At the Pleasure of the President (The Perfect Gentlemen 5)

Fucking bastard.

Why did she miss him with every ounce of her soul? She’d hated him in those last weeks when she’d been forced to watch him date other women and hear all the juicy gossip about him and Everly heating up the chairman’s desk. But not once had she contemplated a world without him.

Some foolish part of her had hoped Mad would eventually miss her and come back groveling. At the very least, she’d thought he would change his mind about the baby once she or he was born. Now any chance of Mad returning to her life in any way was gone forever.

Gus stared at her. “Are you joining Holland in the mulish brigade?”

Sara sent her a cutting glare. “Or maybe I don’t want to spend the week listening to Mad’s old mistress tell me why I should forgive him.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to call them back. She reached for Gus. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean old in terms of age. I meant former. But you weren’t his mistress, really. And I never meant to imply that he owned or possessed you in any patriarchal way. I’m trying to say I can’t handle much of anything right now.”

Gus chuckled as she cupped Sara’s shoulders. “I understand. What if I promise I won’t mention his name unless you want to talk about him?”

But Sara always wanted to talk about him. She wanted to scream at him, wanted to ask him why. God, she’d do almost anything for one more moment with him.

She’d always thought she was strong, but in the wake of Hurricane Mad, she felt like nothing more than a pathetic girl in love. It was time to grow up and give her love to someone worthy: her baby.

“I need to be alone, Gus. I’m sorry I snapped.”

“I suspect you’ll snap a lot, and that’s okay,” Gus replied. “You’ve been through some serious emotional turmoil. Besides, you know I’ve got thick skin. I can handle whatever you dish out. And if you need a friend, call me. I’m going to poke my nose into a few things that aren’t adding up. I won’t involve you except to promise it will be okay.” She withdrew her hands. “I’ll let Gabe know you’ll be ready to go in a few minutes. Oh, and don’t think I’m letting the stubborn-bitch thing go for too long.”

Sara knew better. Gus would be on her doorstep long before she was ready.

For now, she took a deep breath, staring at the picture of Mad they’d placed by his empty urn. Even now, Mad was smirking, but she’d seen his real smile. She’d seen his whole face light up like it was Christmas morning.

“I can’t believe she showed up,” a voice whispered behind her. “Do you think the boss left her a little something?”

“You mean, like, in his will? If anyone would leave his mistress a really lavish final parting gift, it would be Mad Crawford,” another voice said.

“Yeah,” quipped another. “I’ll bet Everly gets paid after all. I never bought that innocent act. I live not far from her, so I know he spent tons of time at her place.”

Sara didn’t look back at the gossipers, merely turned and walked down the aisle. She wouldn’t look at Mad’s picture again. She would try her best not to think of him at all.

“It’s you and me, baby,” she said quietly.

It would have to be enough.

Chapter One

Present Day

Washington, DC

Zack Hayes stared, utterly shocked, at the dead man sitting across from him.

Minutes ago, he’d slid into the presidential limo for a short ride to Marine One so he could chopper over to Camp David for the weekend. Thanks to the guy across from him, he put that plan on hold.

“For someone dearly departed, you don’t look any worse for the wear. Did you use a parachute?” It was the wrong thing to ask first, but Zack had so many questions, he hardly knew where to start.

What he really wanted to do was throttle the man who’d once been among his very best friends.

Maddox Crawford, as impeccably groomed and urbane as ever, sat back and crossed one leg over the opposite knee as he knocked back a glass of expensive Scotch. Apparently perishing tragically in a plane crash hadn’t been too rough on the guy.

“Of course. It wasn’t easy. After I discovered the bomb on board, I had to time my jump just right. I needed to reach a location where cameras wouldn’t catch me bailing out. My escape would have gone off so much easier if I’d flown west. The east coast is awfully crowded these days. Ever thought of moving the White House to Wyoming?”

Death hadn’t changed Mad’s personality one bit. He was still an irreverent ass. “I take it you weren’t actually coming to see me then. That was all part of whatever ploy you’d cooked up?”

Now that he knew Mad was alive, Zack saw clearly that the last several months had been a carefully crafted drama. But why? Sure, Mad had once been all about grabbing the headlines, but even he wouldn’t go so far as to fake his own death simply for a media splash.

“When you wouldn’t talk to me before my plane took off, I realized I had to find another way to get your attention.”

Zack remembered that fateful day well. It had been one of the worst of his life. Mad had called that afternoon, wanting a meeting. Zack had dodged him. A few hours later, Mad had been “dead.” Since then, Zack had wondered what his friend intended to say.

“When you called I’d just gotten off the phone with Gabe. He’d asked for advice on how to deal with you. I was angry. I didn’t have anything civil to say so I didn’t want to talk.”

“That day, Gabe wouldn’t listen to me either. We met for lunch at Cipriani’s. I looked across the table at my best friend in the world, who was beyond pissed at me for the way I treated Sara, and I almost told him everything. Then I realized someone was filming our exchange—and not because he was interested in gossip. The Russians had already paid me a visit once, and they were following me. Probably had been for a while.”

“The Russians?” Zack frowned because nothing made sense. “But why you? You’ve never been interested in politics.”

“Politics, no. A money trail, yes. Long story. But after that aborted lunch with Gabe, I knew I had to do something radical. Thanks to my prior run-in with some Russian mob heavies, I started working with Matthew Kemp. He was actually the one who found the bomb on the plane, since he routinely checked all my vehicles. When he found the explosive device a few hours before I took off that day, I knew what I had to do.”

“Pretend you were coming to DC to patch things up with me while faking your own death? That’s crazy, even for you, Mad.”

He shrugged. “Everyone believed it. And I needed them to.”

“Even your best fucking friends? Do you understand the hell you put everyone through? The crushing guilt I’ve lived with because I believed that if I’d simply answered your call that day, you’d still be alive?”

“You’re my friend—and the president—not an actor. The grief, the funeral—all of it had to look real. It was Matt’s idea, but we all went along with it. And the plan served its purpose. It got you all thinking in a way nothing else would have.”

For a time, Matthew Kemp, one of his Secret Service agents, had seemingly betrayed Zack. Or that’s what he’d believed. But the man had died protecting Augustine Spencer and Roman Calder from a rogue MI6 agent working for the Russians.

“How did you start working with Kemp, of all people?” Zack was curious. Of course at this point, he was curious about pretty much everything.

Mad frowned, clearly choosing his words. That worried Zack because he hadn’t been aware Mad thought at much beyond where to put the fiver in a stripper’s G-string. “I don’t know how much I should tell you, Zack.”

That made him sit up straighter. Fuck, he didn’t want to deal with this. Every time he considered the possibility that his mother might have accidentally smothered the real Zack Hayes in infancy, and he might be a Russian-born imposter, it made him physically ill. And ever since Mad’s “death,” Zack had become very aware that he was the focus of a global conspiracy. He’d spent his whole life striving to be presiden

t of the United States. Apparently, the Russians had been playing a long game with the same intended outcome for reasons Zack still didn’t know. But he had some ugly guesses.

“You think I’m Sergei.” He dropped the code name for a Russian agent at the center of this vast conspiracy they’d all been trying to unravel.

Mad raised a brow. But why mince words or draw this out? Mad was back from the dead for a reason, and he obviously knew far more than Zack would have believed a billionaire manwhore perpetually in search of a party would. Clearly, Mad had been investigating, too.

Zack was still pissed…but he was also kind of proud.