The Pursuit (Capitol Love Series Book 2) Read online

  Colin pulled out his phone and typed some notes into it. “Got it! Consider it done.”

  As he pushed himself back from the bar, Diana came up behind him and handed him Rayne’s salad.

  “Savannah’s going to be at your place tonight because I have a late meeting, just FYI,” Colin said as he set the salad and silverware in front of her. “I know you guys haven’t had much girl time lately.”

  He winked at her before he moved off down the bar to attend to other customers.

  Rayne felt a stab of guilt. She’d love nothing more than to hang out with Savannah tonight, but that would spell trouble in the secret-keeping department so it looked like she’d be working late again.

  She ate her salad quickly, checking her email on her phone and trying not to watch Chase as he finished his meal and bantered with Diana and Colin.

  Chase had nearly choked on his burger Rayne walk into Zipped. He’d always had a physical response to the sight of her. But since they’d made love, the experience had intensified, and he’d stopped at the bar after the lunch rush specifically because he thought it reduced his chances of running into her. Business was slow at that hour, and Colin had been giving him a hard time about being involved with a secret woman, though his only evidence was that Chase always had a woman, and if he wasn’t talking, then it was obviously a secret woman. And then Rayne had walked in and he’d nearly lost it.

  Chase couldn’t let her leave without at least talking to her, but if he went to sit next to her, Colin would pick up on their chemistry in a heartbeat. He was debating waiting for her outside when Diana came to take his plate and whispered, “Stare any harder and you’ll burn a hole through her.”

  “I don’t what you’re talking about,” he said, suppressing a smile as he sat back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head.

  “I knew you liked adventure, but I didn’t think you had a death wish,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “D, I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” Diana murmured. “You’re just lucky your brother isn’t as observant as I am because the moment she walked in, everything about you changed. You practically started to glow.”

  Chase frowned. “You’re out of your mind. I’m a man. I don’t glow. It’s a biological impossibility.”

  “What is a biological impossibility?” Colin asked as he joined Diana behind the bar.

  “For a man to glow,” Chase said.

  “Oh please,” Diana said. “Colin’s been glowing since the first day Savannah walked in here!”

  “I have?” Colin said, looking down at his hands as though he had something on him.

  “Ah, yeah, now I see what you mean. Guys can glow. It’s like a pinkish tint, right?” Chase teased and dodged the napkin Colin threw at him.

  Laughing, Diana started to walk away.

  “You really think I’m glowing?” Colin asked Chase.

  Diana caught Chase’s eye and called, “Hey, Colin, I could use your help in the kitchen for a second.”

  Colin turned to join her, and Chase flashed her a grateful smile. He stood up just as Rayne slid down from her chair and headed for the door. He caught up with her outside.

  “Let me walk you back to your office,” he said.

  “Somehow I don’t think I have a choice,” she said with a smile.

  “No, you don’t. Besides, I have kept things cool for a whole week, so I ought to get some sort of reward.”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Sweet,” he said, “but not exactly what I had in mind.”

  She giggled, and he took her by the hand and pulled her into a shadowy, narrow alleyway, where he kissed her on the mouth and planted both hands firmly on her ass.

  “Better,” he murmured as he nuzzled her neck.

  He had to admit he was liking the furtiveness of their relationship. He’d always simply gone after the women he wanted, but somehow not being able to openly pursue Rayne made him crave her even more. The anticipation was a sweet sort of agony. And she seemed to be excited by it, too—if the shine in those smoky gray eyes was any indication.

  “Are you free for dinner Saturday?” he asked.

  “Chase, we agreed—”

  “It’s just dinner,” he interrupted. “If we go someplace out of the way, no one has to know. I could promise to keep my hands to myself, but we both know I’d be lying.”

  He was pleased when she smiled in response. She had that sexy glow that women got when they knew a man wanted them. It made him want her even more.

  “All right,” she said.

  “Great! Meet me at the Eastern Market metro at 6. We’re taking a ride to the suburbs.”

  He walked her the rest of the way to her office without touching her.

  “See you Saturday,” he said and watched her walk up the front steps like a man under a spell.

  When he got back to Zipped, he found Diana clearing one of the tables and said, “Thanks.”

  “For what?” she asked with feigned innocence. “I needed to talk to Colin about a liquor order.”

  He laughed. “Well, I appreciate your timing.”

  Diana shrugged, still not acknowledging she did anything on purpose. “Keeping your thing with Rayne on the down-low?”

  “Yeah, for now.”

  “Kind of like having an affair with a married woman,” Diana said. “Sex is always way hotter when you think you might get caught.”

  Chase smiled. “Absolutely.” He was thinking of that first night on Rayne’s couch when someone had knocked on the door.

  Diana shook her head. “I don’t even want to know what that grin is about.”

