Campaigning for Love novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Not for Sale

The dinner ended at ten, and I found Nelson on the loading dock steps in the dark.

He sat with his tie off and his elbows on his knees.

A light buzzed over the dock door, and moths beat against it.

I sat down on the step below him, not touching.

"Say it," I said.

"You said you were nobody."

"I said I was Mari from a hotel bar. I didn't say I was nobody."

"You let me believe that a girl from a small apartment in Ames got an internship on her own."

"I did get an internship on my own."

"And your father owns the largest trucking company in the state."

"And I haven't touched a dollar of it since I was eighteen," I said, my voice rising.

"That's not a lie. That's the one rule I made for myself."

He looked at the dock.

"Cora, I'm not angry that you didn't tell me in a bar," he said. "I'm angry that you could have told me on the bus."

"I tried to! I walked into your office on Monday and you kissed me!"

"I..."

"You said 'me first.'"

He closed his mouth.

For a moment we were both quiet, and a truck hissed somewhere in the dark.

"I did say that," he said.

"You did."

"God. I'm an idiot."

"You're a very good kisser."

"I'm a catastrophe." He rubbed his face. "Okay. Here's my real problem, and I want you to listen to all of it."

"Okay."

"I took your father's pledge in July. Two million dollars for ads."

"It's the only reason I have a TV schedule in the last month."

"Constance counted it before she counted me."

"I know."

"If I'd known you were his daughter, I would have called you into my office on Monday and told you to find another campaign."

"I would have done the right thing. And I would have been miserable."

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