Page 81 of Forged By Sacrifice

“I have a feeling this young lady will be around for a while,” she retorted and then departed with her husband for their house a few miles away.

My face flushed at her words and the implication behind them. Mac and I hadn’t even had a real date, and yet, here she was, insinuating a future that he and I both knew was a rocky idea at best. I hid my embarrassment in a quickly whispered goodnight, and Mac looked like he was going to protest, but his dad called him into the kitchen, and I retreated to the Blue Room for one last night.

It was a sleepless one as I tossed in the sheets, thinking about Mac and me. Thinking about the kiss in his parents’ kitchen. About how comfortable I’d felt at his side. The discord that had existed between my heart and my brain was slowly easing. I not only could see us together, I wanted us together. I wanted him to choose me, even knowing what he knew about me.

But after seeing him with his family, I worried I was being selfish. Because if we were together, I was asking Mac to do more than just accept me in spite of my family. I was asking him to risk everything he’d ever wanted. Tying himself, even in a short-term relationship, with the daughter of a Russian oligarch’s wife and a Ponzi-scheming jailbird would always trail after him when he ran for office. There would always be a taint on him from his association with me.

Mac’s grandfather rode back with us to D.C. the next day, so I took up residence in the backseat with Dani. The conversation in the car circulated around the gun bill and Guy Matherton’s platform. While the three of them discussed politics, I opened my textbooks, but while I stared at the words, I was still trying to figure out the answer to the dilemma of us.

Mac and I didn’t get a chance to talk once we arrived back in D.C. because Dani pulled me onto the couch to watch the latest episode of Fighting for the Stars that we’d missed. Mac did sit next to me, and I found myself tempted to lean against him and rest my head on his shoulder, but I held back, unsure with Dani in the room. Unsure because we hadn’t had a moment to discuss what came next.

“Well, that just bites,” Dani said after her favorite contestant got voted off at the end of the episode. She got up and headed toward the hallway. “I’m off to bed.”

“Goodnight,” Mac and I both said.

She’d gone two steps before she came back. “Before I forget, did you order a tux for Friday?”

“Yes, Mom. I have the tux reserved,” Mac teased.

My heart flipped a little at the thought of Mac in a tux, remembering the conversation Ava and I had had this summer about how deadly Mac would look in one. I wasn’t sure my poor heart and already weak resistance would be able to stand it.

“You should just buy one. You’re going to be in one quite often now that we’re back in full session.” Dani leaned on the wall, and I had the odd sense she was leading up to something more than Mac ordering a tux. She seemed almost too nonchalant. The shoe finally dropped when she said, “Who are you bringing with you?”

I tried not to flush, because I finally saw where this was going, but it felt completely unfair for her to put us both on the spot like that. As if we hadn’t just spent the weekend deflecting their entire family’s veiled comments about us together.

“What?” Mac asked, frowning at her.

“You can’t show up to a reception at the Chinese Embassy without a date.”

“It’s for work. Why would I have to have a date? I just assumed I’d be going with you.”

“I’m not going as your plus one, Robbie. That’s just gross. Besides, I have a date,” she tossed out.

“You do?” More frowning from Mac.

“Yes. I’m taking Russell.”

He snickered. “That’s not a date; that’s a trainwreck.”

Dani didn’t disagree with him, but she did say, “He and I have an arrangement. If neither of us is in a relationship, we go together. It’s been our thing for four years.”

“He’s not for you, Dani.”

“Why, because he has glasses and speaks five different languages?”

“He can barely converse in any of them.”

“You’re just whining because I won’t let you go with me. But we can’t show up together. People will start muttering things about incest on top of the nepotism we already encounter. Why don’t you take Georgie?”

“What?” I choked out just as Mac said, “I’m not subjecting her to that.”

Dani ignored both of our reactions and just looked at me as she said, “Mac needs a date for the reception. He’s a stupid male and obviously left this until the last moment. Do you have plans for Friday?”

“Yes.” I swallowed hard. It wasn’t really true. But the stack of law books and folders by the door would be enough to keep me busy. Plus, Mac had just basically said he didn’t want to take me. I was trying hard not to read anything into it at the same time I was trying to give him every out he wanted. This was asking him to put me and my family ties on display on our very first date. It was too much. Too fast.

“Plans other than studying?” Dani pushed.

I avoided her eye contact but risked looking at Mac from under my lashes. He was staring at his sister, obviously trying to tell her something without words, but she just continued.

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