Vegas Baby

by Winter Renshaw

  I nod, lips pursed.

  “She told me she’d taken precautions. That she knew everything we’d done, every place we’d met. She said she had my journal.”

  “Did she threaten you?”

  Camille chews her lip. “In not so many words . . .”

  “Fuck.” I run my fingers through my hair. Just being here with her is putting her safety in jeopardy, and out of everyone, I’ve seen firsthand the lengths my mother is willing to go to to get what she wants.

  I rise.

  “Where are you going?” Camille stands.

  “I need to buy us some more time,” I say, staring at Oliver through the window.

  “More time? No. Ronan. We’re done. I don’t want to be involved in any of this. I don’t want to look over my shoulder the rest of my life.” She places a hand against my chest, and I cover it with mine.

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “You think she’s going to let you walk away just like that? After she clearly threatened your life? You think she’ll be content knowing some little twenty-four-year-old has the power to take down the Montgomery name? You clearly don’t know what that woman is capable of.”

  Camille’s fingers tremble, and I lift them to my lips, staring into the brown eyes I’ve come to associate with the only true freedom I’ve known in almost thirty years.

  “So she’ll kill me anyway.” Her words are flat, weighted with fear and a lead balloon.

  “She convinced you to stay away from me,” I say. “But how can she guarantee you’ll never spill her secrets? There’s only one way.”

  “Why would she offer me millions of dollars to go away?” Camille asks.

  “Because it was a short-term solution to a long-term problem, and in her eyes, you’ll be long gone before you ever see it.”

  Camille lowers herself into the sofa, staring blankly ahead. “I’ve been so careful all these years. I did everything I could to avoid the very thing happening right now.”

  An ironic laugh leaves her pretty lips, and she pulls in a ragged breath.

  “It’s all my fault. I brought you into this. You agreed to a simple arrangement that no one in their right mind would’ve turned down, but you didn’t agree to any of this,” I say. “Which is why I promise you, Camille, nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll make damn fucking sure of it.”

  I pull her into my arms again and away from the view of the window, cupping her pretty face in my hands and crushing her trembling lips with mine.

  “I’m not done with you yet, Camille,” I remind her. “I’m going to handle this, and when it’s over, we can pick right back up where we left off.”

  Her eyes squeeze shut.

  “Let me deal with Oliver for now. I’ll call you shortly. Keep your phone near,” I say.

  ***

  “How’d it go?” Oliver asks when I climb into the passenger seat of the rental Suburban.

  “Not well.” I sigh, glancing out the window. I can’t look at the bastard without wanting to knock him out. “We’re done, Oliver. She wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Probably for the best.” He peers over his shoulder as he backs out of her driveway.

  “Couldn’t agree more. The last thing I need is some prostitute attached to my name.” I huff. “Don’t know what I was ever thinking.”

  “I thought you were crazy for wanting to get involved in that mess in the first place. Tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. I just sat back and let you do your thing. Figured you needed to get it out of your system before you get serious about your future,” he says.

  Everything about our conversation is typical and casual, and I have a hard time believing Oliver could betray me like that, but it’s the only logical explanation. He’s been there all along, from the minute I first saw her and for every meeting since. With all those spur of the moment meet-ups and last-minute location changes, someone would’ve had to have tailed me twenty-four seven for the last month in order to catch them all. Oliver makes sense.

  “Want to grab a bite?” Oliver asks, smirking. “If we can even find a decent place in this one-stoplight town.”

  “I have a headache,” I say. “Not hungry. Just take me back to the hotel. I’ll just hang out there the rest of the day.”

  “Seriously?” he asks, turning to look at me. “You’re going to sit inside a musty little room in the Motel 6 the rest of the day?”

  I shrug. “May as well. What else is there to do around here? I’m not trying to be seen, Oliver. The last thing we need is for the whole world to know I was in Oakdale, Tennessee for no apparent reason. If they go digging hard enough, they just might link me to Camille, and then what?”

  “All right, all right.” He places a palm in the air and pulls into the parking lot of our hotel. “I guess I’ll be in my room then . . . until tomorrow . . . doing nothing. At least they have HBO, I guess.”

  His job as my personal Secret Service agent requires him to be by my side at all times, but we’ve been known to break the rules a time or two over the years.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want to drive around town or grab a bite to eat, by all means, go for it.”

  He pulls into a parking spot not more than fifteen feet from our respective hotel rooms, and I pull the key from my pocket. We climb out, and he escorts me to my room before heading back to the Suburban. Inside, I watch out the peephole until he drives away, and then I call Camille to come pick me up.

  ***

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You’re lucky I still have this rental car.” Camille’s delicate hands grip the gray plastic steering wheel of a white Honda Accord.

  She pulls away as soon as I’m inside, and we drive back to her mother’s house.

  “I’m going to err on the side of paranoid,” she says when we pull into the driveway. “Stay here.”

  Climbing out and running to the attached garage, she punches in a code and returns to pull the car in. Oliver would get in so much trouble if anyone knew he ‘lost’ me, and I smirk to myself at the thought.

