Author's Note: Thanks again to everybody for the reviews! I promise that Jackson will be arriving very soon. Just bear with me. And, as always, let me know what you think.
Chapter Three: Denver
To say that their hotel room was huge and beautiful would have been the understatement of the century. Lisa walked through the door and on her immediate left was a full size kitchen and a coat closet on her right. Directly in front of her was the living room which included a full entertainment system complete with television, stereo, DVD player, the works, as well as a plush white sofa and two matching chairs. Past that were two stairs leading up to the bedroom which was separated from the rest of the suite by two mirrored French doors. The bedroom had a king sized bed, two full bureaus, a writing desk and a vanity dresser both complete with chairs. Not including the entrance, there were three doors, two of which were walk-in closets and the last lead to the bathroom. The bathroom had a garden tub, standing shower, toilet (obviously), and his and hers sinks.
Lisa crawled onto the bed and collapsed. The mattress was hard. She didn't care. She wanted nothing more than to sleep for the rest of the trip. Hell, she wanted to sleep for the rest of the year.
"Okay, angel," Daniel chimed as he tipped the bellman a twenty and ushered him out the door, "you rest up and I'll be back to get you for dinner in just under three hours. I have to go and press palms with the stuffy old politicos downstairs."
Press palms, Lisa thought to herself, who says that?
Daniel checked himself in the vanity mirror, smoothed out his jacket, tightened the knot of his tie, blew her a kiss and shuffled out of the bedroom and then the suite. Lisa let out a sigh of relief. Alone at last! It was a horrible thing to think about your fiancé, but there you go. Maybe she could catch a little bit of sleep before she had to go downstairs and be witty and charming to a bunch of old guys that she had absolutely nothing in common with. Being the bride-to-be of a political candidate was exhausting work. She needed rest.
A half hour later, she was still lying awake in the bed and could not for the life of her, fall asleep. She had a feeling that it had to do with the fact that she knew that if she fell asleep she would dream about him, and not in a nightmarish sort of way. No, it was probably better if she just stayed awake and continued to ignore and suppress all of those unnatural feelings that kept bubbling up to the surface. Her eyes fluttered closed and she caught the phantom smell of his cologne.
She let out a frustrated groan and pushed herself up out of bed and made her way into the gargantuan bathroom. A shower would clear her mind, she was certain. She needed to start getting ready for dinner anyway. She dug through her bag in search of her personal toiletries while the shower water was heating up. After showering and lotioning, she dried and curled her hair and put it up in a French twist, leaving a few soft tendrils trailing around her neck and shoulders. She painted her face on and sprayed perfume on her neck just below her ears, on her wrists, and on the back of her knees. Then, she went back to her bags and pulled out several of the dresses that she had brought with her, deciding finally on a short black backless cocktail dress that made her legs look long and amazing. The straps wrapped up around her neck and covered her nasty little secret.
Daniel came waltzing into the room just as she was slipping into her new favorite black strap Gucci high heels. Present from Daniel. Okay, so maybe dating a wealthy politician did have its advantages.
"My God," he said, dimpled grin firmly in place, "look at you. You are a vision."
Lisa smiled appreciatively at the compliment and rewarded Daniel for it by giving him a small twirl and pose. He quickly changed into a tuxedo and Lisa took a moment to think about the unfairness that men could take so little time to get ready when women had to go through so much primping and preparation. As he was tying his bowtie, he gave her another once over.
"Are you sure you don't want to wear the white dress I bought for you?" he said.
Lisa looked at him, "What's wrong with what I'm wearing? You…you just said that I was a vision."
"Oh, you are angel." He said, "You're always a vision. I just think that the dress that I bought you might just be better."
"You really want me to change?" Lisa asked.
"Honey, I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do…but wouldn't you feel more comfortable in the white dress? It's a little more conservative and these are conservative people."
Lisa touched the hem of her dress self-consciously. Ten seconds ago, she had felt like she looked great, now…she wasn't so sure. What the hell was she thinking? She straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at Daniel. She looked good in this dress. She felt good in this dress and by God, she was going to wear this dress.
"No, that's okay." She said, "I feel comfortable in the one."
"You sure?" Daniel asked.
"Oh, I'm positive." Lisa said, holding back the string of obscenities that she really wanted to unleash on him when he asked her is she was 'sure'.
