And someday, I knew, I would feel free.
I allowed myself to filter off, to fall asleep for a few hours, waiting up for Rachel. I knew she would be gushing with details about her date when she returned, and my ears ached for the details. I wanted to live in another person’s story, for a moment.
Finally, at around ten in the evening, Rachel burst through the door, her smile beaming her face. She looked almost clown-like, with her red lipstick and her bright expression. I brought my hands to my face, shocked awake with the noise. She clattered her keys on the kitchen table and brought her fists to her cheek, preparing a little ditty, a little dance for me. I shook my head back and forth toward her, unsure of what to say.
“So—it went well?” I finally asked her, laughing a bit, deep in my gut.
She nodded, bursting. Her face had turned a subtle red. “It went so well, Amanda.” She sat before me, then, on the coffee table. She’d poured herself another glass of wine, and her face gleamed already of many alcoholic drinks. I laughed for a moment. “We talked about everything. He told me about his—his career, his dreams, his passions. And I told him about how I’d had to re-work my dreams to account—to account for the fact that politics wasn’t actually in the cards for me. You know?”
I nodded, feeling my stomach brim with a sense of pride. “Wow.” My words were nearly breathless.
She nodded. “He’s a real gentleman. Someone I could—I could see myself with.” Her eyes were bright toward me. “I feel excited, deep in my gut. Like—like things are happening. Is this how you felt when you first—“
“When I first met Xavier?” I asked her, then. I continued the sentence with a breathless intensity, understanding her question. I began to nod, knowing that this was the truth. I had absolutely fallen for Xavier in much the same way. I had seen him and understood, almost immediately. He was the person I most wanted in my life. “I think so.”
She bit her lip. “I think I understand your situation a bit better, now. I can’t—I can’t imagine feeling this way, and knowing that there was a blockage. A—a wife in the way of my love and happiness.” She bowed her head, looking toward her perfect, slim feet.
I paused for a moment, allowing us to sit in comfortable silence. I knew I needed to tell Rachel about the truths of the previous few days. I knew I needed to get it all off my chest. I cleared my throat. “Rachel?” I whispered.
Her eyes darted back toward me. “What is it?”
“It’s just that. Camille found out.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. She brought her free hand to her chest. “No.”
I nodded. “She—she walked in on us the other day. I immediately thought we were done for.” I snapped my fingers, hearing the echo in the small living room. “But she just stood there, allowing us to get dressed before her. And then: she told her that it was easier for her that Xavier was having an affair.” I furrowed my eyebrows, unsure of what to say next. The entire story seemed to be frothing from my mouth.
“It was easier for her?” Rachel whispered. “What does that even—“
I shrugged my shoulders, unsure of what to say. “I know. I know. But—she wants to give us this freedom. To do what we want. As long as we don’t ruin her life as First Lady. She wants to hold onto the position, even if he is re-elected.”
“And live a lie?” Rachel asked.
I nodded. “I suppose people have been through worse for much less power.” I allowed the silence to filter around us once more. “Anyway. I don’t know how long I can allow all this to go on, before I go crazy. I mean. I’ve worked so fucking hard to get to where I am today. Long, sleepless nights working; sucking up to so many members of Congress just to gain experience as a young person—a woman on the road to something greater.” I bit my nail for a moment, feeling infantile. “I know you can understand that.”
Rachel nodded. “Again. Part of the reason I got out,” she breathed.
“And now. With Jason all over me—suspecting that things are getting worse, suspecting that he’s not going to get his end of the deal, I feel like things need to change. Perhaps Xavier and I should be together. Perhaps this was all too good to be true.” I bit my lip once more, tasting a tang of blood.
“What do you mean, he’s all over you?” Rachel breathed.
I bowed my head, looking toward my fingers. I wondered how to phrase what had happened to me earlier that day. “Well. He had me—against a tree. He was yelling at me. Threatening me.” I shuddered, feeling the tremors of the day’s attack all throughout my body. “I think it’s getting worse.”
But Rachel had risen up from her chair. Her face had grown hot, red. “What do you mean, he threatened you. He had his hand around your throat? What the fuck do you mean?” She scowled, so angry at the mere thought of this. My heart seemed to pump rapidly with too much blood, too much happiness. Someone cared about me. Someone worried about me. Such a strange sensation.
I shook my head. “It’s okay—“
“No it’s not,” Rachel scolded me. “He threatened you. I think it’s finally time to go to the police.”
My face looked stricken. I shook my head. “No. You know I can’t do that. You know that he has so much information about the president and I—that this would ruin the deal we have with the president’s wife.” I swallowed, knowing that none of these elements affected Rachel’s comprehension. I tried once more. “And Rachel. If you do this, you know that I will not go far in my career. I’ll constantly be known as the girl who slept her way to the top.” I uttered the words once more, bringing Rachel back to the coffee table. She sighed.
We sat in a stunned silence for a few moments. I was terribly overjoyed at the sheer passion Rachel had for me; the passion she had just to help me. I wanted to tell her that I would do my best to get out of the situation on my own. I wanted to assure her that I wouldn’t be stupid.
