“Contact for defense only. Got it. Anything else?” He handed the file back to Daniel.
“No.” Daniel took the file and put it in his desk drawer, which he then locked. “Absolute secrecy, as always.”
“As always.” Porter gave him a long look before standing and straightening his blazer, which concealed his gun. “If you don’t mind me saying, I thought you got out of politics.”
“I did. This isn’t politics.”
Porter smirked as he walked out of Daniel’s office and said, “You’ll be hearing from me,” as if he didn’t believe Daniel.
For once, it was the unvarnished truth.
What he was doing for Christine Murray—it wasn’t politics.
It was personal.
* * *
Daniel waited impatiently. Normally, waiting was something he did well. He played a long game—always had. It was one of the things he’d learned at his grandfather’s knee back in Seoul, South Korea. Most people looked at the trees. A few people could stand in front of the trees and know they were looking at the forest. But they wouldn’t have any idea of how big that forest was. Daniel prided himself on knowing every tree in every acre in the never-ending forest.
He had Christine Murray figured for one of two things. One, she would either call him in a state of blind panic the moment her face appeared on the internet again. Or two, she would disappear.
Okay, maybe that was overstating. Because even though she had clearly been upset when he had approached her at work, she hadn’t panicked. She’d maintained her composure and even gotten in a couple of good digs at him.
He couldn’t help it. He admired her. It felt risky, this admiration. Combined with the attraction he couldn’t quite rein in, it made Christine Murray feel dangerous. She made him want to do things that weren’t logical.
Things like pay for private investigators to shadow her. He’d already gotten a report from Porter Cole. Porter had caught a guy trying to break into Christine’s apartment while she was at work. According to his report, Porter had acted like he was a resident of the apartment complex and scared the guy off. But both Daniel and Porter knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. Someone wanted inside Christine’s apartment, no doubt to gather evidence that could be used against her in the court of public opinion.
Porter said there was also a woman who lingered near the child’s day care. At pick up and drop off, and when the children went out to the playground, the woman was within line of sight. Probably taking pictures of the little girl Daniel had seen in the small frame on Christine’s desk.
The little girl had wispy light brown hair, but her eyes were almost exactly like her mother’s brilliant blue ones. Except innocent and hopeful, instead of trapped and scared.
Christine didn’t want his help but she desperately needed it. It would be so much easier if she were willing to talk to him. They could coordinate and come up with a plan that would minimize this disruption to her and her daughter’s lives.
But that wasn’t going to happen. At least not immediately. Daniel revised his original opinion. She would not call him in a panic the moment she became an internet story. She’d already told Brian off and then told him off. She wouldn’t be spooked by a little media coverage. She’d try to brazen it out just like she had at the bank. It was a brave choice. Stupid, but brave.
No, Daniel wouldn’t hear from Christine when she became news. But when her daughter became news?
That was when she would either call him or disappear.
He figured he had a week before Clarence Murray announced his candidacy for the open US Senate seat in Missouri.
If only his grandfather could see him now. Lee Dae-Won wouldn’t contain his disappointment at Daniel’s choices—yet again. Daniel had never been smart enough or ambitious enough or legitimate enough—and certainly never Korean enough—for his grandfather. All might have been forgiven if Daniel had married any of the dozens of acceptable Korean women his grandfather had paraded in front of him over the years and started a family to carry on the family business.
Daniel had steadfastly refused to marry anyone, much less father any children. And he had refused to move to South Korea permanently and live under his grandfather’s thumb. It had driven the old man insane that his only heir had rejected the family business, Lee Enterprises.
Daniel liked to think that, at least as a political consultant, he had made the old man proud. Lee Dae-Won hadn’t become one of the richest men in South Korea by investing wisely in real estate and electronic manufacturing. Daniel’s grandfather had gained power through manipulation, lies and outright bribery. He had trafficked in secrets and that, more than family honor or loyalty, was what Daniel had learned at his knee during summer vacations spent at the family compound in Seoul.
He who controlled the information controlled the world.
Daniel hated not being in control.
He shouldn’t care about what happened to Christine or her daughter. At the very least, the basic security measures he was enacting on her behalf should relieve him of his guilt.
It didn’t.
Because he had to admit that he did care. He’d catch himself staring at her photo again. And that? That had nothing to do with guilt.
He hoped she’d call him. That was all he could do. The next contact had to be hers.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything else he could be doing right now, though. He scrolled through his contacts list until he found the number he was looking for.
“Hello, Daniel,” Natalie Wesley said, answering on the second ring. “Is this a business call or not?”
“What’s to say it’s not both?” he asked, trying to sound like he was teasing her and knowing he was failing miserably. “How are you and CJ?”
CJ Wesley was another one of Daniel’s half brothers—another one of Hardwick Beaumont’s bastards. CJ was the one who hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Beaumont Brewery. He was a rancher up on the northeast side of Denver and he preferred his privacy. Which made it all the funnier that he had married the former television personality Natalie Baker—the same woman who had tried to expose his parentage to the world.
Natalie was one of the very few people who had been able to locate CJ and ascertain his identity. Plus, she’d had her own morning news show, A Good Morning With Natalie Baker, for almost a decade. She was an investigative journalist who knew how to talk to the cameras. “We’re fine. You should come up and see us. CJ is determined to get you on a horse, you know.”
“I’ll do that sometime,” Daniel said. While of course he cared for CJ—he was fond of nearly all of his half siblings—CJ was the hardest to be around. His mother had married a good man and he’d had a good life. CJ was at ease with himself in a way that Daniel could never pull off. “I have a situation that I’m going to need your help with.”
Natalie sighed. “The offer stands, Daniel. But what is it?”
“What do you know about Christine Murray?”
“Who?”
So, over the next twenty minutes, Daniel filled her in. “Thus far, she hasn’t accepted my help. But when she does, we’ll need to do damage control.”
“Manipulate the search rankings, plant positive news articles, maybe an interview?”
“Yes.”
“Got it.” There was a pause and Daniel braced for the sisterly concern. “We worry about you, you know.”
“Why?”