When Romance Prevails (The Dark Horse Trilogy Book 3) by Cynthia Dane Page B

aggressive step forward. “You did it,” he hissed in half wonder, half anger. “You’re the one who told Mitchell’s campaign manager about my father’s affair.”
    “Did I? I don’t recall that.”
    “How could you have known such a thing?”
    “I told you, Mr. Hall, I have eyes and ears everywhere. Would’ve been terrible if your new little sister told one of her teachers about your father, and that teacher happened to be one of my staunchest supporters. So would it have been terrible if Mitchell’s bookie at the racetrack always turned around to donate some of that money to me. People are rude. They tell on each other all the time.”
    “I thought you said you didn’t want to play dirty.”
    “And I didn’t. Nothing that wasn’t true came out. I made sure of that.”
    “You could’ve ruined our lives!” Kerri exclaimed, and Hunter asked her to keep it down.
    Joshua gave her a sympathetic smile. “Your lives seem to be doing just fine. With your parents off their thrones, no one will care if the governor’s daughter runs off with one of the competition. If anything, your lives will be the better for it. Huh.”
    “What?”
    “It’s sort of like I brought you two together in the end. Funny. I never thought of myself as a nurse much. That’s more my wife’s style.” Joshua tipped his hat to them. “Excuse me, Miss Mitchell, Mr. Hall. I need to see a man about a mansion.”
    Kerri and Hunter remained standing in awe even after Joshua’s departure from the foyer. I stopped wondering how that news broke. It seemed pointless in the aftermath. People found out these things in politics all the time. Who were they to suspect another politician… for once? “Maybe if my father had more eyes and ears around, they would have told him to stop gambling,”
    Hunter took her hand and kissed it. “It doesn’t matter anymore, my sweet.” He gestured to the gardens outside the door. “Let’s go for a walk. I want to enjoy this sunny day with you.”
    Voices raised in the background as Ronnie dug into her ex-husband again for being a cheating scumbag. Brenda attempted to cover them up with a loud comment about the chandelier in the foyer and how valuable it was. Raymond shouted for everyone to shut the hell up because he had a headache. The Payne boys flew out into the hallway, gawking at this painting and that bug on the floor. Once Brenda shrieked at the appearance of the stink bug, Kerri grabbed Hunter’s other hand and ran out into the sunshine with him.
    It felt good to be back in the first place they met and fell in love. Well, neither of those things happened in the gardens. But it is where I kissed him for the first time. She did it again now, bringing Hunter’s lips down to meet her own between this shrub and that rose bush.
    Never in Kerri’s life had she known a story of greater fortune than the day she met her Romeo.