The President's Wife

by Kathy Myme

  Does he still think I’m interested in money?

  “I told you,” I snap, “that I don’t want money.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “For you to not treat me like a prisoner!”

  “We’re both prisoners.” His thumb starts to move in small circles around my palm.

  I jump. I hadn’t… I hadn’t realized he was still holding my hand.

  When I pull back, he raises an eyebrow. “Do you have a problem with me touching you?”

  “We’re not in front of people anymore,” I remind him, gesturing around us, “apart from your bodyguards. We don’t have to put on a show.”

  “No,” he says. “We don’t.”

  He takes my hand in his again.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper.

  He is quiet. “...it’s important you get used to my touch, Veronica. There’ll be a whole lot more of it to come. And we can’t let the cameras catch you being nervous.”

  Screw the cameras. I’m nervous now. I’m nervous because the most attractive man I’ve ever seen in real life is rubbing his fingers across my bare skin. I’m nervous because it takes me far too long to remember that Trevor exists.

  As if he can read my mind, David seems to jump on my insecurities. “Have you briefed your boyfriend yet?” On his lips, the word boyfriend sounds like a dirty stain or an unwanted household pest.

  “He won’t accept any of my calls.”

  “So it’s over between you two?” His tone is perfectly neutral.

  “No,” I cry out, suddenly defensive. “Why do you think that?”

  “If he won’t answer your calls…”

  “I’ll explain it to him when I get the chance.” I fold my arms. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Don’t you have a girlfriend?” I’m hardly the biggest reader of the gossip magazines, but they have several candidates for who they think the President might have dated. Because a man as frustratingly attractive as him… surely can’t have been single for so long. It wouldn’t make sense.

  “I don’t do girlfriends,” he says simply. “Not anymore.”

  “A partner?”

  “No, Veronica.”

  “Then what?”

  There’s something I can’t quite put my finger on bubbling beneath his surface. Something unsaid. He leans forwards and I mimic him, entranced.

  I watch his face carefully. We’re close now - so close I can feel his warmth, I can smell that soft musky cologne - and that’s how I catch it. The President is so well-trained at acting, like any good politician, that he hides his facial expressions well. But I catch the way his eyes drop to my lips and the slow, heavy breathing that seems to hold him fixed in place.

  “I don’t do feelings.” He shrugs and leans back. Like that, the spell is over. “It’s as simple as that.”

  At once I feel so incredibly stupid. Had I really thought, even for a second, that David could really… be attracted to me? This man that seems so beyond normal that a part of me still can’t believe he exists in front of me?

  “Oh,” I say, dumbly. “Right.”

  He shifts in his seat. “We should take care of business.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Rule number one: you must never tell anyone about our arrangement. Ever.” He clasps his hands together. His fingers are distracting, so long and narrow. Now that I think about it, I can imagine them planting seeds here. “No matter what you are offered or what they try to do to you-”

  “Or the White House will ruin my life,” I reply. “Would you try to take me out? Like, assassinate me?”

  He doesn’t dignify me with a reply. “Number two: you will obey my every order. For this to succeed, I need you to follow my instructions.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’ve made my feelings on this very clear. The world isn’t going to end if you don’t plot out every aspect of my day.”

  “Veronica.” Suddenly there’s something wild and intense in his eyes. “I have worked and planned and toiled every day of my life to get where I am today. I need to know that you trust my orders.”

  “I’m not following your itinerary.”

  “I’m going to make you an offer,” he says, carefully. “You will obey my scheduling in the mornings. Barring special events, the afternoon will belong to you.”

  I think about this. As far as deals go, it’s not terrible. A regular 9-5 would take up way more of my day… “What about security?”

  “You’ll still need to be watched in the afternoons, of course. I am not allowing you to be endangered.”

  Drat. So even the ‘freedom’ there isn’t really true freedom.

  “Take it or leave it, Veronica,” he says. “It’s a generous offer. If you don’t accept, I will expect you to follow my full schedule-”

  “Fine,” I sigh. “Mornings are fine.” I’m just going to have to get used to hours of boring etiquette training.

  “The classes won’t last forever,” he promises. “Just until you’re used to your role here.”

  “Okay.”

  “And that brings me to rule three: don’t fall in love with me.”

  “Are you serious?” My whole face goes beetroot red, although I can’t tell whether it’s from embarrassment or from anger.

  David looks at me blankly. “Do you agree?”

  “Why would you even ask something like that? As if… as if I’d…”

  “Calm down. It’s simply a rule I’m putting in place as a formality. We have to ensure that the relationship between us stays professional.”

  “It’s a stupid rule,” I grumble. How had he asked me that with a straight face?

  “Rules are necessary. This agreement between us won’t work without them.”

  “Then you have to promise to stop touching me so casually,” I insist. If I don’t stop it now, I’m pretty sure the way he puts his hands on me will give me a heart attack.

  Although a part of my brain screams in revolt at the very idea.

  “You really want me to stop doing that?” He raises an eyebrow.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Your pulse,” he says coolly. “Every time I touch you, I feel it racing.”

