Page 55 of Capitally Engaged

“I know,” I said, gesturing for her to get on the escalator toward the men’s department ahead of me. “But I thought we could go out for a nice dinner or something. You could wear a new dress, we could drink champagne, make a night of it.”

She stepped off the escalator, standing in front of the store map. I would bet she wasn’t actually reading it. “I’ve never celebrated a book release before.”

I stepped up behind her. “I’d be happy to be your first.” She leaned back against me for a moment, in a way I knew showed her appreciation.

“Okay, fine, but only if we find a suit you like in time. I’m not giving up playing dress-up with my very own Preston doll.”

I rolled my eyes. I wore a suit almost every day to work, yes, but I never put much thought into colors or how they fit. As long as they weren’t too tight or too baggy or too khaki, they were fine. Jax wanted me to get a new suit for these headshots. She had visions of them accompanying my campaign announcement. We had plenty of time between now and then, but a photographer friend she knew had an opening this weekend and would do it for cheap, so here we were.

“Okay, so we definitely want to do a navy one—to bring out your eyes.” Jax started rifling through the racks. “A classic black and a nice charcoal will be good options too. You’re sure I can’t talk you into multiple suits and an outfit change for Saturday?”

I stared at her deadpan. “One suit. No changing.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, hoisting up a pile of suits I hadn’t even noticed her picking out.

“How do you know my size?”

Now she stared at me with a lack of amusement. “We sleep in the same bed, buddy. I’m pretty sure that means I’m entitled to go through your closet to get your pants and jacket sizes.” She took off toward the dressing room, calling over her shoulder. “We’ll start with these.”

I supposed I was meant to follow her, so I started moving. “Still not a big fan of the buddy.”

“Noted!”

Twenty minutes later we had a pile of no’s, a few maybes, and one suit left to try on.

“Isn’t this the navy one you picked out first?” I asked from behind the dressing room door.

“Yes, but it was my favorite from the rack, so I wanted it to be last.”

“That’s diabolical. Why couldn’t it have been first and we could have saved a ton of our time andmyenergy?” I said, opening the door.

“Because, this way, we’ll know it’s really...” her words trailed off as she looked over at me. “Yup, that’s the one. I want to tear it right off you, more so than any of the others.”

I laughed. “Quite a scale you’ve developed there.” I walked to the three-way mirror to check this suit out, and had to agree, the look worked.

I saw her shrug in the reflection. “When it works, it works. What do you think?”

“I think we have a winner. I still wish we would have started with this one, but I won’t question the process anymore.” I looked at my smartwatch. “And we still have time to look at a dress for you.”

Jax met me in front of my changing room. “Or, I could help you get out of that suit. Make sure it stays neat for the tailor tomorrow...”

I leaned in to kiss her, waiting for her eyes to close before pulling back and slamming the door in her face.

“Preston!”

“Nice try, but you’re looking at dresses.”

“Fine,” she said and stomped off to sit down in her chair.

After I changed back into my softball gear, we made our way to the third floor where the dress section was. Jax started to flick through the racks with less enthusiasm than I expected.

“If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. It was just an idea.”

Jax sighed. “No, it’s a really sweet idea. You’re the nicest for thinking of it and wanting to help me celebrate. It’s just... I’ve been thinking for a while, I wish I could claim my books. I don’t write them for any accolades or recognition, but I would love to meet my readers face-to-face at an event or chat with an aspiring author about their dreams.”

“Well, could you? I know you told the senator you’re a romance author, and moving right past the fact you told him before me”—she stuck her tongue out at me—“if there’s any part of you that cares about what I think you should do, I would be proud to support you chasing your dream as Jacqueline Carter.”

She started at the rack in concentration, not saying anything.

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