Page 73 of Hottie on Her Shelf
“Mrs. Vormelker, you’re the best.” Megan beamed at her. “Let me get you another glass of wine.” She bustled off.
Hallie was blindsided, in the best possible way. “Thank you so much. You don’t even know me.”
“Sure I do. I came to your last event.” She stuck out a hand. Bits of hair slid off the side of her cape. “Agnes Vormelker. I’m a department chair up at Cygnet Labs.”
“Hallie Scott. If you don’t mind my asking, why are you being so kind to me?”
“It’s a tangible way to support your campaign. I’m voting for you.” Pursing nude lips, she continued after a brief pause. “To be clear, I started out just being thrilled I had an option to vote for a woman.”
Well, that was the thinnest of thin ice. “I agree that it’s exciting to take such a huge stride for our gender, but I wouldn’t want to win just because Mayor Montgomery gets a five o’clock shadow. That’s a step back.”
“That was only my initial knee-jerk reaction to learning you were on the ballot. Then I wanted to do it to stick it to those snobs who say you can’t be mayor because of your hometown. Piffle. I’m from a backwater, one stoplight town in Alabama where they still fly the Confederate flag. Didn’t stop me from scraping and getting my PhD and heading up a department at the most prestigious genomics lab in the country.”
Ouch. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it did sting to hear that even after presenting herself at several events, some voters still weren’t interested because of her high-school zip code. “You’ve come far. That’s impressive.”
“But then I realized what I really wanted to do was vote against the mayor.”
Oh, geez. Hallie hoped nobody was listening, although the inside of a salon had more eavesdropping going on than the six square blocks around the White House. “Mayor Montgomery isn’t evil.”
“Indeed not. Quite the treat for these aging eyes to linger on, too.” Agnes stuck out her elbow as if trying to poke Hallie in the ribs…even though she didn’t come close. “I’ve got no bone to pick with Fitz Montgomery, other than his last name. Preston Montgomery treats this town like his own personal fiefdom. He’s out of control.”
Hallie did not disagree. She’d just assumed her viewpoint was a solo endeavor. “I don’t want you to punish the mayor for the sins of his father. If there were sins…”
“To truly take out an opponent, you have to hit ’em where it hurts. Nothing would hurt Preston like an attack on his vaunted family name. Fitz is simply collateral damage. The most direct hit I can make.”
Mention of collateral damage filled her with fear again over what the Montgomery scion might do to strike out at Hallie. Would her friends, her family, be used to hurt her, to put her campaign in a tailspin?
Then she homed in on the fervor in Agnes’s raspy voice. That sounded targeted, not at all a generalized dislike. “What, ah, injustice was visited upon you by the elder Montgomery?”
“I had petitioned to change the route of a smaller cruise ship, really more of an overloaded sailboat. A yacht, really. Easy to fit into our harbor. Of course, it’d boost the economy with further tourist dollars, and he denied them a license to berth here in Swan Cove because of the theme.”
Hallie was scared to ask, but even Agnes’s stylist had paused her curling, raptly following the story. “Which was…?”
“It’s a lesbian cruise. All-female crew, too.”
Oh, boy.
Girl.
Whichever. “Can he do that? Mr. Montgomery’s not the harbor master.”
“No, but that one is in his pocket.”
“Lou Fonseco?” Her stylist huffed out a breath. “He brags about it. Getting his monthly ‘bonus’—which you or I would call a payoff—from Montgomery Industries. As if the offer of a free wine spritzer from him would be worth the boredom of listening to his self-important bullshit.”
“See? It’s common knowledge. Anywho, Preston didn’t find the cruise ‘wholesome’ enough to live up to the high-class image of his carefully curated, jewel box of a town. I have proof he’s the one who kiboshed it.”
It all shocked Hallie. She was certain Fitz didn’t know about any of this, and that he’d do his utmost to fix it once told the story. He did adore an underdog. “If you have proof, Agnes, shouldn’t you complain?”
“To who?” Agnes accepted her wine and downed half of it in a determined gulp. “His son, the mayor?”
“Well, yes. I feel like Mayor Montgomery would give you a fair listen.”
“He might, but he wouldn’t be able to change his father’s mind. From what I hear, he doesn’t have anything to do with Montgomery Industries.”
Hallie believed, completely, that Fitz would try to do the right thing, but, sadly, she agreed with Agnes that his father would not. “You could take your proof to the Gazette.”
“Hmm. Possibly. I’ll give it a good think, but your rational suggestions just made me all the more decided to vote for you.” She lifted her glass. “Enjoy your outfit.”
