He sighs. “That will be the day. A great day, don’t you think?” He doesn’t wait for my reply. How did I not notice how often he simply dismisses me?
“How are you feeling?” he asks, a question that might seem to some, as if he cares. Actually, he does. About how me being sick affects him Saturday night.
“The sickness comes and goes. I went to Linda’s last night to grab something I forgot and had another bout of sickness, so I just stayed. And we watched Pretty Woman which you won’t watch with me.”
“Oh well hell, thank Linda for saving me.” And thank God, he moves on, seemingly satisfied by my comments. “Do I need to send a stylist to help you with a dress?” he asks.
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m going to go shop today. I want to pick something that feels like me.”
“What happens if you have another bout of sickness?” Again, he doesn’t wait for my reply. “No. I think I should just send a stylist. Then you can rest until tomorrow night. Can you be home by three?”
In other words, he’s already set this up. I glance at the clock that reads ten. “Yes. Of course.”
“I put in a tentative call and the stylist said she could come to you then. At the mansion. You can just stay there tonight.”
“No,” I snap. “No, I’m going to be home tonight. I don’t want other people around me and I don’t want to spread germs you might catch. Pick me up at my place for the party.”
“Do you have a fever?”
“Not right now. It too comes and goes.”
“Then you’re right. Stay at your place.” In other words, don’t spread my germs all over his things. “But,” he adds, “I’m sending a doctor to your house as well. Be home at three.”
“That’s really not necessary.”
“It most definitely is necessary. End of topic and back to the party. My tie will be flag-blue. I told the stylist you need a dress that’s either blue or red. We need to start showing how patriotic we are. And I met with the head of my big investment group. After this event, we’ll need to step up our public appearances.”
After this event I’ll be gone, I think. Forever. I just hope that doesn’t mean I’m dead. “Anything I can do to support you,” I say, “you know I will.”
“And you, my sweetness, will be the most stunning first lady to ever grace the White House.”
He’s never called me sweetness before. I wonder if some focus group told him it would be adorable to leak to the press, or he forgot he was talking to me, not his campaign manager, otherwise known as his mistress.
“I’m thinking that you,” he continues, “as the first lady, could design a memorial that becomes iconic.”
There’s a time when I’d be thrilled and honored at such a prospect. Today, all I manage is a weak, “It’s all very exciting.”
“It is. Call me when you pick your dress and after you see the doctor. I love you. Get some rest.” He hangs up without forcing me to repeat those dreaded “I love you” words that I’m pretty sure would have caused Rick to lose his shit. I rotate toward the bathroom and find him standing in the archway, one muscular shoulder pressed to the frame, a snug black T-shirt now stretched across his broad, perfect chest. He doesn’t move but his eyes, those deep sea-blue eyes, are fixed on me.
“I told him I’d be at the house at three to meet with a stylist, and he’s sending a doctor to me. He wanted me to stay at the mansion tonight but I insisted I go to my house. Wes is dead now, so I assumed it was safe for me to go there.”
He doesn’t speak, his expression unreadable but the lines of his hard body are taut, his jaw still shadowed with stubble, set hard. He pushes off the doorframe and slowly saunters toward me, a panther on the prowl, a predator, in that moment he’s a predator. He’s lethal. He’s a killer, at least a part of him is, but I don’t care. And as crazy as it might seem to someone else, I want him insanely right now. He stops in front of me, but he doesn’t touch me. Goosebumps lift on my skin. I want him to touch me. “I hate you with him,” he says, his voice a low, rough rasp.
“Me, too,” I whisper, stepping into him, my hand settling on his chest, the thunder of his heart beneath my palm proof that Gabriel’s very existence affects him. I spent years thinking that he didn’t love me. Years believing he never looked back. I was wrong, so very wrong.
“I want you and me, Rick. I want that very much, but we have to do what we have to do to end this. Let me go to the party. By the time it’s over with, Tag will be gone and so will we. I’ll be on a plane with you to New York.”