Page 179 of Drama Queen

“Why am I surrounded by stupid people with no sense of loyalty?” Charlotte groaned.

“I assume you’re not including me in that statement,” the president said drolly.

Fuck! She needed to get a grip on herself, before she crossed a line she couldn’t recover from.

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry sir.”

“I assume Fitz is also exempt,” he teased. “I like the name change, who suggested it? You or him?”

“I did,” Charlotte replied. “I don’t know what he’s been through, Zeke hinted at some bullying, but he flinched every time someone used it. He denied it, of course, so I used it in every other sentence until I’d made my point. Fitz suits him better than Gerald — the other half of his surname — because that was the only other option I could come up with on the fly. My brain was otherwise occupied.”

“Zeke was the guard who dealt with Bonny, right?”

“Yes, sir. Him and another man. He sent the other man to the medical centre with Bonny, and Zeke himself accompanied me to the conference room.”

The president nodded, pulling out his phone. “Good afternoon, Joyce. I have a lovely little mess for you— Yes, another one— Oh, you saw that too, well good, because that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t know if the cameras caught it, but the second person to ask those inane questions was none other than Bonny Kelsing, an intern that Ms Bailey had the misfortune to encounter already— Yes, that one, thelioness in medical this morning. Good, I’m glad you’re up to speed. I want her security clearance revoked, put her on a black ban list for all future government positions, and get legal to look into whether she was acting as a whistle blower, which I doubt, but let’s get the bases covered. I don’t want her using that excuse when she’s prosecuted for whatever it is they come up with. Breach of confidentiality, breach of contract, professional misconduct, I don’t care. Get that woman locked up, and ensure she has a psych assessment, because that was no ordinary reaction.”

Charlotte stared, shocked that he would act so quickly in her defence. Her heart began to beat a little faster. Combined with the way he had treated her, and some of the heated looks she’d caught, she was beginning to wonder if the president actually felt something for her that wasn’t entirely professional. Which made her wonder, why did she care?

“Yes, exactly. If she was willing to leak those tiny details, who knows how far she would go given the right incentive. That’s my real concern there,” he paused, listening to the woman on the other end but Charlotte didn’t even try to listen, too busy wallowing in her guilt.

Of course he wasn’t acting in her interest, the woman was a security risk, and that would always trump Charlotte's feelings. Besides, she wasn’t interested, despite the steady thrum of attraction her owl kept pushing onto her.

So, why did it hurt so much that he didn’t care? Her owl clacked its beak in annoyance, but she couldn’t tell what had agitated it. Was it the fact that he didn’t care? Or her morose response?

“I don’t know, I’ll ask her,” the president said, holding the phone away from his face and turning to look at her. “Did you remember seeing her in the room when I carried you in? Because it should have only been members of cabinet.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Which means we have a second leak.”

Rather than agreeing, he paused. “Or, loose lips that were overheard by the wrong individual. They’re a bunch of gossips in here, when it doesn’t involve state secrets. I can just imagine one person or another mooning over how romantic it was, or someone commenting on their shock that the president would stoop so low as to carry an aide across the room, rather than calling for someone else to attend to you.”

Okay, she could see that too. “Would that also explain how she knew you’d had a private meeting with me beforehand?”

That took him longer to respond to. “It’s plausible, I guess. If it were all part of the same conversation. Commenting on how I dragged you off to your private study, and then carried you out of there completely depleted. I could see them wondering what had happened in the room out of sight.”

Of all the fucking stupid things to trip them up, his theory was fairly plausible.

“We shouldn’t let our guard down though, just because it’s plausible doesn’t make it true,” Charlotte warned him.

“Agreed.” He put the phone back to his face again. “You heard all that? Good. Keep an eye and an ear on things. It’s too late now to roll it back, but the spotlight is well and truly on us now with this crisis. We can’t afford a scandal distracting us from the agenda.”

Shame made her face turn crimson. Instead of handling the matter as she should — although the tabloids were going to focus on that anyway — she’d only added her own drama to the rumours. No sex in over a year? What had she been thinking?

The president finished his call, and turned to face her. “It was a mistake, Charlotte. We all make them. What matters more is how you move forward from it.”

Of course he could scent her change in emotion. That only made things worse, however, he was right. Being embarrassed and hiding from it wouldn’t fix anything, so she mentally pulled on her big girl panties and got her head back in the game.

“How do you want to handle it? Ignore the idiocy, or address whatever comes our way?”

Tawny eyes watched her carefully as he licked his lips, his gaze roaming over her face, searching for something.

“There was a lot to process this morning,” he finally replied. “I think we should wait and see what surfaces. The larger outlets might do a puff piece, a “how embarrassing” kind of thing. Expect a few snide comments on how you shouldn’t swipe left so often.”

Charlotte snorted. “As if I have time for that kind of nonsense. Give me a spicy book and a vibrator any day, less complicated and less messy.”

It was the shocked silence that made her realise she’d said that aloud, and to the president of the shifters no less. What was wrong with her? Hesitantly she looked up from where she’d been muttering to herself, to try and gauge his reaction. Yet instead of finding horror, incredulity, or even worse, pity, Charlotte found something else altogether.

Heat.

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