“I’ll be in touch about the Post,” Brady said before saying good-bye and disconnecting.

Even though they talked every night when he got off work, she never felt as if there was enough time. She was ready to graduate so that they could be together more often. At least, until she moved to New York City. She sighed just thinking about her dream job at the Times.

About fifteen minutes after their call ended, just when she was getting into a TV show to try to numb her mind, her phone rang again.

“Hello?”

“Liz, this is Heather.”

Well, that was fast.

“Hey, Heather.”

“Brady told me I should handle a situation with the press. I feel like I’ve been hearing that a lot lately,” Heather said coolly.

“Yeah . . .”

“Care to tell me what happened?”

“Didn’t Brady tell you already?”

“He told me to handle the situation. I’m handling the situation. As far as I’m concerned you’re the situation. One that keeps cropping up no matter how much I try to tamp it down,” Heather said.

Liz wanted to give back a biting retort, but she really was in the wrong. At least partially. She hadn’t meant to do any harm by talking to the reporter, but it seemed like everything she did could do wrong in Brady’s world.

“I just . . . thought I could handle it. The questions didn’t seem leading and then when I saw where he was going I got off the phone,” Liz told her.

“I’m still just in shock over here. Why would you think it was a good idea to talk to a reporter at all? I don’t know what your motives are in continually thwarting the system we have in place, but it stops today.”

“Heather, I’m not thwarting the system! God, I just answered a few questions. I’m sorry.”

“You spoke to a reporter and then you spoke to Brady about it. He doesn’t need more things to deal with. That is why he has me. So next time you think about screwing everything up just give me a ring so I can remind you about how stupid it is. I’m here to take care of everything. Not you. Not him. Press go through me. End of the story.”

“I understand that all press go through you, but I should still be able to call and talk to Brady about these things if I need to,” Liz told her. Brady wasn’t on a need-to-know basis with her. They had a relationship. She couldn’t hold in everything that might bother him.

“This is why you’re a problem,” Heather spat.

“I’m not a problem!” Liz said. “I’m Brady’s girlfriend.”

“You think that just because Brady decided to give you a chance after your affair was outed that you’re suddenly special? No, you’re not. You have to follow the same routines as everyone else. You go through the right channels. You don’t fuck this up, because every single thing that you do, God help us all, reflects back on him. He is important. He is special. We need him in office. You—” she said as if she couldn’t even fathom why she was still talking to Liz, “you are just a sideline display. Nothing more than a phase. Just try not to screw up while you’re still around.”

Liz’s heart stopped. A sideline display. A phase. While you’re still around. Those words made her head spin.

Just the thought ate away at her. Could she just be a temporary thing for Brady? Could he be using her to try to cover up the bad publicity? Her gut instinct told her no, that she was crazy. But maybe it wasn’t that crazy. She could never let Heather know that she secretly harbored these fears, though.

“I already apologized,” Liz said gruffly. “I can’t take back the conversation, but I will continue to talk to Brady as I please. Whether you choose to believe I’m here to stay or not is entirely up to you, but threatening me is only going to make me dig my feet in. So you should just get used to my being here.”

“I’ve been around Brady since his very first run for office. Do you know how many girls have come and gone since then?”

Liz shook her head. She didn’t want to think about that. “It really doesn’t matter to me if it’s one or a hundred. I’m here now, and you’ll need more than empty threats to get rid of me. If you’re upset because I spoke to the press, fine. I’ll be more careful next time. If you’re upset because I’m with Brady, then you’ll just have to get over it.”

“I’m upset because you’re deteriorating everything we’ve worked toward. I don’t care about your delusions. I care about doing my job, and I’m damn good at it. Next time a reporter calls you, get his name and number, and report directly to me what he wanted. Are we clear?”

Liz wanted to tell her to fuck off. She wanted to tell her that she wasn’t an employee and couldn’t be pushed around like this. But she couldn’t. She knew that what Heather was doing was in Brady’s best interest, even if she was a raving bitch when talking to Liz. She just hated that it seemed that everything Liz did brought another wave of disapproval.

“Fine.”

“Thank you, Ms. Dougherty. It’s always a pleasure,” Heather snapped before hanging up.

Liz chucked her phone onto her bed in frustration.

Ambition. It was all just ambition. Ambition made the world go round. Brady, who used it to get into Congress at twenty-seven. Heather, who rode his coattails to push for her dream. Calleigh and Hayden, who used Liz to get ahead. Liz, who had spent her entire life doing everything she could to work as a reporter.

No one was exempt. Ambition did as much good as it did damage, delivered dreams as easily as it incinerated them. What was the price of it all? How far ahead could she get before she was pulled down? Liz thought about how perfect her life had felt last year—seemingly perfect boyfriend, highest scholarship in the school, editor at the newspaper, internship at the New York Times. It was exactly what she had argued with Hayden about back then. Already she didn’t have the paper, and her new perfect boyfriend was kind of part of the problem.

She needed to get away so she could clear her head or else she was going to combust. Changing into workout clothes, she hopped into her car and drove over to the tennis courts. She hadn’t been taking regular lessons for a while because she was so busy with the paper, but now that she wasn’t on the paper she no longer had an excuse. She was ready to get her ass kicked to help her forget what was going on in her life.