“You’re probably aware that Jake Warrington, my—” Sabrina drew a shuddery breath “—my fiancé, is running for governor.”
Every person in the room sat up straighter. Including Sabrina, who was fighting the instinct to slink down in her seat.
“You and Jake Warrington are engaged?” Silver Hair asked.
“He asked me to marry him yesterday.” Incredible how easily the lie tripped off her tongue. But then, Jake always said she spoke before she thought.
Richard addressed the board members. “You might have seen Warrington on the TV news, meeting Sabrina at the airport.”
“There hasn’t been anything in the papers about you and Warrington, uh, being involved,” one of the men said.
“We’ve been discreet.” So discreet, Jake doesn’t even know about it. “You may recall that Jake and I have a, er, troubled past.” Heads nodded—anyone who’d been in Georgia during the Warrington bribe scandal knew Ted Warrington’s son’s girlfriend, working as an intern in the governor’s office, had broken the story. “We wanted to be sure of our feelings.”
“So, as Warrington’s fiancée…” Richard prompted, losing interest in the romantic details.
“Jake fully supports the idea of state funding for the school,” she said. “Education is his main campaign platform.” At last, the truth! “So our school will be very much on his agenda.”
“He’s not exactly the fron-trunner in the election,” Silver Hair pointed out.
“Jake’s commitment to education will put pressure on the other candidates throughout the campaign.” That sounded convincing, to Sabrina’s ears, at least. “Special-needs education will be on the political agenda whether the others like it or not. If they won’t make the same commitment as Jake, they’ll look hard-hearted. Kids with severe injuries are an emotional issue—every parent dreads their child being in an accident.”
“Good point,” Richard said.
“As his fiancée,” Sabrina continued, “I’ll be on the campaign trail with him. That is, as far as my commitments to the Injured Kids Education Trust allow.” She smiled brightly. “I’ll be meeting people who are in a position to support the school, and I’ll be doing my utmost to convince them.”
Any more and she risked betraying her ignorance of Jake’s campaign. Sabrina sat back and waited.
Significant glances fired across the room. Richard picked up his pen, made a few notes. He cleared his throat. “The board would like to—”
Yes!
“—congratulate you on your engagement,” he said.
Sabrina held her breath as the earlier contempt evolved into congratulatory murmurs.
“I think we’re all in agreement—” Richard looked around, received emphatic nods in reply “—that this news changes our perspective.”
Sabrina tried not to feel insulted. It didn’t matter if they were impressed because she was engaged to Jake. What mattered was that she could do this job.
“We would be delighted if you would come on board as spokesperson for the trust,” Richard said.
Her exultant whoop took the directors aback. She toned it down to an emphatic nod. “I would be delighted to accept.”
Smiles and handshakes followed, with the men taking the opportunity to kiss a beauty queen.
“This calls for a drink.” Richard crossed to the sideboard. “I have a rather fine single malt here.” He tilted the bottle in her direction.
Now he brings out the whiskey.
“Not for me.” The enormity of what she’d done was starting to sink in, and Sabrina’s knees began to shake. One sip of single malt and she’d be laid out on the floor.
The oblivion was tempting. But she was responsible for her own future now. She stretched her mouth into a smile. “I need to tell Jake the good news.”
Chapter Three
THE BEAUTY QUEEN’S instruction manual was conspicuously silent on the protocol for telling a man who hates you that he’s now your fiancé.
Which meant Sabrina had to figure out her own way to tell Jake, and to enlist his support. Soon. The trust planned to announce her appointment tomorrow, and although she’d emphasized to the directors that her engagement wasn’t yet public, was in fact totally secret, one of them was bound to let slip what was apparently her highest qualification for the job.
As soon as she left Richard’s penthouse, she called Jake’s campaign office from the sanctuary of her lime-green VW Beetle. A staff member told her Jake had a couple of media interviews this afternoon, after which he would go directly to the senior art exhibition at Wellesley High, a private school in Buckhead.
The staffer gave her Jake’s cell-phone number, but his phone was switched off. Sabrina left a couple of urgent but non-specific messages. Though she kept her phone close as she ran errands around town, he didn’t call back. You’d think he’d return calls from the woman who held his political future in her hands…The thought of wielding so much power cheered Sabrina as she walked into Happy Hands for her five-o’clock manicure appointment.
“You poor sweetie.” Tina, the manicurist, hugged Sabrina. “Vile reporters, saying those things about you.”
“I’m over it,” Sabrina told her as she settled into the chair and immersed her hands in a steaming bowl of scented water. “I’m moving on.”
“Good girl.” Tina chatted for a minute about the evening dresses worn at the Miss U.S.A. Pageant, then patted Sabrina’s hands dry with a soft towel. She pumped some moisturizer into her palms, and began massaging it into Sabrina’s skin. “What color today? Scarlet Woman?”
Sabrina flinched. “Make it Lilac Surprise.”
Surprise was perhaps an understatement for how Jake would feel about her announcement. But he couldn’t get too mad, not when their engagement would help him.
She just needed to tell him about it before anyone else did. He’d invited her to attend the high school exhibition, and that was what she would do.
Sabrina tipped her head back, closed her eyes and tried to plan what she would say.
Despite Tina’s relaxing ministrations, the forty-five minutes Sabrina spent at Happy Hands weren’t as productive as she’d have liked. Her mind persisted in playing out scenarios that left her…nervous.
She could see herself telling Jake about the engagement, burying the E word discreetly within the wonderful news that she was willing to support him for governor. Unfortunately, she couldn’t envisage Jake’s gratitude. It seemed more probable that his laser mind would zoom in on the fiancé thing and…mostly, the scenarios ended with him strangling her and burying her in a shallow grave. Yikes.
THE WELLESLEY HIGH art exhibition and auction was an annual event that attracted a strong turnout from the Buckhead locals, many of whose children were current or former students at the school. Several professional artists, some of them quite well-known, had donated works that hung alongside the teenagers’. The school probably hoped to raise tens of thousands of dollars from tonight’s soiree.
Sabrina still hadn’t heard from Jake as she wandered through the growing crowd. The official opening was at seven-thirty. It was seven now, and there was no sign of the guest of honor.
Maybe he was picking up his date. Sabrina almost dropped her smoked-salmon canapé. Did Jake have a girlfriend? She popped the canapé into her mouth, where it promptly turned to cardboard. A girlfriend would complicate matters, to put it mildly.
Tyler