“Neither do I.”
I tilted her chin up and moved my head so that I could kiss her, and while my heart was in it, my mind was elsewhere, thinking about what had just happened. Charlotte was right—we only really had three options. The first was that we could keep hiding it….but what kind of life would that be? Besides, we’d get caught eventually, especially if my father announced his candidacy for the presidential race soon, because campaign researchers and opposition researchers were capable of digging into the lives of candidates and their families like you wouldn’t believe.
Secondly, we could come clean and face the wrath of everyone, but we had no idea what ramifications might stem from that, especially with the aforementioned presidential race.
Thirdly, we could end it, but I didn’t want that. I never wanted to end things with her…but I knew we had to do something. I had no idea what that something was, and right now, I only knew one thing for certain.
I was really falling for Charlotte.
Chapter Sixteen
Charlotte
“How do I look?”
My mother stared at me in the reflection of the mirror she was standing in front of, and I took in her simple ivory-colored dress, her tasteful makeup, and her stunning hairdo. The wedding day had finally arrived, and we were in a room in the back of the upscale Denver hotel where the wedding was being held.
“You look perfect,” I said with a smile.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes! Mom, you look amazing.”
“I’m just so nervous. My wedding to your father was so small,” she said. “And this wedding is insanely big. All those people!”
“I know, right?”
Mom and Keith had managed to throw together a wedding in a time frame which was practically light speed in terms of major event planning, and it was made even more impressive by the fact that it was a politician’s wedding, which meant that lots of high-profile guests had to be invited along with loads of security personnel to keep everyone safe. Apparently there had been a scare at a state senator’s sixtieth birthday party last year in Texas, where some scorned ex-mistress had managed to get in and attempted to kill the senator. She hadn’t succeeded, but since then, a lot of people in the political world had doubled down on security at any events, even private ones like weddings and birthdays.
“Do you think they’ll all judge me?” Mom asked, her voice still anxious. “There’s so many of Keith’s wealthy friends here, and I haven’t even met half of them before.”
“Mom, don’t be silly. The wedding will be perfect, and no one will have anything negative to say about it. You’ve planned everything perfectly.”
“I suppose I have, haven’t I?” she said with a smile, her tense shoulders sagging with relief. “Thanks, sweetheart. You look lovely too, by the way. Maybe you’ll meet a handsome senator’s son at the reception?”
“Mm…maybe,” I said in a noncommittal tone.
Obviously, I didn’t want to meet any other guys. I only had eyes for Cade, and twenty minutes later, they stayed glued on him the whole way up the aisle as I walked with my purple hyacinth bouquet. He was standing up at the front with Keith and Evan, and I thought it was kinda cute how Keith had chosen his two sons to be his groomsmen. The man was a staunch conservative, a bit of a control freak, and an avid hunter—all things I wasn’t really a fan of—but he had his good side, and it was nice to see him sharing his day with his kids like this.
Cade’s gaze stayed on me as I reached the altar and took my place with the rest of the wedding party, and I smiled at him as well as Evan, Keith and the officiant, not wanting to make anyone suspicious. I glanced out at all the guests as Mom slowly made her way up the aisle a moment later, and I noted the two security guards at every entrance. God, it felt weird to be at such a high-profile event, but I guess now that Keith was officially going to be my stepfather, I’d have to get used to it.
The officiant cleared his throat and began the ceremony.
“Beloved friends and family of Emilia Rubio and Keith Blackwell, welcome and thank you for joining us on this joyous occasion. We are gathered together to celebrate the very special love between Emilia and Keith by joining them in marriage.”
With each word he spoke, I remembered some of the special, intimate moments I’d shared with Cade over the last several weeks.
Cade’s hair was a total mess as he looked up at me from between my legs, and he licked his lips and told me how much he liked how I tasted.
I loved that.
“All of us need to be desired and loved, and the highest form of love between two people is within a committed relationship,” the officiant continued.
Cade’s eyes glowed with confidence and mischief as he gripped my waist, holding me as I bounced up and down on his perfect cock.
I loved that.
“Emilia and Keith, your marriage here today is the public and legal joining of your souls that have already been united as one in your hearts.”
Cade’s toned arms and chest flexed with every movement as he pumped into me from above, and I reached out and touched his face, wiping away a droplet of sweat from his brow. ‘You’re perfect,’ he whispered.
I loved that too.
Hell…maybe I loved him.
I’d never been in love before; not really. In my first year of college back in Philly, I’d dated a couple of guys, and they were nice, but it had only ever felt comfortable with them—definitely not what it should be. With them, I hadn’t experienced any of the thrills I felt when I was around Cade, and definitely not the kind of pulsing heat I felt when we were in bed together…or my car…or the gym. Or anywhere else we’d sneaked off to do the deed.
But it wasn’t just a sexual thing. I felt a deep connection with him, and I loved every aspect of him. Cade was funny, unpredictable, and ambitious, and he was also tender and kind when he wanted to be. I even loved the slightly flawed parts of him, like when he went too far with his silly jokes, or when he spent way too much time worrying about his next football game when we all knew he’d play amazingly like he always did.
