Chapter 1 Selene #2
That realization hits us both at the same time, and we snap out of the high of our collective madness, crash landing on Earth with desperate gasps that leave us with no choice but to let go of each other lest we risk blowing our cover.
Beck lowers me to the ground slowly, and I back away from him, needing the distance.
“I saw your segment on Good Morning America,” he says, reaching into his pants to adjust himself. “You were beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, breath growing ragged as he stretches out a hand to cup my cheek. He rubs at the corner of my mouth with the pad of his thumb, fixing what I can only guess is smudged lipstick.
“Not as beautiful as you are now, though,” he whispers, dark eyes burning a hole into my very soul. “Doesn’t matter what kind of lighting they have, how they do your makeup or what brand they put you in. Nothing compares to seeing you live and in color, gorgeous.”
Heat floods my cheeks, and I’m hit with the sudden urge to kiss him again. I push it down. There’s not enough time. There’s never enough time. Despite the lovely compliment, I frown.
“Yeah, well, if I had my way, that’s the only way anyone would ever see me. I think I could live the rest of my life without another camera pointed in my face.”
He tilts his head to the side, examining me. “Developing a bit of camera fatigue?”
“Is that even a thing?”
“You’re the First Lady of the United States. It’s a thing if you say it is.”
“Wouldn’t that be something? Using my platform to lend meaning and credence to a feeling I only have because of it?”
Beck’s hand moves from my cheek to the nape of my neck, using a light grip to urge me forward until my head his resting on his shoulder and my hands linked at his back.
This will be the last hug we share for God knows how long, and we make the most of it.
Our bodies melting into each other until his muscle is my muscle, his flesh is my flesh, his bone is my bone.
“Can’t you take a break?” he asks. “Go home. See your parents and your sisters. Re-calibrate just for a little while?”
“No,” I answer simply.
Months ago, the thought of going home would have sounded anything but relaxing to me.
These days, I find myself longing for my mother’s arms and the constant chatter of my sisters balanced among the quiet power of my father’s presence.
I wake up from dreams of falling asleep between Cal and Beck in my childhood bed and laugh at the ridiculousness of thinking my parents would allow that before crying over the small likelihood that I’ll find myself needing to pitch the idea to them.
So much of life now is longing. Wanting things I will never get to have because Aubrey won’t allow it.
After all, he’s the architect behind my schedule.
Not literally. He isn’t the hand holding the pen that writes everything into my overpacked calendar, but he gave Jordan the order to keep me busy.
She disseminated it to everyone else on staff.
On the outside looking in, Aubrey appears to be a supportive husband, helping his wife in her endeavor to be something more than ornamental.
What no one seems to see is the malice it takes to give someone who thrives on having a purpose a schedule filled with nothing more than busywork.
Even the interview Beck referred to minutes ago fits that bill.
I’d gone to Good Morning America to discuss the successful placement of mental health professionals whose sole purpose is to create emotionally safe environments in hopes of preventing school shootings like the one that claimed AJ’s life in twenty schools across the DMV area.
It should have been a gratifying moment, a nationally televised celebration of a dream I’d worked towards for years now finally coming true, but I found no joy in it because the entire conversation was about Aubrey.
How gracious he is, how supportive he is, how kind he is to make backing my First Lady initiative one of the top priorities for his first hundred days.
I know that’s why he did it.
Why he honored the terms of the contract I could no longer hold him to because I’d been the one to break it.
And it wasn’t about grace or altruism.
It was about control. About making sure every conversation regarding the promise I worked so hard to keep included him. About taking the joy out of getting the work done. About turning me into a villain if I leave him and a frivolous figurine if I stay.
How is this my life?
The internal question slithers through my mind, only drowned out by the sound of Agent Shaw’s knuckles colliding with the door a few feet away.
“Time’s up,” Beck mutters, pulling back reluctantly. “Kiss me goodbye, gorgeous.”
I rise up on the tips of my toes, dropping two chaste kisses on his lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He doesn’t linger, but his words do, staying with me long after he’s begun his ascent up the stairs I came down minutes ago.
It’s an extra precaution. If any one ever bothers to check the camera, which Agent Shaw assures me no one ever does, all they’ll find is footage with altered time stamps that shows us entering the stairwell on one floor and exiting on the other moments later.
Logically, I know it’s not the smartest plan, but it’s all we have until we can find a way to truly have each other.