  On Saturday night, Rayne and Chase rode the silver line out to Tysons Corner in the suburbs of Virginia and ate a fancy chain steakhouse where they were sure not to run into anyone they knew. They sat at the bar and talked and laughed and brushed against each other. Rayne was a little reserved at first, but by the time they finished the appetizers, she was resting her hand on his thigh, and they were just two people out on a date with nothing to hide.

  On the ride back into town, they sat in the last seat on the last car and made out like teenagers all the way back to her stop at Eastern Market. He got off the train with her then pulled her close and kissed her on the mouth.

  “That was fun,” he said. “I feel like I’m having an affair with a married woman.”

  She drew back. “How is that a good thing?”

  “It adds spice, don’t you think?” He ran his hand down her back and rested it on her ass. “And don’t act all shocked and horrified. You’re enjoying it, too.” He started kissing her neck, and when she tried to twist away, he held her tighter.

  “Run away with me,” he said, channeling Humphrey Bogart in an old black-and-white movie. “Just leave the bastard and come away with me.”

  Rayne struggled weakly in his arms, and he was going to let her go, thinking she wasn’t into the joke, when she said, “But I can’t. He would just die without me. Can’t you see? It’s no good between us!”

  He planted sloppy kisses all over her face. “You must. He doesn’t deserve you, kid! I’ll kill myself without you. I swear it.”

  She laughed so hard that she could hardly catch her breath.

  “You’re nuts,” she said.

  “It’s your fault, you know. It’s that perfume, it’s the way your ass sways ever so slightly when you walk, it’s that neck of yours. But mostly it’s your smart, beautiful, mesmerizing eyes.”

  She had stopped laughing and was staring at him, her gray eyes wide.

  “You make me crazy,” he said and immediately realized that he’d gone farther than he’d intended. But he wouldn’t take it back either.

/>   A train pulled into the station, and he started to walk backward away from her down the platform as it slowed to a stop beside him. She was still watching him, dumbfounded.

  “Don’t say a word,” he said, back in character. “I want to remember you just this way. He won, dammit. And I don’t know how I’ll go on without you.”

  He jumped on the train, and the doors slid shut.

  Chapter 10

  Rayne walked home from the metro station on that balmy Saturday evening feeling bewildered. In all their goofing around on the platform, Chase had said something that almost sounded like a declaration of love. And it had caught her off-guard.

  She had been thoroughly enjoying their time together, and she had to admit the secretiveness made her heart beat a little faster and made their stolen kisses a little more intense. She was looking forward to seeing where things would go after the gala, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing.

  But his comment about feeling like he was having an affair with a married woman had brought her up short. It made her think about Brandon, which she didn’t like to do. Brandon had been on the board of CACC at the time and said he wanted to keep their relationship a secret because in some technical, distant way he was her boss, and it might look inappropriate.

  She’d thought it was a bit of a stretch even then, but it wasn’t until she found out he was married that she realized his true motivation for not wanting Jeremy to know they were seeing each other and never having her over to his house in Annapolis.

  She broke things off as soon as she found out—called and told him she knew about his wife and it was over. He kept calling her, though she never returned his calls and finally switched phone companies and numbers (she needed to update her phone anyway, she told herself). And the fact that he never showed up at her door to beg her forgiveness and say he’d left his wife for her was all the proof she needed that their relationship hadn’t meant as much to him as it had to her.

  Their fling had only lasted a couple of months, but it had been intense. For days afterward she couldn’t take long enough, hot enough showers in a desperate attempt to wash away the shame and guilt. And heartbreak.

  The idea that somehow her relationship with Chase paralleled what she’d done with Brandon made her want to take a step back. She was glad they’d agreed to wait until after the gala. As she reached her front door, she was equally glad that she’d gone ahead and booked a room at the swanky Willard hotel for the night of the gala. She hadn’t told him because she wanted it to be a surprise. The thought of leading him through that ornate lobby in his tuxedo was enough to get her pulse racing. She imagined kissing him in the elevator on the way up to their room and then peeling his tux off piece by piece as she made love to every inch of his incredible body.

  She was also looking forward to finally telling Savannah. Between Rayne’s near-total absorption in planning for the gala and Savannah spending time with Colin whenever she could, it had been easy enough to avoid the topic of Chase. And once Savannah saw how hard Chase had worked on Rayne’s behalf and learned that they’d been building a friendship, Rayne was sure her friend would be happy for her.

  Rayne only had to wait one more week to bring everything out in the open. As she climbed up the stairs to her bedroom, her phone beeped with a text message from Chase and she imagined him saying it in his forties movie-star voice: Good night, my darling.

  The next day, Chase wanted to keep the movie fantasy going with Rayne over texts and was trying to figure out how a 1940s film star would reference sex in a classy way when his phone rang, and he recognized the number of Ben’s contact.

  “What’s up?” Chase asked.

  “We finally got the OK from the Nepalese government. My writer, Roy Fellows, will be in Kathmandu in three days. How soon can you be on a flight?”

  “In three days,” Chase said.

  “Great. I’ll email you his contact info and travel details so you guys can coordinate.”

