by Amelia Wilde
“I’ll die without you.” Everest flops down dramatically on the sofa, keeping her wine glass upright.
“You’re going to be fine. Don’t you start your new job on Monday?” It’s Saturday. Tomorrow, I leave for New York City. Graham is already there, overseeing the finishing touches on the property of his we’ll be living in.
Together.
I’m going to be living in a billionaire’s penthouse because the President of the United States needs me to.
I shake my head to clear it of that little obsession.
“Tuesday.” She doesn’t raise her head from the throw pillow. “I don’t know why it’s not Monday. There’s no holiday. But what does it matter?” She shrugs one shoulder, but can’t keep the smile off her face. “This is my life now. A cold, lonely existence without you, rattling around this apartment like a ghost from the—”
I give her a halfhearted slap on the shoulder. “Jesus, Evie. You’re killing me.”
She sits up and pauses the movie we’ve been watching on Netflix. Legally Blonde is our guilty pleasure. “Bellamy.” Her tone shifts abruptly, and I sigh. “Do not sigh at me. This is important.”
“We’ve been through this—”
“Are you sure?”
“About which thing?”
She faces me head-on, tucking her feet beneath her. “About this frankly insane plan to move to New York City with your whirlwind boyfriend.”
Guilt flashes through my chest like a thunderstorm. There are three people on the planet who know my relationship with Graham isn’t real, and Everest isn’t one of them. It kills me that I can’t tell her, but there’s too much risk.
It would feel like a betrayal to Graham.
“I’m sure, Evie. The job market here—” I wave a hand in the air, as if the job market is the sum total of the reasons I’m hightailing it out of town with only two weeks’ notice. “Nobody wants to hire me here.”
“That’s not true.” Her voice is fiery, and she gestures toward me with her wine hand, making the red slosh in the glass. “You are gorgeous. You are brilliant. You just haven’t applied at the right firm yet.”
Because I am wine-drunk and already missing her, I laugh. “I’ve had ten interviews.”
“What if the eleventh one’s the charm?”
“Then it’ll have to be in New York City.” I drain the rest of my glass, the pleasant heat spreading outward from the center of my belly. “That wouldn’t be so bad. Somewhere high-profile, in a city like that? It would only take me a few years.”
Everest’s voice is soft. “Your plan?”
“Yeah.”
She shifts on the couch, propping one elbow on the back. “Have you told him yet?”
“Graham?”
“No.”
There’s a silence into which any other friend would say, “you have to tell him” or “she’s your mother” or “isn’t this the kind of thing a partner should know?” But Evie is my best friend in the world, and she knows better than that. It’s a comfortable silence, even though the memories flashing through my head are not fucking comfortable.
“What are we going to do?” Evie stands up from the couch, tone brisk, and bends her knees a few times on the plush rug we found at a Costco in her hometown. “We can’t just sit here and watch movies and drink wine all night. It’s your last night.”
“Don’t say it like that. It’s so morbid.” I frown at her. “Anyway, my wine is empty.” I don’t want to tell her that this might not be my last night in our apartment after all. I can’t tell her.
“We should leave.”
“We should stay.”
“You don’t want to get fancied up and go out? One last time?”
“For God’s sake, Evie, this is not the last time we’re going to have fun together. Are you kidding? There’s—” A lump sticks in my throat and I swallow it down. “The city is so close. You have to visit me on the weekends. And then there’ll be the bachelorette party—”
Evie lets out a whoop. “How did I forget about the bachelorette party? God, I’m going to have to get my shit together if I’m going to plan a good one.”
I laugh out loud. “I’m so blessed to have you as my maid of honor.”
She waves a hand in the air. “Let’s dispense with the formalities. You don’t have to beg me on bended knee, or anything like that—”
“Uh, I would never.”
“I’m saying you don’t have to.” It’s her turn to laugh, her voice velvet around the wine, and my heart aches. I’m going to miss living with Everest. We’ve had a good thing going since the last year of undergrad.
I’m going to miss living with her, and there’s the constant pressure of being so close to Graham. He promised me separate rooms. Separate master suites, even. But he’ll be in the apartment all night and whenever he has days off, breathing the same air, taking off his suit jacket, rolling up his sleeves.
“You’ve gone red,” breaks in Evie. “What are you thinking about? Lover boy?”
“Don’t call him that. And yes.”
The honesty comes easy with her.
“What do you think you’ll do the first night in the house?”
“Sleep,” I tell her coyly.
“You are the worst.” Evie paces toward the front door.
“I’m the best, and you love me. Don’t forget, I’m paying the rent for the rest of the year, just so you can keep my room as a shrine.” Technically, Graham is paying the rent, but that’s another kindness I’d rather not think about.
Evie grins, looking down into her wine glass. “Refill?”
“Yes.”
“Movie?”
“Yes.”
“Compromise—we order in Chinese.”
“I wasn’t going to go out anyway, but you win. We’ll get Chinese.”
Evie gets a running start on the way back to the couch and bounces once before she connects, somehow digging her phone out of the cushion at the same time. “Your treat, right? You are the one leaving me behind.”