  My cheeks are bright red. Fuck. What is he trying to do? What does he want from me?

  “You make me nervous,” I reply weakly. “You’re the president.”

  “I see.” He lets go of my hand. Without his warmth I suddenly feel cold and empty all over, not just in my fingers. “I can see why that would make you nervous.”

  He stands up.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “It’s late,” he says, simply. “It’s been a long day. We should get you to bed.”

  I hate the way a part of me curls up inside at that. ‘We should get you to bed’. I know he doesn’t mean it in a dirty way at all. David has made it very clear that he feels nothing for me, or for anyone at all by the sound of it. But there’s a sick part of my mind that wants him to take me back to my suite.

  That wants him to offer to escort me to my bed.

  That wants him to pin me up against the headboard and use those perfect fingers to make me scream.

  God, I wish Trevor would call me back.

  “Yeah,” I agree quickly, heading back. “I could do with some sleep.”

  David

  “There’s been another leak,” Andrews says, sitting down next to me.

  We’re outside, sitting in the garden. It’s sunny and quiet and, most importantly of all, far away from prying ears.

  “Details about your planned meeting with the Russian ambassador this time.”

  I frown. This is getting worse, leaks about international matters could have serious ramifications. The Russians aren’t going to like this, and there’s a chance they’ll call the meeting off.

  “Do we know who knew about it?” I ask. “Can we narrow down the potential leaker any further?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Andrews r
eplies with a sigh. “There were people from a number of different departments working on this one. Whoever is doing the leaking is being careful, and only dropping information that can’t be linked back to them.”

  I nod. They are certainly being extremely careful, whoever they are. I just wish I knew why the leaks were happening. Is it an attempt to bring me down? Is it a personal thing?

  “And that’s not all,” Andrews says. “We also received this.”

  He hands me the folder he’s been holding it and I open it up. Inside are dozens of photos of Veronica and I. It’s clear that we are arguing in some of them. Shit, the press would have an absolute field day with this.

  I look at each one carefully, one at a time. Then, behind them is a copy of Veronica’s application to work as an intern.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse. “So the leaker knows about our plan?”

  Andrews nods. “It seems like it. Though they didn’t send any blackmail demands through yet, I imagine they will soon enough.”

  Blackmail. Fuck.

  “What do you think I should do?” I ask.

  Andrews sits in silence for a while. “Honestly, I don’t know. Until we know what they want, it’s hard to say. For now, maybe you should just sit tight and let us keep looking into this.”

  “Fine,” I say. “I need some time to think if you don’t mind.”

  Andrews nods and leaves.

  I watch him go, upset. This is bad. I don’t even know if we’ve managed to avoid the whole Veronica scandal yet. I really can’t afford any more drama.

  I can feel my control of the situation slipping from my grasp. How can this have gotten so bad? Where did things begin to go so wrong?

  That stupid fall. Why did we have to fall? Part of me wishes I could blame Veronica for it all, but I can’t. No matter how much I want to, I know it isn’t her fault. And as much as I know it isn’t mine either, I can’t help but feeling like it is.

  I should have been better than this. I should have been smarter. I should have stayed in control.

  Now I’m at risk of losing everything. The public. The presidency. Veronica.

  I shouldn’t care so much about her. She’s just some intern, another piece in this political game of chess between me and the media. But I do care. Too much.

  No, I don’t have feelings for her. Stop it.

  Maybe I need to end this now and take her out of the picture entirely. Maybe that will solve everything. I mean, I do have over three years before the next election to build my polls back up. It could work. All I need to do is-

  Then it hit me. Out of the picture. Of course.

  Whoever is taking the pictures and leaking them won’t be in the photographs themselves. The leaker has finally made their mistake.

  I’m going to catch them. I’m going to stop them, once and for all.

  Maybe it will be alright. Maybe I can still save the presidency. Maybe I won’t have to lose Veronica. Maybe I have a chance.

  Veronica

  Adjusting to life at the White House doesn’t get any easier.

  David is true to his words. The next morning, Jackson presents me with an itinerary that is a lot less packed. The morning is non-stop appointment and lesson one after another, but there’s nothing at all to fill my afternoons.

  Trevor still won’t call me back. I must have called him a hundred times by now. I even send a few emails to his email address, trying to explain it all. Most of them go like this:

  To: trevors_the_man@hotnet.com

  SUBJECT: Please read this

  Trevor,

  Call me. There’s a lot I need to explain and I can only do it with words.

  None of this is as it seems.

  I want to make sure we’re okay.

  Yours,

  Veronica xx

  But each and every one of them go unreplied to. I know it’s not a mistake. Trevor has always been obsessive about checking his email. He just doesn’t want to respond.

  Even worse is when I talk to my dad again.

  “Honey, Trevor hasn’t been into work for days,” Dad tells me. “Do you know where he is?”

  “He hasn’t contacted me since this all began-”

  “You mean you haven’t explained things to him?” I hear the disappointment in Dad’s voice.