  “Fantastic!” Chase said. “I really appreciate the opportunity.”

  He put down his cell phone and started pulling out camera equipment and rooting through his dresser, and it wasn’t until he finally turned up his passport that it dawned on him. Today was Sunday, the gala was this coming Saturday, so if he left in three days…

  He was going to miss the gala.

  He stood still in the middle of the room, clothes strewn across the bed, camera gear everywhere. Rayne will understand, he told himself, wishing it felt true.

  He sank down on the edge of the bed. He needed the gig, he needed the money, and he needed to travel...right? He suddenly realized that he hadn’t had that itch for an airport in a couple weeks. Ever since he’d slept with Rayne.

  He stood up abruptly and paced around the room, raking his hands through his hair. He’d be back in a month tops, and he and Rayne could pick up right where they left off.

  “It’ll be fine!” he said out loud, even though he knew he was fooling himself.

  He felt pulled in two different directions, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the idea of telling her he was going overseas when she was counting on him to be at the gala. But he also didn’t like the idea of saying he couldn’t take the gig because his secret girlfriend would be mad.

  She’d have to understand. He’d make her understand. The trick would be in the telling. While he was trying to figure out a way to tell her that didn’t end with her saying she should have listened to Savannah and Colin, his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but thought it might be the writer on the Nepal assignment.

  But it wasn’t Roy Fellows. The man on the other end of the line said his name was Brandon Wallace.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I got your number from your mother. I received her invitation to the fundraiser for the Center for Action on Climate Change, and I saw that the point of contact is Rayne Michael. I was hoping you could put me in touch with her.”

  Chase was a little irritated. “Her contact info is on the invitation,” he said.

  “There’s just an email address, and I was really hoping to talk to her. We used to work together, but I lost touch with her.”

  Chase hesitated. He didn’t like giving out other people’s cell phone numbers. “I can give you her office number.”

  “Do you have her cell phone number? I haven’t been able to catch her at the office. I was planning on making a pretty big donation, and I’d really like to talk to her about how else I might help.”

  Chase looked around at his chaotic room. His head was starting to hurt, and he just wanted to get the guy off the phone.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said and gave him Rayne’s number.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” the guy said, sounding way more excited than a simple phone number would warrant.

  As Chase set his phone down, he remembered something Rayne had said about not dating men she worked with...anymore. For a brief moment, Chase wondered if he should be jealous. Then he decided he was just feeling guilty and paranoid and turned his attention back to the mayhem that surrounded him.

  Chase had worked hard to arrange his life to avoid this kind of emotional turmoil. So he decided to use a trick he’d developed for complicated photo shoots or when he was stranded in a remote location: Make a plan of action and then focus on accomplishing one task at a time. He immediately stopped pacing.

  Task number one was connecting with the writer. He checked his email and found the message with Roy Fellows’ contact information and itinerary. Chase sent him a quick note to say he planned to leave D.C. for Kathmandu on Wednesday and would email his travel details as soon as he had them. He also gave the guy his cell phone number so they could text each other.

  Next task was booking a flight. He pulled out his laptop and started researching his options. He found a dece
nt rate on a flight that had a couple short layovers and left Dulles early on Wednesday morning. With that booked, he sent an email to a guest house where he’d stayed when he was in Kathmandu a couple years ago and reserved a room. And he forwarded all that info to Fellows.

  “Done and done!” he said out loud, feeling calmer now and more in control.

  Next task: Pack his camera gear. That took a little while because it required being judicious about what he needed but not leaving behind anything he couldn’t live without.

  Finally, he zipped his camera bag closed and said, “Check!”

  Then he gathered his standard travel clothes and packed them in his duffel bag—moisture-wicking shirts, a thermal micro fleece jacket, knit cap, a couple pairs of cargo pants, his trusty hiking boots, a few pairs of socks and boxers, and last but not least, his dry sack to protect everything in case of rain or unexpected river crossings.

  He closed the duffel and set it next to his camera bag. The sight of them gave him a feeling of satisfaction and Zen-like calm. Once he threw in some power bars and toiletries, he could live for months if need be out of just those two bags.

  But within seconds the feeling of dread and unease crept back in as his thoughts turned to his next task: Tell Rayne. He shoved both bags in the closet and shut the door so Colin wouldn’t see the telltale signs of a Chase departure. The last thing he needed was for the news to reach Rayne via the Savlin network.

  As if the universe was mocking him, he got an email from his mother asking when he was going to stop by and pick up his tux, which she’d had dry cleaned for him. He didn’t dare tell her he wouldn’t need it so instead he sent a note saying he’d let her know. Christ, when had his life become so freaking complicated? Restlessly he pulled open the fridge to grab a beer but found only bottled water.

  At least with Crystal it had been just the two of them—until he’d broken it off and Colin had to hear about how bummed she was. Those were the days, Chase thought bitterly. His desire to simply disappear was starting to grow.