  For the first time in years, I’m one hundred percent untethered and untracked. And it feels fucking amazing.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Camille

  “Would you like something to drink?” I lean against the kitchen counter as Ronan stands before me.

  Never in my life did I imagine that someday the son of the President of the United States of America would be hanging out in our tiny little kitchen in Oakdale.

  But here he is.

  In the flesh.

  Looking like he could still jump my bones despite the graveness of this situation.

  My mom is going to freak out when she comes home.

  “No, thank you. Where can we go to talk?” He looks so handsome today in his creamy cashmere sweater with the button down and tie sticking up at the collar. Ronan couldn’t dress down if he tried.

  I feel silly in my pajamas. I should’ve changed, but the second he left, all I could do was sit paralyzed by the living room window with my cellphone in my shaking hands.

  “Yeah.” I motion for him to follow me down to the family room. The house is a mess. Mom’s slight hoarder tendencies, coupled with the fact that she was always too busy working to pick up the house on a regular basis, have given our house a permanent cluttered, if not homey, feel over the years. “Sit wherever you’d like.”

  He glances at our sagging plaid sofas before perching on the end of one. I reach for the remote on the coffee table, shutting off the episode of Judge Judy playing in the background.

  If Ronan is judging the surroundings, he does a good job of hiding his true feelings, and I appreciate the courtesy.

  “So what’s next, Ronan?” I ask, clapping my hands across my lap. “Where do we go from here? And what kind of target am I going to have on my back when the powers that be find out I’m harboring President Montgomery’s son in my basement?”

  “This past weekend.” He clears his throat.
“Something changed in me.”

  I sink into the sofa across from him, hooking my arm around the edge and picking at a loose thread. I need to keep my hands busy to distract myself from the fluttering in my chest.

  “I felt free with you,” he says, “in a way I’ve never felt with anyone before. You’re easy to be around, Camille. You’re playful and genuine and sexy.”

  My chin tucks as a warm blush covers my cheeks. If any other man said those words to me, I’d smile and graciously thank him, barely giving myself a chance to let them sink in. But they feel different coming from him.

  “I’m not saying I fell in love with you,” he says. “But I’m saying I probably could if I let myself. And that says a lot, because I don’t even fucking believe in love. And I know you don’t either. But tell me you felt it. Tell me you felt that spark of something so real it terrified you.”

  I did. I felt it. And I shoved it so deep down inside me it couldn’t possibly see the light of day.

  “I don’t know what’s real or what’s not anymore,” I protest.

  “Don’t lie to me, Camille.” The hollow above his jaw tenses. “Did you feel something this weekend?”

  “I enjoyed my time with you.”

  He releases a hard breath, his nostrils flaring and our eyes locking.

  “Why the resistance?” he asks, rising and moving closer. Within seconds, he stands before me, taking my hands in his and pulling me up.

  “At the end of the day, we had a business arrangement,” I say. “It’s natural, when you spend time together the way we did, for feelings to develop. Sometimes they’re confusing. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few years, it’s that they’re never real. If you give them enough time, they eventually fade away.”

  “I don’t want this to fade away.” The smooth roll of his words makes my stomach tingle. “I knew you were special when I first saw you, and I’ll admit it was the outside that caught my eye. But now that I know the inside, Camille . . .”

  His hand beneath my chin brings my lips to his. A soft kiss preludes his fingers in my hair, and I’m as weightless as I’ve ever been . . .

  “You’re the most genuine woman I’ve ever met, and I’ve barely scratched your surface,” he says.

  As weightless as I’ll ever be . . .

  “My future was mapped out until you came along. Every moment in my life was painstakingly planned and controlled by my mother, even when I didn’t always realize it. I thought I knew what I wanted.” He pulls in a loaded sigh. “And now, all I know is I no longer want to be burdened by the Montgomery name and everything that entails.”

  “What are you going to do? Denounce your throne?” I half-kid.

  “I know my mother better than anyone else.” He holds my face in his hand. “And I’m going to end this the only way I know how.”

  I release a puff of breath. “How? Cut her off at the source? That woman has power, Ronan. I’m not sure how you’ll be able to stop her from doing what she’s inevitably going to do.”

  “I have an idea.” His eyes squint softly and release. “Do you trust me, Camille?”

  I stare into his calming blue gaze and nod. “I trust you.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Ronan

  “I’d like to relieve Oliver D’Orsay from his post, effective immediately.” I stand before my father in the private study just off the Oval Office the day after seeing Camille.

  He glances up at me from across his polished wooden desk, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his narrow nose.

  “I beg your pardon?” His shoulders square with mine. “Oliver’s been with you for years.”

  “I question his loyalty,” I say.

  My father sits up, tossing his pen across his desk. “Oliver D’Orsay has always been a loyal agent to this family. I will not relieve him of his duties.”

  “Then relieve me of mine.”

  My father’s attention moves past my shoulders, and I turn to see my mother standing in the doorway.

  “What’s this about?” She smiles but not with her eyes.

  I rise from the guest chair, my hands calm at my sides and shoulders taut. “I was just asking Father to relieve me of my duties.”

