by Amelia Wilde
I try to picture Bellamy on this street—a younger version, wild and carefree—but it’s a tough sell, even in my imagination. Something about the way her mother speaks to her...
Andrew must have an opinion on this. He must have reviewed Bellamy’s Secret Service file, which would have all the information about her mother, naturally. But he hasn’t said a thing. I mull it over while I walk to the end of the block and back. He must know, and he must not care. Once, Bellamy wanted to know what he was hiding, and I brushed it off. Andrew, with secrets? The one he didn’t tell me in the Oval has to be political, not personal.
It has to be.
The front door of Bellamy’s former home slams, and she comes down the steps of the porch with a practiced movement. I see it—I see her here, the way she must have been. But I also see that she doesn’t fit here either. Her movements are too smooth, too refined. She’s too focused to thrive in a place like this.
She raises her eyes to mine and, with a shock, I register the rest—pain.
Bellamy hustles toward the car and Harold, the driver, scrambles to come around the side and open the door for her. “It was a mistake to come here,” she says, as Hal shuts the door behind me. I want her close, I want her safe. She trembles in my arms as we pull away from the curb. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“It was obviously important to you.” There’s only so much you can say about another person’s mother. Bellamy stares out the window. “So maybe it wasn’t a mistake.”
“It was.” She takes my hand in hers. Bellamy’s hands are freezing, despite being in the warm house.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I should have known.” She laughs, a bitter edge to the sound. “You know, I always thought my dad was the worst. He walked out on both of us. He made it hard to—” She shrugs. “He made it hard to trust people after that. But he destroyed my mother. Destroyed her.”
“She didn’t seem like that to me.” She was as cold as ice.
“She wasn’t like that before,” Bellamy says, a little wistful. “She was...warmer. She still had that pathological insistence on being truthful, but she didn’t work so hard to say that nothing mattered.”
“That’s not what she meant, I’m sure of it.” I want to tease her—so that’s where she gets her obsession with accuracy from—but Bellamy’s heart is raw and beating in front of me. I’d be a complete prick to throw a punch.
“She did. She even said, 'the wedding doesn’t matter all that much to me.’” Her eyes fill with tears. “Jesus. I don’t know why I’m upset. She can’t care about the wedding. She can’t even come, so it’s best if she’s not hurt.”
I have no solution, so I hold her closer. “What else did she say?” I want it all on the table now.
“She said...” Bellamy looks at the ceiling of the car. “'Why would you risk it all on a man? Don’t you see what that gets you?’” Then she turns her face to the window.
She doesn’t say, Maybe she was right.
28
Bellamy
Graham looks from one plate to another, from filet mignon to the most tender prime rib on the planet. “We should offer them both. I’d say they’re about equal, where flavor is concerned.”
I sit up straight at our little table in the private tasting room off one of New York’s most exclusive restaurants. We haven’t decided on a venue, but at any rate, this chef is going to be flown in with his staff. There can be nothing less for Graham Blackpool.
As for me, I need more room in my stomach. The more I focus on engaging my abs, the better I can fight against the unease that’s kept me off-balance since we went to Lakewood.
I never should have gone home like that.
One sentence, and my mother reminded me why men are never to be trusted.
It’s so complex with her that it makes my stomach churn. I love her, and fear her, and want to impress her, and want to be free of her. Even though I am free of her. No—not her, not the fact of my mother entirely. Only the icy sadness, the resignation, that follows her like a cloud. If I can prevent that from happening to even one person, I’ll have done well.
But there’s something else.
“It’s delicious. This is the best food I’ve ever had.” It’s no exaggeration. I’m full, but I take another bite of the pork tenderloin anyway, just to feel it melt on my tongue.
Graham’s lightning-storm eyes follow the silver path of my fork from lips to plate. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying it.”
“I’m enjoying it.” I tip my head back and close my eyes, the cool air of the room brushing against my exposed throat. “Oh, God, I’m enjoying it.” Funny. I can be funny, lighthearted. I can banish this vertigo from beneath my feet and take back my time with him.
“Too far,” he growls. “I might be forced to bend you over this table.”
“That would be awful.” I raise my head and look him in the eye. “I don’t know if you could bear to do it...”
He quirks one eyebrow. “Who are you, and what have you done with Bellamy?”
Heat storms my cheeks like an army laying waste to a shining city. “Being the version of me who doesn’t have a problem with any of this.”
“The food?” He looks back down at our plates, which have been reduced to delicious scraps. There is none of the beautiful presentation here; only the raw ingredients, scattered across the white expanse of the plates. “Is there an adjustment we should make to the seasoning? The chef would accommodate—”
“The food is perfect.”
“I chose this place with you in mind.” I’m sure Graham does a lot with me in mind. The way I look, reflected in those eyes of his, is the sexiest thing I’ve ever encountered.
“But not the wedding.”
He puts his fork down and takes my hand in his. “I haven’t had more details on what their little accelerated schedule means. I’m assuming the summer.”
