by Raine Miller
Dr. Romero hedged the question neatly. “It would be best for the two of you to see the pulmonologist together whenever you decide to start a family. He or she can explain the best treatment options for Reese, to ensure a healthy pregnancy as well as manage her asthma symptoms efficiently.”
“So, it’s possible for Reese to have a safe pregnancy, even with her asthma?”
“Yes, of course,” Dr. Romero assured him with a smile. “I look forward to reading about your healthy babies in the news when they arrive. Those kids will be the closest thing to American royalty as we can get. You know, I hadn’t heard about your engagement, but congratulations to the both of you.” Dr. Romero took out his phone and held it up. “Can I get a picture with you guys for my wife? She won’t believe this. My charge nurse said you came in wearing your wedding dress. Please don’t tell me you’ve just gotten married and you’re spending your wedding night in the ER.”
“Ha-ha—no—um, that was just a Halloween party costume I was wearing.” I gave Dr. Romero my best-actress performance and a smile, while digging my fingernails into the palm of Gray’s hand. Hopefully, hard enough to draw blood.
He quickly extricated his palm away from my abusive fingernails and extended his hand to Dr. Romero. “Thank you, doctor, for all of your help tonight. I very much appreciate you straightening out my beloved, and getting her back to healthy breathing,” Gray said, while curling a possessive arm around me. “I won’t lie. I was terrified earlier, before you came in here to speak with us.”
Another skill Gray had perfected, was how to pile on the Southern charm until the person on the receiving end was practically drowning in it. Not that they minded even a little bit.
“Doctor, if you would give me your card, I would love to pass along an invitation to our wedding, for you and your wife—if your schedule permits, of course—that is, when the date is announced to the press.”
Super. Ultra. Gag. Vomit.
My lying “fiancé” had now dug himself into a trench comparable in size to the Gulf of Mexico. How on earth Gray was going to explain his way out of the mess he’d made tonight was a mystery, but I was sure eager to begin the discussion we were having the moment we had some privacy.
“Thank you very much. My wife and I would love that,” Dr. Romero said enthusiastically while handing over his card to Gray.
“When can I go home?” I asked.
“You can go now, actually. As soon as you’re dressed, we can check you out.”
“Fabulous.” One more time with the damn dress.
Oh…yeah. That dress had a very hot date with the incinerator in my building as soon as it could be arranged.
Chapter Five
GRAY
Leaving the hospital was a lot more difficult than it should have been. Thanks to the technological world of cell phones and social media, and unfortunately for our privacy, word spreads fast when someone with a name like mine ends up in a public place such as a hospital. I’d been dealing with my name for thirty-three years so I was used to the attention in a resigned sort of way. Grayson Lash could have been substituted for Ronald Reagan or Woodrow Wilson and received the same notice from people. I had a president’s name and a president’s blood running through my veins.
As did Reese.
Nothing was going to change that fact for either of us.
It didn’t help that people got pictures, and most likely video, as we stepped out of the ER and into the waiting Uber, looking like a bride and groom leaving the church. I had to admit, Reese in the wedding gown, and me in my gray Brioni were going to appear legit in the pictures that would be posted on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and every other celebrity news outlet that feasted on such things.
Reese was quiet beside me in the back seat of the Uber car, looking like a princess in her white lacy dress I’d had the pleasure of taking off her tonight. But when she had to put the dress back on again to leave the hospital, she asked me to step out behind the curtain because she did not need my help. Or didn’t want it.
I knew she was furious with me.
We needed to talk so badly, but we couldn’t yet. At least during the time it took for the driver to navigate the Saturday night traffic to Reese’s place in Georgetown, we would have to keep a lid on it. Both of us were hyper-aware of our situation—that we were still out in public for all to judge. I’d already started working on damage control by tapping out an official statement on my phone to be posted in the morning from my office in Columbia:
* * *
South Carolina Attorney General, Grayson Lash III, attended a Halloween party at the Washington, DC home of a close friend last night. During the event, he was called upon to aid party guest, Reese Pinkarver, who required immediate medical treatment for an asthma-related condition. Ms. Pinkarver was accompanied by Mr. Lash via ambulance to George Washington University Hospital Emergency Services where she was treated and later released.
* * *
I passed her my phone so she could read it, watching for her reaction to what I’d decided to share with the public about us. The decision to include Reese’s name, as well as the reason for her medical treatment, was a calculated one. If her name had been withheld, the press would ID her photo within hours anyway, and the speculation behind the reason for secrecy would only be intensified. If her medical condition wasn’t disclosed, the suspicion of illegal drug use would come next. I even debated including that we were both in costume for the party, but decided that part could be revealed later if more of an explanation became necessary.
It was at times like this that holding a public office was annoyingly invasive. The media was going to run this story regardless, because it was too tantalizing to pass up. I felt it was better to give them some truthful details, than nothing at all. The press might be marginally kinder in their reporting, but you could never predict how a story like this one would play out no matter what your official statement was.