"Okay." He said, smiling. He buttoned his tuxedo jacket and offered her his arm. She slipped her arm through his and let him escort her from the room to the elevator, pushing down the rush of irritation that had bubbled up inside of her. It was just a little thing and not worth getting into an argument over. He was just trying to tell her how to dress. Ass. No! It was time for her to be the doting, charming fiancé now.
The elevator doors opened with the ring of a bell and Daniel guided her through the lobby to the large ball room where the evening's banquet was being held. She felt the instant tension and stiffness as they were immediately set upon by a swell of sixty something year olds who smelled strongly of too much cologne. Lisa smiled and shook hands and nodded in all the appropriate places, but caught herself several times glancing longingly at the exit. She was so tired of people pleasing, but it was what she did best. It was what made her so damn good at her job. That didn't make it any less exhausting. She was standing there by Daniel's side, debating whether or not to tell the ex senator from Nevada what she really thought of him when…
Suddenly, as though a blessing from God, a waitress appeared at her side with a trey of champagne glasses. The Tyra Banks look alike must have been six feet tall and slim and even managed to make the plain white and black waitress uniform look like something fit for a New York runway. At barely 5'7 with three inch heels on, Lisa suddenly felt slightly inferior. The complex faded as soon as the waitress lowered her trey in offering.
"Champagne?" she asked.
"Got anything stronger?" Lisa responded.
That earned her a laugh. "Well, what did you have in mind?"
"Anything with vodka."
"Bar doesn't open for another two hours."
"Damn it." Lisa said quietly, sharing a smile with the waitress as she took a glass from the trey, "Keep 'em coming."
"Sure thing." The waitress laughed before walking away to continue with her rounds. After taking a sip of her drink, Lisa took a second to admire the ball room. It was actually quite lovely. It was filled with circular tables that were draped with white linen tablecloths, each containing a center piece of elegant white roses. There was a platform at the front of the room with the podium in between two long tables. Lisa assumed that that was where the toasts and speeches would be made later on after dinner. She took another drink and braced herself for what was sure to be a long night.
Her eyes sought out the lovely waitress again as the girl sauntered through the crowd, flirting and passing out glasses of champagne, but never lingering in one place for too long. Lisa envied her. Sure, she had to smile and deal with the same pompous assholes that Lisa had to put up with, but at least she didn't have to stand there and make polite conversation with them. She got to hand them their drinks, flash a smile and walk away. Lisa on the other hand had to endure their company for the rest of the night and she really didn't want to. The waitress met her gaze and winked at her, causing Lisa to blush that she had been caught staring and avert her eyes.
She instead took to looking about the room and figuring that if you took all of these old fogies and what they spent in campaign costs and put it together, you could probably feed a third world country for a year.
"Ah, Claustine." Daniel said loudly, interrupting Lisa's train of thought. "Lisa," he continued, taking her by the arm and gesturing to the smiling man holding a champagne glass that was standing in front of them. "meet Doug Claustine."
Lisa looked at the man, offered him her hand and a smile. "It's a pleasure Mr. Claustine." She said.
"Pleasure's mine, dear." He said, shaking her hand with his free one. He was a tall kindly looking man, probably in his mid fifties. He possessed a certain air of intelligence and authority that Lisa had found to be a rare attribute. In fact, only one other man that she had ever met had given her such an impression. He wore the standard black tuxedo, but he had a white bowtie and managed to make it appear elegant as opposed to smug. His hair had once upon a time been very dark black, but now with time and age was salted with gray. After shaking Lisa's hand, he draped his arm around a woman standing to his left. "This is my wife, Ellen."
Ellen Claustine was taller than Lisa, though not by much and she, like her husband, just seemed so very sophisticated. She wore a sparkly pink dress that fell just below her knees with a white cropped jacket that also sparkled over the top of it. Her ashen hair was cut into a bob, her bangs slanted ever so slightly and she had one of the warmest smiles that Lisa had ever seen on a woman that she was not related to.
"Pleasure to meet you, dear." The older woman said, "What a lovely dress."
"Thank you." Lisa said, trying her damnedest to keep from giving Daniel a smug look.
"Claustine here is the primary opposition for my office, sweetheart." Daniel said.
"Uh-oh." Lisa said, smiling.
Claustine chuckled deep in his throat while Ellen gave her another warm, genuine smile, sending through Lisa the sudden urge to hug her. "I think your fiancé gives me too much credit by calling me his primary opposition."
