When Lightning Strikes by Brenda Novak Read Free Book Online Page A

the women who hit
on him, he’ll be exercising a lot of it. But you have to be realistic. If you
take other women away, you have to provide something else instead.”
    Gail dropped her purse to the floor. “No matter how
undesirable.”
    She’d imbued her voice with enough sarcasm to wither them both
on the spot, but it didn’t seem to make an impact. If anything, her words had
the opposite effect. It was almost as if she could see them mentally offering
each other a high five for scoring a direct hit. They respected her professional
ability—she knew that much—but they’d never been particularly fond of her. She
and Simon had too often been at cross-purposes, with him trying to do what he
wanted regardless of the consequences and her trying to protect his image.
    “It’s a fair question,” Ian insisted.
    “A sabbatical might be good for him,” she argued, “give him a
chance to pull his life together.”
    Simon came to his feet. “This is bullshit! You’ll have my name,
my ring and two years of my life, and I can’t even climb into bed with you?”
    Suddenly Gail realized that this conversation had nothing to do
with the topic. He wasn’t attracted to her; he’d made that clear. He was
responding to being nudged out of the power position and wanted to get back on
top in some way. So he was demanding she make a difficult concession, one that
couldn’t be overruled simply by pointing to the fact that it would compromise
the campaign.
    “Sleeping together is not part of
the deal,” she reiterated.
    Jaw set, he slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “Fine.
I’ll make some sort of discreet arrangement with a third party.”
    “No, you won’t! We’ve been over that.”
    “It won’t matter if no one knows.”
    “Isn’t that the kind of thinking that got you into this mess?
Word would get out, eventually. Your bed partners
are too anxious to brag about their good fortune.” Besides, she wouldn’t want to
lie awake night after night imagining what he might be doing in another part of
the house. “Can’t you look at this as a job? Pretend you’re preparing to play a
monk and celibacy is key to getting into character? If you can stay focused and
put in the time, we’ll all get what we need in the end. Then you can have a
whole harem if you want.”
    Pivoting, he spoke to Ian as if she was no longer in the room.
“This won’t work. I’m already going without alcohol. I’ll be cut off from my
friends, in case they see through this…sham of a marriage or—” he made quotation
marks with his fingers “—lead me astray. And I’ll be connected at the hip to
someone who’ll be monitoring my every move and, no doubt, criticizing it.”
    “Stop it,” she told Simon before Ian could respond.
    Simon whirled on her. “Stop what? ”
    “Stop looking for a way out. If you don’t want to do this,
fine. But don’t justify blowing up the deal by acting like you would’ve jumped
in with both feet if only I’d been reasonable.”
    “You’re not being reasonable! It’ll
be hard enough giving up alcohol.”
    “You said you could do it. I said maybe you should go into
rehab instead. We’ll just make matters worse if we attempt this and fail. And you said you weren’t addicted.”
    “I’m not addicted, but…God, I could
use a little help. A shoulder to cry on, if nothing else.”
    She folded her arms. “I’ll lend you my shoulder, if you’ve got
to have one, but nothing else. And I won’t be criticizing everything you do,”
she added. “If it has no impact on the campaign, I won’t say a word.”
    “You won’t have to,” he said. “I’ll
be able to see it in your face, which happens to reveal every thought you have.
In any event, I have no intention of going without
sex for two years on top of everything else. The way I see it, getting lucky
every once in a while might be the only enjoyment I’ll experience in two hellish
years. Why would I give that up?”
    Gail held her