John lay on the sofa in his parents’ house, propped on one elbow, his other arm around Jessica’s waist as she lay on her back alongside him. They’d been watching football on a lazy Sunday when they were visiting during a law school break. He gazed down at her as she laughed at something he’d just said, and the love was etched into his whole being. The way his hand rested on her stomach, his fingers curled softly around the place where her hip met her waist, his pinky reaching under her sweater to touch bare skin. The way his eyes watched her face as she giggled like a schoolgirl. The way his head tipped toward her like a compass pointing north.
She ran a finger along the image of John, forever relegated to a piece of paper under glass in the bottom of a desk drawer, and her heart ached. It wasn’t as sharp as it had once been—the pain—but she was still shocked sometimes by how real it was, even after so many years. She’d always assumed that it would fade until one day it would hardly be noticeable. But instead, it faded from a daily hurt to one that flared, like some sort of chronic illness. Moments, events, people—different things triggered it, and you could never be sure when it would happen.
She’d become proficient at fighting it off, giving herself a brief moment to indulge it, then shoving it back in a drawer of her psyche the way she shoved the photograph into the drawer of the desk. For the better part of six years, Jessica Hampton had lived her life in deference to the man she’d loved, and she wanted out, wanted the peace to be herself, not just John Hampton’s widow. But now Jason Melville had let his dick control his actions, and it was all blown to hell.
There was a knock at the door, and she slammed the drawer shut too hard, rattling the desk.
“Come in,” she directed, trying to regroup and give the appearance of control.
“Madam President, the general is here for his appointment, and there is another bomb threat at the Egyptian embassy.”
Jessica’s heart skipped a beat as she thought about the tall, dark, and intriguing ambassador in danger.
“Please show the general in, and I’d like to be kept apprised of any developments in the bomb threat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Vanessa said, stepping aside and ushering in one of the joint chiefs of the military.
And so began another day as the president of the United States.
Kamal stood in the lobby of the Egyptian embassy and cursed. His secretary, who was also his niece, looked over at him from her perch on a stool and smirked.
“Mr. Ambassador.” She addressed him with a spark in her eyes. Disrespectful child. He would have to tell his sister that she’d raised a brat.
“Yes, Shamira?”
“You need to quit scowling. They’re almost done with the sweep, and they could have made you stand on the sidewalk. This really isn’t so bad.”
Kamal knew it wasn’t, but he did not appreciate being forced to leave his own office, and if they didn’t figure out who was making these bomb threats he was going to blow up the damn embassy himself so he could get some work done.
“Uncle Kamal,” his niece’s soft voice was right next to him now. “Are you having a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day?”
She grinned at him, and he couldn’t stay angry. He ruffled her hair because he knew that for a twenty-two-year-old girl, that was the worst affront you could offer.
“Your mother raised you like a wild animal,” he said as she dodged his hair-mussing fingertips.
“But she raised me to understand my moody uncle, which is why I’m your secretary. No one outside the family would be able to stand you all day long.”
He unfolded his arms, watching the parade of bomb-sniffing dogs and explosives unit personnel who were traipsing through his building. “You’re undoubtedly correct,” he told her.
A short horn blast sounded, and Kamal knew that the building had been given the all clear.
“Mr. Ambassador,” one of the bomb unit commanders said as he approached. “Everything’s been cleared.”
“Of course it has. These aren’t serious threats.”
The commander looked at him sternly. “Mr. Ambassador, you know we can’t assume that. These threats have every indication of being from a serious group. They’re delivered with details that tell us whoever this is has a great knowledge of explosives and urban terrorism.”
“And because of that, I encourage you to remove my staff from the building, but there is no reason to send me out.”
The commander smiled now. “Mr. Ambassador, it’s not a ship. You’re not required to go down with it.”
Kamal opened his mouth to lambast the man, but his niece caught his arm and began to press him around the man toward the elevators. “Mr. Ambassador, let’s get you upstairs so that you can prepare for your next meeting.”
He knew when he was being handled, but he let her do it anyway. She was actually an excellent secretary. He’d let her start part-time when she was still in college nearby in Virginia, then she’d asked him to take her on full-time when she graduated. He’d been able to shuffle some other staff around to give her the position, and he’d never regretted it.
When he returned to his office, he had to go through the ritual of reassembling everything. He’d never understand why the bomb squads had to open every drawer and pull every item off the shelves when they checked. Wasn’t that what the bomb dogs were for? If they couldn’t smell it, there was nothing there, right?
“Mr. Ambassador?” his niece said from the doorway as he shut the drawers to his big wood filing cabinet. She walked to him, an envelope extended in her hand.
“This was delivered during the chaos. Let me know how you’d like to respond, and I can have one of the men drive it over to the White House.”
Kamal nodded and took the missive from her before retreating to his desk and sitting while he lifted the unsealed flap of the creamy envelope. The White House seal was on the front of the card inside, and he touched the embossed foil, thinking about the woman who lived in the iconic building.