"Don't let him fool you," Daniel said without taking his eyes off of Claustine, "he's leading in the polls right now."
"By a small percentage." Claustine countered.
Daniel grinned, "Nonetheless."
"Well," Lisa interjected, deciding to play up the innocent naivety and break the tension that had just clouded around them, "can't you both be senator? I mean, there are two per state."
She was met by momentary silence, then Claustine burst into a horse laugh. He clapped Daniel on the shoulder, "She is sweet, Davis! I like her."
"Yeah, I do, too." Daniel said, kissing her on the temple and smiling at Claustine.
"Oh," Claustine went on as Ellen slipped her arm through his proffered one, "Let's not talk about business tonight. We'll get into all of that tomorrow soon enough. Let's just enjoy the evening."
"I couldn't have said that better myself." Ellen added to her husband's suggestion.
Lisa decided that she liked them. Maybe the evening would be bearable after all. That was what she was thinking before Daniel took her to introduce her to Anthony Patoleski, the senatorial candidate from New York City who looked like he just stepped out of Good Fellas. He was clad in a shiny black tuxedo. No, really, it was shiny. His jet black hair was slicked back with what Lisa could only assume was axel grease and he tended to talk out of the side of this mouth and use really bug hand gestures. He struck Lisa as the kind of cretin that left a long pathway of sludge trailing along behind in his footsteps. He kept touching her on the lower back, winking, and calling her 'babe' and 'doll'. He did all of this in front of his bottle blonde, surgically enhanced wife, Brenda. That was okay though, because Brenda wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box. She kept looking at her reflection in her champagne glass and touching the tip of her nose. Recent nose job? More than likely. A young waiter with cropped brown hair and pretty green eyes appeared beside her with a champagne trey and Lisa switched out her empty glass for a full one.
"Is the bar open, yet?" she whispered, leaning in close to the young man.
He grinned at her.
"I'm totally serious." She said.
The cute little waiter chuckled and walked off, leaving Lisa staring into her bubbly glass of champagne. When they were finally seated for dinner, Lisa was torn between listening to Daniel and the three other politicians at the table discuss polls and bills and legislative propositions or the other side of the table which was occupied by their wives who were currently discussing the fact that you could now purchase voodoo spells over the internet. It was just Lisa's luck that Doug and Ellen Claustine had been seated at a table on the far side of the room and weren't ever on hand for decent conversation. She blew out a breath and took another sip of her very, very strong seabreeze. Thank God the bar finally opened.
"It was just a little success and power spell. I don't really believe in all that stuff, but if it works and Nathan gets elected, it'll be the best $29.95 I ever spent." One of the women was saying to the giggling other two.
You have got to be kidding me, Lisa thought to herself as she cut off a bite of her grilled lemon pepper chicken. Daniel leaned back in his chair with a sigh and rested his hand possessively on the back of Lisa's neck.
"That's ridiculous!" he said to the man on his immediate right. Lisa couldn't remember his name, "You know as well as I do that that will never make it past congress, if it even makes it that far!"
At that point, Lisa had seriously begun to consider clawing her own eyes out and running from the room screaming. It seemed a more appealing option than sitting at that table for five more minutes. She downed the rest of her drink and turned to Daniel, tapping him on the thigh to get his attention.
"Danny, I'm gonna go get another drink." She said when he turned to face her. He nodded, barely acknowledging her, before he turned back to his own, apparently more interesting conversation.
Lisa climbed out of her seat and made her way to the back of the room where the bar was set up. She was met by Ellen Claustine when she got there.
"Are you defecting, too?" Ellen asked taking a sip of her dark rich looking drink.
Lisa nodded, "Can't handle much more voodoo talk from the ladies at my table?"
"Sorry, voodoo?" Ellen repeated with a raise of her perfectly arched eyebrows.
"Oh, yeah," Lisa grinned, "apparently you can buy a power spell for the low, low price of thirty bucks."
Ellen laughed, "Maybe I should look into that." The bartender appeared, "What'll you have?"
"A seabreeze." Lisa said and the bartender disappeared to make her drink, "How are things at your table?"
"Oh goodness," Ellen said, lighting a cigarette, "Doug and his old friend from Stanford, Ethan have been talking about cricket since we sat down."
"I never really understood cricket."
