He appeared to be reminding himself of these things out loud before concluding, “I should have expressed my reservations about being asked personal questions in a better way from the start.”

“I’d rather you be upset than polite,” I insisted, old childhood feelings flaring inside me. “Don’t smile in my face if you hate me.”

His gaze had stayed on his food throughout the majority of our exchange, but after I said that, he flicked his eyes up to me, and they had that weirdly intense look from earlier. “I don’t hate you.”

Just four words. But each one fluttered in my stomach like faerie wings.

Then Josh asked, “You going to eat that?”

I glanced down at my plate. The vegetables were all gone. My father’s homeland was what some might call a healthy food desert. So, I’m the opposite of most people from my mother’s homeland. I always gratefully eat my vegetables first. But I pushed the meat and potatoes over to him.

Something tingly and intimate rushed through me as I watched him eat from my plate.

He has a girlfriend, I reminded myself.

Then I reminded myself again by saying out loud, “I’m sorry there’s no reception out here. You probably want to call your girlfriend to let her know you’re safe.”

He cut another piece off my pork chop. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

The whole world stopped.

“You don’t have a girlfriend?” I repeated.

“That’s one of the reasons I came up here. If you could help Eva Rustanov get elected with a Russian husband, I figured you could help me get elected to the Senate without a serious girlfriend or spouse.”

So that picture hadn’t been what the magazine said it was. All sorts of thoughts flooded into my mind. Thoughts I didn’t know how to handle. Not with Josh…. girlfriendless Josh Grant sitting right across from me.

“Do you want me to put on some music?” I asked him in a rush. “My mom has some records. I could put on some music.”

And drown out all these thoughts I shouldn’t be having about you.

“No music, please.” Josh looked away from me again. “I like it here just like it is. Quiet.”

A new thought put all the other ones on mute. “You like it here because it’s quiet—that’s the second time you’ve said that. Is quiet something you value?”

Josh considered the question with his head down, then seemed to decide to answer, “Yes. Yes, it is, especially after coming back Stateside. Quiet’s hard to come by here. But that’s not something I’d want to say in a speech.”

“I wouldn’t put anything you told me into a speech without your permission,” I assured him. “I want to know my clients, but what they share is up to them. I should have told you that…before.”