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

But admittedly, she seemed to be in this part of the house an awful lot lately.

He shook it off. He refused to think the worst of her without proof. Elizabeth wasn’t some spy, and she’d proven that today when she wouldn’t even listen in on two old men.

And if she wasn’t listening in? Roman had asked when he’d told his friend the story. What if you caught her leaving a meeting? How can you know?

He knew. His gut knew. His heart knew. He would not let Roman’s paranoia wreck his happiness.

So why couldn’t he silence that little voice whispering and poking at him?

“I was about to give him his nighttime meds,” the nurse said. “They put him to sleep fairly quickly. Do you want me to hold off? I know you don’t get much time with him.”

He heard a hint of judgment in the man’s tone, but Zack didn’t come back with any of the logical excuses he could give. Nor did he explain to the man that his father had only ever spent time training him to be perfect, to make right all the wrongs the world had done to him by not giving him the political power he sought. He could say his father had never once thrown a baseball with him but had grounded him as a second grader for not making the top reading group. In fact, his father had locked him away with tutors, denying him playmates because his son should always be the best without question.

No one wanted to hear that now. When they looked at his father, they couldn’t see the tyrant he’d been, or the unfeeling bastard who had driven his mother to the bottom of a bottle again and again. Nope, they saw a sick old man and his entitled son who ignored him.

“Yes, please. I’d like to spend a few moments with him alone.”

The nurse backed off. “Of course, Mr. President. I’ll be across the hall. Let me know when you’re done. Or call out if you need me.”

Because good old dad could be hard to handle. He used to only be abusive verbally, but the disease that had infected his mind turned him violent from time to time. “I will.”

Without looking back, he entered his father’s rooms and couldn’t help but remember how it had felt to walk into his father’s office as a child. He couldn’t recall a time he’d ever been in his father’s bedroom. His mother’s from time to time, but not often. No, he’d been left to nannies, who had taken care of his personal needs. If he’d been summoned to see his father, it had always been in his overtly masculine office. He remembered how small he’d felt going in that office, even after he’d grown taller than his father.

Now he eased into a room filled with medical equipment and a man who seemed to have shrunken in on himself. Still, Zack felt oddly apprehensive entering the man’s domain.

“Hello, Father.”

The old man looked up, his eyes showing no recognition at all. “Who are you?”

He sank down on the couch opposite his father’s lounger. Frank wore a set of royal blue pajamas that looked like they’d come straight out of the 50s. “I’m Zack. I’m your son.”

What would his father say if he’d answered a different way? If he’d said he was Sergei? Would that register with him at all?

Zack watched his father carefully, looking for any sign that suggested his father was acting. Could he manage such a feat when he took all those medications? Zack had watched him swallow the pills before. He certainly paid for them every month, just as he paid for the nurses and doctors who took care of his father.

His father shook his head. “Zachary is fourteen years old. You can’t be him. Did one of his ridiculous friends send you here? If I’d known he would fall in with that crowd, I would never have sent him to Creighton.”

Well, dear old dad never had liked his friends. They were the one thing Zack had never relented to his father about. “I remember you cursing them all and telling me I wasn’t allowed to go back there.”

His father’s head snapped up. “I enrolled you in a better school, but you were rebellious. You said if I removed you from Creighton you wouldn’t perform.”

“I told you if you enrolled me in a new school I would tank every single class I had so I couldn’t get into Yale. You locked me in my room at the start of the summer and refused to let me out. After a week, you took my books and my computer, and I wouldn’t give in. The week after that, you took the sheets off my bed. I wouldn’t give in. Then you fed me sandwiches and water twice a day until the fall term started. I still wouldn’t give in.”

It had been a long three months, but in the end, he’d gone back to Creighton and the subject of his friends hadn’t come up again. He’d drawn a line in the sand and for the first time found out that he had power, too.

He was doing the same now with Elizabeth.

“Stubborn boy. Couldn’t see what was best for you.”

“I deserved to have a personal life. They were my first real friends. I certainly wasn’t allowed to have any playmates when we lived in Russia.” He needed to ease his father into the past or his memories could go wildly askew.

A ghost of a smile crossed his father’s face. “Moscow. I didn’t want to go, but there was power there. I wanted to stay and run for office again, but my father told me to go.” He frowned suddenly, as though he’d lost his train of thought. “I was the ambassador.”

“Yes, you were. We lived in Moscow for many years.” Zack leaned forward. “Do you remember Nata?”

He used the nickname the household had used for his nanny, Natalia Kuilikov. When he closed his eyes, he could see the young woman she’d been. She’d taken care of him until he’d been sent back to the States for schooling. He preferred to remember her as young and vibrant, not as the corpse he’d seen months ago. Somewhere along the way, she’d come to America and been nearby, though he’d never known it.

“Where am I?” His father looked around, blinking as he tried to reorient.

Zack sighed. This was probably a fool’s errand, but he still felt compelled to try. He’d known this wouldn’t be easy. “You’re in the White House. Where you always wanted to be.”

Pleasure creased his face. “I ran for president.”

He had. His father had been a congressman in his younger days and had made a run at the White House after a couple of terms. He’d run out of funds just after the Iowa caucus, but he’d gotten his ambassadorship by campaigning for the man who ultimately won, and he’d settled in there, vowing all the while that his son wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

Instead, Zack had made all new ones.

“You did, but you ended up going to Russia instead.”

“Why would I go to Russia? I don’t know anyone there.” He frowned and stared at his hands.

“You went to Russia because you were the ambassador,” Zack prompted.

“My father wanted me to go to Russia. Connie wanted to go to England. But the old bastard threatened to cut off my money if I didn’t do what he said. He insisted that it was my destiny. I don’t want to go to Moscow. I don’t think good things happen there. We should stay here. Connie and I should stay in the States so I can run again. I’ll form a committee and raise money. I’ll show my father. But we shouldn’t go to Russia.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “Why did Grandfather want you to go to Russia? The English post would have been far more prestigious.”

“Nasty goat demanded I go, said I’d make a name for myself. It’s cold in Moscow. Colder than here. I hated the cold, but he said it was best for me, that it would make me strong. Then the putz who won gave the English position to that other fool, and I had no choice.”

“When did you meet Nata?”

His father shook his head. “Why is she screaming? Stop that screaming now. You’re going to wake the household.”

“Who was screaming?” His heart rate ticked up. His father had never talked about their time in Moscow. Ever. Even when he’d been perfectly sane, his only comment on his stint there was that it had been productive.

His father stood and pointed at something Zack couldn’t see. “You. You bitch. What have you done?

You’ve ruined everything.”

The last words were screamed at some invisible being, his father’s bile and vitriol rising to the surface. His legs were shaking and he looked in danger of falling over.

Zack stood and reached for him. “How did she ruin things? Who are you talking to?”