by J J Arias
From the heat rising in George’s face, she knew she’d given herself away. She couldn’t deny that any of those things were true, and Jo knew her too well to pretend that it wasn’t unusual for her to share those things with anyone.
“She’s been an invaluable asset preparing this bill.” She clung to the fact like a drowning woman clutching a piece of driftwood. “All that time we’ve spent together, we’ve been working,” she added with defiance.
Josephine shook her head. “And you don’t see that a shared passion for the public service that has defined your life is something exceedingly rare? Georgie, you don’t let anyone in. Ever. I’m about the most intimate relationship you’ve ever had, and it’s built on mutual respect, shared values, and a passion for the same things. You don’t see that you and Mila are growing into the same thing? Except” –Josephine scooted closer to her and lowered her voice— “there’s a fire between you that is honestly palpable. It’s been there since the first time I was in the room with both of you, and despite your protestations, it’s only growing.”
George swallowed hard. She didn’t want to hear her deepest thoughts thrown in her face. She wasn’t ready to unleash them. It was too dangerous to entertain. There was simply nothing to be done about a possible attraction. If nothing else, Mila was on her staff. It was impossible in every way.
“You are both cut from the same obnoxious, strong-willed, unrelenting cloth. She challenges you. In the last few months, I’ve seen more life in you than I’ve seen in years. And it’s not just me, you see it in the poll numbers. Your policies haven’t changed. Your platform is nearly identical to what it was four years ago. Yet your numbers are soaring. You know why? Because everyone can see it. The hunger in your eyes. You’re present. You’re fighting for them and people can see that. And what’s the only thing that’s changed?” Her rhetorical questions ground on George’s nerves. “A very tall young woman who is constantly keeping you on your toes and making you see things from a different perspective.”
George collapsed back into her seat. Jo was right, and that was a terrifying and mortal danger. Sitting motionless, the implications of Jo’s impassioned words bombarded her. Reality kicked in the door with guns blazing and left fantasy and hope no quarter.
“So what?” she asked with the exhaustion of a woman who’d spent her life keeping plates spinning in midair. “Even if, for the sake of argument,” she added with a pause, “everything you say is true. So what? What could I possibly do about it, Jo?”
Her chief of staff stretched out her arm to take George’s hand. The twinkle in her eyes dimmed.
“Assuming her interest is mutual and she’s not looking to trap me in some scandal or torpedo my career, there were no ethical implications, and that our age difference and power imbalance weren’t an issue,” she said, her eyes turning to huge dark pools. “You know I can’t live that secret life again. It nearly killed me last time, and I was much younger then, with a lot less to lose and fewer eyes watching my every move.”
Josephine squeezed her hand. “We are living in different times,” she offered, but George couldn’t accept that.
“Maybe, but I’m not.”
There was nothing more painful than possibility just out of reach. It was ice in her belly. She’d traded personal happiness for something larger than herself long ago. Important things never happened without sacrifice.
“I can’t open this back up again,” she said with a tremble in her words. “It’s too hard to shut back down.”
Josephine stood and pulled George out of her chair. Her tense body softened in the embrace. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Me too,” George replied.
Chapter Fifteen
“What’s up your butt?” Amanda, her tangerine hair newly shaved on one side of her head, asked from Mila’s sleek, modern couch.
Mila dropped her suitcases in the bedroom with a loud bang before responding. “Nothing,” she grumbled before lifting her short hair into an even shorter ponytail.
“You’re a fabulous liar, doll,” she sniped sarcastically as she stood to lend a hand.
Mila narrowed her eyes at her.
“Come on, cheer up, Grinch!” she exclaimed, pinching Mila’s cheeks. “Look! I got us a Christmas tree,” she added excitedly as she gestured to a chubby little stump of a fir near the window. Its thick branches were covered in handmade ornaments and colorful boxes of all sizes sat under the tree.
Mila grumbled but added her gift, wrapped in luxurious white paper, to the pile. Even if she didn’t feel like admitting it, Amanda’s idea of a Secret Santa exchange with all their friends was a good idea. It made the intrinsic loneliness of the holidays a little more bearable.
“Are you sooo sad to be apart from your lady love for two weeks?” Amanda joked as she came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist.
“Shut up,” she muttered, letting herself be hugged.
The directive that all staff leave the mansion and go home on paid leave to spend the holidays with their families had been a nice idea, but Mila would have liked to stay with the governor in a mostly empty house. With George, she thought, turning the woman’s first name over in her mind. Her job is not her identity.
“How’s that going?” Amanda asked as they migrated toward the couch.
Mila considered playing coy but abandoned it immediately. “It always feels like we’re on the verge of something. Like we’re holding our breaths around each other. I don’t know.”
Amanda’s face softened into a sad smile. “So neither of you wants to be the first to make the move.”
Mila shrugged. It was such a simplistic interpretation of the problem. Ego wasn’t the only thing at stake. It was a true minefield of overlapping problems. At worst, Mila could be destroying her future in politics. No one would ever take her seriously if she earned a reputation for hitting on her bosses.
