Ella gives me a look. "It doesn't matter if you did or not," she says. "The photo looks --"
I don't give her a chance to respond. "Like it was taken out of context?”
I don’t see the need to point out that despite the fact that I warned him about Psycho Chick, Joe went to the hotel room last night with both of them. But then, Joe has always been kind of a loose cannon anyway. He’s one of those friends I’ve known for so long that I shrug off his crazy antics.
Ella clucks her tongue against her teeth. "It looks inappropriate," she says. "My PR person can issue a statement. We should do damage control."
"I don't need to do damage control," I say, irritation taking over. "Because I didn't do anything. Someone grabbed a photo that is entirely out of context, and posted it on a blog. It's a stupid gossip site."
"It's not one gossip site, Caulter," Ella says. "It's a number of them. You and Kate are back in the public eye now, you know that. Between Kate's father and I, and your history in the media – and now this – you need to expect interest in the wedding.”
"I don't want to talk about this right now," I insist. "Has Kate seen the blogs?"
Ella looks at me warily. "I didn't tell her," she says.
"But she's seen them?"
"I think so," Ella said. "She didn't want to talk. She said she was going to take a nap."
Shit.
Well, surely Kate knows me well enough by now to know that I wouldn't cheat on her. I mean, why would she be marrying me if she didn't trust me?
But Kate isn't in the guesthouse, after all. And when I trek back to the main house to ask Rose about it, she tells me she thinks Kate is probably at her mother's grave. "You know she goes out there sometimes," she says. "Before something as monumental as a wedding, she'll want to talk to her."
"That's probably why she isn't responding to her phone," I say, reassuring myself that something as silly as a misconstrued photo would not get between us, but I'm not sure I'm even convincing myself.
Then I remember the last time something got uploaded to the internet -- the Brighton Bingo card, and my heart sinks.
Rose slides a plate of freshly baked bread toward me. "Take this to the Senator," she says. "He's out on the patio."
She gives me a look that tells me not to argue with her.
"Yes, ma'am," I say, and she tsk-tsks me.
"Don't sass me," she says. But there's a twinkle in her eye, and she stops, putting her hand on mine. "And I don't think Katherine puts much stock in gossip and rumors."
Shit. Rose knows?
Kate must have talked to her about it.
That’s not reassuring. It's worse than I thought, if she talked to Rose. She talks to Rose about stuff that's bothering her, not about stuff she'd just laugh off.
I feel like I'm walking to the firing squad, as I head out to the patio to talk to the Senator. He's standing in a collared shirt and slacks, despite the cold, staring out at the lawn with a pensive expression as he smokes a cigar.
"Rose asked me to bring this to you," I say, handing him the plate.
"As long as Rose has worked for me, she's baked this bread," he says, picking up a piece. I set it down on the table on the patio and stand there for a second.
"It's good bread," I say lamely.
Great. Now I'm out here talking about baked goods with the Senator, when I really want to be telling Kate that photo meant nothing.
"I wasn't the world's best father after Katherine's mother died," he says, still looking straight ahead. "I'm – well, I think it's too late really for Katherine and I, but I'm trying to be better at it now."
I clear my throat. Kate’s father unburdening himself to me is seriously awkward. "There's still time, I'm sure."
"But you have your whole lives ahead of you," he says. "So don't screw it up."
I bristle at the Senator's implication that I'm screwing up parenthood -- and things with Kate -- already. "I'm not stupid enough to fuck up the important things in my life, Senator," I say, my words terse.
I leave the rest of it unspoken.
The way you obviously did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KATE
I'm standing at my mother's grave, in the chilly December air, my winter coat wrapped tightly around me. There's no snow on the ground here yet, but the ground is frozen, leaves crunching under my feet as I shift back and forth, trying to keep warm.
I needed to get out of the house. When I got back from the bachelorette party, Ella had already seen the gossip blogs with Caulter's photo plastered all over them, and was talking "damage control" and issuing statements. The last thing I want to think about right before my wedding is the necessity of damage control.
Of course Caulter wasn't doing anything with those girls, I told Ella, shrugging nonchalantly. "Of course not, honey," she said. But I could see the question in her eyes, and that made my heart leap in my throat.
That little nagging voice in my head helpfully offered, Once a bad boy, always a bad boy.
Fuck that voice. I know Caulter.
Right?