Cade was everything I thought I’d never like in a guy, considering how I’d once thought he ruined my life as a teenager, but I’d been so wrong in thinking that about him, and being with him had turned my life upside down in the best kind of way.
I just wished I had some idea of where it was all going. I could feel this deeply about him all I wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that what we were doing was dead wrong. Our parents were literally getting married at this exact moment, so it was becoming even more wrong by the second, but I felt powerless to stop it. I didn’t want to hurt our family, but I didn’t want to end things with Cade either.
I snapped out of my reverie as the ceremony continued, and the officiant paused and looked out at all the guests. “If any man or woman can show just cause as to why Emilia and Keith may not be lawfully joined together, let him or her speak now, or else hereafter forever hold their peace.”
“I object to this marriage.”
My eyes widened, and I looked out at the guests to see who had just spoken. The part of the ceremony where the officiant asked for any objections was mostly a formality, and no one had been expecting anyone to actually stand up and say otherwise. Shit. What if someone had found out about me and Cade, and they were going to tell everyone right here at the ceremony, using our relationship as a reason why our parents couldn’t be married? I couldn’t think of anything worse.
Unfortunately, it was something worse.
Far worse.
“Who said that?” the officiant called out.
Already, the guests were whispering and tittering amongst themselves, and I looked at my Mom. She looked horrified, and Keith grabbed her hand and squeezed it, looking just as confused as everyone else.
“I said it.” A tall man with short blond hair stood up and began to make his way to the altar. “This supposed lawmaker shouldn’t be allowed to get marr
ied here today, not when everyone else in the country is having their civil liberties eroded by bastards like him.”
Great. I wasn’t exactly a fan of some of the policies that Keith and his Congress colleagues were responsible for, but there was a time and a place for protesting, and a wedding wasn’t one of them.
“Who the hell is this crank, and how the hell did he get in?” Keith muttered to the officiant as the man drew closer. The security guards from the entrances were quickly yet cautiously approaching.
The officiant held up his hand to the blond man, trying to keep the situation under control. “Sir, stop right there. This is a wedding, not a political debate. If you actually have a valid reason as to why Emilia and Keith can’t be married today, then you may state it. Otherwise, please leave.”
“I have a reason,” the man declared, his voice preternaturally calm as he stood right before us. “We’re losing all our freedoms because of men like you, and I don’t want to do this, but I have to. Someone has to die for everyone to start listening, and it should be you.”
With that, the man drew a pistol from the inside pocket of his jacket and aimed it at Keith, and everyone in the room lost it. My heart seemed to drop into my shoes as I heard the screams, and my blood froze in my veins. I knew that sounded like a cliché, but anyone who has ever been truly terrified would tell you the same—your blood really does run cold.
“No!”
Cade shouted and pushed Evan and my mother to the ground before jumping right in front of me and Keith, and I fell to the ground with my hands over my ears as a loud crack sounded right near me. I’d never heard a gun being fired in real life before, but I knew what it was. The blond man had fired his pistol, and I screamed and screamed as my eyes squeezed shut, wishing I could wake up from this nightmare, even though deep down I knew it was no dream.
This was really happening.
Through the haze of screams and cries, I heard Keith’s voice clearly, shouting from somewhere near me.
“You fucking bastard….you shot my son!”
Chapter Seventeen
Charlotte
My eyes snapped open, and I frantically looked around. Cade’s been shot by this lunatic, my mind repeated over and over.
I couldn’t have been more wrong, though. Cade was unhurt, and he was clutching Evan’s bleeding left arm, his face pale. Evan was even paler, and he was muttering something as Cade wrapped his suit jacket around his arm and tied it tightly, stemming the flow of blood with pressure.
I whirled around to see Keith tackling the blond man to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hands before twisting him into a submissive position. “You think you can come to my wedding and hurt my son!” he snarled. “You’ll rot in prison forever for this, you bastard!”
The security guards finally did the damn job they’d been hired for and rushed to Keith’s aid, with two of them handcuffing the blond man and hauling him to his feet while another spoke into a black handheld radio.
The rest of the room was still in pandemonium, with guests running around shrieking and trying to get out of the room, while some hid under the chairs, their faces twisted in fear. Some others who were still standing were on their phones to 911, and another few of them were even filming with their phone cameras, which disgusted me. This wasn’t some sort of action thriller movie, this was real life, and they were filming it like some kind of sick voyeurs, presumably so they could sell the footage to the media for a pretty penny later on.
My mother was on the ground, curled up in a ball, and I crawled over to her. “Mom! It’s going to be okay. Keith got him, and the security guys are taking care of everything now.”
She nodded and kept staring into space with her brown eyes wide. “Evan…what happened to him?”
“He’s been hurt, Mom, but people have called 911. There’ll be an ambulance here any minute, and he’ll be fine, I promise.”
