by Amelia Wilde
We find our rhythm and I come again. I’ve come so much it hurts but in the center the pain blooms into pleasure. I realize it’s me who’s crying out, me who’s so loud that Graham puts a hand out to cover my mouth so that I call into his palm.
His release is epic, powerful, so hard it makes makes it hard to stand up, makes me weak in the knees, but he won’t let me fall.
When it’s over, I laugh.
I laugh with joy and relief and a certain sadness that this wasn’t all our doing but we’ve made it ours, and Graham lifts me onto the bed, collapsing beside me.
He runs a hand over my beautiful hairstyle, wrecked from our activities, and looks into my eyes, catching his breath. “If you think I could leave you, you’re crazy.”
“No. I couldn’t think that. It would destroy me.” My eyes flutter closed but his hand keeps moving over my hair, so gentle that I’m not sorry, I’m not sorry at all.
I sleep until it crashes into my consciousness—a knock on the door.
39
Graham
“There’s no reason on the face of the planet that you should be—”
Jameson doesn’t step inside, like he would if this were a real emergency. Instead, he puts his hands in the air. “Sir, I wouldn’t be knocking if—”
“It’s my wedding night.” Jameson has put up with a lot of shit from me, and this, of all nights, should be a time when nobody gets in my way. There’s no shadow to stand in tonight, and yet here he is, standing in the hallway, looking at me with a curiously blank expression. “What do you need?”
He clears his throat. In the quiet of the suite there’s a soft rustling, followed by Bellamy’s voice: “Graham? Is everything okay?”
“There’s breaking news I thought you should be aware of.”
“Breaking news? Are you fucking kidding me?” I run a hand through my hair. I’m sloppily dressed, shirtless, angry, and Jameson reaches for the door to pull it shut. I block it with my hand. “What breaking news?”
He’s out of his element, shaking his head. “Turn on the news.”
“Is this coming from the White House? Because so help me God—”
“It’s coming from me.” Jameson yanks the door out of my hand with a swift tug and closes it.
In the bedroom Bellamy is tangled in the sheets, her face glowing in the moonlight. “We didn’t bother to close the curtains,” she says, her voice warm with sex and sleep. “I like it like this.” She turns her head and looks at me. “What are you looking for?”
“The remote.”
“Are you in the mood for something saucy?” Bellamy laughs, but her laughter fizzles out. “It’s right here. What’s wrong?”
The languorous mood snaps in half. I take the remote. “Jameson says there’s breaking news.”
“What kind of—”
“I don’t know.”
She turns back over and fumbles at the bedside table while I stab at the buttons on the remote. The television comes to life on the hotel’s private channel, which is all sweeping views of the lobby.
“—plenty to do in Washington, D.C. during your visit. We’re centrally located between—”
“God, what a nightmare.” I flip through the first few channels—how are public access channels still in existence?—and finally land on one of the major news networks.
“—we’re all listening, and we’d love for you to repeat what you’ve just said for our viewers joining us. We’re with Julia Derhen.”
I’ve never heard that name before.
It’s a stream from somewhere else—somewhere with a white curtain in the background. Someone’s living room. A woman with dark hair, dark eyes. Those eyes are wide, fearful.
“I’m begging him to intervene.” Her voice is strong, but I hear the hint of a quiver, the hint of a crack in her strength. “The President needs to put people on the ground in Bahara. Every day he waits is a disaster for the country.”
“What the fuck?” I look for the button to power it off. This has nothing to do with me.
Bellamy puts her hand on my wrist and stands up next to me. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Ms. Dehren, why do you believe it’s so essential for the United States to intervene from a military perspective?”
“She’s not an expert,” breathes Bellamy.
“What?”
“The President has no other choice. His godson is a citizen of Bahara. The son he supports like his own blood has family there. How can he let them be torn apart by insurgents.”
I drop the remote.
“Holy fuck.”
The anchor asks another question, but it blurs out into nonsense. My brother has never so much as mentioned a godson, and from the way the word rolled off this woman’s lips, this child—whatever child it is—is not only a godson. Does my brother have a secret baby out of wedlock? Perfect Andrew Blackpool with a hidden child?
“That can’t be real.” Bellamy shakes her head. “There’s no way. She must have some other agenda. She must have—”
“She’s the reason.”
Bellamy goes still. “The reason for what?”
“For all of this. For us.”
“No way. A godson? That can’t be it.” I see it in her face—doubts rising like the sun.
“Can’t it?” I take a deep breath and unclench my fists. “You don’t think my brother would goad us into this to cover up his own indiscretions?”
“He ran a clean campaign,” Bellamy says softly. “He campaigned on honesty and transparency.”
“He lied.”
My chest is caving in under the weight of a thousand memories. Andrew onstage at my father’s company picnic, the son who’s going places. Andrew onstage at the presidential debates, telling the nation that they could trust him. “I have nothing to hide,” he’d said, flashing that smile.
I’d been the perfect foil. The irresponsible playboy.
How quickly he’d changed strategies.