But she interrupted my words. “I think you should press Xavier to help you,” she began. I wanted to interrupt her—to explain to her that I did everything on my own. But she held up her hand, shaking her head. None of her past glory, her post-date gleam remained on her face. “I know that you don’t want to bother him. But this is getting serious. The threats are becoming violent. You can’t trust a crazy man like Jason. And he’s at your workplace, in the goddamned White House. You have to take steps.” She shrugged her shoulders, placing her fingers over my knee. I felt a single tear waft down my cheek. I knew she was right.
My voice croaked as I spoke to her. “I know you’re right,” I whispered.
Rachel and I went to bed, after that. Just before we ducked into our separate rooms, we exchanged a serious hug—one that allowed me to feel safe, feel whole again, even after the strain of the previous day. I sighed into her, trying to remember a time in which I’d felt completely full, completely sure. But I couldn’t.
“Good luck tomorrow,” she whispered into my ear, just as she swarmed into her bedroom—in which, I knew, she would fold back into her self-made daydream about her new date, Michael.
I nodded back to her and shook the door closed, feeling the weight of the day crash around me. I fell fast asleep, blinking my eyes only a few times before falling away.
Chapter 6
But the next morning, I knew that I wasn’t ready to press the president for his assistance. God, not yet. Too much was riding on the next week’s campaign processes. I had to put my head down, to root myself in this cause.
I brushed my teeth ravenously at the bathroom sink, listening as Rachel sang in her own shower, down the hall. I felt like we were growing apart, in a way: simply because she found herself rooted in a sort of happiness, even as I swept along, floating in a sea of misunderstanding and sadness and threats.
I brought my arms through my blazer and sniffed up toward the ceiling, smelling someone baking bread, somewhere far off in the building. It could be a plain, uneventful day, if I worked for it. I could make this day work to my favor. If only I kept my head down. If only I a
sked only the appropriate questions and didn’t push any topics further than they needed to go. If only I kept my clothes on my body this time around, rather than falling into Xavier’s naked arms. I could do this. I could be strong.
I stood in the shadow of the White House, my heart beating only for Xavier—the powerful man who had claimed this house as his own. In the back, I knew that the rose garden continued to squirm in its brown and grey colors in this near-November day. God, in just a year: we’d be weeks away from the election. In just a year, I knew that so much would have changed.
But where would our relationship be? What would we be to each other?
I lifted myself into the shell of the White House, preparing myself for the ten o clock meeting, at which I knew I would be faced with both Jason and Xavier. I could get through it. I had my notes, my critiques for the way the entire campaign was being handled. I knew how to work a room. I’d been doing so since the age of eight, after all. However, something about having both of them in the room at the same time—both of them with different utilizations for me, for my body—made me queasy.
I sat at my desk in the West Wing, casually making notes and dreaming about a different kind of future—a future in which I would make political strides, without worrying about anything that anybody held above my head.
But being a woman, I knew, this would be an eternal struggle. Every woman I knew of in Congress had struggled on their path to the top. Without masculinity, without grey hair and those twinkling, age-old eyes, it was difficult to find the trust of the American people. I knew I would have trouble, as well.
Suddenly, a girl appeared before my desk, leaning down toward me and meeting my eyes. She broke my reverie. I erupted up, bouncing in my chair. “Yes. What is it?” I asked her, my eyes large.
She blinked back. “I’m sorry to—um—interrupt you.” She peered down at the papers before me, at the fact that I’d been gazing off into space. “I just wanted to remind you that you have your meeting with both Jason and the President of the United States in a mere—well. Five minutes ago.” She swallowed, blinking toward me.
I shook my head, unable to comprehend what she was saying. I grabbed my notebook, realizing that two hours had passed, during which I hadn’t done a single thing but glide on my thoughts, on my dreams. I didn’t have time to prepare myself any longer. It was just me and the boys: me and my arch enemy, and me and the man I loved—who was also, incidentally, another man who could ruin my life and my career, completely.
I pushed into the room, appearing before a long, wooden table. There, sitting on either side of the table, I found both Jason and Xavier. I blinked toward them, bringing my hand in the air. I held a pen, and it jolted starkly vertical. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured then. “I was caught up in a phone call.” My lie hung in the air, but neither of the men before me seemed to notice it. Instead, they seemed to be glaring at each other. Xavier’s eyes were especially penetrating, making Jason move this way, then that in his chair. He looked queasy.
“You didn’t start without me, I hope?” I asked them, trying to make my voice bright. I gulped as they didn’t say anything, as they allowed my sentence to die away.
Finally, Xavier turned his head toward me. The awkwardness was building. “Jason here was just telling me the great strides he’s been making with several congressmen. Including some of the Republicans.”
I nodded, knowing about Jason’s friendliness with some of the men we’d formerly not counted on as allies. My eyes drifted toward Jason. “That’s essential, Jason. Thank you.” I made a small note on my notepad, trying to waltz through the tension without falling away.
