The Press Secretary's Passion (A Presidential Affair Book 3)

by Jennifer Rebecca

  “Which was?”

  “Marry my daughter! That was her only job. She was bred to do it,” he explains.

  “According to my father, I thought I was supposed to marry Jules.”

  “That was never my plan. They wanted that.”

  “Who is they?” I ask, but he’s raising his gun toward me.

  “And you couldn’t do what you were supposed to, and now you have to die,” he says. “You all have to die.”

  “Who is they?” I repeat on a shout as he pulls the trigger.

  The shot goes wide. I dive behind a sofa and pull the gun from my waistband. And then I hear another gunshot go off. I jump up from behind the couch and run to where Jeffries is lying on the floor in a pool of his blood.

  Rhys is standing in the doorway, holding a gun in one hand and talking on his phone that’s in the other.

  “Sorry, hun,” he says. “I’m going to have to let you go now.”

  “Who is they?” I ask Jeffries as I drop to my knees beside him.

  “Fairchild,” he whispers, and then he dies.

  “I got here as soon as I could,” Rhys tells me.

  “Are you going to get into trouble for this?” I ask, and then Gus steps out from the next room with his gun pointed at me.

  “There just isn’t any good help anymore,” Rhys drolls.

  “Not you too, Gus.”

  “No hard feelings, Ghost,” he says. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

  And then he raises his gun.

  And he’s shot in the back by Leo, the Secret Service Agent I never liked.

  “Jesus Christ!” Rhys shouts. “This is like that bloody Clue movie where everyone did it.”

  “You too, I take it?” I say, preparing to take down a protection agent that I never really liked and it turns out I was right all along.

  “No,” Leo says, and his voice changes to a deep brogue much like Rhys’s. “I’m deep cover.”

  “For who?” I ask, hating that someone managed to get past my trusted people. Although, then again, Gus was my trusted people and he just tried to kill me. That does pose a problem.

  “For me,” Rhys answers. “And you thank bloody hell for that one at least.”

  My thoughts exactly.

  Ryan

  I know something’s wrong the minute I pull up to the house. Rick is standing at the door knocking, but I know in my gut she’s not there.

  I run up the steps and use my key, the one I took from that stupid rock when I found where she stashed it under the kitchen sink when she tried to break up with me over a stupid misunderstanding with my sister, of all people, and I unlock the front door.

  There’s a note on the stone tile. The same tile I fucked her on when we didn’t know each other but were drawn to each other like magnets. And I left her there like an ass. We could have had so much more time together, and I fucked it up. I’ve made one mistake after another where Jules is concerned. I can only hope it doesn’t cost us in the end.

  I pick up the note and read it. I know immediately she didn’t leave it. Rick, on the other hand, has a sorry expression on his face.

  Ryan,

  I’m leaving you. I’ve gone to stay in an apartment at the old Fisher’s King Warehouse. Don’t come looking for me.

  -J

  “It’s not what you think,” I tell him.

  “Are you sure?” he asks. “Because it looks like she left you.”

  “She’s pregnant,” I tell him. “We just found out yesterday and made love all night to celebrate.”

  “Fuck,” he says quietly. “I had my suspicions last week.”

  That’s news to me. I had wondered who she talked to about it. Actually, I didn’t think she talked to anyone at all, since she wanted to keep it quiet. I figured it was just something that girls know. Like hey, you’re pregnant.

  “Besides,” I tell him. “This is her house. I still have my own across town. If we were breaking up, she would just stay here.”

  “Think it’s a trap?” he asks me.

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Think she’s there now?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say as I pull my phone out of my pocket. “But I’m going to find out.”

  I call up the Find My Phone app and bring up her phone. When I was worried about her security and she told me she wouldn’t go anywhere without me, I knew that was bullshit, even if she thought she was telling the truth. Jules can be a little reckless at times, and I figured this was no different. And I turned out to be right last night when I realized she went to the drugstore and almost to dinner, when she told me she would go straight home. So I made her trackable by her phone. And thank God I did.

  “Yep,” I say, watching the little circle ping near the warehouse. “Looks like that’s where her phone is at least.”

  “Let’s go,” Rick says to me. I jump in the passenger seat of his SUV, and we head out.

  “Secret Plot to Take Down the President’s Inner Circle Uncovered”

  Chapter 23

  Stupid girl

  Jules

  Lights.

  Lights are bright, and my head is pounding. My head is pounding, and my mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, and my throat is dry.

  I blink my eyes against the bright lights, and it all comes back to me. Gil, my brother, the only person to ever treat me right in the house of horrors we grew up in, turned on me.

  I look around. I’m sitting in a chair, my body taped to it, and I’m in a warehouse. We were supposed to be going to lunch, but we stopped here instead. I can’t believe I thought it was one of those popup things. I’m so stupid.

  Actually, I can’t believe I trusted Gil. That was even worse.

  “Look who’s finally joined our party,” my mother purrs. This just keeps getting better and better.

  I turn my head to look at her, and stars explode across my vision. Someone punched me in the face.

  “What was that for?” I ask.

