The Rebel King (All the King's Men Duet #2) - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,106

eyes pinging from my bare chest to my scowling face.

“I hate golf shirts,” I snap. “Don’t any of you ever ask me to wear a fucking golf shirt again. I don’t care if millennials love them. I don’t care if they make single mothers feel attractive, or if the color blue makes men between the ages of thirty and forty-five trust me.” I hold up the golf shirt for everyone to see, brandishing it like a weapon and then flinging it on the table. “No more golf shirts. Ever. Is that understood?”

“Seriously?” Lennix asks from behind me, walking up the aisle. “Don’t be a jerk.”

I swing around to face her. “Are you trying to get fired, Ms. Hunter? Last I checked, you work for me.”

“Last I checked, Mr. Cade, you can go fuck yourself.”

Absolute silence floods the bus, and we all seem frozen in some farce. Lennix gasps, covers her mouth, eyes widening, bouncing between me and the shocked staffers. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. We’re all under a lot of pressure and I . . .”

She falters, blinking at tears, running a shaking hand through her hair. My self-possessed girl is coming undone. It’s not just the two of us being uncharacteristically undisciplined. I don’t even think it’s the fight we just had. It’s the wrestle—the conflict of being in love with someone on a path you aren’t sure you can take. As much as I want to resist her, to remain furious with her, I have no defense against this rare vulnerability. If all these people weren’t gawking at us, I’d take her to the back of this bus and hold her, kiss her, assure her that we’ll do whatever she wants to do. I’ll do whatever she needs to do as long as we can be together.

And then I’d fuck her until she remembers it’s just us. No matter what, always only us.

I glance at the shocked faces and the wide eyes of the team. “I’m sorry, too,” I tell them. “We’re all under a lot of pressure, yeah, but I never want to take it out on you guys. You’re amazing and you deserve better than that.”

I’m saved from more explanations or awkward apologies when the bus comes to a halt with a small lurch and sigh of brakes. I have to get off this thing and go regroup before I destroy everything I worked for, including my relationship with Lennix. I stride to the front of the bus. Quick footsteps follow me when the bus doors open.

“Doc,” Lennix calls. “You forgot your shirt.”

But I’m already outside, and as soon as my foot hits the pavement a swarm of reporters gathers around me like bees, buzzing in front of our hotel, all stretching phones and mics toward me. Lennix steps off the bus, clutching my shirt, her eyes darting across the eager, curious faces.

“What the hell?” she mutters.

“Is it true?” one of them yells. “Is Lacy telling the truth?”

“Lacy?” Lennix asks, her mouth hanging open. “Oh, God.”

“Who is Lacy?” I ask Lennix, but a reporter answers.

“Lacy Reardon alleges that you and your campaign manager are having an affair, Mr. Cade. Is it true?”

48

Lennix

“This is bad, right?” I ask.

Back at campaign headquarters in New York, Kimba and I stare at the iPad on the conference room table. It’s a charming photo of me standing beside a bare-chested Maxim, looking like we just rolled out of bed instead of stepped off a hybrid campaign bus.

“Don’t f*ck the candidate!” the headline of the article proclaims. The piece goes on to say Lacy Reardon, former campaign employee fired by Lennix Hunter for sexual misconduct, accuses Ms. Hunter of hypocrisy since she is indeed conducting a long-term affair with her client, presidential hopeful Maxim Cade.

“That one’s trending on twitter,” Kimba offers, her voice quite calm for the anger I suspect boils under the surface. “Don’t fuck the candidate.”

“Kimba.”

“There’s a GIF, too. You rolling your eyes with one hand on your hip. I’m actually second hand embarrassed for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And a meme. Almost forgot about the meme and the surveillance camera footage was a G-reat touch.”

Note to self: Never make an enemy of a tech genius who could mine the internet for footage of your lover coming in and out of your apartment.

And in. And out. And in. And out.

The several grainy surveillance photos of Maxim climbing into his SUV with security trailing him for sure made me seem like some little trollop he kept in a house and visited on