let get away with calling her by the old nickname.
“You channeling Jackie O or what?”
“Peg,” Madeleine said as she reached the table and kissed her friend on the cheek. “One might hope for a little discretion.”
“From me? Then it has been too long since we’ve seen each other. Sit down. I’ve ordered you an appletini. You’re going to love it.”
She was going to hate it. She preferred wine to hard alcohol but there would be no convincing Peg. Since she was here to ask a favor, she made the politically correct decision to play along.
“Look at you.” Peg ran her finger up and down to indicate Madeleine’s choice of ensemble. “Very southern California chic.”
“At home I’m always in business suits and I’m never recognized. I didn’t think I would see a lot of those out here so I wanted to blend.”
Madeleine wore an expensive solid-blue top matched with white capris and flat sandals that really cost too much for anyone to justify but she did, anyway. When she’d bought them she’d felt slightly wicked. She paired the ensemble with a patterned scarf around her hair. And the big sunglasses made her feel sufficiently camouflaged.
“You look good. Real good. More relaxed. I would never say this to your face before…wait, actually, I would but I never got the chance to say it…you looked like hell back in the day. Too much pressure and too much stress is not good for the complexion.”
“Back in the day” was code for the campaign trail. When Madeleine had been molding a man to be president and Peg had been working with the press to get the message out. After winning the election Peg stayed on for two more years as junior press secretary. She left when she was given the opportunity to be a producer on television’s more popular newsmagazine show, Sunday Night Hour. Of course Peg had been upset for her when the scandal broke. They were friends. But not so outraged to leave her job. Not that Madeleine would have ever expected her to. When you worked so hard to make it to the top, quitting on moral grounds wasn’t an option.
Quitting because you could land a much more lucrative deal in the private sector was completely understandable.
“I mean it,” she continued. “You were skinny and drawn. I know what you did to make that guy president and I think you paid for it. Physically and emotionally. It’s no wonder your decision-making skills sucked when the jerk put the moves on you. You were vulnerable and he knew it.”
“It wasn’t lack of sleep and a bad diet, Peg.” If only Madeleine could have blamed it on such things. “It was flat-out stupidity. But I don’t want to talk about that. I’m here to talk about my favor.”
The waiter arrived with their drinks and Peg carefully lifted the martini glass so as to not spill a drop even as she waved her other hand for Madeleine to continue.
“I want you to feature someone on an upcoming episode.”
Peg put the glass down. “Don’t leave me in suspense.”
“Michael Langdon.”
“Michael Langdon? The race-car guy? With the white spiky hair and glasses.”
“That was him. Yes. He has since become a car designer. Specialty stuff mostly, but now he’s developed something new and innovative for the mass market. He’s trying to partner with one of the major manufacturers to roll out his concept and to do that we’re trying to change his image a bit so they’ll think he’s worth the risk.”
Peg’s smile was infectious. “You’re working again.”
Madeleine expected this. To delay she took a sip of her own drink. It was too sweet so she set it back down. “I’ve been working for the last five years.”
“Don’t give me that bull. I know what you’ve been doing for Ben and it looked a lot more like hiding than working. Speaking of Ben…how is he?”
“Fighting.”
“Yeah, he would do that. When I heard he was sick and how serious it was, I thought if he dies it’s going to be like God dying. He’s connected to so many people in so many ways. Once we lose him all those connections will break apart and we’ll all be left on our own.”
“He’s not gone yet.” Madeleine tried to believe that his fight was stronger than his sickness. But the longer the treatments went on with no confirmation from the doctors that they were working, it was getting harder to do so.
“Right. Okay. Back to your real job. You’re turning Michael Langdon into what? Not a political candidate.”
“No. A serious person. Someone who is trustworthy.”
Peg laughed. “Honey, the only thing serious about that guy is he’s seriously hot.”
“Michael Langdon is a respectable and solid businessman. He’s an entrepreneur with creative new ideas for the auto industry. An environmentalist who’s concerned about our dependence on foreign oil and believes his electric car can change that while also offering the average American an affordable option.”
“Interesting. Keep going.”
They were interrupted as the waiter came over to take their lunch order and as soon as he left Madeleine continued. “He’s everything you want to see in a success story. Raised in poverty, turned to crime, paid his debt to society then reformed his life. He’s built himself up on his talent and brains. Now he wants to give something back.”
“And make money.”
“Of course make money,” Madeleine allowed. “But that doesn’t mean he can’t do both.”
“What do you think about him? Gut feeling. Winner? Loser?”
Gut feeling was a game they used to play a lot in the past. Any time they were working with a candidate’s adviser, or hiring staff or dealing with the media. Gut feeling was a simple up-or-down vote that encompassed everything. Good guy, bad guy. Smart guy, dumb guy. Winner, loser.
Madeleine’s gut was completely convinced. Which wasn’t like her. She used to be more cautious and make her decisions more logically, based on facts and statistics.