The inside of the card wasn’t printed with an invitation to a function as he expected, but instead, longhand cursive filled the space, the type of old school handwriting that very few people had or used these days.
Mr. Ambassador, I would like to invite you to attend a small reception at the White House this evening at seven p.m. Hors d’oeuvres will be served and cocktail attire is suggested. Please feel free to bring a guest if you wish. I look forward to seeing you there.
Jessica Hampton.
Kamal looked at the note for a long moment. A handwritten invitation from the president of the United States. Signed simply, Jessica Hampton. Something resembling excitement bubbled up in his chest. He was being ridiculous. It was a last-minute invitation to one of the many receptions held at the White House year-round. The president probably needed him to round out numbers or balance some sort of international agenda. He couldn’t help his smile all the same. He had to admit that his weekly meetings with the president had become the highlight of his schedule. The chance to talk to her sooner, see her in a different context excited him, and no matter how pointless he knew it was, he still wanted it.
He took out a piece of his official stationery from the desk drawer and picked up his heavy fountain pen.
Madam President, he wrote. I would be honored to attend the reception this evening. I will not be bringing a guest. I look forward to seeing you.
At Your Service,
Kamal Masri.
He waited for the ink to dry, then folded the paper and put it into an embassy envelope. He knew there was no point in sealing it, as the White House staff would open it and read it before it reached the president anyway, just as his own staff did here at the embassy. There was no such thing as privacy when you were a high-ranking government official.
After sending the missive to be hand-delivered to the White House, Kamal returned to setting his office in order. He went through the room, pushing in drawers and reshelving books. As he moved to shut the last drawer in h
is desk, however, it jammed. He pulled it back out, noticing that one of the file folders was askew, standing up above the rest so that it blocked the drawer’s path. He knew the file well. It contained all his personal notes from discussions about the Millennial Accord. It was a file that he removed and replaced several times a week, so it was possible that he’d not inserted it into the drawer completely, but Kamal wasn’t the type of man who did something halfway—even replacing a file in a drawer.
He shook his head and removed the file, leafing through the contents. Everything looked just as he’d left it. He slid it back into the drawer and decided that the bomb threats were making him slightly paranoid. The bomb squad was Egyptian, after all. No one ever entered the upper levels of the embassy but those Egyptian diplomats and military personnel with the highest security clearances. No, the last thing he needed was to get so skittish that he doubted his own people. If he couldn’t trust his own people, half of whom were related to him somehow, then he didn’t deserve to be ambassador.
He finished the cleanup of his office and got back to work, his mind pleasantly distracted from bombs and mysterious files by the thought of seeing Jessica Hampton later that night. Yes, seeing Jessica Hampton was quickly becoming the single best thing about his job.
Chapter 5
“I’ve never seen you so indecisive about what you’re wearing,” Fiona said as she stood leaning against the doorway of Jessica’s dressing room.
Jessica dropped another black dress on the love seat, the stack of them now two feet tall.
“Why do I own nothing but black?” she complained. “An entire closet full of designer dresses, and none of them are in a color?”
Fiona shook her head and smiled. “Because you’ve been in mourning for six years?”
Jessica shot her a look that would have withered lesser women. “This isn’t Victorian England. We don’t have to wear black after our husbands die.”
“Really?” Fiona asked as she walked farther into the spacious room lined on three sides with clothing racks. “Because, as you’re so poignantly observing, you own approximately four hundred black dresses and not a single one in a color.”
“I own colored dresses, just not colored cocktail dresses.”
Fiona elegantly lowered herself to the one small space on the sofa that wasn’t covered in black dresses. “Right, because it’s okay to be visible at work, but at social events, you need to fade into the woodwork so that no man gets the wrong idea and tries to get to know you.”
Jessica glared at her former best friend. “Fiona, when you figure out how the president of the United States—the female president of the United States—is supposed to date while in office, you let me know. Until then I’ll be running the country, but I’m not opposed to doing it in a dress that’s a color other than black.”
“Fine.” Fiona stood and reached under her arm to pull down the zipper hidden there.
“What are you doing?” Jessica asked skeptically.
“Giving you a dress in a color other than black. I’m going to take my wins where I can get them.”
She finished unzipping and stepped out of the sleeveless sapphire-blue silk sheath, holding it out to Jessica.
Jessica stared at the senator from the Great State of Texas standing in a thong, a strapless bra, and sky-high stilettoes. “Is there no limit to your outlandishness?” she asked, plucking the dress from Fiona’s fingers.
Fiona began digging through the stack of black dresses, holding each one up to her chest before discarding it on a new pile.
“Go on,” she directed. “Put it on. You know you’ll look fabulous in that color. Much better than I do, truth be told.”
Jessica untied the belt of her silk dressing gown and removed it before stepping into Fiona’s dress. After she zipped it up, she turned to the mirror and examined herself. Her red hair was in an upsweep, and the sapphire dress made her blue eyes shine.
“It’s gorgeous,” Fiona said softly, looking over Jessica’s shoulder in the mirror. “What’s that old saying? You hide your light under a bushel? You do that, Jess. I know you have this job, and it’s constraining. I know you feel obligated to live out John’s legacy, but you can’t forget to take care of you.”
