I rolled my eyes. I wished that I were still allowed a snippy response to the bullshit misogyny. Wouldn’t it be better if I was focusing on education policy? I had a PhD for Christ’s sake!
“You’re pacing again,” a voice called from the steps of the Oval Office.
My husband stood, resplendent in a black suit with a crisp blue tie. As handsome as the day that I’d set eyes on him. His hair was still dark, though going salt and pepper at the temples in a way that I hadn’t realized would make me love him even more. We’d lived those years together. Always together.
But it was the deep, dark eyes and the perfect lips that smiled at me just right that had me melting where I stood.
I had been pacing, leaving little high-heel divots in the lawn. Aerating. Though the garden staff would surely disagree.
“You do it, too,” I said with an arched brow.
“I learned all of your bad habits.”
Brady stepped down the stairs and strode across the lawn like he owned it, which he did. He owned the whole damn world at this point. He’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted. We’d clawed our way to this spot. This very spot on the White House Rose Garden lawn, and it hadn’t gotten any easier.
At least our relationship always been secure. I’d never, ever doubted his love for me. Even if journalists sure did.
An arm came around my waist. His other hand tilting my face up to look at him. That face. God, it wasn’t fair the way men aged. More gorgeous every year.
“What are you worried about?” he asked.
“Everything.”
His lips dipped down to mine. Desire shot straight through me. Heat and passion. I remembered days where we had done nothing but have sex at the lake. No responsibilities. Nothing else to occupy us, but the feel of his body against mine.
“We’ll get through it.”
We would. As we always had.
“I know.”
He kissed me again, long and deep. His fingers dug into my hips. His tongue opened my mouth to him. I released a breath as he claimed this kiss, claimed me as his. Just as I always had been.
“Brady,” I moaned. “We’re in the Rose Garden.”
He laughed against my lips. “So?”
“I’m pretty sure someone is watching us on a security camera.”
“So?” he repeated.
I chuckled, sliding my hands up his suit and playing with the back of his hair, which he always cut super short now. No more time for it to grow out. Always perfect for the public. Our first year almost complete, bungles and all, and already, he was prepared to say good-bye to propriety and fuck me in the Rose Garden.
I really should oblige.
A throat cleared behind us.
Brady released a breath, as close as he could get to a sigh, and closed his eyes. He straightened and released me, turning to face his chief of staff, Alexandra McKinney. She’d been a huge asset throughout his presidential campaign, and she was now the first Black woman to be the president’s chief of staff. I admired her greatly. Though I wasn’t particularly pleased with her right at this moment.
“Sir, your presence is required in the Oval Office.”
Brady nodded. “Of course. Congress again?”
“Yes, sir. They want to discuss the budget before the year is up.”
“Of course they do.” He pressed a final kiss to my lips.
“Good to see you, Liz,” Alexandra said.
“Bad timing,” I said with a wink.
“It always is.”
“Will this take all night?”
“Let’s hope not,” Brady said as he crossed the lawn to where Alexandra was standing.
They immediately began discussing whatever the new budget emergency was, and it was as if I’d disappeared entirely.
The door to the Oval Office closed, and I was once again alone in the Rose Garden. Brady’s legacy was set, but mine was still in question. What was I going to do during this presidency? What would these old white men let an educated woman do?
I was tired of asking for permission. I would no longer sit idly by.
Brady would support me. He always had. Even when I’d been the innocent twenty-something. I wasn’t that girl anymore.
I pulled out my phone and started to sketch the education policy I’d been dreaming of. It was too important to put off. The presidential honeymoon was over. It was time to bring in the big guns.
II: Birds of a Feather
My brain was still in a manic fog from the policy I’d been crafting as I took the White House stairs up to the third floor. It was past Jacqueline’s bedtime, but I was unsurprised to find her in the children’s study with her older brother, Jefferson. She adored him even if her presence sent him over the edge more often than it soothed him.
“Jackie, aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. A “mom look,” as Jefferson called it. I’d learned it really quickly with his devious behavior.
“But, Mom!” my six-year-old daughter cried, somehow dragging the one syllable word into two—muh-om.
“No buts. Your father is working late, and it’s almost Christmas. You wouldn’t like Santa to skip the White House this year, would you? On our first year?”
“No,” she grumbled.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Yeah, he’s going to give you coal,” Jefferson said.
Jacqueline stuck her tongue out at him. “He is not.”
“Is so!”
“Is not!”
“Is so!”
“Okay,” I said, getting between them, “that’s enough. Santa isn’t bringing anyone coal. We’ve all been good. And Jackie is going to be good by getting into bed.” I pointed at my ten-year-old son. “And you’re next, bud.”
“I’m so much older though, Mom,” he said with a grin that I was sure he’d inherited from the Maxwell bloodline. “I should get to stay up later than Jackie.”
“You already do stay up later.”