One questionable party in the first month of his presidency, and he’d leveraged it to turn me into a savior spectacle, denying all the rumors in the press and marrying a so-called whore. Anything to turn their heads. Anything to keep their attention.
This is what he didn’t want them snooping around for.
Oh, it all makes so much sense.
“He’s awake right now, I know it.”
“I can’t imagine he’d sleep through something like this.” Bellamy blinks at the television screen. A few moments ago she was on the verge of peaceful, sexed-up slumber. Now she’s wide awake. “I’ll go shower.”
“Shower? Are you going somewhere?”
“We’re going to the White House.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder, her spine straight, her chin lifted. “I want an explanation.”
40
Bellamy
Andrew Blackpool doesn’t look like the president.
He’s standing in the Oval Office, but he’s still in the tuxedo he wore to our wedding. Most of the tuxedo, anyway. The jacket is slung over the chair behind his desk and the bow tie is a ribbon around his neck.
It’s four in the morning, but he speaks into the phone, one hip planted against the Resolute Desk like he’s at a pay phone in the dorm room. He’s an intimidating presence most of the time, but right now, in this state, he looks so much like a frat boy that I want to roll my eyes.
“—I will handle it.” He turns to look at us and his shoulder slump. It’s a tiny movement—he’s used to hiding his real emotions in front of the cameras—but I see it nonetheless. “Yes. I said I will handle it.”
Who the hell is making the president react like a chastened schoolboy? I’m dying to know.
“I’ve got to go,” says Andrew Blackwell, and then he hangs up the phone.
Graham stops a foot away from the desk and puts his hands in his pockets. I stand next to him. In the heavy peace of the Oval Office I feel weighted down, the fire of my earlier rage contained.
&
nbsp; Even if he looks like a frat boy, he’s still the President of the United States.
I wish I’d worn a suit instead of dark skinny jeans and a creamy sweater.
“Graham. Congratulations on the beautiful wedding.” Andrew folds his arms over his chest and regards his brother with a level stare. “You were a gorgeous bride, Bellamy.”
Graham takes this in with a nod. “Thank you. But we’re not here to discuss the wedding.”
Andrew says nothing.
Graham tilts his head to the side a snarky inch.
Andrew narrows his eyes.
Graham purses his lips.
“Jesus Christ, if I have to drag it out of you—”
“This is none of your business, Graham, and if you’re going to walk in here—”
Both of them puff themselves up, talking over each other at top volume. There’s friction there, undoubtedly, but from this distance it’s obvious that beneath their differences there’s a core of similarity, of anger bursting at the seams.
“—past time for you to come clean, you devious bastard.” Graham finishes into a ringing silence.
Andrew puts a hand to his forehead and turns away.
“A woman spilling secrets on cable news? My god, Andrew. What the hell have you done? How long have you known about this love child?” Graham can’t help himself. If I’d had a sister, would we have fought like this? “I’m assuming it’s not just a godson. How old? How long have you been covering up your complete lack of control over your own—”
“Oh, I’m the last person you should be lecturing on a lack of control. To think of the pictures I’ve had to have my team bury—”
“One party. And by the way, I wasn’t shooting up, for Christ’s sake. It’s always an overreaction with you.”
Andrew wheels around. “How is it an overreaction when my idiot brother gets photographed at the home of a notorious addict’s house three weeks into my presidency? Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”
Graham draws himself up. “Let’s be perfectly fucking clear. This—today—isn’t about me. It’s about a woman on television begging you to send troops into a foreign country because of a son you’ve never told anyone about.”
Andrew’s hands go to his hair. “Do you think I’m going to stand here and talk military tactics with you? This is above your clearance level. I don’t have to remind you that your clearance level is civilian. You’re not allowed to know—”
“The whole nation is going to be at your door in twenty minutes. Stop treating me like a fucking moron.”
“Stop acting like a fucking moron.”
It’s so ridiculous that I laugh.
Both of their heads swivel to me, and the shock on the brothers’ faces tells me that they might have forgotten I was there at all.
“Boys.” I might not be wearing a suit in front of a courtroom, but I feel exactly that confident. “What’s done is done. And what’s been done in the name of all this is why we’re here, President Blackpool. You attended a wedding today that was orchestrated to protect your office from, I’m assuming, exactly this kind of revelation. We have a right to know what the hell has been going on.”
“I don’t have a love child.” Andrew sneers, his anger ugly and raw. “It’s not my godson at all. In name only.”
“What does that mean?” Graham’s tone is acid. The Graham I met outside the coffee shop—arrogant and self-centered—flashes back into being. “Name only?”
“Jesus.” Andrew sighs. “I’m not even the person who should be telling you this. All this—it’s not going according to plan.”
“I’d say not,” Graham says with a laugh. “So whose child? And why the hell does that woman think she has anything to do with you and the White House? I’d love to know how you got all this past the vetting teams during the campaign.”
“It was a near thing.” Andrew’s tone turns sullen. He’s cornered. The most powerful man in the world can’t find a way out.