"Oh, sweetie, I've been watching the sport for twenty years and I still don't understand it."
The bartender set Lisa's drink down in front of her and gave her a flirty wink and smile when she thanked him. She took a sip and then rubbed a hand over a tension knot in her shoulder. "How do you handle this?" Lisa asked.
"Handle what?" Ellen countered.
"All of this political schmoozing, mingling, elbow rubbing that goes on."
Ellen laughed, "You will get used to it."
"So, tell me truthfully," Lisa started, "are there a lot of these dinners every year?" Though, she already knew the answer. The Lux had housed a dozen or so of these gatherings every year for pretty much every political party. Apparently, nothing pleased these people more than getting together to compare approval ratings.
Ellen just smiled and patted Lisa's hand; and Lisa groaned.
Ellen took a long pull on her cigarette and said, "You know, the usual. Dinners, banquets, speeches, rallies, charities, name it. Conventions…"
"Oh, even the thought of it is giving me a headache." Lisa said.
"Sweetie, your dress." Ellen said, her gaze zeroing in on the hem of Lisa's cocktail dress.
Lisa looked down and saw a large yellowish white spot on her thigh. "Oh, no." she said as she began rubbing her thumb over it aggressively. "What is that?"
Ellen knelt down to get a closer look at it and scraped one long fingernail over the stain. It reminded Lisa of something that her mother might do in the same situation.
"I don't know." Ellen said, straightening once again. She stood back and surveyed the damage. "Such a pretty dress, too."
"What should I do?" Lisa asked.
"Well," Ellen was thoughtful, "Some club soda might take it out."
"But then I'll be walking around with a giant wet spot."
"You're right." Ellen said as her eyes began traveling the room. Suddenly, she nodded her head to herself and then turned to her, "Okay, you have around twenty to thirty minutes before the speeches and toasts begin. Run upstairs, clean it up, club soda, hair dryer, all that…then get back down here."
"How do you know how long I have?"
"Twenty years, sweetie."
"Oh, yeah. Are you sure about this?"
"Nobody will even notice that you're gone."
"Okay, thanks." Lisa said, grabbing her seabreeze, "I am so taking this with me."
"I don't blame you." Ellen chuckled, downing her own drink and signaling the bartender for another.
With a final wink to Ellen, Lisa slipped through the double doors and headed for the elevator. She pushed the button, hoping that the damn thing wouldn't take forever. A minute later, the doors opened and she was rushed by a group of five teenagers all clad in snow gear, laughing and slapping each other around. One of them bumped into Lisa and staggered backwards before lowering his snowboarding glasses and letting his eyes rove over the length of her.
"Sorry about that, peaches." He said.
Peaches? Lisa thought. "It's fine." She said.
"Why don't you let me buy you another drink to make up for it?" he said.
Lisa blinked at him. Was he serious? He bumped into her, called her a fruit, and then expected her to want to have a drink and an entire conversation with him. Her prayers had been answered! The world made sense again! Just then another one of them jumped on the fruit guy's back and grinned her.
"Weasel, man!" the second one exclaimed.
The only thing going through Lisa's mind at that moment was, Weasel?
"Leave the poor girl alone! You already slammed into her, don't traumatize her with your lame attempts at come on's as well!" he continued, "Let's hit the slopes!"
"Rock on!" A third one chimed in, making Lisa jump slightly, "Night slopes!"
With a loud uproar from the entire crew, the little band of miscreants stampeded through the lobby. Once they had dispersed, Lisa practically lunged into the elevator and hit the 'close doors' button. She did not want company for her ride and she sure as hell didn't want to share her elevator with another group like that one. She was sick of people and ten minutes without anyone would be a blessing. She sighed and leaned back against the hand rail that ran along the length of the back wall, taking another sip of her seabreeze. The elevator stopped with a ding and the doors opened to let on another passenger. Lisa lowered her glass and felt her heart stop when the two doors slid open. She struggled to get the last sip of alcohol to slide down her tightened throat.
Widened clear blue eyes, full pretty lips slightly parted in what appeared to be shock, dark hair falling into those gorgeous eyes. High cheekbones that any woman would kill for. Lean, tall, confident. Jackson Rippner was standing in front of her! He blinked and said one word.
"Lisa?"
Author's Note: Well, that's it for this chapter. Jackson has arrived! Be sure to tell me what you think.