My heart pounds at the sound of it. “That’s so soon.”
“It’s not a real wedding, sweetness.”
The dam across my heart breaks at the words and all the pent-up emotion from visiting my mother comes spilling out; a deluge so powerful, I put my hand to my chest. My stomach does a sickening flop.
Graham bends his head toward mine, his voice low and urgent. “Are you all right? Are you sick?”
I look into his eyes—his mesmerizing, pain-streaked eyes—and center myself there. “I know what we agreed to.” It’s a fight to keep my voice even and steady. “I know we agreed to do this. But I want—” A painful lump rises into my throat. I want all of this to be different. Different on another level. I want it to be grounded in reality. “I want a real wedding. A wedding that we plan. That we’re in charge of.” There’s a certain terror in telling him this, and it strikes me like the ringing of a bell. “I mean—if you don’t want a real wedding, to me, then I understand that. But I don’t know if I can—”
“Bellamy.” His voice is half-command, half-comfort. “Take a breath.”
I do.
“This is real.” He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. It’s done up in shining curls, because we planned ahead for the media attention. There are photographers outside right now, waiting to hear what we think of this restaurant. It’s all been orchestrated, down to the optimum time for arrival. Down to the way Graham holds my hand, the way he kisses my knuckles, the way he smiles down at me while we enter buildings. “We’re making it real. We agreed on this...performance, but we also agreed on brutal honesty.”
“We did.” The lump in my throat traps my voice in a whisper. “But I know that men change their minds. I know that people—”
“Get your mother out of your head.” Now he is commanding, and it sends a shiver down my spine and a jolt between my legs. “I don’t know what that woman was thinking, putting doubt in your mind.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him. But I’ve seen what angry men can do, and I know how pain can twist and warp a
man’s mind until anger is all he has left. My mother’s eyes are burned into my memory, and no matter how Graham tells me to put her out of my mind, she’s always there.
She’s my mother.
“I want to choose for ourselves.” I sound so small and pathetic.
“Look at me.”
I look.
Graham’s face is wide open, and I see every bit of him etched there. No games. Only him. It’s rare for him to take down all of his shields like this, but he’s done it for me.
“I’ll talk to my brother. I’ll leave right now, if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t—”
A buzzing phone interrupts us. It’s my phone, in my purse.
“Hang on. I thought I silenced that—” I pull it out to end the call, and catch a glimpse of the number. “Oh, my God. It’s one of the firms I applied to.” Excitement rolls over me in waves. “Can I—do you mind?”
Graham gives me a half-smile and waves his permission.
It’s a short call, the words of the secretary on the other end blending together, and when I hang up, I’m breathless.
“An interview,” I tell him over the wreckage of what our wedding might be, if we can’t choose it ourselves. “Tomorrow.”
He kisses me.
“Congratulations, sweetness.” The chef comes into the room and Graham straightens up. “Tomorrow, I’ll visit the White House, and you’ll have your interview. We’ll conquer it all, my queen.”
29
Graham
“It’s bad manners to send your lackeys to my house to deliver your messages.” I stand on the carpet in the Oval Office, a foot away from the Resolute Desk.
Andrew looks up from the sheaf of papers he’s holding, toward where his advisers are still filing out the door. “Don’t embarrass me,” he says mildly, and glances back down at his papers.
“Don’t embarrass me, Mr. President.”
The door clicks shut behind the last of his people and we’re alone in the heavy silence of the office. No other room on the planet bears a silence like this. It’s fucking creepy.
“I sent Brian because it was essential the message got through.”
“I have a phone. You’ve used it before.”
My brother puts down the stack of papers and crosses his arms. “It was important.”
“Are you going to tell me why? I’d love to know what this is all about.” I put my hands in my pockets and cock my head to the side, like we’re standing on the lawn at a summer dinner party. “If you’re sending people to threaten me with imprisonment.”
Andrew scoffs. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I was on my way out of town.”
“I needed you in town, drawing media attention.”
“You know...” I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “I could have drawn plenty of media attention without an orchestrated proposal. In fact, I’ve become very good at it over the course of my life.”
“Positive media attention.” Andrew lets irritation creep into his voice. “Why did you come here, Graham? I’m sure Mr. Kelting has been in contact about—”
“About appearances? Yes. About this new acceleration everyone is all too happy to throw in my face? No.” Bellamy’s expression at the food tasting is stuck in my mind. I can hardly describe the hope in her face when I said I’d try to get the wedding pushed back. Last night, she was full of ideas about how to get it postponed entirely. “Then our real engagement could happen on our timeline.” She’d blushed. “If you still want that.” I showed her how much I wanted her, with my tongue between her legs.
“Yeah.” Andrew’s tone is clipped. “It’s going to have to be next month.”
“Next month? As in, April?”
“April. Yes. I need the bulk of the planning to happen in the next five weeks. And I need it to be public.”
The shadow of one of Andrew’s Secret Service agents blocks the sun coming in from the Rose Garden. I take a breath. I want to punch him in his smug, entitled face, but I keep my hands in my pockets.