I knew I had no right to promise that; I had no way of knowing whether it was true or not, but I had to say something to get her off the ground. She finally nodded and got to her feet, her legs shaky, and I led her over to one of the security guards before racing back over to Keith, Evan and Cade. Evan appeared to have passed out from shock at this point, but he was still breathing.
“How bad is it?” I asked, my voice choked with emotion. My legs were starting to feel unsteady, and I knew I wouldn’t last much longer before completely succumbing to the shock of the incident. I needed to try and be strong for a few more minutes, though. Evan had been hurt, and he needed everyone to rally together and be strong for him.
“It looks like his arm was just grazed,” Cade said. “But I wrapped it up anyway, just like you showed me when he cut himself a while back, because it was bleeding a fair amount.”
Keith’s face was pale, and he knelt down and grabbed Evan, hoisting him into his arms. Then he stood back up and carried him down the aisle, towards the entrance, where police and paramedics were beginning to pour in. Cade and I followed, and he slipped an arm around my shoulder as we walked. No one said a thing or even looked at us funnily, because they were all too caught up with what had just happened, and as I felt his warm fingertips gently stroking the side of my arm, I had a sudden mental flashback of what had happened only a few minutes ago.
Cade had jumped in front of all of us while a gunman was within close range, and he’d risked himself to save us. If he hadn’t done so, I had no idea what might’ve happened….maybe the gunman might’ve had a clearer shot. Maybe someone would be dead right now.
It was too horrible to even imagine.
I looked up at Cade, and as he watched the EMTs tend to his little brother, I could see the raw emotion in his eyes. “Cade…thank you,” I said. “You might have saved us all.”
He shook his head. “I should’ve done more,” he said. “I thought Evan would be safe down on the ground with your Mom, where I pushed them, because the guy looked like he was aiming at Dad. But…”
I stopped, moved to his front and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “Cade, it’s not your fault. He was aiming more towards your Dad. You couldn’t have known he’d move at the last second. He was crazy.”
He was silent for a long moment.
“My brother got shot,” he finally said, his voice flat. It was like he needed to say the words out loud for it to really register with him as reality.
“I know,” I said, hot tears springing to my eyes now. “But you tried, Cade. You did what you could, and you did way more than most other people would in the same scenario. You’re a good man.”
“What if he dies?”
I wrapped my arms around him, not even caring if anyone saw us. “Cade,” I said, my mouth comfortingly close to his left ear. “Evan isn’t going to die. It was just a graze on his arm, and he’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
I sighed. “No, I don’t, but I have hope,” I said. “And you need to have hope too, for Evan’s sake. He’ll wake up, and he’ll be okay. I just know it.” I took a few deep breaths before squeezing him even tighter. “And until then, I’ll be here for you. A few weeks ago, you told me you’d always be around to stick up for me and be here for me…and now I’m saying the same thing to you. I’m here for you, always.”
I pulled back and looked at him, and Cade looked down at me. “Thank you,” he replied, his voice gruff with emotion. “Charlotte, this isn’t the right time to say it, but I…”
His voice trailed off, and I pressed a finger to his lips. “I know. But you’re right. This isn’t the right time. Let’s wait for a better time to say it.”
He nodded and didn’t say another word as he stared down at me, but a whole world of communication passed between us in our gazes. I knew exactly what he’d been about to say.
I love you.
My response was conveyed to him in my eyes. I love you too.
Chapter Eighteen
Cade
The hours after the wedding shooting
crawled by like some sort of slow-motion horror film, but the days soon began to fly by, and before I knew it, two weeks had passed, and the worst of it was over. Evan was fine; the bullet had only grazed his arm a bit. It was enough to make him bleed a fair amount and also necessitate a small skin graft, but other than that, he was A-Okay. He was still in the hospital now, because the doctors were keeping an eye on the skin graft to make sure it didn’t become infected, but he was due out pretty soon, and Charlotte and I were currently on our way into his room to visit him.
“Hey, little bro,” I said, stepping inside.
He waved. “Hey guys,” he replied. “How’s things in the outside world?”
“I tell you what, you’re lucky you’re still shut up in here,” I said, ruffling his hair. “It’s fucking crazy out there.”
That was no exaggeration. Seeing as Dad and Emilia’s wedding had been so high-profile with many attendees from the political world, the shooting incident had made the news within minutes of it happening, and within hours it had gone viral. Some of the guests with zero morals had filmed parts of the incident—some had filmed the beginning with the shooter’s objection rant, and others had managed to capture the shooting and aftermath—and those parts had been pieced together by the money-hungry media vultures in order to sell more newspapers and increase online subscriptions. It was disgusting that people were profiting off my brother’s injury, but I was still at least grateful that he had survived the incident.
I was also damn proud of my father. The way he’d jumped right at the shooter and tackled him was nothing short of heroic, and I’d never seen such genuine emotion in his face as he carried Evan out of the hotel that morning. I wasn’t the only one who was proud of him, either. The media had gone crazy over him, writing up several pieces about the ‘Hero Senator’ and what an amazing guy he was. The video of him tackling the shooter was also all over the internet, along with footage of him carrying an unconscious, bleeding Evan in his arms.
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