“That sounds good to me,” she said when she was finished reading. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice.
“Tired, baby?”
“So tired, Gray.”
“Rest your head on my shoulder and close your eyes if you want,” I offered, not sure if she would take me up on it.
She did though.
And it felt fucking wonderful having her leaning on me, the flowery scent of her perfume floating up to me so I could breathe her in with each and every inhale.
Fucking. Wonderful.
Reese slept until the driver dropped us in front of the historic row house she’d called home ever since her move to Georgetown. I’d been to her place to pick her up just one other time, on the occasion of my first proposal of marriage.
The first time I asked was too soon after her breakup. She wasn’t ready to move on then, but I did not sense Dr. Doolittle was an issue for her any longer. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus. This was very welcome news for me. I would take any positive sign from Reese and use it to help my cause.
What was my cause, exactly?
To be married before we celebrated her twenty-fifth birthday as husband and wife.
Sometimes when I had business in DC, we would meet for dinner to catch up with each other. The only time we didn’t, was when she was with he-who-must-not-be-named. I also learned how much I missed having Reese in my life during that time. It was an evolution more than any one thing. A slow evolution of my Neanderthal brain once it clued to the fact she’d be beneath the furs of another man in the cave.
Our night together nearly two months ago, had also been an epic clusterfuck—with not quite the seriousness of tonight’s ER visit—but a clusterfuck just the same.
It had also been the best night of my life.
Chapter Six
GRAY
Two months ago…
“Are you ever going to marry me, Pink?”
She looked so beautiful sitting across from me poured into a sexy black dress. A little black dress bent on filling my head with the filthy thou
ghts of what I’d do after taking it off her.
Please say yes.
But I knew she wouldn’t. Her hand shook a tiny bit as she brought the wineglass to her lovely lips and finished what was in it. The only small tell visible enough for me to know she was still hurting. Reese could play the Steel Magnolia role very well, which ironically, was part of the reason why she was so perfect for me. Reese Pinkarver was a very strong woman.
“Ask me that question a year from now, please,” she said with a pointed look at the bottle of Riesling sitting innocently on our table at Plume inside The Jefferson, my preferred hotel whenever I was in the city. I took the hint and refilled her glass before she had to ask me.
“There is no way I’m waiting a damn year. A month works better for me.” I knew my teasing wouldn’t bother her, because she was used to me. I’d always talked to her this way. Flirting and dirty talk were my specialty.
“You can’t tell me you’ve ever taken any of that marriage talk about us seriously, Gray.”
“Of course, I take it seriously. We have far too much in common for us not to get married and have some Pinkarver-Lash babies the whole world will fall into a full-blown swoon over. You know I’m right, Pink.” The image of the two of us making one of those babies had me needing a discreet adjustment of my cock below the table. I could just picture her all spread out in the bed with nothing but skin between us. I could worship that body of hers—and I would—if she’d ever let me.
The look she gave me over her glass was a mixture of sadness and caution, her green and gold eyes flickering down after a moment to escape my scrutiny. I didn’t need any explanation of the reasons behind her feelings. The sadness was understandable, of course it was. Her fiancé—whom she’d loved even if the cocksucker hadn’t deserved it—had left her with little explanation, and he had done it very cruelly.
I knew where Reese’s cautionary feelings came from as well. Those were a result of my bad. The one time she let me know she wanted to be with me, I pushed her away. If only I could turn back the clock and change my answer.
“Do you remember when you gave me my nickname Pink?” she asked wistfully.
“I do.” I picked up her free hand and entwined our fingers. “You were at Mount Laurel for a Christmas party wearing a pink dress with white fur on the edges. I couldn’t resist the play on words because, well…immature college student mind at work and all.” I pointed a thumb at my chest. “I said, ‘You really are the cutest little pink elf in all of elfdom, so I’ma hafta call you Pink from now on.’ You were not bothered by my teasing even a tiny bit because you turned the tables on me and said, ‘I am Pink and you are Gray. The colors were already in our names, you big dummy.’”
She cracked a smile that lasted for too short a time before it went away. “I still have that dress somewhere, because I can’t bear to get rid of it.”
“Why do you keep it?” I asked, interested in her answer.
“Because it reminds me of a time when—when I-I didn’t know what hurt felt l-l-like…” she trailed off on a sad sob.
“I would take that hurt away from you if I could. He did you wrong and you have every right to feel sad, Reese. I just wish I’d given you a different answer before you ever met him, so you never would’ve had to go through any of this at all.”
“But where would that leave me now, Gray?” She took her hand away from mine and brushed the tear off her cheek with her finger.
“You’d be with me, and you wouldn’t be hurting or sad right now. I’d make sure of it. All you have to do is say yes to my question.”
Reese lifted her eyes up to mine again, but this time her expression looked a lot less vulnerable. The Steel Magnolia thing? She had that look in her eyes. “No, I would need more than that.”
“What more do you need? Tell me and I’ll do my best to give it to you.”
