by Evans, LJ
“Thank you,” I said and went into my own cubicle.
First, I tried on a purple dress that had a halter top and a slit up the side. Gauzy and almost sheer in places where the lining had been cut to emphasize the skin underneath. It made me feel glamorous, but I wasn’t sure it was tasteful enough.
I came out to find Dani in a stunning sapphire-blue dress. It was strapless, tight on the top before floating to the ground in soft rows. It was fabulous on her. “It’s perfect,” I told her.
“I can’t say the same about yours,” she said, as honest with me as I’d been with her.
When I came back out in a teal dress, Dani was back in her own business attire, sitting on the soft sofa and drinking a glass of wine. She looked up and shook her head. I agreed. It wasn’t perfect.
I went back in and tried on two more dresses, but neither was screaming at me, either.
“Hold on, I’ll grab a couple more,” the girl said, rushing to the back.
“I have a beautiful black dress I wore to a runway party. It’ll do if I can’t find anything today,” I told Dani.
“No.”
“What?”
“You have to have something new for your date with Mac,” she said, her words mimicking my own thoughts from earlier.
“It isn’t really a date,” I tossed back, even though I knew it was.
“You two are ridiculous,” she said.
“It’s just…complicated.”
“So your family sucks. It isn’t the end of the world,” she responded. I hadn’t really told her much about my family, which meant Mac had. Siblings. Friends. They’d talked about me. It made my stomach lurch slightly, even though it wasn’t unexpected.
“They don’t really suck,” I told her.
She looked slightly flustered, when Dani never looked flustered. “I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that your family background isn’t ideal if Mac truly wants to run for office, but it’s not like you’re tying the knot or anything. It’s just a date.”
I went back into the fitting room with two more dresses. One was a deep forest green—so dark it could almost be black. The silk was so smooth that it could have almost been lingerie. I unzipped it and slipped it on. The neckline was heart-shaped, sweeping into cuff sleeves that sat just off the shoulder. It was beautiful, the back dropping even farther, showing off curves in a way that was decadent. It fit like it was made for me, running down my legs and pooling just enough that any heels would barely peek out from beneath it when I moved.
As soon as I looked in the mirror, Dani’s words about Russell flew through my head, because all I could think of was Mac running his hands over the silky threads. Running his hands over me and over my exposed skin before unzipping the dress and removing it from my body. My heart sped up, and my body ached at the thought. Of him, and his hands, and this dress.
“Georgie, you alive in there?”
My face was flushed at where my thoughts had journeyed. I wasn’t sure I could move yet.
“Yep,” I croaked out.
Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and then opened the door. I’d taken two steps when Dani smiled. “That! That is definitely the one.”
I nodded and turned toward the three-way mirror. It was perfect. The best dress I’d bought in a really long time.
“If Mac doesn’t make a move on you in that dress, my brother will be dead to me.”
I laughed. “On our first date?”
She shrugged. “You never know, maybe that’s all you need to get each other out of your systems.”
Her biting words were just Dani’s way. It was like she didn’t know when to hold back. And maybe she was right. Maybe that was all Mac and I really needed. A night of bodies entwined so we could leave whatever it was that existed between us behind.
The salesclerk came back into the room and stopped dead. “That dress was meant to be taken off.”
Dani and I shared a look before bursting out in laughter.
Dani finally said, “Yep. That’s definitely the one.”
Mac
IF OUR LOVE IS WRONG
“Why would I need their permission?
Skin and bones, I'm only human.
It's in my DNA,
Suffocating just to fit in.
Why do I care what people say?”
Performed by Calum Scott
Written by Scott / Parfitt / Plested
The week tugged by at a pace that drove me crazy. The Hill was slowly filling back up as people came back into town from their summer homes and vacations. And with them, came the waves of people in and out of the senator’s office. People looking for handouts, people looking for his support, and people who were just downright awful. People threatening, and cajoling, and leaving behind what they intended to be political time bombs.
Granddad and the senator relied on Dani more than I’d ever expected to defuse the bombs and set things back on track. Whereas, before, we’d sat at our desks, reading reports and writing bill language, now we were hardly ever at our desks. Dani was constantly in and out of Guy’s office as well as the other senators’. I tagged after her, feeling ridiculously more like a notetaker than an influencer. I gritted my teeth, trying not to let my ego take over.
At the Pentagon, I was known―not just because of my father—but because of my own achievements. Because the work I’d done had made a difference to the success of our JSOC missions. It was harder than I had imagined it would be to take twenty steps back and be, once again, the person who had to earn their spot.
Dani, on the other hand, was a force to be reckoned with. She was doggedly persistent, knew exactly what pressure points to hit upon, and rarely left a room without getting what she wanted. She was professional and respected wherever she went. She reminded me of Téa Leoni in Madam Secretary. I would never want to be on Dani’s wrong side when it came to politics.
On Thursday, we entered Senator Fenway’s office to leave talking points on the Matherton’s gun bill. The senator’s secretary smiled at Dani as she made her way into his office without stopping. The senator was on the phone but smiled once he saw us, waving to come in. I think Dani would have approached regardless.