As it was, she’d already pushed the boundaries by giving her a lap dance. Mila shut her eyes against the memory. She thought she’d read her signals correctly, but by the next day the woman had started avoiding being alone with her. A week after that, they’d gotten the directive to go home until the New Year’s Eve gala at the mansion.
“Hey, do you want to be my date for a New Year’s Eve thing?” she asked abruptly.
Amanda gasped in feigned surprise. “Me? Oh, Ms. Dortch, it would be my distinct pleasure to accompany you to the ball,” she said with a borrowed southern accent. “Should I wear a suit or a dress?”
Mila shrugged with a lopsided grin. “Whatever strikes your fancy. You don’t have plans already?”
“I had a date with Tony, but we were just gonna hang. I’ll make it up to him.”
After convincing Mila that she really preferred to go to a fancy party at the mansion and rub elbows with important political types, Amanda was off to raid Mila’s closet.
Alone in her condo, Mila decided to start working on a recipe for a signature drink for their holiday party. Mixing and testing kept her mind occupied, though her thoughts were always on the verge of drifting to the image of George’s eyes while she danced for her. It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed the expression, but it was the most unabashed.
Maybe I should have kissed her? Mila wondered as she practiced a Cranberry Old Fashioned. The thought alone sent her pulse racing. What would she have done? She swallowed hard and tasted her cocktail. Too sweet, she decided before dumping it and going back to the drawing board.
Uncertainty and indecision had never been part of her DNA. Even as a child, her parents had to remind her to mull things over and not jump in with both feet just on instinct. Now, she was wavering, and it felt as foreign as breathing underwater.
Should I go back? What would she do if I did? No one will be there, she told herself as she mixed a new drink with Campari and blood orange juice.
* * *
The mansion was eerily quiet as George floated through it. She moved down the hall like a ghos
t, the soft satin of her nightgown clung to her curves like gossamer. In the freedom of her dream, George was relieved of self-conscious awareness.
“I knew you’d come back,” she said, eyeing Mila in the doorway. Rain beat down behind her like bullets fired into the ground. “Come in, or you’ll get wet.”
Mila strode in, leaving the front door wide open. As open as George felt. “It’s too late for that,” she said, running a hand through soaked hair.
“You can’t stay in these,” George replied, clasping the drenched pink sweater and pulling it up over her head. She was left in tight jeans and a black camisole. “You’re so cold,” she commented, observing the goosebumps climbing up her bare arms and over her shoulders like a fast-growing ivy.
Mila’s eyes shifted to hers like pristine glaciers. She inched forward, exploiting her height difference. George craned her head upward.
“Warm me,” Mila challenged, barely moving her lips. The words made George’s world spinning. The driving rain fell harder, a cacophony of sound that matched the pounding of her wild heart.
George wanted to kiss her, to rip off the rest of her wet clothes and envelop her. She wanted to warm her with the intensity of her desire in the soft confines of her bed.
Lightning flashed through the open door, lighting up the dark entryway with a flood of bright light. The thunder that followed shook her to her core and then Mila was gripping her hips. She wanted to drown in the sensation of being held by such strong, purposeful hands.
Lightning flashed again, illuminating Mila’s angular face. George reached out, aching to touch her skin. To hold her face in her hands and pull her down into a kiss. A kiss to ease the painful ache in her being.
As she began to press her palms to her jaw, the thunder followed another blaze of light, and like magic, George was in her bed. She shot up, her hand to her heaving chest as she looked around in total disorientation.
She glanced around the room frantically, and the lightning flashed outside. Throwing her body back on the bed, George took deep breaths to steady herself. It had been the most realistic dream she’d ever experienced. She swallowed hard to return the moisture to her mouth, but it wasn’t enough. With her body still trembling, she went to the bathroom first to rinse her face, and then downstairs for something to drink.
“Did the storm wake you?” Nathan asked from behind her in the hall.
“You too?” she asked, eyeing his sleepy face and flattened hair.
He yawned as he nodded. Together, they walked downstairs to the kitchen. The late-night entry immediately reminded her of the impromptu breakfast Mila had made for them. The memory made her stomach drop and her chest tighten.
Get your shit together, she chided herself for reacting like a lovesick teenager.
“Hungry?” Nathan asked, pulling out some cold cuts and sandwich bread.
George shook her head, preferring to chug a glass of water. She was too out of sorts to eat. The dream had been so realistic it had thrown her off completely.
Is that what I want? For her to kick down my door and take me in her arms like a bodice ripper? she wondered as Nathan chatted happily at her, blissfully unaware of her distracted mind. The image of Mila desiring her so strongly sent a shockwave of aching need through her ill-equipped nervous system.
“So, what do you think?” he asked loudly, pulling her out of her trance.
“About what?” she asked, making no attempt to pretend she’d been listening. They’d been friends for too long for her to do that to him.
“I asked if you thought it was okay if I spend next new year with Melissa,” he repeated the last part in a whisper. Even if they’d given the entire staff the holidays off, they were too practiced at being careful to let the sham drop.
