Page 60 of Bona Fide

? Why — Shawn Mendes ?

I don’t knowwhat day it is, haven’t eaten in probably two, and I’m exhausted. Even if I wanted to, I haven’t spoken to Reagan in over a week. It makes it look as though I’m truly respecting her wishes when, in reality, I would’ve texted her already if time allowed.

Instead, I’m swamped with conference calls and interviews. I’ve had lunch and dinner meetings with politicians, where I barely touched my food because I needed everything to go off without a hitch, and I was too busy being interrogated.

The presidency is within my grasp, I can feel the shit.

Sitting in my office for the first time in over seventy-two hours, I ignore another phone call from Demi. I have emails to attend to, a calendar to blow through, and fuck knows what else right now.

A soft knock rasps on my door, opening afterward to reveal Em on the other side.

“Hey,” she greets softly. “Didn’t think you’d be in until later this evening.”

I motion for her to come in. “Got done with my lunch early, Mayor Chestin’s cat had to have emergency surgery or something—” I wave my hand in the air. “—I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Start,” she chides softly, taking a seat in front of me. “You’ll need to remember names and want to build—”

“Rapport, I know. Just—” I look over my desk that is buried in folders, paperwork, and things I don’t want to read over. “—overwhelmed right now.”

“And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She crosses her legs and hits me with a knowing glance. “We need to shave some of your schedule down.”

“Why?”

“Because you look like a zombie. You have bags under your eyes, and you look ten pounds lighter.”

I raise a finger. “One more month to go and they start voting for who will be the Democratic candidate. I can’t stop now.”

“You might not be alive then,” she retorts. “Wade, we need to slow down a little.”

I shrug, opening up my email. “Then slow down.”

“I mean you. I want you to slow down.”

“Do you want me to take a day off or something? Because I’ll do that, but it’s back to work afterward.”

“I would like for you to take more, but I know how you are.”

“Done.” I peer over the top of my laptop. “Anything else?”

“One more thing. It’s about Reagan.” That pulls me right out of my emails.

“What about her?”

“Her contract is up at the end of March, I want to renew it.”

I nod. So the fuck do I. “Have you spoken to her about it?”

“A little but then she blows me off.” My stomach twists at Reagan still thinking about the possibility of not working with me anymore. That she won’t be striding through my office in her fuck-me dresses and taunting me with every single one of her curves.

“I can speak with her,” I offer, forcing myself to get back to work.

“She’s actually here—outside at my desk. She had a few ideas for you to close out the final run at the Democrats and to help the public see who you are.”

“Send her in,” I order as nonchalantly as I can. “I’d love to hear them, but I only have five minutes.” Em stands and saunters out of the room, bringing in the woman who possesses every bit of my attention every time she’s in the room.

“Good afternoon, Governor,” she hails, taking my next breath as she leads the way into my office with Emmy behind her.

The top of her dress is solid black while the bottom is pink pleated floral. She looks like a godsend. A perfect part of my week that has been a shit-show of nothing but work, business, and no sleep.

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