“That’s not going to work for us.”
Andrew’s eyebrows jump. “Us?”
“It’s not going to work for me, or for Bellamy.” Every syllable of her name rolls off my lips with the kind of precision she’d be proud of. “We’ll continue with the false engagement, but we’re going to postpone the wedding—”
“No.”
“—until a date of our choosing.”
“That’s not an option.”
I don’t rise to the bait. “It’s your only option, from where I stand.”
Andrew puts his fingers to his chin and considers me. “Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with?”
I give him a slow nod. “You’re not a monarch, Andrew. You can’t force people into indentured servitude because you think that’s the best way to control the news cycle. What about your press secretary?”
“My press secretary is doing his job. Why can’t you do yours?”
“Which job are you talking about? Managing the growth of the political incubator you keep trying to destroy, or steering my other international business ventures to unprecedented success? Those jobs?” I laugh in Andrew’s face. “I wouldn’t exactly call them jobs. That makes it sound like I have a boss. But if that’s the terminology you can understand—”
“Your responsibility then. Why can’t you shoulder the responsibility of being in this family?” Andrew’s hand clenches into a fist, and he brings it down lightly on the surface of the desk. His face turns red, one inch at a time, as he stares into my eyes. “I need you to do this for me. As my brother. If you could understand—”
“Let me understand then.” The anger is a storm surge and I grit my teeth to keep it at bay. “Tell me. What’s your Achilles’ heel? What’s making you so weak that you can’t do your own job without forcing me into a wedding that my girlfriend doesn’t want?”
Fuck. One false move and Andrew is brought up short. “Your girlfriend?”
“My fiancée.” I parry, to try and bring the attention back to the real matter at hand, but Andrew is a bulldog. He doesn’t let it go.
“You said girlfriend. You’re in a relationship with this woman?”
Too late to back down now. “Yes. Bellamy and I are in a relationship.”
Andrew laughs. “You know you can’t do that.”
I look around the room, in an exaggerated search. “Am I still living in a free country?”
“Her mother committed manslaughter.”
“A fact that you’ve conveniently kept out of the press.”
“It’s a matter of public record, Graham.” He’s threatening me.
“Oh, I see. You’re biding your time.” Might as well think out loud. “No, because that would be negative...” I’m wrong. Andrew is one step ahead of me. “You’re going to use it for your own benefit.”
His lips twitch, hinting at satisfaction.
“You’re an unbelievable bastard.”
“I’m doing it for everyone’s good. You’ll see.”
I approach the desk and spread my fingers out on the surface. “Why don’t you tell me now? Since you’re being a demanding prick, the least you could do is pay for your favor in information.”
Andrew picks up the papers from his desk. “It’s classified.”
“Is this about that country you’re failing to manage? Bahara?” His eyes flick up to mine. “Thought so. You know, Andrew, I have money, and I have people, and some of them are inside the Beltway. If you’re going to be a withholding animal, then two can play that game.”
He pales.
“Don’t fuck with me.” His tone is so deadly I straighten up. “Do not fuck with me, Graham. All the money in the world won’t save you if you fuck with me.”
I turn to leave without another word.
He can’t let me go without one parting shot. “I’ll look for my wedding invitation in the mail.”
30
Bellamy
This is it.
I can feel it—this is the one.
I step out of the car and thank Graham’s second driver, a man named Yves, who’s on call whenever Graham is at his office or arguing with his brother in D.C. It’s uncharacteristically warm for March, so I’ve worn my favorite coat. It’s a trench that makes me look a million feet tall, a fiery conquering lawyer. Beneath that, a freshly-tailored suit. Graham called in a favor from his man in New York City.
This has been a morning out of a movie montage. I left the tailors wearing my new suit, and headed straight for the salon. My hair is gleaming, perfect, and this firm?
Hot damn.
This firm is it.
It’s a courthouse in miniature form. White brick. It even has two columns set into the stonework on either side of the massive front entrance. It all sweeps over me, in a kind of impossible deja vu, how I’ll walk from this curb into those doors, over and over, in all kinds of light, in the rain, the snow, the sun—
I’ll need a chic umbrella for the spring and summer and fall. And I’ll miss Everest like hell, but at least we’ll be able to trade job stories over drinks when she visits the city.
Because I’ll probably stay here with Graham.
The thought makes me lightheaded.
“No.” A guy going past on the sidewalk gives me a look. I lift my chin, take in the glory of Marlin & Bower, and stride toward the door, fingers tingling with what feels like suppressed magic, but is probably adrenaline.
I bond with the receptionist immediately about the lotion she keeps on her desk, and float into the interview on a cloud of confidence as she takes my coat.
There are two people waiting in the meeting room, which is more like a private den than a sterile corporate space. Windows pour light onto heavy furniture, a massive table fit for family dinners, and shelves packed tight with neatly arranged law texts.
I am at home.
I’m so busy beaming at the books that I almost miss my window to confidently introduce myself. Almost—but not quite.