Free The Proviso by Moriah Jovan Page B

say hello. He’d
attracted some glances, but mostly of the preoccupied type, as if
they had so much on their minds that they didn’t see him. He
understood that. He remembered those days, his years as a lay
clergyman on the fast track to bishop, when Sunday meant meetings
from dawn until dusk, when he had had too much to think about to
welcome new people. He didn’t want to have to introduce himself and
then explain where he came from and his presence there.
    The few people he recognized hadn’t recognized him.
He didn’t mind. He didn’t want to have to talk about where his
family went, what happened to his face.
    As for the people who had noticed him and shied
away, he couldn’t judge them any more harshly than anybody else,
since he had that effect on everybody—
    —but one.
    Miss Giselle Cox.
    Knox Hilliard’s lover.
    Who had made herself very clear about what she
wanted from him, what she knew he could give her.
    He’d never known temptation like her, not even as a
young man. He lusted after her and his breath shortened at
the thought of her body, naked under his, what he wanted to do to
her, what he wanted her to do to him.
    He wondered if could bury his pride enough to pursue
her, to seduce her away from her lover. Bryce didn’t care that she
obviously had a great deal of experience; he minded that her
experience included Knox Hilliard.
    No, he decided, he did not want to go where
Hilliard had been.
    * * * * *
     
     
     
     
    8:
GREEDY ENEMY OF THE STATE
    NOVEMBER 2005
     
    Giselle and Sebastian sat at the conference table,
Giselle studying and Sebastian tapping away on his laptop. Fox News
blared in the background. Knox came through the front door and up
the four steps to the conference room, dumping his briefcase and
computer on the table. He, too, sat down to work without a
word.
    “Feds finally decide you didn’t kill Leah?”
Sebastian muttered after a while.
    Knox grunted. “Don’t even know why they bother
investigating me anymore for anything. Over a year. Waste of
taxpayer money.”
     
    *
     
    “ Breaking news this afternoon from Kansas City,
Missouri. OKH Enterprises CEO Fen Hilliard has announced the
formation of an exploratory committee for a possible run for the
Senate seat that will be vacated at the end of this term—”
     
    *
     
    All three of them turned toward the TV and gaped.
Giselle’s breath caught in her throat and she felt the blood drain
from her face. Knox dropped his head in his hands.
    “You have got to be kidding me,” Sebastian
whispered, eyes wide. “FUCK!” he roared, slamming his hands on the
table as he got up and started to pace, his hand rubbing his mouth.
“I gotta go make some calls,” he muttered finally, his long legs
eating up the distance from the dining room to his office. Giselle
winced when the door slammed.
    She and Knox traded sober glances. Fen had put
Sebastian in check brilliantly, thus setting Knox and Giselle back
in play if he decided to call Giselle’s bluff. Giselle never
bluffed. Though she dreaded the consequences of taking Fen’s life,
she would see it done.
    “Murder doesn’t wash clean, Giselle,” Knox offered
softly, reading her expression with the ease of a lifetime spent
together.
    She looked away, biting her bottom lip,
nauseated.
     
    *
     
    “ Should Democrat Fen Hilliard win the seat, he
will tip the balance of power in the Senate. Some on Wall Street
speculate that he would bring the necessary leverage to pass
legislation that would force his nephew, financier Sebastian
Taight, to cease his takeover of OKH Enterprises. How such
legislation might impact the financial landscape is unknown at this
time.
    “ Taight, infamous for his Fix-or-Raid policy, has
been accused by various corporate executives and members of
Congress of deliberately sabotaging companies that have hired his
services. Though no fault has been found in various audits across
the spectrum of companies Taight has taken over, a Hilliard win in
the Senate