Lieutenant

by Lesli Richardson

  I wanted Owen.

  * * * *

  The three of us have a tradition now on election nights. We rent space for that night’s party at the same downtown Tampa hotel we’ve always used, and we reserve a suite there for us for after the party. Once the results are in, and the party ends, and we can finally peel ourselves away from the supporters and campaign staff and press to retreat to the safety of our suite, I’m usually reflective.

  Tonight, the night of Owen’s re-election, is no different.

  It’s hard to remember the man I was twenty years ago when I first crossed paths with Owen at the beginning of our second year of college at USF in Tampa.

  By the time I met Owen, nearly every last bit of good has been burned from my soul. What little good is left is scorched, seared, and I show it to no one.

  That’s what it feels like, anyway.

  The perfect emotional makeup to be an attorney, it would seem. Cold, calculating, exposing no weakness.

  During my first year of school, I keep to myself, study my ass off, and while I’m pleasant to my immediate fellow dorm occupants, I enforce a polite distance. I keep what little vulnerability I have left locked down tight.

  I pretend my nightmares are about what happened that day in the desert, and sometimes they are.

  Mostly, they’re not.

  I hated the roommate I was given my first year. Sure, I could have not turned him in to the RA for underage drinking in our room.

  But by turning the kid in and getting rid of him, it meant I had a room entirely to myself.

  I wasn’t going to complain about that.

  Hey, wasn’t like I didn’t warn the kid I’d do it, either.

  Don’t give me a hard time about it. He and his friends were breaking the law and putting both my freedom and my scholarship in jeopardy.

  Fuck that shit.

  My plan for my second year of college is to do the same thing—observe my roommate, evaluate them for weaknesses, and then obliterate them. They’d never see me coming.

  Until Owen enters my life and that plan disintegrates.

  I know I’m in love with Owen from the moment I first set eyes on him. I thought Owen was fucking gorgeous when I first walked in to my newly assigned dorm room and realized he was my roommate. He was hot and had no clue that he was, which made him even hotter. Polite, fumbling, innocent, apologetic, a bundle of nerves and submissive, chaotic, low-key needy energy that drew me right to him.

  I thought he was charmingly adorable when I realized he couldn’t fold clothes or make a rack worth a damn, and the harder he tried, the more flustered he grew.

  I thought he was heartbreakingly endearing when I learned more about him, his childhood. The bitch who’d given birth to him and who also emotionally tortured him for his entire life.

  I recognized his fragility, wanted to tuck him close to my side, protect him from the world, and never let him out of my sight.

  I wanted my arm around his shoulders, my collar around his neck, my ropes around his body, and his mouth around my cock.

  I wanted to do whatever it took to win this man over and make him happy. Make him mine.

  As I get to know him, it’s almost as if the charred shell I’d withdrawn inside of to protect myself has suddenly shattered, leaving me vulnerable for the first time in years.

  Wanting to be vulnerable to Owen, and not even knowing how.

  It makes me immediately shift my plans from wanting to learn everything about him so I could weaponize it against him, to wanting to know everything about him so I could make him mine.

  I…needed him.

  It also scares the fuck out of me.

  Unfortunately, I recognize that, from the moment Owen sets eyes on Susa just a few days later, he’s in love with her. That nearly makes me hate my future wife on sight. The last thing I want to do is share Owen with Susa Evans.

  Until I realize who she is and what she can do for Owen.

  And once I finally admit she has the power to make him happy in ways I never can.

  It also means my life quickly distills down to one point—I need Susa to get Owen. Which I suspect won’t be too hard, because it doesn’t take me long to suss out that Susa’s attracted to me. This works to my advantage, meaning far less effort required on my behalf.

  Am I proud of that?

  Not particularly. Not that I give a fuck, either.

  Soon after Owen and I meet Susa and go over to her house that first night to help rid her of her ex-boyfriend, Owen makes a very apt joke about him being a well-trained pet.

  He isn’t wrong.

  His narcissistic mother has trained him in many ways, both subtle and blatant—ways that Owen doesn’t fully understand, at the time.

  That also works to my benefit.

  It means I will have a much easier time training him as my pet. But to do that, it means I also have to train Susa, and convince her to want Owen as her pet as much as he wants to be her pet.

  To get her to want to keep Owen as her pet as much as she wants to be my pet.

  Because, ironically, Susa is in love with me.

  I suppose a good man, upon discovering a girl nearly ten years younger than him is in love with him—a girl who’s also the object of his best friend’s affections—would have walked away from the situation.

  I am not a good man, and have never claimed to be one.

  I am a bastard.

  In this case, it works in my favor.

  Not only do I not discourage Susa’s affection, I nurture and groom it. Shamelessly.

  Also in secret, because—ironically—I don’t want to hurt Owen. It’s easy to convince Susa to keep things quiet, too, and why. Because she cares about Owen. Is attracted to him, even.

  But it’s me she lusts after. Once I realize who she is, who her father is, then yes, I absolutely have to have her.

