The Rebel King (All the King's Men Duet #2) - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,105
finish. I want to marry you, but I’m not sure . . .” Her glance slides away and she closes her eyes again. “I’m not sure I want to be the first lady.”
“What?” The word explodes from my mouth, and I don’t give a damn who hears.
“Maxim,” she hisses. “You have to lower your voice.”
“What kind of trap is this?” I whisper hotly. “You practically forced me to run for president—”
“I did not. You want this and you know it.”
“Yes, I want it, but I wouldn’t have risked your safety for it if you hadn’t been so adamant, and I for damn sure wouldn’t have done it if you’d told me you wouldn’t fucking marry me if I won.”
“I didn’t . . .” She huffs a quick breath. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think in those terms.”
“In the terms of I won’t marry the man I supposedly love if he gets elected, so I think I’ll get him elected?”
She reaches up, holds my face between her hands, and the contact feels so right, so us, that I lean into her palm, savor her touch, even in the middle of this fight.
“I know without a shadow of doubt that you’re right for this country,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. “But I’m not sure being first lady is right for me, Maxim.”
Her hands drop from my face and she swipes at a tear.
“I’ve worked my whole life for what I have, for who I am. I love campaigning. I love the fulfillment of putting leaders in power who will look out for the most vulnerable.”
“You can still have impact as first lady. Of course you can.”
“I didn’t work this hard and this long,” she says, some of her usual fierceness rearing, “to be the national plus one.”
“The national plus one? Would you stop thinking about people’s perceptions and expectations and just think about us? How does this play out? If I win you’re the first girlfriend for four years?”
“Eight. You won’t be a one-term president. Not on my watch.”
“And kids? According to your plan, I’d be forty-eight when I left office. You’d be forty-one. You want to wait that long to start our family? Or maybe we won’t wait for marriage and I’ll be the first baby-daddy in the oval. I’m unconventional, but not that unconventional.”
I take her chin between my fingers gently until she meets my eyes. “I want a family with you. I want a life with you. Are you saying if I become president I won’t have that?”
“I’m saying I’m not sure what’s best for me, but I know you’re best for America.”
I drop her chin. “That’s not an answer.”
“Do I give up everything I’m supposed to do so that you can do what you’re supposed to do? I know that sounds bad, but I’m trying to work through the implications of actual marriage if you win. Giving up my career, my causes to be first lady . . . it’s just not what I signed up for, and I—”
“You signed up for me,” I say, wanting to shout, but keeping my voice low. “And I signed up for you, whatever that means, wherever that takes us.”
“Easy to say when ‘whatever’ is you becoming the leader of the free world, and me smiling and looking pretty for a ‘say no to drugs’ campaign, or advocating for literacy. It’s not what I want to do. That’s not who I want to be. Don’t ask me to know everything today. We had to move quickly. I just need some time to wrestle through this, Maxim.”
I’ll be damned if I’m losing my shit on a bus full of campaign staffers, and that’s about to happen. I stand, but she catches my wrist.
“Let go, Nix. I have some things I need to wrestle through before I give this speech and convince Detroit to vote Cade.”
I pull away and stride to the front, a small fire kindling under the collar of the golf shirt I’m wearing. I hate golf shirts. One of the pollsters suggested I try a golf shirt because some study showed they supposedly put people at ease. How does a damn golf shirt reassure someone they’ll make rent? Or that their retirement plan will actually be worth something if this planet stays solvent long enough to use it? The world is on fire and Lennix just turned down my proposal and we’re talking about golf shirts?
I rip the shirt over my head and Kimba looks up from her phone,