Page 177 of The Liar's Reckoning

I know I’ve said the wrong thing instantly. I haven’t said anything this wrong to him since I first started training with him at the gym, and this lands so much worse. Still, I don’t take it back. It’s the bottom line, after all. If this all comes down to money, then I’ll get it to him. It might be easier to move on once I know he’s got what he needs.

Selfishly, I’d rather be the one to give it to him than Roger Capshaw.

I wait for his answer, which he finally gives me in one, low, lethal word. “Nothing.”

I take a moment to digest that, but it won’t go down. “That can’t be true.”

“Try me.”

“What happens after you sue her? If you win? Will that be enough? When it isn’t, who do you go after next? And do you plan to keep recording yourself fucking me in the meantime?”

“If you keep spreading your cheeks like a cock thirsty slut, who knows? You might get lucky again.”

“Silas—Jesus?—”

“Oh, I don’t think he can help you now, Senator. When was your last confession?”

I stiffen, every muscle tensing at his cutting words. This isn’t him. The man I knew loved me. Understood me. He hated to seeme struggle. He was warm and protective. “So, you’ll fuck me, but you won’t talk to me.”

“Trust me—I’d rather not do either, but you keep showing up where you’re not supposed to be.”

“And you can’t keep your hands off me.”

He shrugs. “I haven’t heard the word no.”

This is a dangerous veer off topic, and while it’d certainly be easier to plan our next recording session, sex—no matter how rough—is only dragging this out and making it harder to let go. I need to move on, and apparently so does he. “Answer one question—is it just about the money?”

He stares at me, unflinching, a hard gleam in his dark eyes. His jaw is clenched—square, strong, and dusted with stubble. He’s so beautiful, it flips my already rearranged stomach. I get that he’s trying to repel me, but everything about him still draws me in. The sculpted chest, the narrow waist, the masculine trail of hair. The perfection of his face.

“I’ve seen your news clips,” he says, out of nowhere. “Do you think it’s admirable? The work you’re doing?”

“I…” He’s confusing me. “In the senate?”

“Unless you got another job in the last year. Yeah—in the senate.”

“Trying to end the exploitation of children? That work?”

“Is that what you call it?”

I regard him warily. In the entire time I knew him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell me the difference between a legislative bill and an electric bill. I don’t know if it was willful ignorance due to my party affiliation or if he truly didn’t care. But maybe it was neither. Maybe it was denial, and it’s all caught up with him now. “That’s what it is,” I say.

“Putting people in federal prison for taking twenty bucks for a blow job is just the price of doing business in the city now?”

I lean on the dresser and fold my arms. “Are you familiar withthe saying in order to make an omelet you have to break some eggs?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Literally no legislation becomes a law without compromises from both sides. You give a little, you get a little.”

“You break the egg and voilà—an omelet?”

“Yeah.”

Silas shakes his head and shoves his wet hair off his forehead. “No. It doesn’t work like that. Sometimes, you just get a broken egg. Someone’s gotta cook it. That’s you, right?”

This metaphor has become problematic, I admit. “Bills are written in committee. Do I really need to explain this to you?”

“No—we can skip to the part about you hiring a hooker the night before your wedding and then wanting to throwhimin prison while you walk around with a clear record.”

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