She arranged one of the errant coils that had escaped the upsweep and squeezed Jessica’s shoulder gently. “I know I harp on it, and that it annoys you, but I only want the best for you. You are bearing the proverbial weight of the world on your shoulders, I just wish that there was someone or something to give you a break from all that.”
Jessica gave her a small smile in the mirror. “I know, Fi. I know you always want what’s best for me, and you know that I’m resisting the pressure to run again so that I can get my life back. I’m tired. I’ve done what John should have gotten to, I’m ready to move on, but as long as I’m in office, I don’t see how I can.”
Fiona tugged a one-shouldered Perry Ellis chiffon baby-doll dress from the pile and pulled it over her head, smoothing out the fabric as it fell over her hips and slid down her thighs.
“Maybe you should have hired a male chief of staff—six two, former hockey player, good at using his mouth for things other than talking…” Fiona sighed dreamily.
Jessica took a pair of silver shoes off the shelf and slipped them on, observing them in combination with the bright blue dress. She considered what she was going to say next. Fiona had been her best friend for twenty years, she knew she could trust her implicitly, but she also knew that Fiona would get her hopes up for no reason. Because nothing was going to happen—nothing could happen—but her stomach was in butterflies when she thought about it.
“Can I make a confession?” she asked, turning to her friend. Fiona nodded. “I invited someone to the reception tonight.”
“I’d assume you invited a lot of someones,” Fiona joked. “It’s a reception to celebrate the anniversary of the Davidson-Rogers Treaty after all.”
“I invited someone who doesn’t need to be here.” Jessica took a breath and plunged ahead, into the land of Fiona’s unfounded hopes and expectations. “I invited someone because I wanted to see him.”
“Well,” Fiona demanded after Jessica paused. “Get on with it, or I might lose my mind.”
“The Egyptian ambassador. Kamal Masri.”
Fiona’s eyes widened as her mouth formed a small “o” of shock.
“Tall, dark, and brooding?”
Jessica nodded.
“I met him at the party the embassy hosted last month for House members and their staffs.”
“I’ve been working with him on the Millennial Accord. We have weekly meetings.” She cleared her throat, not sure what else to say. It wasn’t like they had really done anything other than talk, and walk, and talk some more. But the things that weren’t spoken—the way his arm felt so solid underneath her hand, or the look in his eyes when he watched her across a table. The way her breath caught whenever she heard his voice for the first time in a meeting. No, they hadn’t done anything but talk and walk, but somehow, they’d done so much more.
“Why, Madam President,” Fiona drawled, laying her Texas on thick. “I do believe you have a crush on our esteemed ambassador.”
Jessica’s face heated. “Stop. Just stop. I wish I hadn’t said anything now.” She snatched a bracelet from the jewelry box and marched out of the dressing room into her bedroom. “I invited him because he seems like a nice man and I enjoy talking to him. I do not have a crush. Good Lord, I’m almost forty years old. Women my age don’t get crushes.”
Fiona scoffed. “The hell we don’t. I have a new crush every time I walk past the intern lounge in the Capitol building. Some of those college boys are really quite lovely.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow at her friend.
“Don’t worry, I would never act on those crushes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t act on this one.”
“Fiona. I realize there aren’t any laws dealing specifically with that since I’m one of the only
single presidents in history as well as the only female one, but even you have to admit that me socializing with the ambassador in that way would shine a spotlight on every interaction the US had with Egypt and the Middle East in general. The accusations from across the aisle would be horrendous. They’d probably try to have me charged with treason for putting a foreign country’s interests above America’s.”
Fiona seemed to mull it over for a moment. “You’re right, which is why you’ll just have to keep it on the DL.”
“The what?”
“The down low. Hide out, my dear. Just don’t tell anyone.”
Jessica’s eyes grew wide, and then she laughed. “Fi, have you looked around?” Jessica’s arm swept around the room. “I live in the biggest fishbowl on the planet. I don’t do anything except pee without someone watching me. I’m under twenty-four-hour guard. I haven’t driven a car in over three years. I don’t remember what the inside of a grocery store looks like. I have no idea what the current popular movie is, and I haven’t ridden on a commercial airliner since John died. How exactly is it you propose I have a secret assignation with the ambassador from Egypt, who, I might add, has nearly as much security following him around as I do.”
“Simple. One trusted Secret Service agent and the staff stairway to the private residence.”
“Good Lord. You seriously think I should have one of my Secret Service agents smuggle the ambassador in through the staff entrance?”
Fiona shrugged. “Trust me when I say you wouldn’t be the first president to do it.”
Jessica had to admit that was very likely true. “But they weren’t smuggling in a high-ranking official of a foreign government. If they got caught, they were sleazy, I might be criminal.”
“Oh, don’t you believe that for a second. Some of them were criminal as well. Didn’t seem to hurt their careers any.”
POTUS: A Powerplay Novel Page 5
