The President's Wife

by Kathy Myme

  The sight that greets me pushes all sensible thoughts from my mind.

  God, David looks good.

  The sight before me seems so unreal. The President of the United States is dressed up. To go on a date. With me.

  Women around the world are already crazy enough about him dressed up in a suit, but this is something else. The stuffy blazer and tie combo has vanished, replaced by a dark purple button-up shirt with silver cufflinks. His hair, usually combed back, hangs more loosely and allows his dark curls to be free.

  I’m reminded of the other morning back in the Situation Room. The way he looked with his tie undone and dark circles under his eyes. Although it’s clear he’s had an hour or two of sleep since then, there’s a reason both occasions have captured my attention.

  Both then and now, David hasn’t had the business attire to protect him. The blazer, the matching ties, the meticulously crafted appearance… they’re all crafted to make the man in front of me into the President of the United States. Somebody I can look up to and respect, but only from afar. Someone untouchable.

  Somebody so out of my reach that I can’t even dream of tasting.

  Without them… he’s just a man. An uptight, hard-ass of a man with shockingly blue eyes and cheekbones that could cut me. A man that makes my whole body feel tense and warm at the same time.

  A man I want to take me to bed.

  I snap myself back to reality. What on earth am I thinking? He might be playing a role right now, but he’s still the president. Was I seriously just thinking about how he might look naked?

  Even worse… was I really secretly liking what I pictured?

  “Something wrong, Veronica?” David asks me, his eyes taking me in from head to toe.

  It’s not just simple concern. He’s giving me a soft smile, one corner of his lips cocked to the side. He’s amused by something.

  Worry floods through me, even though I know it’s irrational. There’s something about those eyes of his… It’s like he’s reading my mind. Like he can see right through me.

  I pray to every god out there that he can’t.

  “No,” I reply, my voice barely more than a squeak.

  Get a grip, Veronica, I snap at myself. What is it about being in the same room as this man that seems to lower my IQ by a hundred points? I didn’t get to where I am today by falling over myself every time someone moderately attractive passes by me.

  Except the President is more than just moderately attractive. He’s a liability to women everywhere.

  “Ready to go?” he asks, offering me his arm.

  I stare at it. It’s only his hand… but I think about the effect holding his hand at the press conference had on me. His touch was calculated and planned, nothing more than another step in our plan. But the heat of our joined bodies won’t stay out of my head.

  I really hope Trevor calls me back soon.

  “Yes,” I say, after what feels like an agonizingly long pause on my side. He has to notice that something is up by now. “Let’s go.”

  I slip my hand into his, praying that last time was an anomaly. But to my dismay, every inch of my skin feels as if it’s been set on fire. His hands are so warm. It shouldn’t be possible for anyone’s hands to be this warm.

  “Come with me,” he says. “There’s a car out front.” He motions to Jackson. “Take the evening off. Thank you for doing such a good job today.”

  It takes me far too long to process his words. How am I supposed to process anything else in the universe when David is touching me?

  True enough, there’s a long black limo parked outside. A short distance away, there are two other cars. The Secret Service, I guess. It’s not like the President can just be allowed to go for a solitary drive on his own.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “That’s the wrong question to be asking.” He holds open a car door and I climb inside.

  “Then what’s the right question?”

  He smirks as the car engine starts up and we begin to drive away, onwards and away from the White House gates. “‘What are we doing’?”

  I have a sinking feeling that he’s playing with me. “Then what are we doing, David?”

  “I’m making sure,” he says, slowly and unflinchingly, “that you’re thoroughly seduced.”

  He should be illegal. If it wasn’t his actual job to run the country, I would suggest banning him entirely.

  I can’t help going entirely red, even down to my neck. I’m probably clashing horribly with my dress right now.

  The worst thing of all? I know he’s just trying to get a reaction out of me. Even though he comes off to the world as this serious, no-nonsense workaholic… there’s a part of him that’s a killer. A part of him that enjoys playing with his food before destroying it. He sees me as a challenge, I realize. Another roadblock in his road to achieving presidential glory.

  It’s the same instinct that probably got him the power he has today. Watching him argue and speak in the presidential debates last year was an exhilarating experience. His opponents would talk and insult David to their heart’s content, and yet as soon as he himself began speaking he’d change the game. He’d play with them on stage, making his rivals fall over their words and look like idiots.

  The truth about President David Shepard? Every move he makes is a calculation. He’s playing a game. And he’s always playing to win.

  “I know what you’re doing,” I whisper. “You’re trying to fluster me. To make me nervous around you.”

  “It’s working,” he replies simply.

  “I think anyone would feel nervous if their president told them something like that,” I shoot back. “I just can’t work out why you’re trying to do it.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “I need a reason?”

  “I think you’re a man with a reason behind everything you do.”

  “Oh? You have me all worked out?”

  “Answer the question. Why are you trying to make me nervous?”

  He laughs. It’s light and full-chested. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before.