  “I haven’t had the chance yet,” I protest.

  But with every passing day, I become more and more worried about him. I suppose him ghosting me is an appropriate punishment for what he thinks I’ve done… but it would all be so much easier if he gave me the chance to explain myself.

  Although how I’d even begin to explain what’s happened, I don’t know.

  Stephanie’s existence is still a threat. I haven’t worked out what to do with her yet. All I can do is bide my time while I try to think of a way to get her to stop or to work out what she knows.

  The strangest thing is that I barely see David himself. You’d think that with his obsession over keeping up public appearances, he’d want to be pictured with his fiancée as much as possible. Several days go by without another visit to my suite.

  The only interactions we have are monopolized by the press. There are a few more conferences where I have to point my ring finger and show off the huge diamond. A few more carefully orchestrated photos taken of us together as we walk through the grounds.

  But we’re never really walking together. David leaves the second the photographer tells him he can go, as if whatever problems waiting for him inside the Oval Office need every precious second of his attention.

  “He’s probably busy trying to get that bill of his through,” says Rosalie cheerfully, stirring sugar into a cup. “I wouldn’t worry about it, dear.”

  Rosalie Airheart is a bright-faced woman that I’ve been having lunch with for the past few days. She’s from money and it’s so incredibly obvious with every sip of tea she takes from a fine china set. I think she’s the wife of one of David’s cabinet members, which is why he arranged for me to lunch for them in the first place. I think I’m supposed to be winning them over.

  But her company has been nice. Jackson and a few other suits still watch me with eagle eyes from the door, but the conversation has been good at distracting me from noticing that kind of thing.

  I wish I could say the same about Amber.

  “You should try relationship counseling, perhaps,” Amber comments, her lips pursed. “I imagine you and David have a lot to work through. What with your…” She smiles thinly. “‘Background differences’.”

  The woman seems obsessed with pointing out that I’m not from a rich family. At every possible opportunity, she will bring up David’s rich father or ask me if it’s really true that my own father worked for the minimum wage for years before starting his own company.

  But she and Rosalie are friends somehow. They seem to be a package deal.

  So I smile back, whole-heartedly, and flutter my eyelashes. “Oh, trust. David doesn’t have time to think about that type of thing when he’s with me.”

  Rosalie laughs into her teacup. Amber settles for looking even more sour than usual.

  In the middle of lunch, a memo gets sent to my table. It’s ridiculously pretty for being so short, typed up neatly on a small square of scented paper, embossed with the White House’s logo. Of course David has his own personal set of stationery.

  Dinner this evening. Seven o’clock. Dress for a date.

  DS

  “He’s so business-like, isn’t he?” Rosalie is reading the note over my shoulder, making me jump as she speaks. “Even when asking you on dates.”

  “He seems tense,” Amber chips in. “Like… I don’t know, like he needs someone to loosen him up.”

  What is this woman’s problem?

  Maybe she wants David. I wouldn’t be surprised. Most women all around the world want the man and she’s closer to him than most, being comfortable enough in high society to take daily lunches in the White House.

  “You
’re so lucky,” Rosalie sighs. “Stephen never takes me on dates anymore.”

  That’s probably because Stephen is a man in his late sixties, I think. As sweet as Rosalie is, it’s possible that she’s a little bit of a gold digger.

  At least now I have the whole afternoon to decompress before I have to see David. The past few days I’ve been using my spare hours to read or nap or daydream. The time alone - or alone with Jackson watching me, at least - are making it a lot easier to manage the intensity of my new life here.

  But this evening I’m left with another important choice… what to wear? The President clearly had issues with my dress from the other night, even if he hadn’t made them clear.

  Maybe he just hadn’t liked the idea of me borrowing the previous First Lady’s clothes. I guess some people could be weird about things like that?

  Fortunately, yesterday a stack of fresh outfits had been delivered in expensive plastic bags to my suite. There are some dresses in there I could wear.

  I find a black dress, far plainer than the bright red one I’d worn the other day. It fits my form perfectly… but then I suppose everything here has been tailored for my body exactly. These dresses are made to make me every curve and angle look flawless.

  I add a little bit of extra make-up, too. Just some mascara to bring out my eyes and concealer to cover up how impossibly tired I am at the moment with everything going on. I imagine that this date will be heavily monitored by the press. If my face is going to be plastered on the front cover of every trashy magazine out there, I might as well look decent.

  The alarm clock on my phone buzzes at me angrily. It’s 7:00PM. Right on cue, there’s a knock on the door. “Miss Waters?” A pause. “Veronica?”

  I’d know that voice anywhere. The President’s voice alone probably won him a good percentage of the vote. It’s smooth and rich, with a husky dry undertone that seems to rumble as he speaks.

  “Just a second,” I say, adjusting my hair. The frizzy mess I have is nowhere near the smooth and sleek hair girls in the public eye are usually snapped with, but it’ll have to do.

  When I’m satisfied that I’ll never be satisfied, I nod my orders to Jackson so he can open the door.