From The Seduction of Emy and Other Stories

Copyright 2023 A. R. Gregory

 

Wife and Heir

His granite jaw set, his full head of salt-and-pepper hair perfectly coiffed, Senator Rawlston hugged his twenty-nine-year-old wife Tendra to his side, then kissed her to a crescendo of shutter clicks.

“Evrabody hear me?” he drawled as he stepped to the lectern. When he tapped the microphone, a Texas-shaped platinum cufflink gleamed in the camera flashes.

The rumors had dogged fifty-eight-year-old Brant Rawlston throughout his three terms in the U.S. Senate. But the sordid tales of hushed encounters with other men had only nipped at the popular senator’s heels. In his hand-tooled western boots, he kicked them aside without breaking his stride. “Smear tactics,” he called them with a tired smirk. “Just more testaments to the desperation of my political enemies....”