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Chapter Thirteen
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“Are we all having fun yet?”
The line, a tried-and-true favorite from the days when Tracy didn’t have to speak to her security team leader on a burner cell, induced the man to at least a lukewarm chuff over the miles.
“How are you holding up, Madame President?”
“Sol.” She rolled her eyes but the gesture was wasted on the reading chaise and soggy plants in the small atrium attached to the condo’s office. Though everything outside was painted in dreary late afternoon light, she wasn’t picky about the view. It contained a square of honest-to-God sky—the chunk she’d finally persuaded John to let her glimpse, so long as she didn’t actually go into the atrium to do it.
A step in the right direction.
Dear God, she hoped.
For two days, hope had become a steady diet staple around here. For everyone.
She just wondered when hers would morph into insanity.
Not just because she couldn’t see enough sky.
Because she’d been flying to too many stars.
Courtesy of one amazing, rippling, passionate, powerful star captain.
Even now, as Franzen let himself into the room, her gaze went to work on undressing him. Already she envisioned the burgundy Henley stripped away, revealing exotic island tattoos emblazoned across his bulging shoulders and mighty pecs. Took even less effort to remove his track pants, exposing her imagination to his sleek hips and massive thighs, centered by his thick bronze stalk.
That cock…
It had transformed her into a creature of so much lust, she was certain the terrorists knew she was still alive and now tried to finish off the job with some erotic super virus.
If she had to go…
And now, his morbid sarcasm officially rubbed off on her too. She punished herself for giving into it by turning back toward the atrium, denying herself his beauty. Sometimes the humor was fun, but even teasing fate about her death just wasn’t. The country would get along fine without her, but Luke wouldn’t.
“What?” came Sol’s defense in her ear. “‘Madame President’ doesn’t have a nice ring to it?”
“It doesn’t have any ring to it.” She hoisted her chin, more out of defiance to the hulk skirting the desk then sitting in the chair behind it. “Because it’s not the truth.”
“Yet.”
Sol’s volley coincided with John’s raised gaze. His eyes, gone that expensive chocolate shade, dipped over every inch of her form. Her skin turned to electricity and her womb turned to magma, not making it easy to accept Sol’s follow-up.
“You’ll be back here and in the Oval soon. The rightful heir in the rightful throne.”
A laugh spilled before she could stop it. “Thanks for the time travel to the middle ages, my friend—but I don’t want a damn throne.” At the moment, she wasn’t certain she even wanted the chair behind the Resolute desk, in that icon of an office. She’d just gotten used to the layout of the vice-presidential digs. “I just want to work hard, serve the people, and do some good.”
Another eye roll almost took over—directed entirely inward. She sounded like a fantastic campaign slogan, if the occasion were Luke running for his high school class council. Sincere intention or not, “working hard” and “doing good” weren’t viable platforms for running the hugest democracy in the world.
When Sol’s steady silence confirmed as much, she forced her tone into a combination of conversational and professional. It was tricky but not unpracticed. She used it all the time on senators all over the Hill. “So tell me what excitement I’m missing. How’s LeGrange handling everything?”
Blake LeGrange, the Speaker of the House, was sworn in as President before the embers at the Bellagio were doused. The haste of the act chafed Tracy like going braless in burlap, despite accepting that it was necessary for the nation’s morale. LeGrange and she stood apart on issues more than together, but she found it hard to reach middle ground with a dude who had sideburns like silkworms, a Henry the Eighth swagger, and a gaze fonder of her thighs than her face. When she did insist on sticking to her ideals, even with Craig’s support, LeGrange had favorite write-offs like “You’re so cute when you’re feisty, Little T.” But she could’ve had it worse. His wife, Lucille, got the honor of being “Little LuLu”.
Yeah. The nation’s first lady really went by “Little LuLu”.
Tracy didn’t care if the woman called herself the Czarina of Russia, as long as her husband was doing his job. She couldn’t imagine LeGrange not diving right in, especially under the circumstances, but she needed that reassurance from Sol. If the man was still lazing by the figurative pool, she didn’t care if a thousand lunatic terrorists were still on the loose; she’d order Franz to scoot her ass onto the next transport to the capitol. The country needed stability right now, and that shit had to be flowing from the top down.
After a pause extending to worrisome length, Sol finally rendered an answer. “LeGrange is…LeGrange.” He stuck in his first laugh of the call, though the burst hardly brimmed with mirth. “Let’s just say he’s got the bull by the horns.”