  “For not doing what I told you to, you stupid, stupid girl,” she snarls before Gil hits me again. I feel my lip tear open, and I taste blood.

  “Please stop,” I whisper. “I’m pregnant.”

  I don’t know why I thought the knowledge of their impending grandchild and niece would make them let me go. I guess I’m as stupid as she thinks I am. Because Gil hits me again. I had no idea he could pack such a punch. I thought he played golf and squash. I didn’t know he could beat the shit out of someone. Or that that someone would be me, but I digress.

  “Why are you doing this?” I gasp.

  “Why else?” She laughs. “Power and money.”

  “I can get you power,” I tell them. “I work for the president.” Maybe if I bargain, they’ll let me go. Wishful thinking, I know.

  “He doesn’t have the kind of power I want,” she says.

  “And what kind is that?” I ask. I shouldn’t; I know I shouldn’t have asked as soon as the words are out of my mouth, but my brain hasn’t caught up with whatever they gave me in the car.

  “Global power,” Mom replies.

  “I thought Gil wanted to be president?” I ask.

  “He does,” she replies. “Just not of this country.”

  “What?”

  “When America falls, who will replace it?” Gil prompts. When I don’t respond, he answers for me. “I’ll be with the nation that’s waiting in the wings to replace us.”

  “You’re a traitor?” I gasp.

  “That’s such an ugly word,” my brother laughs.

  “If you’d have just married Jefferson like you were supposed to, this wouldn’t be happening, but just as always, you almost ruined everything,” Mom snaps. “Do you know how much we got paid to offer you up to them? And we had to pay it all back, you selfish bitch.”

  Sold. My parents fucking sold me so my crazy brother could rule the world. This is insane. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen in real life.

  “Now he’s dead, and soon, so wi
ll you be too,” Gil says with a nasty smile.

  “Jefferson died?” Mother asks. “What a pity. I liked him.”

  “He was weak,” Gil says.

  “That’s true too.”

  “Mark killed him,” Gil says conversationally, and I know he’s playing with me before I die. “But then Gus killed him. Did you know Gus? But then, of course you did. Tell me, who did you think took the video of you whoring yourself to the captain?”

  “No.”

  “That’s right. Gus is a true patriot,” he says with a mean smile. “And just about now, he’s dispatching your president and his wife.”

  “No!”

  “I think we need to rough her up a bit more,” my mom says. “It needs to look like Black beat her to death.”

  “No!” I scream once more, and then the room explodes.

  Ryan and Rick burst into the room. Gil tries to fight them, but my asshole brother is no match for two of the strongest military men I’ve ever met in my life, and Ryan takes him down quickly. I think it’s finally over, but then my mother produces a small gun from her pocket.

  I scream, and Ryan turns around just in time to be shot in the chest. He drops to his knees, his face going white. No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be happening.

  “Change of plans,” she says as she turns the gun on me. “You are not going to ruin my plans for your brother and me.”

  “I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”

  “You can’t not,” she sneers. “You ruin everything. Ever since the day you were born, you’ve been ruining things.”

  I see Leo, the Secret Service Agent no one likes because he’s such an asshole, step into the room. He must be dirty, just like Gus. He’s going to kill us all. I send up a quiet I’m sorry and I love you to Ryan and close my eyes.

  I flinch when the gun goes off. And I wait to die. And then I wait some more. And then finally, I open my eyes and realize I’m not dead, but my mother is. Leo is cuffing Gil, and his team is dragging him out. Rick is cutting through the tape that binds me to the chair.

  “Ryan,” I whimper when I look at him.

  “He’s going to be okay,” Rick assures me.

  Thank God. He’s really got to stop getting shot like this.

  • • •

  Later, at the hospital, I sit with Ryan’s family while he’s in surgery. It wasn’t as bad as it seemed. He wears his grandfather’s dog tag on his chain with his own, and his grandfather’s had stopped the bullet from killing him. It was no small miracle.

  I was also checked out, and everything is fine. Ryan and I are expecting a baby in just eight short months.

  Gil was taken off to parts unknown by Leo and his team. Gus, Jefferson, Mark Jeffries, and my parents are all dead. They had been behind HB 2250, the bill Jake staunchly opposed. The one that would give the bulk of the United States’s power, money, and weapons to a variety of nations we’re not exactly friendly with. If their bill had gone through, the U.S. would have been ripe for the picking, and then someone was waiting in the wings to take our place and the head of the world’s table. I don’t know why or when, but it was always my brother, Gil. How he could think that he could take down a nation like that, I will never know. All I know is Jake was right when he said it was dangerous.

  Jake, Rick, and Ryan are going to be busy cleaning up Washington when he’s all healed up; at least, that’s what Jake says. I have a funny feeling Rick and Ryan will be up for the task though.

  As for me, I haven’t decided if I’m going to stick it out as the White House Press Secretary. I guess you could say my priorities have drastically changed. I’m taking a small break to decide what I’m going to do. All I know is I’m going to spend as much time with Ryan and the kids as I possibly can. After that… who knows?

