Commander in Chief
Page 16

The bills he’s trying to pass are not easy ones—they will mark permanent changes in our education, healthcare, and energy programs. He’s got solid backing from the House, but the Senate will be voting soon—and you really never know how it’s going to go.
After dinner one day, we took Jack for a walk along the White House gardens.
It was freezing outside, but I was wrapped in a coat and wore a cap, loving to watch Matt’s breath mist in the air as we talked about our day. And how he wouldn’t stop poking my reddened nose playfully, wearing the most gorgeous smile.
On our way back into the White House, it was eerily quiet. “I’ll never stop feeling awed as I walk around this house,” I said.
“It’s a privilege not to be taken lightly.”
“You know how they say if these walls could speak? These walls actually do. Every piece of art on the walls. Every relic.”
We continued in silence.
The usual bustle of the day had calmed down, but it was still in the very air. The electric unfolding of history within these walls. There were births and deaths, celebrations and mourning.
We passed the portrait of JFK, glancing downward, humble and charismatic, and the portrait of Matt’s dad, in a long red-carpeted hall.
Matt eyed the hall, his gaze warm as he took in my excitement. “Building took seventeen years to complete. Washington conceived the idea of it, but he never had a chance to move in.”
I watched him as we walked, wanting more.
“It nearly burned in the War of 1812, when the British invaded the capital. Middle of the night, enemy troops threw javelins on fire through the windows, set the attic on fire, and the flames started burning through the floor, then the main floor crashed into the basement. Look at it now.” He winked. “Yeah, that’s America. You fall, you rise back up stronger than ever.” He chucked my chin.
And I laughed, and blushed all over, and nodded.
“The portrait of Washington in the Oval? The soldiers looted the house, but the first lady at the time, Dolly Madison, cracked the frame and saved it.”
“If the house is set on fire, I’m taking your portrait.”
“I want one made of you.”
“Matthew!”
“I mean it,” he said, then he took my hand and led me upstairs to his bedroom, Jack padding at our feet and dropping to fall asleep by the time we were naked beneath the covers. Matt was drawing me with his fingertips, slowly telling me what part of me he wanted to immortalize in paint.
Matt has been buried under bills and negotiations for the last couple of days. I, too, have stayed busy, but then I wait for night, wondering if Matt will wrap up the day early or not—he’s been working so hard that the White House press office is always abuzz with information. Headlines are always pertaining to the White House. Matt is taking the alphabet campaign and absolutely crossing out every . . . single . . . word. As promised.
There are presidents and there are presidents—but we haven’t had one like this one in a long, long while. And exactly like this one? Not ever.
I’ve never been so busy in my life either, but as I wait with my muscles sore from the day I ache for him and our time alone. I wonder what he’s doing and whether I’ll fall asleep before he reaches me, like I have for the past three nights, or if I’ll be awake when he walks into my room and takes every single inch of me that craves to be taken again.
Tomorrow we have our first evening out, a fundraiser for Clean Water Across the Nation—with several celebrities in attendance. Though it’s been three days since we made love, I’ve already realized that Matt meant it when he said he’d be paying me a nightly visit. Every morning I’ve woken up to the feeling of having been spooned at night and the scent of him on my pillow.
Last night, I was taking a walk outside to clear my head when his best friend from Harvard, Beckett, arrived.
“Is the president still in the West Wing at this hour?”
I nodded.
“Wow.” He frowned. “He hasn’t answered my calls. Any reason he’s so hell-bent on getting everything done now?”
“He said he would. He wants to make his first one hundred days groundbreaking and set the tone for the rest of them.”
“He’s inspired by you,” Beckett said, winking and heading over. “I’m going to drag him out of the office, take him out for a run.”
“Good. Take Jack with you—he’s been restless with the rain and cooped up inside. I don’t think he gets a kick out of politics the way Matt does.”
His words linger with me.
Do I inspire Matthew, really?
I know that he’s driven to succeed, that he inherited a broken kingdom that he must mend, burnt bridges between parties that he has to rebuild, all while navigating the complicated politics of D.C. involving a myriad of players, quite like pieces in a chess game—the lobbyists, the House, the Senate—all while keeping in mind the goals, the will, and the welfare of the people.
When I met his father, President Lawrence Hamilton, I felt so inspired. But nothing in my life has ever inspired me the way watching Matt work does. So I decide that tonight, rather than wait in my room, I’ll visit him at the Oval Office when he’s back from his run and the halls are quiet.
“What is it?” I ask, alarmed and confused over Matt’s expression.
I came to visit him at the Oval. I was barefoot, finding him behind his desk, working behind the light of a lamp. I thought I was being sassy when I headed over to his desk and tried to prop myself up to the desk top. When I did, something loosened from underneath, and Matt caught it in his hand as it started fluttering downward.
It was a scarf. A pink scarf, that seemed to be tucked into some sort of compartment in his dad’s desk.
Now I have a sick feeling in my stomach as we both stare at the pink scarf in Matt’s hand.
My lips tremble as a bone-chilling shiver travels down my spine.
“This doesn’t belong to my mother,” Matt says.
I can’t even think about it. I’m too shocked about seeing such a flimsy thing in the Oval, and feel sort of like a voyeur, as if Matt and I just caught his father doing something forbidden.
Matt’s expression is a mix of rage and disbelief.
“I’m sorry.” I reach out and take his hand. “Do you want to …”
“I need some air.”
Matt stands and steps out of the room, and after a moment, I hear the agents rushing after him—and I’m alone in this house, with my dreary thoughts and my mind buzzing with worry.
Matt comes back shortly after.
He seems to have cleared his head outside, for he dives straight for the phone.
Matt calls my father over. He was a friend of his father for many years, and I suppose he trusts that whatever he discussed with my dad will never leave the room.
We sit with him in the sitting room adjacent the Oval as Matt asks him questions about his father.
“But you never knew of his interests outside of policy and the White House?”
“I knew—suspected—something changed the year before he was killed. He smiled more, he traveled more. He seemed to get new life injected.”
“Could this have anything to do with a woman?”
“Possibly. I don’t know for sure. I always assumed it was him realizing that he was close to done serving as president, and he’d be able to make it up to his family now.”
“Thank you, Robert.”
Matt seems calm, but only someone who knows him—truly knows him—could detect the tension pulsing in his shoulders.
“Charlotte, I’d like to talk to your father alone for a moment.”
I smile when I look into his reassuring eyes, nodding quietly as I go and hug my father. “Thank you, Dad.” I kiss his cheek and he pats my hand when I rest it on his shoulder, watching me with pride as I leave.
Something about the way Matt asks makes me tingly. I wonder if he’s going to tell my dad about us. It seems in character that he’d want to let him know there’s something between us before we eventually move forward and tell the word.
Two minutes later, I’m pretty sure that he did tell him something about us—for when my dad leaves, he’s got a spark of mischief in his eye as he waves goodbye.