  “You’re quite the interrogator, Veronica Waters,” he muses. “Fine, I’ll level with you. The way you act around me is... well, it’s stiff. The press will be all over that. You need to look like my fiancée.” He glances towards the chauffeur, a Secret Service agent. As if to remind me not to discuss the truth. “You’re going to be my wife, Veronica. I don’t want anyone to question that.”

  “I get what you’re trying to say, but surely being uncomfortable around you just makes us more distant-”

  “I tend to make most women flustered.” He shrugs his broad shoulders. “It’s nothing new. I imagine the media will just presume I drive you wild, don’t you think?”

  He’s arrogant. So ridiculously arrogant. But he’s also probably right. I doubt most women are able to speak in full sentences in front of this man.

  The car stops after a twenty-minute drive. We’re parked in front of a restaurant… a high, upscale restaurant. Like, think of the kind of place you might go once a year for a ‘treat’. And then add a couple of hundred dollars onto the bill.

  David gets out and opens my car door. “Hungry, Veronica?”

  It has been a very long day. “Yes, actually.”

  I thank every star under the sun that I’m wearing these fancy new clothes. Nothing in my old wardrobe would even begin to look appropriate for a place like this.

  The waitress, a beautiful goddess with waist-length hair and a dazzling smile, escorts us to the table. The restaurant is pretty packed, full of hundreds of couples chatting animatedly. I doubt anyone else is here as part of a secret government cover-up.

  “Is there anything else I can get you?” she asks after taking drink orders, looking at David and fluttering her eyelashes.

  She wants him. Of course she does. I’d be surprised to find a woman on this entire planet that doesn’t.

  For some reason, I find myself annoyed by the idea of
her hitting on him. It’s not like I can forget that we’re just acting and this is part of a cover-up. But for all the world knows, we are engaged. So this woman hitting on my pretend fiancé is pretty damn disrespectful.

  “No thank you,” he replies, barely looking up.

  I pick up one of the menus. There are no prices on there. I shudder to think about how much anything costs.

  “This place is so fancy,” I say, shaking my head. “We didn’t have to come somewhere like this. Anywhere would have done.”

  “The media has to know that we’re serious.” He doesn’t even bother looking at the menu. How many times has he dined at this place? That kind of wealth is crazy. “And it’s the best restaurant for what I have planned.”

  “What have you planned?”

  He nods to the window. “Take a look out there, but be subtle. Try not to let them know that you’re looking.”

  I follow his gaze. Sure enough, I catch sight of a small crowd. I’ve seen enough of their type to recognize them pretty quickly now. The media have followed us.

  “You want the media to catch sight of us,” I deduct. “To photograph us doing normal couple things, like going on dates and eating dinner together.”

  He nods. “Yes. Really, I’m killing two birds with one stone. I wanted a private place where we could talk.”

  “This is private?” I exclaim, looking around. Maybe the Secret Service aren’t looming over our shoulders, but this is pretty much the opposite of private in my book. There are so many other people here.

  “Hired extras, all with background checks and non-disclosure agreements.” David gestures to everyone at the other tables. “They’re here to talk loudly and mind their own business. Anything we discuss is between ourselves.”

  “You don’t think it’ll look odd if the media discovers that this is all staged?”

  “Veronica, this is politics,” he says, giving me a dark grin. “Everything is staged. Even if you were my fiancée, I might have hired all these people. You can never be too safe.”

  I sit back in my chair, shaking my head. This man is insane. The words ‘control freak’ don’t seem quite strong enough.

  “You’re crazy,” I mumble, absolutely exhausted with trying to keep up.

  “I’m prepared,” he says. “And I think you’ll appreciate the chance to talk. It’s been quite a hectic past few days.”

  He isn’t wrong. My entire life has now changed. Turned upside down so quickly that a part of me is still reeling, struggling to adjust.

  “What would you like to discuss?” I ask.

  “Firstly, I’d just like to thank you. I know how much you’re risking for me, Veronica. It takes a lot of courage to do something like this, even for the sake of your country.”

  Once more I feel embarrassment creep into me. “That’s okay. I did have a hand in causing it.” Although we’d both tripped into each other, I imagine it would have been a lot less embarrassing in the long term if the President had only had himself to fall onto.

  “You will, of course, be compensated for your trouble. Thoroughly. If you ever receive an offer from the media to do a tell-all, remember that I will triple it.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to rat you out, David. Why would I have agreed to help you in the first place?”

  “I simply want to be prepared for all eventualities.” He leans back in his chair as the waitress comes back.

  I notice it first when we place our orders. At first I hesitate, frozen still with shock. There’s a hand on my leg.

  The President’s hand is on my leg.

  Slowly, carefully, his fingers run in quiet circles as they draw patterns into my skin. Soft circles, light and almost absent-minded.

  I suck in my breath.

  “What are you doing?” I hiss, moving to pull him away. But my hand hovers over his, somehow able to push him off.

  The slow circles don’t stop. Inch by inch, get only seems to get closer and closer to my inner thigh.

  His gaze falls to where his hand is underneath the table. “We’re sitting next to a large window, Veronica.”

  To my horror, I realize. The position of his hand isn’t hidden. It’s directly positioned so you can see it from out of the window.

