The Finishing School by Michele Martinez Page A

lying.”
    “James, what’s this about? Why are you talking this way?”
    “Somebody’s been tampering. Accessing the computer files behind our backs. Or at least behind
mine
.”
    Patricia felt suddenly ill. The fact was, she
had
told somebody. She’d been forced to. Did James really think she could handle the accounting all by herself? Or even the computer? She was not a math-science type. He knew that, and yet he’d refused to help her himself because he didn’t want to take the risk. Naturally she’d had to turn elsewhere. She’d been so careful about whom she’d trusted. What could possibly have gone wrong? But she couldn’t admit this to James now. He’d be furious at her.
    “There are two possibilities,” he said. “Either you told someone and
they
invaded the account—
or
you’re fucking around with things behind my back. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming the former.”
    “I swear, I didn’t breathe a word to anybody, James. Why would I? How could it even
benefit
me to get somebody else involved?”
    “I don’t believe you, Patricia. Who was it? Was it Ted? Didn’t it ever occur to you he’d double-cross us?”
    “I would never trust
Ted
. Are you crazy? James, please tell me, is the money missing? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
    He paused, then said, “You’re a talented actress, but you don’t fool me.”
    “You think I would steal from our future? If money was what I wanted, don’t you think I could’ve gotten it from you by now?”
    “How, by blackmailing me?
Please
. How much could you really hope to gain from that? You know my situation.”
    She hated the way he was talking. James had promised to marry Patricia after the campaign was over, and she planned to make him keep his word. She’d worked so hard to overcome the obstacles. There was the small matter of finances. The real so-called Seward money belonged to Charlotte, and James had told her from the beginning there was an airtight prenup. He wouldn’t get a red cent if he left. The endowment money would solve that little problem. Then there was the question of bloodline. Patricia had been born Andrewski, the daughter of a maid and a garage mechanic, Polacks from Paterson, New Jersey. The Andover, like the Mrs., had been her own invention. But she was confident James would overlook her origins once the financial end was taken care of. After all, Patricia was polished to a fine sheen, truly deserving of becoming Mrs. Senator Seward, whereas Charlotte spent her days so stoned she could hardly hold her head up.
    Patricia couldn’t take this. She’d call his bluff.
    “If you don’t believe me, James, I’ll prove it! The Van Allen money doesn’t get wired in until Friday night. I’ll rejigger the accounts, put everything back the way it was, and we’ll pretend this whole thing never happened. We can still be together. We don’t need that money.”
    He said nothing.
    “James?”
    “
I
need it, Patricia,” he said with quiet urgency. “Of course it’s not about the money for me either, but campaigns are expensive. The new headquarters, those sixty-second spots in prime time, that smart Jew I hired away from Bell’s staff.”
    “Get it from Charlotte, then!”
    She waited to hear what he’d say to this. She had her suspicions. The rumors about what Whitney was doing for money, about the status of their finances. James would never admit he was broke, even if it were true. He’d never let her see that he was desperate.
    “Charlotte would give it to me, but she’s not happy about my running for office,” he said nonchalantly. She suspected he was lying, that he’d bled Charlotte dry already, that there was nothing left. But she had no way of knowing for certain.
    “I’m only in this because of you,” she said heavily. That was actually true. Okay, Patricia was wearing a current-season Badgley Mischka to the gala, which naturally she couldn’t’ve afforded on the pittance Holbrooke