  We need her if I’m ever going to get Owen elected governor. More accurately, we need her father and his pull over movers and shakers in the GOP if we’re ever going to gain traction to make a successful third-party run.

  While I did my time in the Army and not the Marines, the motto Improvise, Adapt, Overcome applied there, too. Especially in-country.

  I apply it to this situation.

  Hooah.

  Thus a heavenly third-party union is forged in the tropical fires of Hell that are Florida politics. I wouldn’t subject Owen to allegiance to one party or the other. Fuck both of them. Both have strengths, and both have even more weaknesses.

  Fatal flaws. Flaws I refuse to inflict upon Owen’s political career. I’d rather lose honestly as a third-party candidate than bend over and whore him out to the elephants or the jackasses.

  Neither of them are good enough for him. We’d build something from the ground up, something better.

  Something we could look back on and be proud of.

  Something that was ours.

  And we have, even if Benchley Evans publicly “jokes” that our status as Independents somehow contributed to his heart attack.

  No, asshole, that would be too much booze, a shitty diet, and smoking cigars for over forty years that did it to you.

  Your daughter achieving what she has in her career should be considered the crown jewel in your life’s accomplishments, not something to fucking joke about with a wink and a nod to your buddies that indicates you all think she did this because of you, not in spite of you.

  More accurately, to spite you.

  I think all these things, but I hide them behind smiles and well-placed yes, sirs and no, sirs when talking to the man.

  I’m a bastard, but I’m not stupid.

  If I piss him off too much, he’ll do anything he can to hurt Owen, even if it means Susa’s political career becomes collateral damage in the process.

  I know this, because Benchley is as much of a bastard as I am.

  Fortunately, I have more than a little leverage against the man to keep him in line.

  Leverage Susa and Ow
en know nothing about.

  And, hopefully, never will.

  * * * *

  This has been a long and interesting journey, these past twenty years. Tonight, as I stand here in this hotel suite and watch Susa and Owen at the window, where they’re staring down at the downtown Tampa skyline following our public victory celebration downstairs, I can’t help but smile.

  My pets say I have different smiles, and this one is probably the one they’ve labeled “that smirk.”

  I watch Owen hold his arm out and Susa tucks herself against his side, his other hand coming to rest on her tummy as he drops a tender kiss to the top of her head.

  My sweet pets. I love watching them together. The re-elected governor and lieutenant governor of the great state of Florida.

  Hopefully, in four years, Susa will take Owen’s place as governor.

  And they’re both mine.

  Thankfully, I decided to go for broke and claim both these beautiful souls. Because if I hadn’t, had I run Susa off like I’d originally wanted to all those years ago, she wouldn’t be here to give Owen that gift which I could not, and finally help heal that last lingering wound within his soul.

  She will make him a father.

  The one thing I always wished I could be and never can. Not now.

  Not after the last person I trusted before meeting Owen and Susa turned me into the fucking bastard extraordinaire I am today.

  * * * *

  This has been a long and interesting journey, these past twenty years. Tonight, as I stand here in this hotel suite and watch Susa and Owen at the window, where they’re staring down at the downtown Tampa skyline following our public victory celebration downstairs, I can’t help but smile.

  My pets say I have different smiles, and this one is probably the one they’ve labeled “that smirk.”

  I watch Owen hold his arm out and Susa tucks herself against his side, his other hand coming to rest on her tummy as he drops a tender kiss to the top of her head.

  My sweet pets. I love watching them together. The re-elected governor and lieutenant governor of the great state of Florida.

  Hopefully, in four years, Susa will take Owen’s place as governor.

  And they’re both mine.

  Thankfully, I decided to go for broke and claim both these beautiful souls. Because if I hadn’t, had I run Susa off like I’d originally wanted to all those years ago, she wouldn’t be here to give Owen that gift which I could not, and finally help heal that last lingering wound within his soul.

  She will make him a father.

  The one thing I always wished I could be and never can. Not now.

  Not after the last person I trusted before meeting Owen and Susa turned me into the fucking bastard extraordinaire I am today.

  * * * *

  Order Governor (Governor Trilogy 1) and

  Chief (Governor Trilogy 3) by Lesli Richardson today.

  http://tymberdalton.com/books/series-info/governor-trilogy/

  And don’t miss the Determination Trilogy, writing as Lesli Richardson, a spin-off trilogy set in the same world as the Governor Trilogy. Now available!

  Dignity (Book 1)

  Diligence (Book 2)

  Desire (Book 3)

  http://tymberdalton.com/books/series-info/determination-trilogy/

  Preview: Dignity (Determination Trilogy 1)

  The following is a preview from Dignity (Determination Trilogy 1) by Lesli Richardson. Coming December 28, 2018. Set in the same world as the Governor Trilogy, this standalone spin-off trilogy follows the paths of Kevin Markos, US Senator ShaeLynn Samuels, and Secret Service Special Agent Christopher Bruunt.

  Dignity (Determination Trilogy 1)

  He wants it back…

  My name is Kevin Markos, former star anchor for Full News Broadcasting.