“I don’t think you can, based on what you said two years ago.” She picked up her wine again and drank probably half of the glass before putting it down with a small shake of her head. “So what has changed so much for you since then? Will you tell me where this marriage idea is really coming from?”
This was where my plan started to veer off the rails really fuckin’ quick. I wanted to be able to tell her I was in love with her, but every time I got to the verge of saying it, I dialed back. I didn’t want to be callus and say I loved her because there was a billion-dollar fortune at stake. I don’t think Reese wanted to hear that was my reason, any more than I wanted to admit it. “Our timing has not been good, I know—”
She cut my lame-ass excuse off like a sharp knife slicing through a tomato. “Tim said he loved me long before he asked me to marry him. You did just the opposite of that, Grayson.” Whenever Reese brought out my full name she had my full attention. It meant whatever she had to say was important and I should listen. It was weird we had such an understanding at this deep of a level, but we did. Pink and Gray did indeed know each other very well, and there was a whole lot of respect embedded in that knowledge.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, two years ago you told me you couldn’t love anyone, because the emotion just wasn’t in your heart, and now you’ve just asked me to marry you—again.”
“But that was before—”
She held up her palm to shut me down. “Tim couldn’t follow through on the marriage, and you cannot deliver on the love. I know you care about me, Gray, I do know, but I need more than just your affection and the approval of our families. Neither of my proposals of marriage, from Tim or from you, are what I would ever choose now. I want—and deserve—to have it all.”
“Yes, I agree. You do deserve to have it all, and I believe I can give it to you.”
“Oh, is that right?” she countered. “And just how are you going to give me the love you don’t feel?”
“By taking you upstairs to my room in this hotel, named after President Thomas Jefferson, and making love to you until you can’t remember your own name, the name of any president who has ever served this fine nation, let alone that idiot who broke your heart two months ago. Reese, if you just let me love you, then I know I will feel it.”
“So, let me get this right. You’re saying if I go upstairs with you, and we spend the night in your bed doing all of those things that lovers do together when they are naked and in bed, you believe you will feel differently about me than you have in the past?”
“Definitely.” My brain (cock) heard the words “naked” and “bed” in the same sentence sail off her tongue and stopped listening at that point.
“And this magical transformation will happen exactly when, Gray?”
“When I’m buried inside you and can see into your pretty green-gold eyes as you’re coming all over my cock.” Shit. I just said that out loud I think.
“Yes, you did,” she answered as she stood up from the table. “Get us another bottle of wine, please.”
I stared up at her with an equal measure of confusion and fear. She was either saying yes to the sex, or planning my death with a broken bottle to the throat. Maybe both.
Wasn’t sure.
Didn’t care.
Reese found my indecision comical, because she had to bite down on her bottom lip to suppress the laughter I could clearly see behind her eyes.
“I’m ready whenever you are, so hurry up.”
I followed her out of the restaurant like a starved dog after a platter of steaks. I’m sure anyone who saw me with her would’ve confirmed this, but thankfully it was a hot August night in DC, and The Jefferson just happened to be very quiet. We saw no one. This could have been because I was incapable of seeing anyone else in the room once Reese agreed to my suggestion we go on upstairs to my suite and work this controversy out while naked and horizontal in my bed. Although, naked and vertical would also work for me just fine.
When we stepped inside the elevator, I wasted no time backing her into the corner, the freedom to press myself against her and experience what her
body felt like beneath mine, no longer a fantasy.
She was soft.
I was so fucking hard.
She smelled so good.
I was intoxicated by her scent.
“I do wish you would kiss me,” she said, her eyes focusing on my lips.
Some faint sliver of caution had hung on in my conscious mind to wait until we were behind the closed door of my suite—which was a very good thing. Because in walked the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House to ride in the elevator with us up to the top.
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on sociology by any means, but I had enough brain matter firing up in my dome to understand the image of the State Attorney General, grandson of President Grayson T. Lash, dry-humping the great-great-granddaughter of President Theodore Pinkarver, in the elevator at The Jefferson, would not ride silently into the sunset.
“Ahh, I thought that was you, Mr. Lash,” Secretary Carlin said.
“Madam Secretary, Madam Speaker, hello. How are you ladies this evening?” I offered my hand to each of them in turn; praying to God my jacket covered the indecent display putting on a show behind my fly. Fuck me.
“Is that little Reese Pinkarver all grown up, you are guarding in the corner, Mr. Lash?” Speaker Morris asked while eyeing the wine bottle in my other hand.
Reese giggled from behind me and gave a friendly wave. “Yes, it’s me, Madam Speaker. Gray has taken me to dinner, and now he’s invited me up to his suite so we can have some really good se—”
“Some—good talk—ahh…Reese and I are talking about our plans for the immediate future.”
I’d stopped Reese from sharing the real plans for our immediate future—defiling each other in my bed over the next three hours or so—but I only stopped her from sharing those plans out loud. Anybody could connect the dots.