by Amelia Wilde
“They’re legit royalty. Alex, tell her what it’s like at the palace.”
He looks at her across the table, and even though it’s totally innocent, even though he is married and one of my oldest friends from this club, his gaze on her skin feels like an invasion. Which is absurd. I tamp that shit down. I’m not committing her to a convent, for God’s sake.
“Changing of the guard,” he says, nodding seriously. “It’s real.”
“Wow.”
“You should visit someday.” He lifts his wine glass in our general direction. “Both of you. All of you.”
“God,” says Jett, already laughing. “We’d level the palace.”
“I have systems in place for that. You could be quarantined to reinforced areas.”
Jax wraps his arm around Cate’s shoulders. “It’s nice to be appropriately valued.”
“Oh?” I say it with such innocence that they believe me for a split second. “What’s that like?”
Laughter rises around the table. “It’s good to have you back, Graham.” Jax raises his glass in another toast. Nobody can stop toasting each other.
Alex follows. “It’s good to be back.”
“To being back,” shouts Jessica, and then there’s another flurry of toasting and laugher, so loud that it separates us from the rest of the club.
That’s why I don’t hear it at first—the murmur.
It’s like the whisper of water leaving the shore before a tsunami, and by the time I recognize it for what it is, it’s too late.
Bellamy turns her head and I follow her gaze.
My Secret Service agents are barreling through the Swan, all coming from different areas in the room, all hustling toward us with a speed that says emergency.
“Up. Stand up.” I tug Bellamy out of her seat.
She wraps her arm around my elbow, as if they might separate us, as if this might be the end of something, forcibly.
“It’s all right,” I tell her.
There’s a silence beginning at our table that ripples outward through the club, a hole in the wall of sound, and only the music from the DJ station covers it.
Jameson gets there first, his hands out, hovering above my jacket like he might have to pull me out of here by my lapels.
“Jameson.”
“You need to come with us, Mr. Blackpool. Both of you.”
His tone is deadly serious, and as much as I want to tell him to fuck off, to leave me be with my friends, I’m not going to get in the way of his job. Not tonight. Not like this.
I follow close behind, Bellamy staying close to my side. Jameson speaks into his earpiece, low and quick, and I can’t make out a single thing except entrance is clear and front isn’t an option.
“What’s going on?”
“Protesters.”
“Protesters? For what?” The hallways at the Swan are conspicuously quiet for protestors. “Why isn’t everyone else getting pulled out?"
“Not just here. All over the country.” Jameson leads us to the side door, and through the window, I can see that they’ve pulled the SUV right to the door. All we have to do is go out this exit and into the back. “Against the president.”
“What? Why?”
Bellamy is stricken. “Is this about us?”
Jameson shakes his head. “Into the back of the SUV.”
I brace for the worst as we push out and hustle Bellamy into the open back door, then jump in beside her. Jameson is last, after me, sitting by the door. “We’re good to go,” he tells the driver—and I do a double-take. Someone from the Secret Service is driving, and my driver is riding shotgun.
We accelerate out of the alley and onto the main street. Bellamy gasps. “Holy shit. Protesters.”
It’s a small crowd, but gaining steam, with signs and chants, outside the Swan.
ACTION IN BAHARA NOW
SAVE THE CHILDREN, SAVE OUR SOULS
“Why here?” Jameson won’t have classified information about what’s going on, but he will understand this.
He looks at me, his gaze hard. “You. They think you’re the way to the president.”
34
Bellamy
“No. We’re not doing that.”
We’ve been summoned to Brian’s West Wing office for an emergency wedding planning meeting, which strikes me as possibly the dumbest thing anyone’s ever done in the history of the world.
Maybe I’m being a little dramatic.
There are no protesters outside the White House, but I still don’t understand why deciding the matter of what to do about my mother is suddenly front and center. I don’t understand why the wedding has been moved up, yet again, until the whole thing is being shoved down our throats without so much as a thank you.
“Ms. Leighton, we’re concerned about the optics.”
“Tell everyone I’m an orphan then.” I’m being snappish and unaccommodating, but this is not right.
Brian summons a deeper well of patience. “It’ll be easy enough to find her. The press will be asking questions about why she wasn’t there with the rest of your extended families.”
“Exactly. You should be over the moon.”
He blinks at me. “You won’t consider hiring a stand-in?”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
Graham covers my hand with his. “Explain how hiring a stand-in is less of a risk than being honest about the whole enterprise. You think there won’t be questions if one of the press corps starts asking why Bellamy’s mother looks suspiciously different from the photos they’ve been able to dig up? Or why there was a cover-up for such a commonplace event?”
“Being under house arrest is not commonplace.” Brian shuffles papers in the binder on his desk. “There are concerns that if too much attention is focused on her alleged crimes, connections may be made to the White House.”
“Arson isn’t the same as not going to war.”
Brian looks sharply at Graham, who stares back at him.
The silence goes on a beat too long.
Graham has hit a nerve.