“Oh, yes, of course. I’ll have either won or lost by then. Either way, it wouldn’t be a problem,” she replied after another drink of water.
There was a sadness in his expression that activated her guilt. She was sure he’d rather spend these days with the woman he loved rather than fulfilling his duty as the governor’s spouse. As a man, he hadn’t been expected to do nearly as much hosting as a First Lady, but his presence was at least expected for the big events. The New Year’s Eve gala was chief among those.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I’m sorry you’re here and not in Minnesota,” she confessed with genuine regret.
His face lit up with a smile that made his kind eyes sparkle. “Ah, it’s okay. There’s always next year. Plus, I can’t wait to wear my new skinny tux,” he said, pulling her into a quick hug, releasing her, and taking an enormous bite of his sandwich. “Are you sure you don’t want some? It’s delicious,” he added with his mouth full as he thrust the food in her face.
George chuckled. “I’m okay,” she promised. “I might get an early start.”
“It’s three in the morning,” he exclaimed, glancing at the clock on the oven. “Get back to bed!”
“I won’t be able to fall asleep again,” she explained, leaving out that a vivid dream had unnerved her too badly and she didn’t trust what she would dream next.
Nathan shook his head. “You’re nuts,” he commented, stuffing the last of his sandwich in his mouth and shrugging.
“Don’t I know it,” she agreed before saying good night and heading straight for her sanctuary in the library.
Chapter Sixteen
In the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, George buried herself in work so deeply and expended so much energy in the gym, with the dogs, and visiting her father that she was too tired to think about Mila, her dreams, or an unattainable future.
Most nights she slept on the couch in the library, afraid that sleeping too comfortably might lull her into another dream she couldn’t stop. It had been hard enough to get the image of Mila’s wet hair and devastating eyes out of her head. Not to mention the all-too-real memory of her slowly gyrating body when she’d suspended herself from a machine and danced for her in the most erotic display George had ever seen.
The exhaustion had distracted her until house staff returned with caterers and party planners to prepare for the most anticipated social event of the year.
“You always clean up so well,” George joked as she looked at Josephine’s reflection in her vanity mirror.
“Ah, you say that to all the girls,” she replied, leaning forward to fix her plum-colored lipstick, which complimented the deep purple of her satin dress. “Marcel agrees, though. He says we should go to more fancy parties so I’ll shave my legs.”
George chuckled. “The joys of marriage.”
“You look rather elegant yourself,” she said once George stood.
“Thanks,” she replied, uncertainty heavy in her words as she ran her palms over the dark material. “You don’t think the black makes me look old?” She confided her fear as she eyed her long dress with the daring, plunging neckline she’d been fretting over.
“If that’s what old looks like,” she said as she eyed George from head-to-toe, “then I can’t wait to retire.”
She stifled a grin. “You’re not just saying that?”
Josephine walked around behind George and put her hands on the curves of her hips. There was nowhere for her to hide in the form-fitting gown. She was completely dressed but had never felt more exposed.
“She isn’t going to be able to take her eyes off of you,” she whispered.
Her stomach plummeted. She didn’t protest, but instead slipped on her high heels and started downstairs where she was expected to make an entrance.
Every high-profile event at the mansion always went the same way. The first hour was for hors d’oeuvres and cocktails before dinner. George made sure to greet each person my name, asking relevant questions about kids or grandkids, and move on to the next person within two minutes. The timing was critical. If she failed at her welcoming duties, deep offenses would be taken. But on New Year’s, the party continued after dinner, with live music and dancing until the bal
l dropped at midnight. It was one of the only truly fun nights of the year.
As George played her role as the dutiful host, she felt the pull of sadness. If re-election didn’t go her way, this would be her last time throwing such an affair in the historic Governor’s Mansion. She grabbed a flute off a passing tray to chase away her fear.
“Governor, I’m sorry to interrupt,” Josephine said over the string quartet playing during the cocktail hour.
Shit, I’ve taken too long. She didn’t like to use her chief of staff as a time manager, but she’d gotten lost in thought and apparently given the executive director of revenue the impression that she wanted to see pictures from his recent cruise.
As Josephine steered her away and on to another group, she whispered in her ear. “You are terrifyingly good at looking like you’re listening,” she joked.
George tried to gather herself, but a flash of white and pink disrupted her peripheral vision and her thoughts. She swallowed hard and tried to focus, but there was no salvaging her communication skills.
Josephine must have seen her predicament and jumped in to be a working mouth. George found a way to turn to the side and get a view. Mila was a vision in an off the shoulder ivory gown with a long slit on one side. It framed her body beautifully, and the dark makeup and ruby red lipstick and slicked back hair made her entirely arresting.
George forgot how to breathe as she eyed her greedily. The noise, the people, it was all gone except for her. For a moment, she wondered if she was still in her dream. It was surreal enough.
Mila laughed as she talked to her other fellows, and although she couldn’t hear her, George felt it in the depths of her soul. She knew the sound well enough to play it from memory. The soundtrack played in her mind. As she read her lips, she heard the husky voice in her head, which sent the signal to her skin to overheat post haste.
