Page 46 of Presidential Bargain
“I found a set of keys in a kitchen drawer. They werelabeled.”
I made several spare keys for contractors to use during the remodel. Apparently, my general contractor left them in a kitchen drawer for me after it wasfinished.
“Go take a shower and change. We have something important to talkabout.”
“Is it about the tape?” Her eyes were dark and challenging. She didn’t want to ignore the issue. She wanted to address ithead-on.
“Yes,” I answered her, matter-of-factly. “We’re dealing with it. The lawyers are watching for it to pop up on the Internet and if it pings, then we’ll go after that site. It’s been removed from any site that had it up. And Sierra Simmons fired the assistant who took the video. She’s suing that person for breach of contract, and we’re suing for invasion of privacy, among otherthings.”
I rattled off the facts like they were nothing, like she hadn’t been exposed publicly to the entireworld.
“I see.” Her jaw was tight and I saw the muscles twitching with anger. She was ready to explode and if I was a better man, I would stand there and take it. But I had too much to bear right now. I couldn’t take herweight.
I let her walk past me and up the stairs to the bedroom we had yet to completely share. I closed my eyes and tried to picture how she looked in my bed, beneath me, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with desire. I wanted thatmomentback.
“Do you want me tocancel?”Jameson sounded exasperated, like he was unsure of thenextstep.
I lounged in the cozy gray chair that sat in one corner of the bedroom. It was placed right next to a massive window that overlooked the backpatio.
“Cancel what?” I asked, roused temporarily from mythoughts.
“We’re supposed to have dinner with my parentstonight.”
I had forgotten those plans. I was too engrossed in the implosion of my own life to care about anything else. When Jameson barked at me earlier, I knew something was wrong. I told myself that I would let him tell me but when he didn’t come back after an hour, I showered, got dressed, and left. I wanted to go back home where I felt loved, even if it was just the memory of love. I had managed to eat breakfast at a tiny corner diner a few blocks from Jameson’s house before I saw the newspapers. Then I found the nearest trash can and retched until there wasnothingleft.
I had no idea what to do, or even where to go. So I kept walking. I didn’t have my cell phone with me, so that meant I couldn’t call a cab or even schedule an Uber to pick me up. I was also without my shadows, the Secret Service detail. I had no idea how I’d managed to escape them. I figured they would be stationed in front of Jameson’s house, but there was no one waiting outside whenIleft.
“Don’t cancel. I have to meet them eventually. Why not do it after they’ve seen my bare ass spread across the news media?” And because I couldn’t help myself, I succumbed to a fit of giggles. I had unintentionally madeapun.
“This isn’t fucking funny, Georgie.” Jameson clearly had missed my word play. He was still fairly unhinged, his anger still raging at afullboil.
“Don’t cancel. I’m sure your parents will understand. I can be ready inanhour.”
“Fine. I’ll get dressed in the sparebedroom.”
“There’s no need for you to do that, Jameson. I’m the guest. This isn’tmyhome.”
“Goddammit, Georgie!” Jamesonroared.
“What do you want me to do, Jameson? Who do you want me to be today?” I got up from the chair and stormed past him, into the bathroom, where I grabbed my toiletry bag that hadn’t been fully unpacked, and left to find a guestbedroom.
An hour later, I was ready as promised. Even though the weather was still warm, I felt cold, so I wore a pair of skinny jeans and a sheer black silk blouse with a matching camisole underneath. I managed to tame my thick mane into decent waves and applied minimal makeup. I kept on my engagement ring but added the simple gold wedding band that belonged to my mother to my right hand. It was one of the few physical reminders of her thatIkept.
I met Jameson in the foyer of the house. He too was wearing jeans and an olive-green sweater with the sleeves pushed up. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, so a light beard covered his face and I had to restrain myself from running my hand across the coarse hair. He opened the front door and I walked out in front of him, to where three sedans idled at the curb. We got in the last one. The rest of our security detail got in thefirsttwo.
We weren’t in the car long before we pulled up to a colonial in Jamaica Plain. It had two bay windows on the front and a bright, red front door situated between two stately white columns. Jameson held out his hand to help me out of the car and together we walked up a short brick-paved walkway. The front door opened the second Jameson set foot on the small front porch, and he was immediately pulled into the embrace of hismother.
She held on to him for a long moment while I stood back, awkwardly watching their affectionate exchange. I tried to remember the last time I hugged my own mother, but nothing cametomind.
Jameson finally released his mother and stepped back. He held out an arm and beckoned me out of the shadows. “Mom, this is Georgie. Georgie, this is mymother,Ruth.”
I extended my hand. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mrs.Martin.”
I was shocked when she pulled me into a tight hug. She smelled like lilies of the valley, a scent so familiar to me that my eyes began to water with unshed tears. My mother wore a perfume that smelled similar. “Please, call me Ruth,” she said, once shereleasedme.
“Okay,” Imurmured.
She stepped back into the house, gesturing for Jameson and me to follow herinside.