His brother called him three nights ago, after we were home in the penthouse, to tell him that the protests were nothing, that they’d die down.
They haven’t.
“Why isn’t my brother taking action in Bahara, Brian? Does he need help?” Graham gestures to the television that’s in the corner of Brian’s office. It’s never on when we’re here, unless we’re reviewing live interviews. “Every day, there’s more news about how innocents are being imprisoned there. Does this country not have a duty to intervene?”
“That’s not—” Brian swallows, and I notice for the first time that he’s not clean-shaven. Days of stubble roughen his cheeks. His shirt is a size too big, like he pulled it from a coworker’s closet before we got here. “That’s not something I can discuss with you.” His eyes flick back up to Graham’s. “It’s not even—” He shakes his head. “I can’t discuss this.”
“You can’t discuss current news events with a person who is one of your current news events?”
“I can’t.” Brian’s hand flutters up from the binder. “Mr. Blackpool.” His voice is so tired, and I wonder what else he’s been tasked with keeping afloat during what’s supposed to be the perfect presidency. “The wedding remains of utmost importance to everyone in the White House.”
“The fake wedding.”
I squeeze Graham’s hand. Brian’s under too much strain to keep goading him, even though this is a farce.
“We just want to understand.” I make my face into what I hope looks like pure compassion. “The pressure on this event can’t possibly solve the president’s problem, can it?”
Brian’s gaze settles on me, and he sighs. “He believes that follow-through, especially in this case, is crucial. He’s endorsed the wedding, publicly and privately, and wants to show the nation that he values family, even in times of turmoil.”
“That he values family?” Graham looks like he’s on the verge of
laughter. “He—” He presses his lips closed. A burst of energy surges through our joined hands, but he contains it. “I think it’s best if we wrap up this meeting. It’s time I spoke to my brother.”
“A natural next step,” says Brian, flipping to the next page of the binder. “But you’ll have to make another appointment.”
Graham narrows his eyes. “Another appointment aside from this one? For later in the day?”
“For later in the week,” Brian says, and the edge in his voice tells me he shouldn’t really be giving us this specific advice. “The president isn’t here.”
“If he’s not in the White House, we can wait. I’m happy to go to one of my properties and—”
“He’s not in the White House. He’s not in the country.” Brian looks straight into Graham’s eyes. “Do you understand? He’s not here. So, we have to finish our meeting, and you need to go back to New York City and do something to attract the attention of the press. There are several interviews scheduled in the coming days with major news networks, and I’m certain we can arrange some kind of—”
“Where’d President Blackpool go?” Graham’s question is as casual as any other, but it silences Brian.
The two men look at each other across the desk. Brian breaks first.
“I shouldn’t have said anything regarding his whereabouts.”
“Yes, that was a mistake. But I won’t rat you out when I talk to him. I promise.” Graham stands and pulls me up with him. “Anything else? Otherwise, we have press attention to attract.”
35
Graham
“Ready?”
Bellamy stares through the door of Silver, the restaurant we’ve rented for the evening.
It’s been ten days of nonstop press interviews and sleepless nights. Half the time, I wake up in the night to find the bed cold and Bellamy out in the living room, hunched over her laptop, aimlessly scrolling through news websites and job postings. Or else she’s just staring out over the skyline, fingertips brushing at her bottom lip.
“I’m just hoping we don’t get dragged out of here by the Secret Service, over something your brother did.”
“Hey.” I nudge her with my elbow. “Don’t be so disrespectful to the president.”
“Sorry,” she says automatically.
“Sweetness, I’m kidding.” She lifts her face to mine. Beneath her makeup, I can see the hint of the dark circles underneath her eyes. “Are you all right?”
“It feels wrong, doesn’t it? Rushing into a wedding like this.”
“Think of it as a performance.”
“I can’t think of it that way.” She puts her hands on my face and drags her palms across my chin, her thumbs over my lips. “And the thing is—when it comes to weddings—” Her body trembles.
“A wedding means a wedding night.” I drop the words into her ear one by one.
Bellamy lets out a short ha, a whisper so pregnant with desire that I have half a mind to tell Jameson we’re leaving right now, fuck the party. But she gets control of herself.
“A wedding means a divorce.” Her words drip with fear and hope and resignation, and my heart cracks in two.
“It kills me to hear you say that.”
It especially kills me to hear her say it now, while we’re standing in the lobby, the Secret Service making a barricade around us. Jameson’s leading ten people, this close to the wedding, and we’re in a pocket of silence in the center of them.
My fiancée shakes her head. “I didn’t mean it.”
“You did. Look at me.”
She looks, and I give her a small smile.
“I know you don’t want it this way. I know you wanted to take control back into our hands. I wanted that too. But Belle, we’re getting married tomorrow.” I put my hands on her waist and draw her close enough to kiss her forehead. “I think we should make it as real as we can.”
She pushes back against me, her eyes going wide. “What?”
“We should make our vows. We should sign the papers.”
