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She felt her cheeks heat and hoped her entire face wasn’t red, to match the accursed sweater.
    Candra came toward them, her lovely legs show-cased by the short skirt of a tailored suit in a beautiful shade of coppery beige that made her complexion glow. Distracting herself, Sweeney studied the color, noting the richness of the material. She couldn’t tell one designer’s clothes from another’s, but she never forgot a color.
    Candra and Margo exchanged air kisses, then Candra turned her megawatt charm on the senator. He took both her hands and leaned forward to kiss her cheek, and there was nothing airish about it. Standing where she was, Sweeney saw the senator’s hands tighten on Candra’s before she subtly freed herself and turned to Sweeney.
    â€œI see Kai has already offered refreshments—”
    â€œRichard,” the senator said heartily, his rounded, speech-therapist moderated tones completely overpowering Candra’s lighter voice, just as they had his wife’s. Sweeney wondered if he made a habit of interrupting women. He held out his hand; she saw the flicker of Richard’s eyes that said he was reluctant to stop and chat, but good manners compelled him to accept the senator’s hand.
    Senator McMillan put everything he had into the handshake, even covering their clasped hands with his free one in a gesture his handlers had no doubt told him imparted a sense of empathy. It didn’t work with Richard. If anything, his face became even more impassive. “You’re looking great.”
    â€œSenator.” The one-word greeting, if it could be called that, was terse. No great friendship there, Sweeney surmised. Watching them as closely as she was, she saw the senator’s knuckles whiten, and an instant later Richard’s knuckles did the same.
    A pissing contest, she thought, fascinated. For whatever reason, dislike or competition or simple male aggression, the senator had tried to crush Richard’s hand. It wasn’t a smart move. He quickly became the crushee when Richard turned the tables.
    â€œHow’s business?” the senator asked, trying to keep his expression neutral as he continued to grip Richard’s hand, or maybe he simply couldn’t let go now even if he wanted. “It has to be good, with this economy. Amazing, isn’t it?”
    â€œI don’t have any complaints.”
    A bead of sweat appeared on the senator’s forehead. Tiring of the game, Richard abruptly ended the handshake. Senator McMillan gamely managed not to massage his aching hand, though the impulse must have been strong.
    Well, Sweeney thought. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the senator had challenged Richard to an arm-wrestling contest. She wondered if the animosity existed because of what she had seen in the senator’s eyes when he kissed Candra, or if he just didn’t like it because Richard could piss farther than he could. Richard, she thought, didn’t much give a damn one way or the other, which was very adult of him. In any contest between him and the senator, she was on his side; she might not like Richard, exactly—she didn’t know him well enough one wayor the other—but she had detested the senator on sight.
    â€œI hear you’re off to Rome.” Candra turned to Margo, her voice as easy as if it didn’t bother her at all that they had witnessed the discord between her and Richard, but Sweeney knew better. Her habit of studying faces made her alert to the most fleeting expression, and the tension around Candra’s eyes was as telling as a neon sign.
    â€œNo, that’s been delayed. Carson has an emergency meeting in the morning, with the president.”
Top that,
said the smugness of her tone. “We’ve postponed the trip—”
    The senator began speaking to Richard again, his voice overriding his wife’s, so that Candra had to lean closer to Margo to hear her. Maybe the