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how much he appreciated her, how he felt affection for her as a member of his staff, and how together, over the past twenty years, they’d done so much good for the people of this great nation.
    Blah-blah-blah. He’d even offered her a way out of her embarrassment, saying they’d all been under tremendous pressure and she should take a few days off.
    Well, she had, hadn’t she?
    She splashed her face with cold water and stared at herself in the mirror. Her gray eyes were bloodshot from the effort of vomiting, the lashes clumped together from water and tearing. She was just forty-one, not old. She still could have children. She knew plenty of first-time mothers in their forties.
    But she couldn’t have Swift children. Jack didn’t want her. Twenty years of dedicated service, and what did she have to show for it?
    Lucy was the one with the Swift children.
    Barbara dried her face. She could have had Colin. She could have had the Swift children. Instead, she’d waited for Jack.
    Darren opened the door behind her, and she placed a hand on the sink to steady herself. “I’m sorry. My stomach’s a little off. It must be the heat.”
    He was so smug. “Blackmail’s not a game for someone with a weak stomach.”
    That was what they were tiptoeing around—and had been right from the beginning. Blackmail. She nodded, cool. It was to her advantage for him to think he was the security expert with the murky past, the dark and dangerous insider convinced he knew how the “real world” worked better than a super-competent, desk-bound bureaucrat possibly could.
    â€œColin and I,” she began. She swallowed, met Mowery’s cold gaze. “We had an affair before he died. Jack doesn’t know. Neither does Lucy. No one does.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd I have pictures.”
    Mowery nodded thoughtfully. “Kinky pictures?”
    â€œYou’re disgusting.”
    â€œWell, if it’s pictures of you two on his daddy’s campaign trail—”
    â€œBy your standards, the pictures would be considered ‘kinky.’ By mine, they’re proof of the physical and emotional bond we shared.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œDo you want to see them?”
    He rubbed his chin. “So you fucked the son, and the widowed daughter-in-law and the innocent grandkids don’t know it.”
    â€œMust you be so coarse?”
    â€œListen to you, Barbie. You’re the one who had an affair with another woman’s husband. The boss’s son. And this you tell me not two weeks after you threw yourself at the boss, presumably because you’d like to get some of him, too. Let’s talk about who’s ‘coarse.’”
    She was silent. Stricken.
    â€œWell,” Mowery said, “it’s not pretty, but it could work.”
    â€œIt will work. Jack will pay dearly to keep such information quiet.” She straightened, eyed him coolly. She wanted him to think he was in control, not that she was a complete ninny. “If you’re not convinced, walk out of here now. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”
    He gave a curt laugh and started back down the hall to the living room. Without turning around, he motioned with one finger for her to follow.
    Barbara joined him. She had to stiffen her muscles to keep herself from trembling. Goose bumps sprang up on her arms from the air-conditioning. She was cold now. Dehydrated. Not nervous, not afraid, she told herself. She was absolutely positive this was the best—the only—course of action.
    â€œHere’s the deal, Barbie. In for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t do cold feet.”
    She raised her chin and met his gaze directly. “I’m not some weak-minded twit.”
    She sat stiffly on a chair and crossed her legs and arms, steeled herself against the cold of the air-conditioning, the itching, stinging bug bites, the insidious feeling that