17
Graham
Bellamy steps across the threshold of the townhouse and suddenly, I’m on fucking tenterhooks, my skin tingling at the sight of her.
The last of the contractors left an hour ago. She was the one who walked through the penthouse with a cleaning cloth, making sure everything is gleaming. New paint and fresh carpet scents waft through the air. It could be a hotel, a movie set—but when Bellamy walks inside, it all feels real.
We’ve been apart for ten days. That’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing her since all of this started.
She looks into the massive living room and then to the kitchen, then back to the hallway that leads to the master suites. It took quite a bit of late-night planning to build two matching suites in that wing, but I only hired the best.
The best wasn’t good enough for her.
I know it the moment I see her standing at the edge of the foyer, a big tote bag over one shoulder and an oversized rolling suitcase behind her. All the new paint in the world, all the polished wooden surfaces of my furniture, can’t compete with her.
“Wow. This place is massive.” She looks at me with a little smile, hesitation in her big gray eyes. It wasn’t a long flight, but it seems to weigh on her. “No wonder you never called.”
I move closer. “You think the cell service is bad in a place this big?”
Something strange happens—the closer I get to Bellamy, the more she leans toward me. I can’t tell if she’s doing it on purpose or not. “It can’t be good.” Her eyes travel up over the high ceilings and back down to the brand-new carpet. “Not with all those waves ricocheting off the walls, and all that.” She shrugs. “You had a good excuse.”
I laugh out loud, the floor shifting beneath me. “Tell me, sweetness, are you actually upset that I didn’t call?”
“No.” Bellamy’s voice is light and casual, but her eyes dart to the side. She’s lying.
“You did not just lie to
me.”
She reddens. “I did not. I don’t care that you didn’t call.” Bellamy takes a step closer, the wheels of her suitcase dragging on the carpet.
I hold up a hand. “You don’t have to.”
“I don’t have to what?”
“Come close,” I remind her. “There are no cameras here. You wouldn’t believe how much I spend on security to keep those vultures away.”
Bellamy stops in her tracks. Swallows hard. “Okay.”
“Are you all right?” I wasn’t entirely prepared for an emotional scene in the foyer, but with a surging horror, I recognize the signs. Bellamy’s chin quivers. Her eyes shine with tears—oh, my God, tears. She doesn’t want to be here. I take another step closer. I can’t help myself. “Listen—this is optional. We can call this off at any time.” It’s one of the biggest lies I’ve ever told. She could call it off, but I can’t. Not after that kiss.
She straightens her back and takes a steadying breath. “It’s not that.”
“What is it?”
“I’m just tired.” Tired seems to encompass the weight of the world for Bellamy. The weight of three years of law school. The weight of working a thankless job in a coffee shop, only to have her life upended by my totally unnecessary presence. The way we always, always, have to perform for the press, whenever we visit so much as the sidewalk in front of the building. “And I miss my friends.”
Then, to my utter shock, she bursts into tears.
I’ve never seen Bellamy cry like this.
I’ve seen tears come to her eyes, of course—but she lets go of the handle of her rolling suitcase and drops her head into her hands.
I have to touch her.
I can’t leave her standing like that.
For once, I don’t think about how it’ll look, how this move will lead to the next move will lead to the next press release.
I gather her into my arms and pull her close.
Christ, it feels good.
She’s lithe and gorgeous and solid against me, her shoulders shaking, and I feel invincible. I feel like I’m a hundred feet tall. I breathe in the scent of her shampoo, and every inch of me lights up at what that means—she’s close enough for me to take her into my lungs.
“It’s all right,” I tell her, because it’s all I can think of to say. “This won’t be forever. It won’t even be for very long.”
“Fuck that,” Bellamy says miserably against my chest, and my gut goes cold.
“What?”
She takes a big breath and steps back, and I see the wall come back up around her, brick by brick, until it reaches her face. Bellamy settles into a neutral expression, like you’d wear in a courtroom, and you’d never know she’d been crying, except for the redness in her eyes. “Nothing. Just—the moving has me shaken up.” She laughs. “It’s so stupid. We’re not even very far from the District.”
My head reels, still wrapped around that vulnerable fuck that. She must’ve meant something else. “We can have visitors.” I pat her on the shoulder, just so I can touch her. “You’ll have to say with me if we do that.”
“Stay with you?” She wipes one last errant tear away from the corner of her eye. “I am staying with you.”
“We can’t be in separate rooms, sweetness.” I keep it light, keep it a joke, but damn, if I don’t want her in my bedroom right now. The fact of her standing in the foyer, fully clothed, is driving me crazy. Even more so than in D.C. “That would blow our cover.”
She widens her eyes, looking serious. “We can’t have that.”
“No.”
The moment crackles between us, and then Bellamy seems to deflate. “It’s all right. I’m not planning on having any visitors. Not anytime soon.”
“I said we could have visitors. I’ll invite my own friends any time I please.”
Her face brightens, confusion setting in. Am I baiting her? Yes. Yes, I am.
“Well, until then...” Bellamy shrugs, a lightness to her movement. “Will you show me my new room?”