“But Graham—”
I kiss her, and her lips part beneath mine. She moans a little, her trembling body going still, her breath shallow and fast. I taste her pain, her hesitation, and I swallow it whole. I swallow it until there’s nothing left.
Her knees buckle under the force of the kiss and I catch her in my arms.
When I pull back, her pupils are huge, eyes dark with want. “What did that feel like to you?”
“It felt like...” She traces her fingertip over my lips. “Possession.”
“You’re already mine. Why are you worried about some words in front of a priest?”
Bellamy’s hands move down to my lapels. “I’m worried it’ll be a kind of deadly magic. A—” She bites her lip. “A cage that comes down around us. And a man like you would fight to be free.”
“Oh, sweetness.” I gather her to me, then set her on her feet so we can face the party together. “Don’t you see it? I’ll never be free without you.”
“A toast to the happy couple!” Jax and Cate stand at the front of the room, glasses raised. “To a lifetime of good sex and adventure.”
The party is stuffed full of people who want to watch us drink and dance, and that’s exactly what they get. All of my friends from the Swan are here. They know what to do. I pulled them into the lobby, ten minutes into this, and told them urgently that it had to be a party.
It doesn’t matter that it’s been two years since our last party circuit. They attacked with the precision of a SWAT team, and an hour in, there’s not a person in the room who’s not tipsy and pink-cheeked.
“Come up here,” Jax booms, and not for the first time, I question why there’s a makeshift stage in this restaurant. It’s not the kind of place to have live music. Maybe they knew we’d be a spectacle. “Come up here, lovebirds. We want to drink to your health.”
The stage is situated in front of the main window, and over the course of the evening, a crowd has gathered on the sidewalk outside. A camera flashes. What could they possibly be capturing? It seems like an impossible task, to get photos of this party from outside, but I guess we’re in the equivalent of a giant lightbox.
I climb up on the stage with Bellamy, who’s swaying a bit on her heels, and she goes to Jax and Cate with a big smile on her face. The alcohol buzzes through me again. I want more of it. I want enough to chase away all of Bellamy’s doubt from my memory. I want enough to forget that I’m doing this for a brother who doesn’t deserve it. And still, still, I want her to be mine. On paper, in my bed, in every way possible.
Jax is saying something to the gathering of our friends, and his voice cuts in and out like a bad radio, but I can't take my eyes off Bellamy. “—America’s playboy is getting locked down by this gorgeous creature—”
Bellamy raises a hand to wave at our guests, beaming, and in the process, she stumbles into Cate’s arms.
“Naughty girl,” says Jax.
The two women are tangled together in dresses and heels, and I’m aware of every camera flash as I step across the stage. While I pull Bellamy close. While she clings to Cate jokingly, the two of them laughing.
While Cate leans forward and presses a kiss to her cheek, me in the background of the photo.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
36
Bellamy
My teeth won’t stop chattering.
I don’t know if it’s the hangover or the white dress, but I am a wreck.
Everest looks over my shoulder into the mirror. “You look gorgeous,” she says.
“I look crazy. You look gorgeous.”
She really does. The pale blue bridesmaid dress fits her like a glove, and the color is positively regal against her auburn hair. Her makeup is flawless. Graham hired the best artist in New York City and had her flown to this ballroom in the District. We’re like a boomerang the president won’t stop throwing, back and forth, back and forth.
I take a deep breath, but my hands shake harder. I
bury my face in my palms. “I don’t think I can do this, Evie.”
She puts a hand on my shoulder. I wait for her to tell me that I don’t have to do this, that she’ll drive the getaway car right now, but instead she says, “Do you want me to go get him?”
I turn and meet her eyes. “You’d get Graham?”
She scoffs. “You think I care about some dumb wedding tradition? You’re freaking the hell out. And I’ve seen you two together. This last week—” Evie shakes her head. “Damn, girl. You’re in love.”
“You don’t think—” A sick panic rises in my throat. “You don’t think this is too fast? That we’re setting ourselves up for failure?”
“A man like that has requirements. Shit, he’s adjacent to the current administration. You know all of this has to revolve around that man’s schedule. For, you know, natural security purposes.”
“I’m in love with him.” It’s a thought that steadies me, but not as much as Graham’s presence in the room. “Can you find him?”
“Yes. Love you. Be right back.”
“Love you.”
Everest goes out the door of the bridal suite, and I can hear her giving orders to people outside. I have seven other bridesmaids—two college friends and all of Graham’s friends' wives. Not one of them so much as hesitated when I told them the president wanted a bigger display; they understood. “No, she’s not ready. Can everybody go down to the chapel? Our beautiful bride needs a few minutes.”
There’s a swell of conversation, of heels on hard floors, and then quiet.
I breathe in, and breathe out.
What am I so scared of? God, why is this so terrifying?
Beyond the fact that the President of the United States is the one giving me away. Beyond that. Because there’s no way I was going to invite my father to this. He was a man who made promises to a woman and then dragged her through the mud. He turned on her.
The way Graham could turn on me.