Page 49 of Mister President

My head bobbed once as I took a step in her direction. “Yeah.”

“What happened to Fiona being the one?”

“I said she could be the one, but she isn’t.” I paused, considering how much I wanted to share. “We have an expiration date. I don’t know when it’ll be over, but it will be.”

A slow grin spread her lips as she almost cooed, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Nowthat’sbullshit.”

Amanda giggled as she covered her face. “I wanted you to get what you wanted, Elias. For real. Do I wish you would have been able to get it with me? Yeah, but I understand why you can’t. So…it is what it is.”

Before I could say anything else, she walked over to me. Gripping my shoulder, she lowered me and kissed the corner of my mouth.

“Thank you for tonight. I loved it, and I love you. Good night.”

“G-Good night,” I replied as she quickly made her way out of the kitchen.

God, help me stay out of her room tonight.

Monday Morning

As I suspected,I received an email canceling my meeting with Declan. We used to meet twice a quarter to talk business and at least twice on a personal level, whether it was for drinks or at the country club. Now that I was less trusting of Fiona, I believed she was the one canceling and not her father. Until I had proof, I wasn’t going to approach her about it, but I was still going to Declan’s office.

Since it was business hours, I took the town car. When I saw a call coming through from my brother, I smiled. I put the partition up as I answered the call.

“Wassup, Neek?”

“I need you to send me you, EJ, and Amanda’s sizes. Now that me and my sweet girl are in Japan, I’m about to be shopping and shipping shit back.”

“Say less. How y’all been?”

“Good. Having the time of my life, surprisingly.”

My smile widened, genuinely. I’d do anything for my little brother. He was why I’d even come back to Rose Valley Hills in the first place. To know he was finally basking in love, doing what he loved, and seeing the world truly filled me with pride.

“That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you, bruh. For real.”

“Fill me in. What’s been going on?”

I spent a few minutes updating him on what had been going on lately, including me being on my way to meet with Declan.

“I didn’t want to say nothing because I knew you really liked her, but I felt like she was hiding something after Mama told me about the family dinner. I wish I could have been there to get inside her head, but if Mama say something is off—”

“Something is off,” we said together. “I feel like she’s hiding the fact that we’re in a relationship,” I added. “But I don’t know why.”

“Well, if she is, you’re about to find out.”

“I’ve already started detaching from her because I know what she’s hiding is going to be the reason we break up. The damage I’ve done to my relationship with Mandy to be with her was enough of a sacrifice, you feel me?”

“How’s that going anyway? Did she like the party?”

“Yeah, she loved it.”

“That should have smoothed things out a little bit then, right?”

Sighing, I unbuckled my seat belt as we parked. “Yeah. I think the tension is gone, but she’s moving on. I’ve been dropping little hints that I want something with her. What, I’m not sure. She hasn’t really said anything about it either way.”

He chuckled. “Y’all crazy. West owe me five stacks. I told him when y’all moved back that y’all would end up getting back together. I don’t know why you been wasting all this damn time.”

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