  I say former, because an exhaustion- and frustration-fueled emotional on-air meltdown of apocalyptic proportions means my previously dignified reputation and stellar career as a highly respected conservative TV news host and commentator lay in smoking, irreparable ruins. Only one person will hire me now, and it’s the last person I want to work for—Democratic Senator ShaeLynn Samuels, who’s determined to be the next president of the United States.

  My reluctance isn’t because of her, but because of who’s working for her—Special Agent Christopher Bruunt, the head of her Secret Service detail.

  A college spring break trip I thought was safely hidden in my past, even if it never strayed far from my thoughts, now comes back to haunt me. But if I take this job and succeed, it could resurrect my career and put me at the right hand of the most powerful person in the United States.

  But how much am I personally willing to sacrifice to claw my way back to the top? Because Christopher never forgot that spring break, either.

  And he has a few agendas of his own.

  * * * *

  Chapter One

  Now

  Wednesday, November 7th, the day after Election Day

  “Thank you all for joining us today. It is my privilege to be interviewing Lieutenant-Governor Susannah Evans, who woke up this morning as the governor-elect of Florida. I know you have a busy schedule, Ms. Evans, so thank you for taking the time to sit down with me, and thank you for making us your first stop this morning.”

  “You’re welcome, Kevin. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.”

  Although I can see from the hard, cold glint in Susannah Evans’ blue eyes that she’s anything but happy to be sitting here talking with me. Especially in person.

  But we’re live, and we’re both on our best behavior.

  Frankly, I can’t blame her. Not after my run-in eight years ago with her friend and former running mate, Governor Owen Taylor, during his campaign for his first term.

  I never should have let the producer in my ear override my good sense that day. It was a shitty question, a stupid question, and I knew better. I hadn’t meant to ask it, not really. But I was sick from food poisoning because of bad sushi the night before, was working on a migraine and couldn’t clearly read my notes, my head was screaming at me, my mom had literally just died of cancer the week before…

  And because I was trying to listen to Taylor, and listen to the producer’s voice in my ear at the same time, with a miserably throbbing headache to boot, I stupidly parroted the question my goddamned producer dumped in my ear before I’d really thought about it and processed it.

  Yeeeeaaah.

  Admittedly, not one of my finer moments.

  Add to that the mega-ration of shit I later received from my father over flubbing it and not hammering Taylor harder.

  I finally got the bastard—the producer, not my father—fired by the network for that goddamned stunt. I’d been trying to get rid of him for months, and that was the last straw.

  Hell, if I could get the network to fire my father from my life, that’d be amazing and worth every ounce of bullshit I put up with from my employer.

  Worse? They still didn’t want to fire the guy, at first. The only reason they fired him wasn’t because of what he did, but because even our own viewers rightfully skewered us, and we were the laughingstock of every damn network.

  Even Fox News clicked their tongues at us.

  That’s when advertisers threatened to pull their dollars, and FNB finally caved and released a statement blaming him and terminating him.

  It was cheaper than letting me go and paying out the remainder of my contract. Especially when the rest of my crew all publicly stepped forward to support me and verify my account of the events, and then some angel anonymously released the full tape that recorded the producer yelling at me.

  Doubly especially since I’d tried to get another anchor to handle the interview, but the network brass overruled me and insisted I do it despite how horrible I felt and my life circumstances.

  All that was on the tape, too, which had been running before I sat down with Taylor.

  When the public learned not only was
I sick, and in massive pain, and grieving my mom’s death, the pendulum of opinion swung back hard and heavy in my favor.

  I’d only been at Full News Broadcasting for a couple of years at that point, and was still naïve enough to think I could create positive changes there to shift their coverage back toward center and help boost ratings. Admittedly, it was a helluva scoop, landing an interview with Owen Taylor after that school shooting.

  Until I flubbed it worse than the Buccaneers on any given Sunday. It was literally the only time I ever felt thankful that Mom died, so she didn’t see me do that.

  She would have loved me regardless, I know she would have. She would have talked me through it, hugged me, offered me that limitless love and pride she’d always been imbued with.

  I’m pretty sure it was Lou who released the tape with the audio from the producer on it, the one that saved my ass and my job. When I asked him if he did it, he smiled and shrugged, but would neither confirm nor deny.

  Doesn’t matter who, I guess. They saved my career, as well as helped win me even more viewers.

  Owen Taylor got me back but good, though, four years later. I thought all was forgiven and I was being handed a scoop when I got to be the first anchor to interview Taylor and Evans early the morning after Taylor’s re-election. The walk-and-talk wouldn’t be long, just a preliminary clip we could run until we tagged them later in the day for our scheduled formal sit-down.

  A sit-down that had been delayed and rescheduled several times over the previous week by Taylor’s ball-busting chief of staff, Carter Wilson.

  Who also happens to be Susa Evans’ husband.

  I got my walk-and-talk, all right.

  Except I was left slack-jawed, as well as lambasted by network brass only an hour later, when a widely smiling Evans and Wilson went on Tampa’s WFLA morning show, alongside Governor Taylor, and broke the news that she and Wilson were expecting their first child.