  My mother laughs, her hand splayed across her chest as she exchanges looks with my father. “What are you talking about, Ronan?”

  “I won’t be working on the campaign trail.” I refuse to make a spectacle of this or allow any sort of deliberation, so I leave.

  By the time I’m halfway down the hall, the sound of my mother’s pumps scuffing across the low-pile carpet tell me we’re not about to go down without a fight.

  “Ronan, don’t be ridiculous.” She struts toward me, then batts her hand and laughs at me. She doesn’t take me seriously, which is going to be a problem.

  For her.

  “Number one, you have to work on the campaign trail. It’s mandatory. America needs to get to know you better, and this is a prime opportunity for you to get out there,” she says. “Someday, when you run for office, you’ll be glad you did this.”

  “I won’t be running,” I say.

  My mother scoffs.

  “I’m glad you find it funny. I was worried you’d be upset.” I lift my brows. “You understand I’m being completely serious.”

  “Ronan, you don’t have a choice in the matter. You’re running. Maybe not five years from now, but at some point in your life,” she says. “It’s your birthright. Your obligation.”

  “I couldn’t possibly run for president with a foundation built on lies and corruption.” My gaze zeroes in on my mother’s pinched face.

  “Son, I’m not following.”

  “Please, allow me to fill you in,” I say. “We can start by discussing the way you used the Secret Service to do your dirty work.”

  “You’re making it up. All of it.” Her nose wrinkles.

  “Deny all you want,” I say. “I know the truth. And Camille knows the truth.”

  “Camille.” She huffs. “You just had to run off and find yourself a whore, didn’t you? Plenty of nice girls to pick from, and you aim for the bottom of the barrel.”

  “I’d hardly say she’s bottom of the barrel.” I lift my head high. “Had you done a little more checking around, you’d have discovered that Camille Buchanan is actually a Darlington.”

  The night before I left Oakdale, I cornered Linda when Camille was in the shower. I stressed to her how important it was that I was made made fully aware of the identity of Camille’s biological father now. I explained, in not so many words, that Camille had a few political affiliations as a consequence of associating with me, and that it may be dangerous for that information to land in the wrong hands before Camille has a chance to hear it first.

  Linda cried and made me swear not to tell Camille, to let her be the one to tell her first. When she’s ready. And then she whispered his name.

  Rupert Darlington.

  My mother’s jaw falls and her eyes narrow. “I refuse to believe that preposterous claim.”

  “You don’t have to believe it,” I say. “Just know that I’m keeping that little tidbit safely tucked away in my back pocket for now.”

  Her arms fold across her chest. “What, is that some kind of threat?”

  “Leave Camille alone and I’ll keep the information between her, her mother, and myself. I’m sure the last thing you need is any kind of scandal attached to the Montgomery or Darlington names when you’re launching a new campaign.”

  “Fine.” She groans, her eyes rolling to the back of her head. “Protect her. Get her out of your system. You’ll come back around once the novelty wears off, and I’ll fully expect you to be good and ready to get back on track.”

  “That will never happen.”

  Her hands run down her sleeves as she sniffs. “Fine. If you’re not going to run after your father’s next term, then I will. I can do a better job than any of you Montgomery men combined. You’re pathetic. All of you.”

/>   “I sincerely hope you run for office someday, Mother.” I smile. “Hand to God. I hope you do. And I wish you nothing but the best of luck.”

  You’re going to need it by the time I’m through with you . . .

  Because I’m not done yet . . .

  I turn on my heel, hands clasped behind my back, and exit my father’s study for the final time. Years from now, when my mother runs for office, I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that Busy Montgomery’s pristine persona, as America has come to know it, is reduced to chum.

  There will be a feeding frenzy, and there won’t be a damn thing her team of highly paid PR consultants can do to stop it.

  I’m burning the Montgomery legacy to the ground and taking Busy with it. And as for me? I’ll slip quietly into obscurity, living a quiet, simple life, free of familial obligations and stifling surveillance. No longer will I live under a microscope. No longer will my life belong to everyone but me.

  I’ll be free to live the life I was meant to live, and free to love the woman I was meant to love, whomever she may be.

  If I’m lucky, she’ll be Camille Buchanan.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Camille

  “Would you like some more coffee, Ronan? I can make a fresh pot if you’d like.” My mother flits around our tiny kitchen like she’s serving the King of England. “The last one was a little strong. Did you think it was strong? Let me make another pot.”

  “Mom.” I laugh.

  Ronan smiles. “I’m fine, Linda. Thank you.”

  “Calm down,” I say. “Come sit with us. Your food is getting cold.”

  Ronan returned from Washington last night, and Mom gladly allowed him to stay with us.

  Her alarm sounded at six AM this morning, promptly followed by clinking and clamoring in the kitchen as she prepared a breakfast feast.

  Completely unnecessary, but totally her.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever had Mickey Mouse waffles.” Ronan saws a chunk off of Mickey’s ear and forks it, his strong jaw flexing as he chews.

  He’s so handsome like this, stripped down, gray sweats and a white t-shirt, his hair a mess for reasons that bring an immediate blush to my cheeks as we dine with my mother.