He hung up and came around the desk.
“Dani. Nice to see you. What has Guy got you pitching today?”
“Don’t even start, Senator. You know perfectly well I’m dropping off the talking points on the gun bill.”
“Just dropping off? Maybe we should discuss it over drinks,” he said, and the way he took in my sister from head to toe had me clenching my fists.
“I’m sure Abigail will want you home long before I’m ready to leave the building,” Dani smoothly deflected him, handing him the notes we’d brought with us.
“Abigail won’t be back in D.C. for another week,” he said, and I swore his fingers held onto her wrist way longer than necessary. I cleared my throat, and he looked toward me as if seeing me for the first time.
I wasn’t naïve. I knew there were plenty of power-hungry, whore-mongering politicians in D.C. I just hadn’t paid attention to which ones were which. I’d been focused, instead, on wanting to change it all, and now it felt ridiculous and childish. Exactly the emotions I’d started to feel on Eli’s beach in Rockport. Had I really never thought further past my goals than an eight-year-old’s determination to “be the difference we wanted in the world”? I thought of my journal at home, full of aspirations and very little reality. My disgust with myself and the man in front of me continued to bloom when he spoke with his own, barely veiled, derision.
“Who’s your shadow?” he asked Dani.
“This is my brother, Macauley. He’s come over from the Pentagon to work for Guy.”
The senator reached out a hand, and I shook it, even though I had a feeling I was going to need to dump it into a bottle of sanitizer after I left the room.
“What did you do at the Pentagon, Mac
auley?”
“Can’t really talk about it,” I answered with a shrug.
His eyes narrowed, and he looked back at Dani, fake smile disappearing. “Tell Guy if he wants my spot on the Intelligence Committee, he’ll have to have me shot and hanged first.”
Dani sighed. “You know that isn’t what this is about.”
“Do I?” He waved the notes Dani had handed him. “Gun bill. Pentagon spies. What the hell is next?”
I stepped between Dani and the man, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up for the first time in ages. Dani placed a hand on my arm, stopping me before I said something I shouldn’t.
“You don’t have anything to worry about from Mac or Guy unless you’re the representative from the state of Delaware, because Mac’s the only one gunning for anyone’s spot,” she said, heading toward the door, and I followed.
Senator Fenway barked out a laugh. “A politician, huh? I’ll make sure Lester Coats knows he’s coming.”
We didn’t respond as we left. I fought every instinct that told me to go back inside and give the man a black eye. We were twenty steps down the hallway before I breathed a word. “What the hell, Dani?”
She shrugged. “While Guy Matherton is one of the good ones, Todd Fenway is one of the sleaze buckets.”
“He hits on you like that all the time?”
“Please. That was nothing.”
My blood boiled further, but I was also pissed at more than just Senator Sleaze. “And Granddad just sends you to meet with him anyway?” I asked.
Dani stopped short, turning to look at me with her hand on her hip. “Granddad has more important things to worry about than whether some scumbag is hitting on me. Don’t you dare say anything. I’ve taken care of myself for nine years without you here. I can certainly take care of myself now.”
She kept going, and I dogged after her. “Shit. I didn’t mean anything by it, Dani. You’re fricking incredible. I mean that. But why doesn’t anybody do anything about it?”
“Like what? Tell his wife he sleeps with the staffers? You don’t think she knows that?”
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed out.
But inside, I was freaking out. Not only because of Dani and the situations my sister must have been in over the years that I’d never once heard about, but because I wasn’t sure I could be in the same room with those kinds of men and not end up punching someone. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do any of what Dani did with grace and ferocity. It had me wondering if maybe Dani should run for office, and I should be her campaign manager.
♫ ♫ ♫
By the time Friday finally hit, I was ready to forget everything I’d seen and heard all week. The dog-and-pony shows, the “What’s in it for me?” discussions, and especially, the grubby men who hit on my sister. The number of those had grown substantially as the week went on. In fact, they’d outnumbered the ones that I put in Matherton’s “good guy” category by about nine to one. Dani had ignored every single one of their looks and backhanded comments, simply going in for the kill every time she needed to. She knew exactly when to push and when to back off, and I continued to be amazed by her.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I would have Georgie on my arm that night, I would have bailed out on the embassy reception so fast that I wouldn’t have left any contrails behind. But Dani had plans for me that involved discussing a human rights bill with an embassy aide, and continuing the gun legislation discussion with another of Senator Fenway’s schmucks after I’d made her promise she wouldn’t confront Fenway himself.
She’d snorted, saying there was nothing to worry about when she had Russell with her. But somehow, I couldn’t imagine Russell, who’d barely spoken ten words to Dani in my presence, standing up for her to anyone.
Which was what I was thinking when I opened the door to let him into our apartment while I waited for Dani and Georgie, who were getting ready in Dani’s room. All I’d done was shower, shave, and put on the tux that had been delivered by courier that afternoon. The rented tux tugged at my shoulders a bit too snugly, but it would do for the night as long as I didn’t do any calisthenics.