“But, Mom, look at it this way: Jackie got to stay up a half hour later. But I’m older, so I should get to stay up a proportionate amount more. So, I should get to stay up an extra hour.”
I narrowed my eyes at my freakily brilliant son. “Who is teaching you words like proportionate?”
“Alexandra.”
“And who is teaching you negotiation skills?” I asked.
He grinned devilishly. “Daddy.”
“That’s it. You’re banned from the Oval Office.”
Jefferson rolled his eyes, and I snapped my fingers at him. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
“Ooh, you’re in trouble now,” Jackie said with a maniacal giggle.
“No!” he yelled.
“Are you yelling?”
“No!”
“Daddy is working late tonight, and I just don’t have time for this. I’m going to put Jackie to sleep. You’d better have finished your homework because you’re next.”
He grumbled, “All right. Fine.”
I herded my equally precocious daughter down the hall and into her bedroom, which we had redecorated with swaths of black and hot pink. The child only liked those colors at the moment and had balked at living in a place that was dressed up like some nineteenth-century ball. I really didn’t blame her. I was still getting used to the White House quarters…and lack of privacy.
Even though the White House had been our home for almost an entire year, it still felt like this foreign entity. There were all these noises I wasn’t used to and people bustling about. Not on the second and third floor, but I could hear them below. Little mice crawling around.
I loved that the White House was the people’s house. That we had it open to the public, like it always should be. But sometimes, I just wanted to disappear into the North Carolina wilderness, where nothing but the lake and the cicadas could reach us.
“Mom, will you sing me that song?” Jackie asked as she crawled into her bed. Black sheets, hot-pink comforter, mixed pillows.
“Of course. Which one?”
“The one you sing to Daddy.”
I smiled at my sweet girl, and then I started to sing “All of Me” by John Legend, the words a lullaby as Jackie closed her eyes and fell into a slumber. I didn’t even get halfway into the song before she was out like a light. Going to bed a half hour later was a big deal for her without a nap.
I kissed her head and then found Jefferson buried in his books. He was off the charts in terms of intellect, and finding tutors to keep him interested was beyond a problem. He was outpacing anything a ten-year-old should be capable of. We were excited for him and also terrified at the pace.
“Are you finished?”
He tucked the engineering text he’d been reading under his arm. “I’ll just read this before going to bed.”
I brushed his hair off of his forehead. “Just this once. Don’t tell your dad.”
He beamed as if he’d won a prize. “Yay! Thanks, Mom!”
I followed him into his bedroom, which was the opposite of Jacqueline’s in every way. He reveled in the old weirdness that the White House had. He liked the odd baubles and wanted the antique drapery and sheets. He was old school to Jackie’s modern. I loved their duality.
He climbed under the covers, setting the textbook off to the side.
I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you, bud.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“Thirty minutes. If I come in here and find you still reading after that, then no more books in bed.”
“Ugh,” he groaned. “Fine. A half hour.”
“Sleep well.”
He quickly opened the book to where he’d left off, burying his nose in the text. He wanted to get the full thirty minutes in.
I smothered a laugh and left him to it. I was sure he’d go longer than thirty minutes, but it was hard to care when he loved reading this much.
With a yawn of my own, I headed back down to the second floor, where my bedroom with Brady was as well as the kitchen and private dining room. It felt empty, padding the length of that hallway down to our bedroom without him.
A year in, and I still wasn’t used to Brady not sleeping next to me every night. He always ended up in bed with me, but sometimes, he got in after I was asleep and was gone again before I woke up. Trying to fix a fractured nation.
I got ready for bed alone, taking my long blonde hair out of its careful twist. I changed out of my pantsuit and heels and into a matching set of navy silk pajamas that had been a gift. My initials—EM—were embroidered on them. Elizabeth Maxwell. The name still felt delicious when I thought about taking Brady’s name.
I crawled into the enormous turn-of-the-century bed and decided against picking up the holiday romance I’d been reading for fun in favor of my policy proposal. My iPad was charged, and I returned to what I’d been working on, feverish with the intent to get this right.
When I looked up again, I had a firm proposal in place. I sank back into the pillows, releasing the tension from my shoulders. I really had something here.
It was past midnight. Brady still hadn’t returned from work. I should just go to bed, but I had too much energy to turn in for the night. I needed to see him. I slid on a pair of slippers, tucked my iPad under my arm, and headed for the Oval Office to see the most powerful man in the world.
III: The Oval Office
Alexandra looked up from her desk when I appeared in her office.
“Liz,” she said with a knowing smile.
“Is he still occupied?”
“Always.” She brushed back a tightly coiled curl from her forehead. “He’s trying to get this all sorted by the morning.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“No, it isn’t.” Alexandra laced her fingers together in front of her and leaned her elbows on the desk. “What can I do for you?”
“Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“Ma’am?”
I winked at her. “I’ve got this.”
