The President's Wife - Kathy Myme Page 0,46

as Peters and some of his underlings take me back to the White House, it’s as if I’m a high-security prisoner.

“I’m going to take a walk,” I say, after an hour of restless pacing around my bedroom suite.

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Peters doesn’t flinch. “Ma’am, the President has made it explicitly clear that you are to be kept here for your own safety.”

“Unless you guys let Trevor go, I think I’ll be alright.”

“It’s the President’s orders, ma’am.”

“You can’t keep me here,” I say, glaring at them all. Is there some prerequisite that you have to be tall and stupidly intimidating to work in the Secret Service?

“I’m afraid we can.” Peters gives me a courteous smile. “Can we get you anything? Dinner? A drink?”

I shake my head. “No.”

It’s so incredibly awkward. For the next few hours, there are at least three members of the Secret Service present in my bedroom at all times. Jackson’s appearance, when he re-emerges after what feels like an eternity, actually gives me some comfort as a familiar face.

“Jackson,” I tell him. “Call off your friends. Can’t you all just wait outside my door?”

To my dismay, my shadow is no more sympathetic. “I’m sorry, ma’am. President’s orders.”

‘President’s orders’. Does David mean to keep me locked up here forever now? Is this how he believes I’ll spend the next few months?

Of course, it’s not like Trevor hadn’t scared me. Fuck, I’d been so terrified. The idea of anyone holding a knife to my neck is far from pleasant. The idea of my boyfriend doing it? That’s something else entirely.

Trevor. I think of him, broken and bleeding, inside some cell somewhere. As ever, I feel so incredibly guilty. The look in his eyes… the paleness of his skin, the unsteadiness of his frame… He’s clearly very sick. We’d been together only a week ago, even if being back in Cali together feels like a lifetime. How hadn’t I picked up on it?

You didn’t pick up on it because you never picked up on him, a voice in the back of my mind whispers. Isn’t that why you came to Washington DC? To get away from that life? You wanted nothing to do with him long before now.

Is it really true? It’s not like Trevor and I have had the best relationship recently… or, well, ever. We fought. A lot. But don’t all couples?

I think I’d found it endearing once. Our differences, the way we never seemed entirely happy being alone in each other’s company. But in California, we’d had friends and work and school there to distract us from the gaping hole that was each other. Here the only thing between Trevor and I had been just under three thousand miles and a bad mobile phone data network.

Do I love him? Had I ever loved him? The question has always made me think a lot more than you’d imagine. Sometimes I think I loved the way he’d always just been… there. I loved the idea of having Trevor in my life. But is that the same as loving him?

He’d tried to kill me tonight.

“Here.” Jackson pushes a cup of something hot and steamy in my hands. “Drink this.”

I tilt my head. “Tea?”

“You don’t look well,” he tells me.

“My boy-” I pause, mentally slapping myself. I can’t talk about Trevor. Having a ‘boyfriend’ hardly works with the engagement cover-story… or at least it doesn’t in a way without making me seem like a massive asshole. “My friend tried to kill me tonight.”

“I can tell.” He wraps my fingers around the drink. “Drink up.”

I’m not pleased with him for agreeing with Peters so easily, but I still appreciate the gesture. The tea is chamomile. As much as I want to stay angry and desperate, there’s something about its warmth that soothes me whether I like it or not.

Eventually I go to sleep, wanting to be away from it all. It’s intensely awkward to sleep in the same room as so many suits, people whose job it is to watch me, but it’s been a long evening. I can’t help myself. And they at least have the decency to all turn around as I get changed.

When I wake up, it’s almost as if no time has passed.

“Here,” he says, handing me the TV remote. “Why don’t you watch something? It’ll make time go faster.”

Click. A woman, her makeup immaculate and unbelievably flawless, speaks to a camera.

“A man has been taken into custody following an attack on the President’s newly announced fiancée, Veronica