Page 51 of Capitally Engaged

“We met in grad school. Well, I was in grad school and she regularly went to the coffee shop down the street from the poli-sci building. It took me a month to work up the nerve to talk to her, but finally, the month before graduation, I did. I didn’tknow it at the time, but it turns out her taking up a post at that coffee shop was intentional. She fancied herself a politician’s wife. Wanted to be the next Jackie O or something.” I laughed at the irony of sitting here with a real life Jacqueline now, and she joined in.

“But she moved here with me when I left school.”

“After a month?” Jax asked.

“Yup, after a month. She moved right into my first apartment. I added her to the lease and everything. I thought we were in love, but she just saw me as her ticket to the life she wanted. But there was a reason she was still coming to the coffee shop at the end of the year. She was beautiful, but didn’t know a thing about politics or history.

“Everyone else saw right through her, but I guess I just wanted a partner and figured it would keep my work life separate from my home life. Anyway, I planned to propose after just a few months, but Duncan found out she was scheming to get me to run for office sooner. She wasn’t happy with me wanting to work as a staffer for a while. She wanted things to get moving. She was here, why should she have to wait?”

“Oh, Preston, I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged. Even though I had been alone ever since, I was over Diana and her betrayal. “Because she was on the lease, she had claim to the apartment and refused to move out. Last I heard, she had hitched her wagon to a guy on some twenty-four-hour news channel. A more glamorous life, I guess.

“I broke the lease and moved back home with my dad and worked in local government back in Massachusetts for a while. Being back in New England is how I found Senator Marsden, started working for his campaign, and ended up here. So it’s not all bad.”

Jax looked out over those crowds climbing the steps to the monument before turning back to me. “Why in the world did youever agree to be fake engaged to me? I think one of my selling points was that it would look good for you to have a partner when you ran for office. God, you should have gone running the other way.”

I met her eyes. “Maybe it was because you were no games right from the start. You presented that part as a benefit, not as some surprise secret plan you’d hidden.” I took a deep breath, taking a risk, my heart feeling like it might pound out of my chest. “And I don’t know. Maybe even then, at that very first dinner, I could tell you were someone I could fall in love with.”

Chapter

Twenty

Jax

I sat there, stunned by Preston’s revelation. I knew I should say something, but how do you respond to someone who just told you they saw so much in you?

But was I really surprised? These past few weeks, I could tell Preston’s feelings had changed, but he held them back. I didn’t want to call him on it, because that might force me to admit I liked the way we were. I liked Preston. I liked the person I was with him.

“Ha. So that’s how it feels to have a heartfelt declaration met with silence. It’s not great.” Preston started to pack up our food.

“Wait.” I put my hand on his arm. “Do you want to know what I work on late at night?”

He looked at me confused, as if his patience was wearing thin.

“I know, I know. But I promise, it’s related.”

He sat back down, resting his arms on his bent knees. “Okay, I’ll bite. What are you working on late at night?”

“Well, you know I moved in with my grandma after my parents died.”

“So you’re communicating with the great beyond?” He clenched his fists. “Sorry, that’s not fair. I know... well, you know I know at least a fraction of how it feels to lose someone. I’m just lashing out.”

“I’m a champion lasher-outer. I know. But thank you for apologizing.” I waited a beat, and then continued.

“Right after the accident, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. My grandma was a voracious Harlequin serials reader, and I had moved into her library. It was the only other room in the house. I started reading these books until the early morning.

“They probably weren’t all appropriate for a sixteen-year-old, but they helped some with the nightmares, so my grandma didn’t take them away. Soon the familiar pattern of the Happy Ever After, the rhythms these stories took, became a comfort to me. I decided I wanted to write romance novels.”

“That’s what you focused on for your MFA,” Preston said, the lightbulb clicking on in his head.

I nodded. “Yes. My grandma loved that we shared a passion for these stories. She would tell everyone her granddaughter was going to be the next Nora Roberts.” I laughed, unsurprised when it sounded a bit wet. “She died after a brief illness my senior year of college. I had already been accepted to my MFA program, so she knew I was on the path to our dream. She left me some money, enough to help cover tuition and get me started. I was going to do it for her.”

“So, what happened?” Preston’s face read open and caring now, so unlike the closed off, hurt man of a few moments ago. His ability to put aside his own emotions and pain, to focus on someone else, mademewant to care forhim.Who put him first?

“Well, some bill collectors came out of the woodwork and found me. I was all alone—I had no other family I could turn to. Looking back, there were probably resources to fight it, but Ijust wanted it to be over, to stop drudging up the pain that my grandma wasgone. As if I wasn’t aware of that fact every day.”

“So you paid them,” he said, his voice full of sorrow.

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