She contemplated my words for a moment before a smile crossed her face. She pushed her chair back and stood. “Take care of him. He’s running on empty.”
“I always do.”
She touched my arm before passing. “I know you do. He’s lucky to have you.”
“Trust me, I know that.”
She laughed easily and then disappeared from her office. I could have gone through Brady’s secretary, but I’d wanted to check on him first. Alexandra always had a knack for knowing when he needed the break. If it had been as serious as it had been in the past, she would have stopped me. I would have gone back to bed. The world would have kept turning, and Christmas would be here soon enough.
But instead, she’d walked out and left me to my own devices. Better for me.
I knocked on the door that led into the Oval Office and heard a gruff response, “Come in, Alexandra. This’d better be important.”
“I think it is,” I said as I breezed into his office.
Brady’s head jerked up at the sound of my voice. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and a wide smile split his face. “Liz, I figured you’d already be asleep.”
“I probably should be. It doesn’t seem like either of us has that luxury.”
“And the kids?”
“Happily tucked away. Though I suspect Jefferson is reading that engineering text until he passes out face-first on it.”
Brady laughed. “Can’t fault him.”
“You’re training him to debate me,” I sassed. “It’s not as much fun.”
“Training him? Never,” he said, pushing aside the memo he’d been working on. “I just give him a gentle nudge.”
“You want him to go into politics.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Runs in the family.”
“I think you’re nudging the wrong one in that direction.” I leaned against the desk, crossing my arms.
“Oh?”
“Jacqueline is the politician of the two. Jefferson wants to read his way through the world. He’s the academic, if I’ve ever seen one.”
He waved his hand. I knew how much he wanted Jefferson to follow in his footsteps, as he’d followed in his father’s. But these were really big shoes to fill. I couldn’t imagine my whip-smart, intellectual son wanting to compete for that attention. But he was only ten. Plenty of time to decide for himself.
“I don’t assume you came here for this conversation,” Brady said with a knowing glint in his eyes.
He reached out and pulled me behind the desk. He sat me down on the desk with his legs on either side of my body. I carefully set the iPad down.
“No, it’s after midnight.”
“I know. Always more work to be done,” he said, slipping his hands up my legs.
“I’ve been up all night, working on a proposal.”
“Hmm?” he asked as he kissed my knee.
I squirmed. “Brady, are you listening?”
He looked up at me with lust in his eyes. “All ears.”
I rolled my eyes. A habit I was beating out of my children even though they had gotten the habit from me. “I worked on an education policy proposal. I think we can get it passed next Congress. It’s really good. And I’m not just saying that.”
“Mmhmm.” He pressed my legs wider and began to trail kisses up my inner thigh.
“You’re not listening.”
“I trust your proposal is brilliant, Liz,” he said, yanking my legs down and pressing my back down onto the desk.
I didn’t know what papers I was lying on top of and frankly didn’t care. I knew that look in my husband’s eyes.
“It is.”
“I believe you, but I’m a little busy now.” He fingered the waistband of my silk pants and dragged them down my legs along with the black thong.
Then, the president sank onto his knees before me.
“And then I brought the president to his knees,” I murmured.
He chuckled deep in the back of his throat. “Airplanes
, baby.”
I grinned, my heart warming at the words that had followed us through our entire relationship. I was the one who made his heart race. I was the one who made him feel whole. I was the one who made everything make sense. No matter what the world threw at us, we endured. And better than that, we thrived. We always had.
Other people had the happiest days in the beginning of their relationship and had no idea how to survive the darker times. But Brady and I had realized early on that we couldn’t survive the dark times alone. Without each other, we were less, and we’d never looked back after that decision. We never would.
I was his airplanes, baby, and he gave me the stars.
IV: We Own That Desk
Everything went quiet.
Yes, it was after midnight at the White House. There were still people meandering the halls. But thankfully, I couldn’t hear a single one of them. For the first time in so long, we were alone and in silence.
“I’ve missed you,” Brady said as he worked his way up my inner thigh once more.
His lips were hot on my skin, and I squirmed slightly at the touch, but I couldn’t actually go anywhere. His large hand pressed my other leg open wide for him.
“Maybe you should come to bed sometime when I’m still awake.”
He growled under his breath and nipped my leg. I yelped slightly.
“It might be nice, you know?”
“I have a job to do.”
“Yes, you do,” I said, coming up to my elbows to meet his gaze. “Me.”
He arched an eyebrow before sliding me back flat. “I plan to take very good care of my wife.”
I still swooned at the word. Twelve years we’d been married, and I loved when he called me his wife.
Then, his lips moved up to my center, and I swooned for a whole new reason. His tongue flicked out and licked my clit. I jumped at the first contact, but then he went to work. As diligent with my pleasure as he was with his official duties. I scattered papers and tried not to cry out. The last thing we needed was a security team bursting in on us.
I Have Lived And I Have Loved: A Charity Romance Collection Page 4