But suddenly, Xavier had begun to glare at Jason once more. This one, single comment had paved the road toward nothing at all. I peered down at my notes, trying to create a dialogue. We were meant to be in this meeting for a full hour. I knew the press would be waiting outside—that they usually liked to know how long each meeting lasted, for their records. If a meeting ran long or short, they generally speculated about the issue at hand. Was someone disagreeing? Were plans changed? Thus, we would have to remain there, in thr tension, for another fifty-five minutes.
I swallowed.
Xavier’s eyes continued their terrorizing glare toward Jason. And all the while, I felt Jason’s eyes toward me. They were creepy, strange—as they had been the previous day beneath the tree. The moments seemed to pass with surreal tension.
I remembered a different time—a time in which both of the men before me had pretended, at least, to like each other, to appreciate each other. I longed for that time once more. I cleared my throat, but this didn’t distract Xavier’s uneasy glare. This didn’t detract from Jason’s creepy, near-grin that faced ever toward me.
I turned my face toward the clock. “Is there anything either of you would like to get out of the way, regarding the campaign?” I began, my voice mouse-like. “Personally, I believe it’s going rather well. Rather well indeed.”
But neither of them spoke. The clock ticked along, leaving us there together. I couldn’t believe that the man on the other side of the table was the man I was supposed to be in love with—the man I had supposedly devoted myself to. And all the while, it seemed that Jason challenged that love. His eyebrows were high, seemingly asking the question: “You’ll give it all up for this sucker?” At the same time, his belly protruded over his waist. His belt fell in around his crotch. He was a mess of a man, an evil man.
Finally, the clock struck. I jerked myself from the seat and thanked them both for their time. My words were icy. I wanted to tell Xavier exactly what I thought of him in that moment, but I knew that with Jason there, I couldn’t emit a single peep. I spun on my heels and roped myself out of the office. The press began to question us on both sides as we escalated from the room.
“How is the campaign coming along?”
“Mr. President, do you regret hiring someone so young and inexperienced?”
“Jason, how does it feel to be by-passed as campaign manager, and you having so much more experience?”
I snarled at most of the people as we passed them, wishing I was anywhere else. Just a few feet away from the West Wing offices, however, I suddenly felt a firm hand on my elbow. I wheeled around, noting that the cameramen had roped themselves around the president in the previous hallway. It was just Jason and I, then.
“What do you want?” I spat at him, my anger from the previous day growing in my chest.
He laughed for a moment, placing his hand on his stomach. “Oh, darling. I just want to talk to you. Just the two of us.” Suddenly, he shoved me into a small office, right off from the stairwell. I’d never been in the cruel, cold room—with only a single desk off to the side. I shivered and grabbed at my elbows, blinking up toward him.
“What do you want?” I hissed. I could still hear the gruff voice of the president down the hall, explaining his trajectory for education in the United States. In the back of my mind, I congratulated him—this was precisely right for the campaign. But god: if he could just come swiftly, come and save me!
Jason took a step closer to me. His breath was riding hot and solid on my nose, making me feel queasy. “I feel that we have an unfinished conversation from yesterday,” he murmured. “I’m sure you went running to your little boyfriend about it. I could just feel his hatred for me in that meeting. Couldn’t you feel it?” Jason brought his fingers up to my cheek, then, and laced them down my skin, across my lips. I shivered, hating him with every element of my heart, my soul.
“Can’t you imagine a world in which everything isn’t about you?” I spat at him, shaking my head. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck, to make him feel as frightened as he’d made me feel the previous day. But I knew it was impossible—that that kind of fear was personal.
Jason laughed, bringing his fat, sausage-link fingers to his belly. He shook his head, wiping at the tears that protruded down his face. “I suppose not!” he answered, his voice so honest.
> Suddenly, the door swung open, at the far end of the grey and stark room. I brought my hands around my chest, worrying, for a moment, that Jason had brought back up. However, my heart began to beat ravenously in my chest as I realized the truth.
There, standing in the light of the doorway, stood Xavier. He wore a grimace on his face; anger traced itself in his eyes. He turned his eyes toward me and didn’t reveal a hint of passion, of lust. And then, he turned toward Jason.
“Jason. I need to see you in the Oval Office.”
Jason nodded, his smile bright. “Just as soon as Miss Martin and I are finished with our meeting,” he said primly.
Xavier turned his head toward me. “Miss Martin. Have you sufficiently wrapped up what you want to say to Jason?”
I swallowed, knowing that the words I actually wanted to say to Jason were crude, were inspired by an inner anger that I’d never before seen. But I nodded my head slowly, knowing that I was sending Jason off to a different kind of punishment, to something that I—in my current, low status in the political realm—could never understand. “I’m all done, Mr. President,” I said sweetly. I blinked up at Jason, watching as his face fell before me.
Jason spun his head back toward the president. My heart was beating so fast, telling me alternately that I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t doing the right thing. I was allowing Xavier to take over my problems—for the first time. But this entire situation had escalated out of my control. I couldn’t measure it anymore; I couldn’t read it the way I was meant to. And thus: I needed to hand it off to the man I loved, the only man I knew who was strong enough to take Jason and bend him back, till he snapped.
Power #5 (The Power Romance Series - Book #5) Page 3
