Chapter 4
That night, Kinley stood by the window in her small hotel room and stared blankly out at the alley. The afternoon had been difficult. Partly because she wished she was still roaming around Paris with Gage.
Walter hadn’t asked too many questions about her morning, other than to inquire if she was feeling better. The excuse that she’d had menstrual cramps seemed to be really effective, and her boss wasn’t suspicious at all. He had no idea she’d been out enjoying Paris all morning.
Kinley supposed she should feel guilty about that, but she didn’t. Walter was tough to work for, and every now and then he’d do something that would make her decision to stay or go all the harder. Like when he’d sent her chicken soup when she’d been sick the year before.
Apparently, Woof had done a good job at being his temporary assistant, even making reservations for him and Drake Stryker, the US Ambassador to France, for dinner.
They were spending their last evening in Paris together, and had wanted to go to some fancy restaurant.
Making dinner reservations wasn’t in her job description, but Kinley always helped out where she could when they were away from DC.
Obviously, Walter was so used to her doing those kinds of tasks for him, he hadn’t hesitated to ask a Delta Force soldier to do the same thing.
The closing ceremony for the conference was the next morning, and she and her boss were leaving right afterward. Kinley had hoped to get the opportunity to spend more time with Gage, but she hadn’t seen him since she’d left him outside the conference center.
For the first time in her life, Kinley hadn’t wanted to sit alone in her hotel room. She’d wanted to have dinner with Gage. Talk to him more. Live vicariously through him.
Sighing, she glanced at her watch. It was one in the morning, and she should be sleeping, but thoughts of Gage kept whirling through her head.
She’d been mortified when he’d called his mom, but after learning how much the other woman loved Notre Dame, she’d been happy to give her a tour and tell her as much as she could about the building.
She’d regretted inviting her to DC as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but now that she’d had time to think about it, she figured there was no way Molly and her husband would ever take her up on the offer. The woman was just being polite.
Kinley was so lost in her own thoughts, she almost missed the activity in the alley below.
She’d turned off the lights in her room a while ago, so she could have a better view of the stars, and hadn’t bothered to turn them back on.
There was literally nothing else to look at from her hotel room—it wasn’t as if she had any kind of view of the city.
When movement caught her eye, Kinley shifted her focus downward.
A black sedan had pulled into the alley, and she recognized the diplomatic license plate on the back. It took a second for her brain to put two and two together, but when she saw a man heading for the door, it clicked that it was Drake Stryker, the man her boss had spent the evening with.
But he wasn’t alone.
He had his hand around the woman’s bicep.
It looked like she was completely drunk; she couldn’t walk straight, and she would’ve fallen flat on her face if Drake wasn’t there holding her up.
The pair had exited a side door, which Kinley assumed led out of the hotel, but she wasn’t one hundred percent sure.
The woman was wearing a red tank top and a short skirt. She had messy long brown hair hanging wild around her shoulders. She couldn’t see the woman’s face, as she was looking down at the ground, but Kinley imagined she was most likely beautiful.
But it was her shoes that really caught Kinley’s attention.
She’d never been able to wear heels, something that didn’t bother her, except when she saw other women wearing shoes she really loved.
And Kinley really, really liked the shoes the woman with Drake was wearing.
They were wedges with silver sparkles in the heels.
Even though there wasn’t a lot of light in the alley, those shoes still glistened with every step the woman took.
Drake looked up the alley, then down, then put his arm around the woman. He practically lifted her off her feet to help her into his car. Within seconds, they were inside and the car was slowly driving down the alley. It took a right at the end and was out of sight within seconds.
Drake Stryker was married, as was her boss, but having affairs wasn’t out of the ordinary in political circles.
They were as common as coffee shops. It was a pity that society had changed enough over the years that no one cared if the men and women in charge slept with someone they weren’t married to.
Hiring escorts and sleeping with prostitutes was a little more taboo, but most people simply looked the other way when it happened.
It used to bother Kinley a lot, but after so much time working in DC, she’d become immune.
Kinley sighed once more. She used to want to be just like that woman.
Carefree, in charge of her sexuality, and not afraid to have one-night stands if the whim struck her.
But the older she got, the more Kinley just wanted to find someone to be able to hang out at home with.
Someone who would be happy ordering in and spending an evening watching TV and reading.
The more time Kinley spent by herself, the more she realized finding someone, anyone, to spend her life with was next to impossible.
It wasn’t as if she met any eligible men she was attracted to at her day job, and because she didn’t like bars or online dating sites, and didn’t have any friends to introduce her to men they knew, Kinley suspected she was destined to be a stereotypical spinster of days gone by.
Turning from the window, she forced herself to walk to her bed and lie down once again.
She had to get some sleep. Walter was bound to be cranky tomorrow, especially if he and his friend had just spent the evening with the woman from the alley.
Kinley didn’t condone cheating, but what they did was their own business.
As long as she got paid, she could turn her head and pretend she didn’t see some of her boss’s indiscretions.
That blasé attitude toward cheating was another reason Kinley didn’t want anything to do with a man who was involved in politics.
She never wanted to be with anyone who would cheat on her.
While she could admit she wasn’t the best catch in the world, she would never cheat when she was involved with someone.
Closing her eyes, Kinley willed her body to shut down. Between the closing ceremony, getting Walter to the airport and checked in, and flying back to the States, tomorrow was going to be a very long, tiring day.
Kinley rested her head on the seat back behind her and closed her eyes.
She was in a middle seat—of course she was—and the people on either side of her had fallen asleep almost as soon as the plane had taken off.
Walter was sitting up in first class, so she had the entire flight to relax and not worry about her boss.
He’d been especially difficult all day. From the moment he’d answered his door after she’d knocked to wake him up, he’d been a jerk.
He’d yelled at her, saying he wasn’t ready, and that she should go get him coffee and a pastry for breakfast and he’d meet her at the conference.
Once there, he’d bitched in front of the other representatives because his coffee wasn’t prepared correctly.
He’d also been surly and disagreeable to the poor driver on the way to the airport, and Kinley had wanted to die of embarrassment when he’d pitched a fit at the airline counter when he wasn’t in the original seat she’d booked for him in first class.
All in all, she’d been glad when he’d disappeared into the lounge for first class passengers. It had given her a break from his nastiness and let her sit and regroup.
Kinley hadn’t seen Gage again, which had been disappointing, but maybe it was for the best. It was odd how much she missed him.
And of course, it was hard not to compare his behavior to Walter’s.
Where her boss was rude and condescending, Gage tolerated her quirks and went out of his way to be polite, not only to her, but to everyone he came into contact with.
She hadn’t missed how he’d left large tips for the servers at the cafes, and how, even when she’d stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, he never said a word—and in fact, kept others from bumping into her.
She even had a small box of vanilla macarons in her carry-on bag that he’d picked up for her simply because they were her favorite, and he thought she might like to have the treats to take home.
For the first time in her life, Kinley wished she wasn’t who she was.
Wished she was the kind of woman who could jump into bed with a man without having her heart involved.
That she was more outgoing. More normal.
She wished she had someone to talk to about Gage and how he made her feel.
If there was ever a time when she needed another woman to help her comb through the feelings coursing through her mind and body, it was now.
Other women at least had their sisters or moms to talk to. She had no one. Literally not one person she was comfortable opening up to. It was depressing and discouraging.
Shaking her head, Kinley straightened her shoulders and opened her eyes. No, she wouldn’t get sucked into feeling sorry for herself. She was who she was, and her life was what it was. All the mental boohooing wouldn’t change that.