Free The Phoenix Campaign (Grace Colton Book 2) by Heidi Joy Tretheway

private-school route, we’d never be able to save enough to afford college, even if they went in-state,” Marcus adds.
    I question them about how health care policy affects their family’s budget and learn that their son’s type-one diabetes factors heavily into their medical costs. We talk national security and I learn that Jess worked at the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. She quit soon after and decided to be a stay-at-home mom until Elise was old enough for kindergarten.
    “It was the best choice for my kids, but it’s a financial decision that put us behind in every way,” Jess admits.
    What started as a shoot designed to be sliced-and-diced into clips for campaign ads and media releases becomes something real. A real family, with real struggles. Parents who want what’s best for their kids, even if it means tightening their own belts, driving old cars and skipping vacations.
    As I learn more about their lives, the cameras recede into the background and we become just people talking, relating because both of our boys—their Liam and my Ethan—had mild learning delays that made reading a challenge. We talk about how Marcus had to take unpaid leave to heal after back surgery, which forced them to run up their credit cards to almost crippling debt levels.
    Finally, I ask the question that’s most important to me. “When you think of your dreams for the future, what do you want most?”
    “Security,” Marcus tells me. “I need to be sure that my kids can earn their own way in life, get a good job, buy a house eventually. And I need the security in retirement to know we’ll never be a burden to them.”
    I nod at Jess for her answer. “Grandchildren,” she says. “I want my kids to grow up, fall in love, and marry. Nothing matters more to me than my family.”
    As we wrap up the shoot, Jess’s words echo in my brain. Family. Nothing matters more to me than my family.

    ***

    Jared tells the Secret Service to take us to my place. We climb back in the SUV and he winks at me.
    “You’d better be ready to pick up where you left off,” I say, my voice low, vibrating with need. Throughout the interview, whenever I connected with his gaze, it felt like he was devouring me with his eyes.
    “I’m always ready.” His lazy smile makes my stomach warm, my knees weak with want.
    He puts a respectable distance between us as we cross the parking garage, ride the elevator with my security detail, and walk down the hall toward my condo. I fumble for my keys and drop them; he snatches them off the floor and unlocks the door maddeningly slowly.
    When the door closes behind us, I whirl toward him, grasping his shirt and pulling our bodies tightly together. “You. Tease.” I breathe tease like an accusation, and he steps back, pulling me off-balance.
    “That’s the idea.” He saunters to my bedroom, forcing me to follow in his wake. “The wondering is half the fun. The waiting. The wanting.”
    He turns to me and squares his shoulders, but he doesn’t reach for me. I’m ready to tear off my clothes and his and just do this , but his normally frenzied pace that drives us into bed is now deliberate, designed to make me crazy.  
    I step toward him again and he raises his hand, forcing me to pause.
    “Eager?” His smile widens and he sits on my bed. He points to my blouse. “Take it off.”
    I fumble for the buttons.
    “Slowly,” he corrects me.
    I force my fingers to slow and I shed each garment, my eyes locked on his, waiting for his command. A nod or a gesture tells me take this off and now that.
    When I’m stripped bare, standing in my bedroom in nothing but heels, he twirls his finger. “Face the wall.”
    I turn and he grasps my wrist, anchoring it to the wall above my head. “Don’t move this hand.” He takes my other wrist and presses my palm to the wall alongside the first. His shoe taps the inside of my ankle. “Spread your legs.”
    I look like a suspect about to be frisked, but God knows I