Russell looked—surprisingly—good in his own black tux that certainly wasn’t a rental. It looked like it had been made to fit him and accented the muscles I hadn’t known he had until that moment. He’d left his glasses behind, or maybe he was wearing contacts, which only made me wonder what color contacts Georgie would have in when she emerged from Dani’s room.
“Russell,” I said as I let him in.
He eyed me just as I eyed him. “Tantini’s?” he asked, referring to my tux.
I nodded.
“Dani said I should give you the name of my tailor so you can have your own made. You’ll need one, at a minimum.”
He handed me a card, and I took it, setting it on the counter. I was just going to give him my two cents on what I was now considering his protection duty when I heard the clatter of heels on the wood floor and heard his intake of breath. I turned to see Dani coming toward us.
She was in a sapphire-colored dress that suited her blue eyes and dark hair. She looked beautiful with her hair down in soft curls and diamonds around her neck that I recognized as having belonged to our grandmother.
“You look stunning,” Russell said, lifting her hand to his lips, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to strangle him or slap him on the back for being a gentleman with my sister.
“You do look pretty spiffy, Gooberpants,” I teased. She smacked me across the chest with her handbag.
She turned to Russell. “Drink?”
He nodded, and Dani went to the makeshift bar we had in the corner of the room. She poured what looked like two whiskeys. Dani, the whiskey drinker. My sister continued to surprise me.
“Where’s Georgie?” I asked, looking down at the watch my grandfather had given me the day I’d graduated from the Navy’s Officer Candidate School.
“Putting on her dress,” Dani responded.
My whole body tensed at the thought of Georgie in her bra and underwear in Dani’s room. In the stiletto heels I’d seen in the box on the coffee table earlier today. It was too much to even process before she was there, in person, coming toward me and making me forget every single thought I’d had in my head all week.
Georgie was in a dark-green dress that was so deep a shade of green it barely escaped being black, and I knew, before she was even close enough for me to see, that her contacts would be green, too. Maybe the apple-green ones I’d first seen her in this summer at Eli’s. As she moved closer, her whole body swayed beneath the dress, making me think of every curve that was there. The sleeves sat just off her shoulders and led to a neckline that swooped across her smooth skin, caressing her breasts, while the rest molded to her, showing off every gorgeous hill and valley. Her dark hair was twisted into a sleek and gorgeous updo, with her white streak barely showing.
All I could think was, “Holy hell.” And I guess I’d whispered it out loud, because Dani laughed as she came to stand next to me, watching Georgie come down the hall.
When Georgie got close enough, I could see her eyes were green, but they weren’t the apple green of her contacts. They were the pale, jade green that was her real eye coloring. The way she rarely wore them, and the way that always stunned the breath from me when she did. Maybe because they were really her. Like she’d been the day on the boat when I’d first kissed her. And suddenly, I knew there was no way I was getting out of this night without kissing her. No way that I could just say goodnight when the evening chimed midnight, and we were supposed to scurry back to our real lives.
I held out my arm, and she took it with a gentle smile. “You clean up pretty good, Mac-Macauley.”
“That I do.”
“You’re such a conceited jerk,” Dani said, and Georgie smiled.
Dani’s phone buzzed. “The limo is here.”
“You rented a limo?” Georgie asked.
> “Of course. No one can show up at a black-tie affair in a Mini Cooper. Maybe if you had a two-hundred-thousand-dollar Jaguar, you could get away with showing up in your own car, but otherwise, you show up in a limo.”
“I feel like I have more to learn about D.C. than I do about the law,” Georgie commented as we headed down the hallway for the elevator.
We got in, and Georgie nudged my arm. I looked down into her soft-green eyes and barely held myself back from kissing her right then and there—Dani and her date be damned. Georgie inclined her head toward Russell, and I brought myself back to reality instead of the dream of Georgie.
“Sorry. Georgie, this is Russell Cooper. Russell, Georgie.”
They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Russell said.
“You have?” Georgie and I both said at the same time, looking at Dani.
Dani didn’t even blush, but it made me realize that she was way more into Russell than she’d ever let on. I couldn’t wait to tease her about it once we were alone.
“Dani says you’re working with Theresa Sedgewick on her immigration case,” Russell said.
“I am. She’s pretty impressive.”
“She was my favorite professor at Georgetown.”
“You have a law degree?” Georgie asked.
He nodded.
“Russell has three bachelor’s, two master’s, and a PhD, in addition to having passed the bar,” Dani said, looking into her bag as if she didn’t have a care in the world. But I’d figured it out. Dani’s nonchalance was her tell. She cared a lot about this man, and I could only hope he knew how to defend her.
“Wow,” Georgie said next to me.
We stepped out of the elevator and into the limo, and I wondered if Georgie was truly impressed with his credentials. I wondered if she was the type of woman to go for an academic versus a military man. She was sexy and smart, and I bet she had men hanging on her every word no matter where she was, but I hadn’t really thought about what her type might be before now. I guess I’d only thought about how she was my type.