Page 63 of End Game

Now he was here, at her office, looking as though he wanted to do some serious verbal damage. Or worse.

A string of silent curses trailed through her mind as her fingers finally closed over her phone. With as much nonchalance as she could manage, she put an arm’s length of distance between them.

“Just the person I was coming to see,” he said. Irritation hardened his tone.

“Excuse me, Tommy.” She lifted her phone. “Let me just acknowledge the caller.” Hitting the green button, she said, “Hi, Jillian. I’m on my way.”

“Jillian?” her mom echoed, aghast.

“Can you hold a moment? I’m with a client.” Kayla didn’t bother waiting for her mother’s consent before hitting the mute button. A savvy businesswoman, Jillian understood there were times when clients must be prioritized over family.

“At least I’m not the only one you’re keeping waiting,” Tommy said.

Dressed in black slacks and a tan polo, with his group’s logo embroidered on the left side of his chest, he stood at eye level with Kayla. Crimson flushed the top of his ears and his normally smooth forehead was scrunched into forbidding folds.

Where once she had admired the leanness of his square jaw and the flicker of his bulging biceps, she now found herself wary of the sight. The young man behind the building’s reception counter offered Kayla a modicum of comfort. But she was all too aware of how much damage a fit man like Tommy could do before the police arrived.

Tapping into a decade of experience, she plastered on her de-escalation smile. “Campaigns such as yours take time. There’s a legislative process?—”

“It’s been nearly a year, Kayla, and your team still hasn’t secured the votes necessary to get our bill passed. If it doesn’t pass this session, we’ll be forced to start from scratch, because we’ll be dealing with a number of newly elected legislators.”

She almost shot back that she knew how the process worked. Instead of inflaming the situation, she said, “As I mentioned on the phone, there’s still plenty of time to get the support we need.”

“One month doesn’t sound like ‘plenty of time’ to me.”

“Tommy.” She kept her voice low, modulated, confident. “You hired Krowne and Associates to shepherd your cause through the political process, because of our incredible success rate.” She deepened her hold on his gaze. “Trust me.”

“A lot of people are going to lose their homes if you fail.” His eyes stretched into predatory slits. “And we know what a small community North Carolina politics is. A fail of this magnitude would be a big blow to your credibility.”

As veiled threats went, it wasn’t bad, but it had little effect on her. Over the years, she’d encountered this same scenario hundreds of times. Her client’s feelings of impotence.

With every project Krowne and Associates took on, there came a time when the client had to put all their trust and faith into her firm’s hands. Some campaigns flew through the process with little pushback. And some, like Tommy’s, could take months or even a couple of legislative cycles to get the requisite votes.

Whatever a bill’s journey, she always prevailed.

“I’m aware of the stakes, Tommy.”

“Is your team?”

“Absolutely.”

“What about this new governor? Do you have the same relationship with her as you did Stokes?”

She didn’t know Gayle Cabrera as intimately as Vicky, but the former lieutenant governor’s ideology was similar to her godmother’s. It was why Vicky, and other powerful individuals, had backed her for the number two spot.

“Governor Cabrera will support SB623.”

“How do you know? Have you spoken to her about it?”

“Not yet. She’s been a little busy settling into her new role.”

“Sounds like the perfect time to approach her. Before the other vultures surround her.”

“Vultures?” she echoed in a quiet voice.

Tommy’s stormy gaze arrested, shifted from hers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. My staff are working their asses off for you, Tommy. For your cause. They don’t deserve your verbal abuse.”

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