  “New Interview Show Tops Cable Charts. Former Press Secretary Hits Ratings Gold”

  Epilogue

  Forever

  Eight years later

  “And that’s it for this edition of True Story with Julia Black,” I say as the camera pans in on me. It’s the way I end my interview show every week.

  “Thank you so much, Jules,” Cody says as he wipes his eyes.

  “He is such a baby,” Angie says off camera.

  “Nah.” I laugh. “He did good. Besides, it’s the ten-year anniversary of the accident that broke his spine and changed his life.”

  “But did he have to cry?” she asks.

  “Eh.” I smile. “They all do.”

  We step out of the formal living room in the ranch-style house I share with Ryan and our four children: Emily, Abigail, and twins Ricky and Jake, named after their favorite uncles. Lacy and Cabe also have places here, although we don’t see them very often. Lacy is off “finding herself,” much to Ryan’s chagrin, and Cabe is serving out his second enlistment in the Marines. When he graduated bootcamp, Kristen and I cried in each other’s arms while her husband Alan looked terrified, and Ryan just shook his head and muttered, “Women.” Whatever that means.

  After Jake’s last term, Ryan and I retired to Tall Pines, Texas, where I host a top news interview show once a week for my old friends at Eagle News Network. A contract I brokered when Ryan and I sold them my story.

  Jake, Rick, and Ryan, true to their promise, cleaned up Washington, and it took them quite a bit to do it. After an international incident involving a crowned prince, they decided to hang up their superhero capes and just be normal everyday politicians.

  Tonight is Ryan’s fifty-fifth birthday, and I have a big surprise for him. One I was even surprised to discover myself, but just like the first time, Rick was the one who cottoned on to the idea first—then again, they have three of their own.

  Lucky number seven is on its way. I’m going to give him the good news after his party.

  After everything we’ve been through, I love every blessing that comes our way while we continue to build our forever.

  The End

  Playlist

  So What—P!nk

  Hot Girl Bummer—Blackbear

  Truth Hurts—Lizzo

  Come Over—Sam Hunt

  I May Hate Myself—Lee Ann Womack

  Black—Dierks Bentley

  I Hope—Gabby Barrett

  One Last Time—Ariana Grande

  Why The Call It Falling—Lee Ann Womack

  Good As Hell—Lizzo

  Blinding Lights—The Weeknd

  If the World Was Ending—JP Saxe & Julia Micheals

  Just Might—Sugarland

  Graveyard—Halsey

  Meant to Be—Bebe Rexha ft. Florida Georgia Line

  About the Author

  Jennifer is a thirty-something lover of words, all words: the written, the spoken, the sung (even poorly), the sweet, the funny, and even the four-letter variety. She is a native of San Diego, California where she grew up reading the Brownings and Rebecca with her mother and Clifford and the Dog who Glowed in the Dark with her dad, much to her mother’s dismay.

  Jennifer is a graduate of California State University San Marcos, where she studied Criminology and Justice Studies. She is also a member of Alpha Xi Delta.

  Thirteen years ago, she was swept off her feet by her very own sailor. Today, they are happily married, and the parents of an eleven-year-old and nine-year-old twins. She lives in East Texas, where she can often be found on the soccer or baseball fields, drawing with her children, reading, or wondering what the hell her favorite senior citizens have gotten up to now. Jennifer is convinced that if she puts her Fitbit on one of the dogs, she might finally make her step goals.

  She loves a great romance, an alpha hero, and lots and lots of laughter.

  Stalk Her

  (She loves that shit)

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  The Dangerous Dames

  Also by Jennif
er

  A Presidential Affair

  The Senator’s Secret

  Caught by the Chief of Staff

  The Press Secretary’s Passion

  Royal Secrets and Lies

  King of Lies

  Crown of Thorns

  Save the Queen

  The Claire Goodnite Series

  Tell Me a Story

  Tuck Me in Tight

  Say a Sweet Prayer

  Kiss Me Goodnight

  By the Light of the Moon

  The Complete Claire Goodnite Series

  The Liam Goodnite Series

  Hush Little Baby

  Don’t Say a Word

  The Funerals and Obituaries Series

  I Met a Girl

  Dead and Buried

  Dead and Gone

  Dead and Deceived

  Dead and … Wed?

  The Murder on Ice Series

  Attack Zone

  Layback

  The Southern Heartbeats

  Stand, Volume 1

  Joy

  Whiskey Lullaby, Volume 2

  Mercy

  Just a Dream, Volume 3

  If Tomorrow Never Comes

  Church Bells

  Stand Alone Titles

  Trap: A Salvation Society Novel

  Dark Horse, A Driven World Novel

  KING OF LIES

  And So It Goes

  Run!

  My brain is screaming at me to run. I have to go. I have to get out of here. I’m not safe here anymore. I think I knew it all along that I wasn’t safe here but I was living in a dream. A beautiful dream where Prince Charming fell for a shy, mousy girl like me and swept her off her feet and straight into a fairytale.

  I should have known that it was all a lie.

  Guys like that don’t fall for girls like me. I wasn’t cut out to be a princess and I never will be. I should have kept my eyes open and not fallen for the fantasy.