“My god.” I shake my head. “I’m so sick of men using everyone else to hide their shortfalls. Be accurate, for once in your life, Mr. President. What happened?”
“I didn’t have a child out of wedlock,” he repeats, looking me straight in the eye. “Believe me. If I did, I would never hide that child from the world.”
“Then whose child is it? Why was it so important that you keep this a secret?” The questions are an itch I have to scratch. This has gone so far beyond passing the bar, saving my career. Those things are all an afterthought in the stillness of this room.
“Yes, Andrew. Tell us. The night is passing us by.”
Andrew looks at Graham, and lifts his eyebrows a fraction of an inch.
Graham slaps a hand to his forehead. “You have got to be fucking with me.”
41
Graham
The knowledge hits me in stages, one punch after the next—left hook, right hook, uppercut.
My father has a secret child.
Andrew is involved in the cover-up.
I’m the last to know.
“Dad?”
Andrew confirms it with a sharp nod.
“What the fuck? When?”
“His other son is ten.”
“Ten?” Another deluge of understanding that threatens to rip my mind in two.
Andrew has always been the golden boy, but ten years ago, my parents began advertising my faults to the world. For every achievement of Andrew’s, I had a failure that they broadcasted with equal fervor.
Why did I ever want them to love me? Why do I still want it?
He runs a hand through his hair and I see his spine curve under the weight of it. My next question comes to me like a droplet of water onto a dry sidewalk.
“Andrew.”
He raises his eyes to meet mine.
“How long have you known?”
He shakes his head.
“You fucking piece of shit.”
Bellamy’s eyes fly from me to my brother—from me to my perfect, lying, scumbag of a brother, who campaigned on being America’s golden boy and tried to make my redemption into a shield to protect that shining image. I want to stop all of this, take her hand, and walk away from the White House. I want to never look back. But the stormcloud at the center of my chest demands answers.
“I can’t argue with that,” says Andrew.
“Tell me all you want that—what?”
“I can’t argue with that,” he repeats, and I can tell it costs him dearly to admit it to me. Still, there’s a sheen of something behind his expression—is it guilt? “I should’ve put a stop to this a long time ago.”
“Put a stop to what, exactly?”
“To them.”
He turns away from me and stalks to the window, looking out over the dimly lit Rose Garden.
“It would have been pretty tough, losing all that adoration.” I spit the words at his back.
My brother turns his face back to me, and his eyes are so weary that it makes me consider an apology. “It was more than adoration, Graham, and I think you know that.”
“I don’t know anything. The three of you, always huddled together like that—” More memories, more flashes of Andrew’s face. Was I looking closely enough to see if he wore a smirk or a scowl? The fabric of what I remember shifts and changes in my hands. My mother and father have always been two-faced, always bright smiles with jagged edges. I assumed they reserved the real emotion for Andrew.
I assumed that.
Bellamy breathes out, a hand on her chest. “President Blackpool, I’m so sorry to hear this.”
Andrew nods.
“Don’t—don’t apologize to him yet.” I am awed by her kindness, by her empathy, but I’m torn down the center between a swift rage at Andrew and my parents, by the way the rug has been neatly pulled from beneath my feet with one yank. I pace away from the hulking form of the Resolute Desk.
“Graham—”
“He could have done something.” I wheel around to face
Bellamy. She’s the only one I can bear to look at. Her face is the only peace in this dread-soaked office. “He could have said something. All our lives—” Andrew stands by the window, his mouth pressed into a frown. “He could have said something. Truth and transparency, right?”
He looks down at the ground.
“I know politicians are fucking liars, but Jesus, Andrew, you’ve taken it to new heights.”
He’s not ready to back down. “What choice did I have? Our father made it very clear that if I fucked things up for him, then he’d fuck things up for me.”
“I hate to be the one to break this to you, but our father doesn’t own the entire planet. Somehow I managed without him.”
“They let you manage without them.” Andrew jabs a finger at me. “And about half the time, you fucked it up.”
“That’s the brainwashing talking. If you’d ever had any fun in your life—”
“Stop.”
Bellamy raises both hands in the air and steps neatly between the two of us, snipping the tension at the root.
“This bickering isn’t going to solve anyone’s problems.” For a sickening instant I know she’s going to turn to me and tell me that, once again, it’s up to me to put on a good face, it’s up to me to divert press attention. But she looks at Andrew. “One press conference would put all of this to rest.”
A smile plays over his lips. “No offense meant, Ms. Leighton, but I don’t think you have the necessary expertise to make that call.”
Bellamy draws herself up to her full height. “That’s Mrs. Blackpool, if you would, Mr. President.”
Andrew freezes.
I want to clap.
His shoulder sag, and he runs his hands over his face. I feel a stab of pity. God knows he hasn’t slept since taking office—how could he? How could anyone? But Andrew hasn’t been a helpless child for a long time, and it’s hard to feel sorry for a man who stood by and did nothing while he watched me get thrown under every possible bus.