18
Bellamy
Patricia Howitzer, the brand-new host of The Today Show, grins into Camera One. “We have a little surprise for our viewers this morning. Along with the First Brother and his gorgeous fiancée, the mother of the groom will be joining us.”
A screen off to the side of the camera lights up so we can see her, beamed in from her living room. Graham’s mother.
He tenses beside me, his hand going rigid in mine.
We’ve been killing it for the last seven minutes, answering all sorts of cutesy questions about the wedding, the way we met—ha, ha, wasn’t that all just a tremendous misunderstanding—and our future life plans. I’d relaxed, my hand in his. We were almost home free.
“Mrs. Blackpool, thank you for joining us.” Patricia is effusive. “Tell us—what’s the most exciting thing about your son’s engagement?”
Olivia Blackpool is all made up for the occasion, face shining. “The fact that there’s a wedding at all!”
Patricia laughs along with her.
“Honestly, we’d hoped for a presidential wedding, but this is the next best thing.”
I don’t have to look at Graham to know he’s shutting down. I can feel it through our joined hands.
“Who knows, Mother? Maybe you’ll still get your wish.”
“We’re all very excited,” continues Olivia, as if she didn’t hear him. “And his brother will be there, overseeing it all.”
“So, you’d say the President is involved in the planning?” Patricia grins like this is the most exciting thing in the world. “That’s quite unusual.”
“It’s not unusual in the Blackpool family.” Graham’s voice is flat.
“We all pitch in whenever there’s a family event,” echoes Olivia. “But, naturally, I’m bearing the brunt of the planning.”
Patricia doesn’t look at me, but I can feel her attention shift. Please. Please don’t ask about my mother. Please.
She doesn’t. Either somebody on the advance team already knows or they don’t care because Olivia Blackpool is a bigger get.
“One more question for you, Mrs. Blackpool. Can you sleep at night? I’d be up constantly, just from the excitement!”
Olivia laughs and laughs. Too long for TV. “Oh, I sleep like a baby. But if you must know, I spend all my waking hours on it. Someone has to keep Graham on the straight and narrow.”
He’s boiling, raging.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, close to his ear so the mics can’t pick it up.
“Don’t say that bullshit to me,” he hisses.
“Graham, what the—”
“—and a big thank you to the happy couple for joining us!”
I beam at Patricia Howitzer, but there’s a slight lift to her eyebrows that tells me she saw everything. She can still see Graham’s face. He doesn’t look happy. He looks irate.
Back in the green room, I let him have it. What a disaster. Brian’ll be calling soon, letting us know that President Blackpool isn’t happy, that we have to do better than this.
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Like what? A grown man who doesn’t want his mother butting in on every single thing he ever does?”
“Whatever happened to a good performance? Doesn’t that count for anything anymore? We’re supposed to be planning a wedding, not fighting on national TV.”
He gets a text message. It’s from Brian. The president is worried that the tension on television might direct everything back to the White House.
“What the hell is he so worried about? What’s he doing?”
“He’s running the country.”
“That’s not it. What is he really doing? Nobody with nothing to hide would be this obsessed with his little brother’s fake wedding.”
“Do you want it to be fake?” His gaze is hot enough to scorch. “Do you really want these people to follow us everywhere we go across the fucking planet? We’re in a different city, and they’re still
trying to control every move.”
“Oh, stop. They can’t control your every move, and you know it. You just showed them that on national television. At my expense, you asshole.”
He scoffs. “You’ll never understand.”
I’m tired. I miss my friends. I want this to be better. He is killing me. “You’ll never let me understand. You’re cryptic and withholding and—”
“How else am I supposed to be?” He’s on the verge of laughing, a cruel, hard laugh. “You want me to pour my heart out to you? You want me to act like all this isn’t some twisted game?” He’s losing it, and he has no filter, and the words keep tumbling out of his mouth, a deluge of rage and hurt. “Why would I tell you anything? You’re just another bit player.” His gorgeous mouth twists into a scowl. “You’re an extra.”
I catch his hurt in my hands and throw it back to him. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me about it?” My chest is incandescent with pain; inexplicable, inexcusable, stupid pain. “I’m the only one who know how it feels. I’m the same as you.” Tears prick the corners of my eyes and I blink them away. “I’m the one sitting across from you at these stupid interviews, pretending like I want to be living this lie.”
“Then don’t do it, Bellamy. Don’t live the lie. Walk away. Go back to your little career, with your little—”
“Don’t you dare.” My voice is a low growl. “Don’t you dare talk about my life like that. You have no idea what it’s like to work for something and have it ripped away, all because you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Oh, don’t I?” Graham goes deadly quiet. Dangerous. “I’ve always been in the wrong place at the wrong time, sweetness. You think I lived some charmed life growing up? I made my own life for myself.”
“How am I supposed to know that? We have to live together, but you don’t talk to me, you don’t tell me anything about yourself—”
“There’s nothing to know. There’s nothing anyone needs to know.” Graham laughs, and it’s harsh, like sandpaper, like broken cement. “What are you going to do with that information? File it away for when this is all over, and it’s been nothing but a colossal waste of time?”