From the Heart

“Why don’t you get along with them?”
    Liv let out an annoyed breath. “Look, Thorpe—”
    “Aren’t you ever going to call me by my first name?”
    She lifted a brow and waited a beat. “Terrance?”
    He grinned. “Nobody calls me that and lives to tell about it.”
    Liv laughed. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh and mean it. She leaned down to pick up her bag.
    “You never answered my question,” Thorpe pointed out, and unexpectedly took her hand as she turned back to him.
    “And I’m not going to. No personal questions, Thorpe, on or off the record.”
    “I’m a stubborn man, Liv.”
    “Don’t brag; it’s unattractive.”
    He laced his fingers with hers, then lifted the joined hands and studied them thoughtfully. “They fit,” he decided, giving her an odd smile. “I thought they might.”
    She wasn’t used to this. It wasn’t a seduction, though shewas feeling stirrings of desire. It wasn’t a challenge, though she felt the need to fight. It wasn’t even an assumption she could dispute. He had simply stated a fact.
    “Aren’t we going to be late?” Liv said a little desperately. She found it strange that though his eyes never left hers, she could feel their gaze through her coat, through her dress, on her skin. She would have sworn he knew precisely what she looked like right down to the small sickle-shaped birthmark under her left breast.
    “Thorpe.” There was a quick sense of panic at what she was feeling. “Don’t.”
    Hurt. He saw it. He sensed it. She had been hurt. He reminded himself of his decision to move slowly. Keeping her hand in his, he walked to the door.
     
    Light. Music. Elegance. Liv wondered how many parties she had been to in her life. What made this party different from hundreds of others? Politics.
    It was a hard-edged, intimate little world. You were appointed or elected, but always an open target for the press, vulnerable because of their influence on the public. One group habitually accused the other of staging the news. Sometimes it was true. Whether at a social event or an official one, there were images to project. Liv understood images.
    The senator nibbling pâté was a liberal; his hair was boyishly styled around an open, ingenuous face. Liv knew he was sharp as a tack and viciously ambitious. A veteran congressman told a slightly off-color story about marlin fishing. He was lobbying furiously against a pending tax proposal.
    Liv spotted a reporter for an influential Washington paper drinking steadily. By her count, he had downed five bourbons without showing a flicker. But his fingers were curled around the glass as though it were a life preserver and he were drowning. She recognized the signs and felt a stir of pity. If he wasn’t already drinking his breakfast, he soon would be.
    “Everybody handles pressure differently,” Thorpe commented, noting where Liv’s gaze had focused.
    “I suppose. I had a friend on a newspaper in Austin,” shesaid, as she accepted the glass of wine Thorpe offered her, “who used to say newspapers gave information to the thinking public, while television put on a show.”
    He lit a cigarette. “What did you say to her?”
    “I pointed out that the ads scattered through the New York Times weren’t any different than commercials in a broadcast.” She smiled, remembering her earnest fellow reporter. “I would say that television was more immediate; she’d say newspapers were more reflective. I’d say television allowed the viewer to see; she’d say print allowed a reader to think.” Shrugging, she sipped the cool, dry wine. “We were both right, I suppose.”
    “I did some print reporting when I was in college.” Thorpe watched Liv study the people, her surroundings. She was soaking it all up. Now, she looked back at him, curious.
    “Why did you switch to broadcasting?”
    “I liked the faster pace, the sense of reaching people on the spot.”
    She nodded, understanding perfectly. There was a glass of scotch in his hand. Unlike the reporter she had observed, Thorpe drank moderately . . . but smoked too much, she decided. She thought of Carl and his endless chain of cigarettes. “How do you deal with the pressure?”
    He grinned, then surprised her by running a thumb over the pearl in her ear. “I row.”
    “What?” His touch had distracted her. Now she focused fully on his face again.
    “Row,” he repeated. “A boat, on the river. There’s handball when it’s too