you were my fiancée, I might have hired all these people. You can never be too safe.”
I sit back in my chair, shaking my head. This man is insane. The words ‘control freak’ don’t seem quite strong enough.
“You’re crazy,” I mumble, absolutely exhausted with trying to keep up.
“I’m prepared,” he says. “And I think you’ll appreciate the chance to talk. It’s been quite a hectic past few days.”
He isn’t wrong. My entire life has now changed. Turned upside down so quickly that a part of me is still reeling, struggling to adjust.
“What would you like to discuss?” I ask.
“Firstly, I’d just like to thank you. I know how much you’re risking for me, Veronica. It takes a lot of courage to do something like this, even for the sake of your country.”
Once more I feel embarrassment creep into me. “That’s okay. I did have a hand in causing it.” Although we’d both tripped into each other, I imagine it would have been a lot less embarrassing in the long term if the President had only had himself to fall onto.
“You will, of course, be compensated for your trouble. Thoroughly. If you ever receive an offer from the media to do a tell-all, remember that I will triple it.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to rat you out, David. Why would I have agreed to help you in the first place?”
“I simply want to be prepared for all eventualities.” He leans back in his chair as the waitress comes back.
I notice it first when we place our orders. At first I hesitate, frozen still with shock. There’s a hand on my leg.
The President’s hand is on my leg.
Slowly, carefully, his fingers run in quiet circles as they draw patterns into my skin. Soft circles, light and almost absent-minded.
I suck in my breath.
“What are you doing?” I hiss, moving to pull him away. But my hand hovers over his, somehow able to push him off.
The slow circles don’t stop. Inch by inch, get only seems to get closer and closer to my inner thigh.
His gaze falls to where his hand is underneath the table. “We’re sitting next to a large window, Veronica.”
To my horror, I realize. The position of his hand isn’t hidden. It’s directly positioned so you can see it from out of the window.
“You want them to see,” I whisper sharply. “Don’t you?”
“It’s just another way of making it absolutely clear to the press,” he says with a shrug far too nonchalant from a man in his position. “Of showing them who you belong to.”
“You’re a politician to the core,” I mutter at him. The sound comes out far more high pitched than I’d intended. “All you ever think about is how to get ahead.”
“All I ever think about is how I’m going to win.” He smiles again, a devastating half-cocked thing. “Do you want me to stop?”
“David…”
“As you said before, answer the question. Do you want me to stop?”
No, my brain cries. That's the last thing I want. All I can think about is how desperately I want his hand to continue moving up my leg.
How much I want it to reach into my underwear and-
No. I can’t think about that. I can’t let myself.
“Are you happy?” I say angrily to him, feeling as if I’m about to shatter into a thousand pieces. “Or are you going to keep your hands there all night?”
Slowly, without even glancing at the window, he pulls his hand away and lets his palm rest on my knee. The contact still makes my whole body buzz, but at the same time… I can’t help but to mourn the warmth his hands left a little higher up. I feel suddenly empty, left wanting. It’s frustrating.
“I have a question,” he says, his voice soft for someone who’s so clearly evil. “Veronica, are you attracted to me?”
It’s like he wants to kill me. So direct. So blunt. And throughout it all, he has the audacity to lean back in his chair and gaze at me ambivalently, as if the answer really means nothing to him. As if he’s asking out of pure curiosity alone.
“David, that’s an inappropriate question-”
“It’s not inappropriate,” he says flatly. “You’re pretending to be my fiancée, Veronica. I need to know whether I have an effect on you. Whether your body is responding to me when I do this.”
His hand sneaks back towards my inner thigh. In one fluid motion, he runs a finger dangerously close to the lining of my underwear.
I shiver