Chapter 29

Kayla scrambledto find her ringing phone as she exited the elevator and stepped into the marble-tiled foyer of her building.

In a hurry, she’d dumped the device into her handbag, along with a few file folders, rather than slipping it into its normal side pocket. Bad decision.

Frustration tunneled her vision into the black abyss of her purse, while she fast-walked to the doors leading outside. A sixth sense of an impending danger saved her from plowing into a man going the opposite direction.

She screeched to a halt mere inches from Tommy O’Connor. The same client her intern had to hang up on two days ago because of his belligerence. She’d called him back minutes later with an update and an admonishment about his treatment of her staff.

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.”

“I know. I know.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s—there’s a lot of pressure right now.”

Although she wanted to tie a bowling ball to his damn tongue, she understood more than anyone how it felt to have other peoples’ lives, livelihoods, happiness, all of it, hanging on a yea or a nay.

Kayla drew in a breath, then checked her smart watch. “Look, I’m running behind for an appointment.” She forced a conciliatory note into her voice. “I’ll check in with my team in Raleigh and get back to you.”

The tension radiating through Tommy’s shoulders eased just as a large figure approached him from behind.

“Is everything okay, Ms. Krowne?” Mason asked, smoothly putting himself between her and Tommy.

Mason had at least six inches on her client and probably thirty pounds of muscle.

“Everything is fine, thank you.” She leveled a look at the other man. “Mr. O’Connor and I were just wrapping up.”

Tommy gave her a curt nod and strode away.

“What was all that about?” Mason asked.

Kayla waved for him to follow and headed for the door. “A stressed-out client. Nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about?”Jillian Krowne exclaimed through her phone’s speaker. “Who does this Tommy think he is, threatening my daughter?”

She’d forgotten all about putting her mother on hold. In her flustered state, she had evidently hit the Speaker button rather than Mute.

Kayla mentally reviewed her exchange with Tommy for any worrisome comments Jillian would call her out on later, once she got past this protective mama bear stage. When she recalled none, she said, “He’s just worried, Mom. It happens.”

“Kayla Cornelia Krowne, you and I know that if you’d been a man, he would have been more circumspect with his language.”

She tilted an apologetic look toward Mason, who merely grinned, then increased his pace to open the back passenger side door for her. Today, he was driving the Audi, since her Merc was at the auto body shop.

“Mom, we can discuss this more when I get to the restaurant.”

“Which will be when, exactly?”

Kayla glanced at Mason as she slid into the backseat. He flashed ten fingers, twice. “Twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be the woman seething in the back corner.”

“A glass of champagne will help cool your ire. Later, Mama.”

She clicked off and leaned against the headrest.

“You’re going to pay for that last comment,” Mason said, unable to suppress the humor in his voice. “Cornelia.”

Jillian Krowne’s fascination with Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt was legend. Heiress to the largest private home in the United States, Cornelia used her immense influence to raise much-needed funds for the community and was instrumental in opening portions of Biltmore House to the public.

“If you ever repeat that name again, I’ll buy a twenty-year-old, rusted-out station wagon in lime green for you to drive.”

“Roger that.”

Kayla changed the subject. “How’s college scouting going?”

“Slow and painful.”

“Is your daughter leaning toward one in particular? Maybe one where all of her friends are going?”

“Jozi isn’t one to follow the pack.”

“A lone wolf like her dad?”

“It’s not the worst of my attributes that could’ve rubbed off on her.” His tone turned serious. “Do I need to alert APD or Agent Blackwell about O’Connor’s visit?”

“No, he just needed to blow off some steam. Listening is part of my other duties as assigned.’”

“You’re a better person than me. It’s my opinion that rational discussion produces far better results than an excess of steam.”

“Wise, as always, my friend. Unfortunately, social media has all but obliterated ‘rational’ from our vocabulary.”