  “You want them to see,” I whisper sharply. “Don’t you?”

  “It’s just another way of making it absolutely clear to the press,” he says with a shrug far too nonchalant from a man in his position. “Of showing them who you belong to.”

  “You’re a politician to the core,” I mutter at him. The sound comes out far more high pitched than I’d intended. “All you ever think about is how to get ahead.”

  “All I ever think about is how I’m going to win.” He smiles again, a devastating half-cocked thing. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “David…”

  “As you said before, answer the question. Do you want me to stop?”

  No, my brain cries. That's the last thing I want. All I can think about is how desperately I want his hand to continue moving up my leg.

  How much I want it to reach into my underwear and-

  No. I can’t think about that. I can’t let myself.

  “Are you happy?” I say angrily to him, feeling as if I’m about to shatter into a thousand pieces. “Or are you going to keep your hands there all night?”

  Slowly, without even glancing at the window, he pulls his hand away and lets his palm rest on my knee. The contact still makes my whole body buzz, but at the same time… I can’t help but to mourn the warmth his hands left a little higher up. I feel suddenly empty, left wanting. It’s frustrating.

  “I have a question,” he says, his voice soft for someone who’s so clearly evil. “Veronica, are you attracted to me?”

  It’s like he wants to kill me. So direct. So blunt. And throughout it all, he has the audacity to lean back in his chair and gaze at me ambivalently, as if the answer really means nothing to him. As if he’s asking out of pure curiosity alone.

  “David, that’s an inappropriate question-”

  “It’s not inappropriate,” he says flatly. “You’re pretending to be my fiancée, Veronica. I need to know whether I have an effect on you. Whether your body is responding to me when I do this.”

  His hand sneaks back towards my inner thigh. In one fluid motion, he runs a finger dangerously close to the lining of my underwear.

  I shiver uncontrollably in response.

  Because the truth is… I’m uncontrollably, undeniably wet for him right now. If he had moved his hand only a little more upwards, he would have come across proof of just how much my body enjoys his touch. The idea is so embarrassing that I want the ground to swallow me up just at the thought of it.

  “That’s what I thought.” David smiles that terrible half-cocked smile, satisfied with my reaction.

  “How dare you?” My voice is dangerous. “People are watching outside. What gives you the right to assume that I want you?”

  “Because you do,” he says shortly. “Do you deny it?”

  I try to open my mouth to protest. But not a word comes out. I just sit there, gulping air and attempting to stay afloat.

  “Women want what I can offer them.” David is lecturing. It’s not a suggestion but an explanation of the facts. “They want my body. My power. My money. What they think I could do to them.”

  I wait for him to continue. But the pause he leaves… it’s like he wants me to ask. Like he wants me to take the bait.

  He’s playing with me.

  And yet I still can’t resist. “What do they think you could do to them?”

  His shockingly blue eyes pierce me. “I am a man who gets things done, Veronica. This applies to all aspects of my life.”

  I’m conscious of everything about us. The way my whole body is tilted forwards as if it’s begging to be closer to his. Of the way my skin burns where he’s touched me. Of the way his hand comes over and brushes a lock of dark hair away from my face.

 
Flash. A not so subtle member of the paparazzi outside eagerly snaps that one up, leaving their flash on.

  “I’m sorry, Veronica,” David says softly, “but I’m going to have to kiss you now.”

  Being told by President David Shepard that he is about to kiss you really isn’t the type of thing most people would be sorry about at all. Most people are sorry about accidentally stepping on someone’s foot or accidentally sitting in the wrong seat in a movie theatre.

  No, ‘sorry’ really isn’t the word to encapsulate how I’m feeling when David Shepard places his thumb on my chin and kisses me on the mouth.

  Of course, it’s perfectly staged for the cameras. I’m not sure why none of them are clever enough to notice - why else would David deliberately rotate our heads so they can get a perfect view? - but in fairness, they’re all probably too busy thinking about what a killer headline this is about to be.

  More than dinner: President Shepard shows affection for fiancée Veronica Waters.

  Kiss and tell? SECRET KISS between SHEPARD and his soon to be WIFE.

  PDA: Presidential Displays of Affection?

  But the second his lips are on mine, I’m not thinking about any of that. My whole body melts as if a switch has been flipped inside my brain. Yes. Fuck yes. Every ounce of need that I’ve been repressing surges forwards uncontrollably.

  I need him. I need him so fucking badly.

  But of course, it doesn’t last long. He pulls away from me, and I notice the way his eyes dart to the cameras through the window as if to check.

  Because that’s what he cares about.

  The horror of what’s just happened sinks in. I’ve just kissed the President of the United States. And I liked it.

  David

  “I’m sorry, Veronica, but I’m going to have to kiss you now.”

  The moment my lips touch hers, I know it’s a lie. I’m not sorry in the slightest.

  I don’t need to kiss her for the cameras. The romantic date is more than enough to appease them. No, I kiss her because I want to. Because I have to. For me.

  I’m not sorry at all.

  As I watch her walk to the bathroom, all I can think of is that kiss. How fucking good it felt to kiss a woman, this woman, my woman.