Madame President - Tara Sue Me Page 0,56

This is why I’d decided not to get involved with a man while I’m in the White House. There’s no time available for me to deal with this.

“Look.” He reaches out to touch me, but I jerk away. “I already apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again. I don’t know what else you want me to do.”

“Maybe I didn’t want your apology,” I tell him. “And maybe I didn’t want you to promise it wouldn’t happen again. Did you ever think about that?”

“Do you want it to happen again?” His smirk is gone now, and for some reason that makes me sad.

“No, I don’t want it to happen again,” I say. He looks hurt for a split second, and I want to tell him that’s not it, I’d love for it to happen again, but it can’t simply because of who we are and the jobs we have. Instead, I tell him, “It can’t happen again. Regardless of what I want.”

I feel as if we’ve already had this conversation before and I wonder how many times we’ll have it in the years to come. I’m not sure I can deal with it for that long.

“Maybe you should ask George for a transfer?” I suggest to him. I expect him to object, or to at least look saddened at the thought of not seeing me every day.

He shakes his head and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Won’t work.”

“You’ve already asked him?” I don’t want that to be the case, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. The two of us have clashed heads from day one. Of course he’s asked George for a transfer. He probably asked for one after the UK trip when I first ripped into him.

He shakes his head. “It won’t change anything. I’m here for the long haul.”

I want to feel relief at his words, but there’s a sadness in the way he says them that won’t allow me that satisfaction. I realize I’m in so deep, the only option I have is to grab hold of the closest thing to me and hang on tight.

But how could that work when he was the closest thing to me?

“In that case,” I say, able to sound clam due to years of pushing my emotions and feelings down, pretending they don’t exist, and playacting. “We should come up with a plan.”

Navin isn’t paying attention to anything I’m saying. “My, God,” he says. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

He comes closer to me and tilts my chin up with two fingers. “Swallow all the emotion you feel. It’s like you can turn everything off with a snap of your finger.” He peers into my eyes, and I feel silly for worrying about what he finds there. “It’s not healthy, you know?”

“Neither are fast food and candy, yet people keep eating them.” He still has his fingers under my chin and I don’t move because I like the way he feels when he’s touching me.

He chuckles and drops his hand. The absence of his touch leaves my body cold. “Yes,” he says. “We do need a plan. What do you suggest?”

I don’t like any part of my plan, but it’s the only thing to do. “That we don’t allow ourselves to be alone together. That we move forward like this never happened. We do the GBNC series, and we work together like professionals.”

“You think it’ll be that easy, Madame President?” he asks.

“I never said it would be easy. I said it was the best thing to do in order to ensure we don’t continue down this path.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You’re admitting it’ll be difficult for you to act as if you don’t want to jump my bones?”

“You are such an ass. You do know that, don’t you?” I spin around and head to the door, making sure to keep my balance this time.

“I have been told that a time or two,” he says, falling in place beside me.

As we walk back to the main part of the White House, it occurs to me Navin and I aren’t very different. I may shove my emotions to the side, but he acts like a jerk to hide his.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Him

White House Library

Washington DC

We’re in the library again, but this time we’re surrounded by people. There is a list of questions in my lap, handwritten by me last night. A handful are leftovers from the first interview we did, but I trashed some of those and