Commander in Chief

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.

Matt contacts the FBI next. I’m still rattled by things. As Sigmund Cox arrives to the Oval, Matt asks me to stay. As he hands over the scarf, his roiling bronze eyes meet mine, and they look crisp and metallic, cold as I feel.

I know what this finding means. How disappointing it could be—to imagine that his father possibly had an affair what he was president. Especially considering he neglected his mother and son. For the country, it was one thing, but for another woman?

After explaining to Cox what we found, Matt slides the FBI files across his desk.

“I want the case reopened and I want a special task investigator working twenty-four seven on this. I want real information on this. I want specifics. Details. I also want this to be top secret. Nobody but you, those of us in this room, and the special investigator will know.”

16

GALA

Charlotte

I slept that night in his arms in the Queens’ Bedroom, thinking of his father, knowing he was in Matt’s thoughts too. “What did you tell my dad when you asked to talk to him alone?” I whispered.

“That I’m in love with you,” he said simply.

Now it’s past 6 p.m. the next afternoon when I’m told by one of the members of the residence staff that the president sent the gown that hangs in my dressing room.

Jack hurries excitedly into my bedroom as if he plans to report to Matthew what I thought of his gift.

It is breathtaking.

From an up-and-coming American designer who’s going to take the world by storm, it is a heavily detailed lace-and-sequin dress with just the right amount of sheerness to give a glimpse of skin on my back and shoulders.

I dress carefully and glance at myself in the mirror to make sure I look about as good as the first lady representing our country should. The gold dress falls to my ankles, sparkling like a jewel, and I let my red hair tumble down my shoulders. I grab a little shawl that matches the dress and step out into the hall.

Matt is standing at the end of the hall, his hands in the pockets of his pants, his jacket raised at his back because of his position as he gazes out the window at the gardens. When faced with the perfection of that tall, black-clad figure, his stance emphasizing the force of his thighs and the slimness of his hips, his pants pressing into his ass because of his hands being jammed into his pockets—

Breathe, Charlotte!

I force my lungs to work in a breath; and as if he senses me, he turns.

A look of surprise flicks across his features, followed by a slow trailing of his eyes down my dress. Jack pads toward him and Matt pets the top of his head as he comes to a perfect sit beside him, and yet his whole undivided attention seems to be on me. His eyes study my face as if memorizing it. As if he’d forgotten it.

I eye him covetously too. Standing there with his dog, he would already kill me. But in a tux? I’m completely gone over this guy. He wears the tux like he wears the presidency. With grace, confidence, and so much ease he seems to have been born destined for both that presidency and that damn onyx-black tuxedo.

He looks devilishly handsome.

His hair is combed back and oh, how I love every chiseled inch of his face. He’s the first to move, prying his hands from his pockets, eyes flaring, inhaling visibly—his inhale stretching the fabric of that black tux.

Disbelief and a punch of longing to have all of this man, his love and his name and his babies, hits me as he approaches. I’m gazing at him walk to me down the hall of the White House residence, both of us ready to attend a social dinner. My first public event with him.