“Of course not. I, of all people, should know how to handle reporters,” she said, as if she hadn’t frozen when she’d seen that they were tracking her. “I’m holed up in a bathroom on north campus. I just had to get away.”

Liz heard his deep inhalation. “I’m sending a car now. I’ll have the driver message you where to meet.”

“Brady, I still have class,” she said weakly, though she was suddenly in no mood to attend it.

“I think you should contact the professor and let him know that you won’t be able to make it. Staying on campus isn’t a good idea. We don’t know if other reporters intend to show up,” he told her. “Plus, I miss you.”

Liz smiled. The first good thing to happen to her today. His statement brought unexpected tears to her eyes and she blinked them away. She hadn’t realized quite how much stress she was carrying around with her until that statement.

“I miss you too. Sorry I’m keeping you from D.C.”

Brady chuckled lightly. She could almost see him shaking his head at her. “This is much more important than what I was dealing with. You are more important. I don’t want reporters showing up at school. You don’t need to deal with that on top of classes and the paper and everything else.”

“Well . . . I guess I don’t have to deal with the paper anymore,” she said, choking on the words. “They requested I take a temporary leave of absence after I showed up on the front page.”

“Liz, I’m sorry,” he said gently.

He had to know that she was sacrificing all of this for him. It was why she had been hesitant about going public after Hayden and Calleigh’s article broke. She knew how much this would affect her life. She just hadn’t quite foreseen how bad it would be.

“They’re losing a great asset to their team. I truly believe it is a misguided decision on their part. But remember that they are just college students.”

“I’m just a college student,” Liz said defensively.

“You are so much more than that. You always have been. They might not see the error in letting you go now, but they will. In the long run, it’s probably better for you anyway. You don’t need anyone holding you back.”

“And here I thought reporters were the only ones with spin,” Liz said, attempting a joke to deflect his compliments.

“Politicians don’t have spin. We have facts,” he told her, deadpan.

Liz let his good mood seep into her. “Politicians and facts. Now you’re a comedian.”

“There’s that beautiful laugh,” he said softly. “That’s what I wanted.”

They disconnected shortly afterward. She checked herself out in the mirror to make sure she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt, and then ducked out of the deserted bathroom. There were no reporters in sight, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Once she received a pickup location from Brady’s driver, she briskly walked across campus with her head down. As soon as she spotted the black town car, she slid easily into the backseat. She felt covert as the car drove her away from campus.

She had assumed that they would be driving to Brady’s office in Raleigh, but when the driver pulled off of Highway 40 early, Liz sat up a little straighter in her seat. They were headed into the Durham suburbs, and Liz could only guess that they were headed to Brady’s parents’ house. Why would he have her dropped off there?

Liz had never been to his parents’ house in Durham. In fact, she had only met his parents once, nearly a year ago, because of her friendship with his younger sister, Savannah. She had invited Liz out to dinner with them after the political journalism colloquium Liz had orchestrated. That had been when Brady had been dating Erin, a talk show host out of Baltimore. Suffice it to say the dinner hadn’t gone well.

Was she supposed to meet them now as Brady’s girlfriend? They had been together again for only a few days and she was going to meet the whole family. She thought she’d been completely freaked out by the reporters stalking her class, but this momentarily paralyzed her.

She knew it was ridiculous in light of recent events, but she had a million girly thoughts run through her mind. Would his parents like her? Would they see her as the complication Heather did? How could she ever fit into such a close-knit family? Liz bit her lip and tried to hide her distress by looking out at the passing landscape.

These were normal things she should be able to handle. Parents loved her. They always had. Hayden had been certain for a while that his family liked her better than him. That just made her frown all over again. She had always felt so at home with Hayden’s family. She had even been one of the few people at his sister, Jamie’s, wedding. That relationship was heads-and-tails different from what she had with Brady. If only some part of this situation were normal, then maybe Liz wouldn’t feel quite so queasy at the thought of what was to come.

The car rolled up in front of the Maxwell house shortly afterward, and Liz’s eyes widened. She had been expecting a large house, but this was more like an estate or a compound. It was hidden from view from the main road by trees and an imposing fence. A sprawling lawn led up to the all-brick edifice with colonial-style columns and a double wraparound porch. The driver wove them along to the back of the house and into an enormous dark garage, and then ushered Liz inside through a side door.

Liz glanced around the small foyer in which she was deposited and wondered where the hell she was supposed to go and what the hell she was supposed to do.

Just as she was about to go wandering around, Savannah popped into the room. “Hey! Brady called and let me know you were on your way over,” she said, giving Liz a quick hug.

“Well, that makes one of us, I guess.” Liz was glad to see Savannah, but also anxious about the reunion. Savannah obviously knew that Liz was now dating her brother, but they hadn’t had a chance to talk about it. “Um . . . do you know what I’m doing here?”

“Oh, Brady is leaving the office soon and figured it would be easier to just meet you here.”

She really wanted to ask why Brady hadn’t just told her that when they were on the phone, but she held it in. Their relationship was so new.

“Come on. I was just about to eat lunch,” Savannah said, either not noticing Liz’s frustration or choosing not to comment on it. “I skipped out of class early today after all the weird stares. My name wasn’t even in the paper, but a lot of people know who I am at this point. Couldn’t have been fun for you.”