Smoke and Sin (The Perfect Gentlemen 4)

“Of course you have a full schedule,” Connor conceded. “But I was hoping Lara could help you. I’ve got some things to do and I can’t take Lara along. Can she…I don’t know, act as your assistant?”

Gus let out a breath of surprise. So he wasn’t warning her away? “What?”

“Hear me out. She’s incredibly smart. And…I’m worried that some of the aides are going to be mean to her. She doesn’t keep her opinions to herself and her politics don’t exactly align with the others around here.”

Because this world was cutthroat and ruthless, and every single one of those aides would rip a heart out if they thought it would get them one step higher on the ladder.

Suddenly, Gus felt a little more protective and determined to preserve Lara’s illusions.

“Is it true she runs Capitol Scandals?”

Connor’s eyes flared, then he chuckled. “I should have known you would figure that out. Yes.”

That adorkable girl ran one of the trashiest rags in DC. Of course, it also published some real, in-depth stories. Likely, Lara tried to clickbait people in by posting stories on the president’s love life in the hopes she could educate them on more pressing matters once she’d lured them to the site. Gus doubted the ploy worked, but she admired Lara’s hustle. “If she wants to follow me around, I can use the company most days, but I do have a few…plans that require privacy.”

He frowned. “You’re meeting a man?”

Nope. She was doing something far more important. She was going to avenge a friend—even if that meant bringing down her boss. But she couldn’t exactly tell Connor that. “You know I have friends in lots of places.”

Gus also had a reputation, so she knew what Connor would assume. In this case, it worked to her advantage. If she had a twinge about the fact that Dax’s bestie assumed she was blithely hopping into bed with a random guy, Gus shoved it down. Her friends knew who she was. Her mom and her brother accepted her. She refused to give a shit what anyone else thought. They could get on board or go to hell.

“I understand.” He was quiet for a moment, his eyes lingering somewhere on the floor as though he was trying to decide how to proceed. “Have you ever thought about cutting Roman some slack?”

Before she could think to temper the response, she shot back at him. “Every day. I think about how much rope it would take for that man to hang himself.”

Connor grimaced. “Wow. Okay. Look, I know something happened between you two a long time ago. But I think he’s still attracted to you.”

She scoffed, laughing hard at those words. A few heads popped up around her, disgruntled expressions crossing the faces of sleepy aides nearby.

Gus lowered her tone. “I seriously doubt that. Roman and I had a fling a long time ago. He’s over it. I’m over it. He made it plain that I wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted for more than a good time. He’s searching for a shy flower who will tend his home fires, never raise her voice to express an opinion of her own, and accept the fact that he’s married to Zack in all ways but sexually.”

“You think so? I wonder how he hasn’t managed to find his beacon of virtue yet.”

“Oh, he did. Unfortunately, she married his best friend, got shot, and died.”

A long moment passed, and Gus felt her stomach turn. She’d loved Joy. The truth was already ugly enough, so why had she added such a biting tone? Stress and having Roman so close…but so far away. He always brought out the worst in her.

She looked Connor’s way, not even trying to stop the tears that flooded her eyes. That was one thing she’d learned after all the bad stuff. Some tears were simply unstoppable. Rather than trying to save face, it was better to worry about things that truly mattered. She was kind and loving, even if most people didn’t know that. And she’d treasured Joy’s friendship. She would never again give others a cold shoulder because Joy’s death had taught her that life was short. She especially refused to bristle over some asshole who couldn’t love her.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That was terrible and I didn’t mean it. I loved Joy very much. Please forgive me.”

He leaned over and patted her hand. “There’s the Gus I remember. You know, one of the things I always adored about you was that you could be a bitch from hell when necessary, but you have a sweet, gooey center. It’s why I want you to look after Lara. She’s a bit lost.”

Having her gooey center on display was uncomfortable, but she also wouldn’t take it back. She refused to change who she was.

But she did have some tough choices to make. Long ago she’d decided that action was better than reaction. Action was a step taken, based on who else was in the situation and how much she knew or trusted that person. Reaction was dependent solely on how someone else made her feel in a given moment, which was rarely ever wise or a proper representation of herself.

Therefore, she acted. She did not react.

Connor’s slip of a wife rose and stretched, then shuffled beside her husband, her ridiculously lush dark hair flowing all around her shoulders as she yawned. “Connor? Are we there yet?”

Action. The woman in front of her, though misguided, seemed kind and well-intentioned. That meant something to Gus. And in truth, Connor had never wronged her. Her beef was solely with Roman.

“We’re still hours away, Connor’s Beauty. You should totally throw the patriarchy out of the presidential suite and get some sleep for the proletariat.” Gus winked. She could speak liberal.

Lara’s eyes had widened. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

She looked so tired and she obviously wasn’t used to this fast-paced lifestyle. If Gus could say a few well-placed words and get the girl comfy enough to sleep, all the better. “Well, no woman has slept in that taxpayer-enabled suite since Zack took office.” She leaned in. “At least not one he didn’t pay. You should take it for all the sisters. And come to think of it, Connor here has been an underpaid warrior for our country for years, and what did he get? Craptastic motel rooms all across the Third World. You haven’t seen a shit-hole until you’ve been to the Sudan.”

“Then we have to claim that space for America,” Lara said with a grin, looking her husband’s way. “I’ll meet you there.”

Connor smiled as Lara strode toward the front of the plane, then disappeared. “You want to give me notes on how to handle my wife?”

He was happy. She missed the cocky, unapologetic Perfect Gentlemen sometimes, but it was good to see so many of them in love. It made her ache for the future Mad would never have. The hole his absence left was a hollow, gaping pang every day.

It also made her wonder if Roman would choose a wife and settle down soon. Gus didn’t know how or if she could handle it.

“Sure,” she teased Connor. “I’ll even type them up for you. And don’t worry about a thing in London. I know Roman thinks I’m going to cause trouble, but I really do have other things to do besides hang around and give him a hard time. Besides, he’s seeing that chick from the British Embassy while we’re here anyway. She’ll keep him plenty busy.” Gus tried to ignore the burn in her belly. “So if you’re worried I’ll play the jilted lover, the last place I want to be is on his radar.”

“You both say things like that, yet neither one of you has e

ver married,” Connor mused.

“Well, Roman has impossible standards, and I have a demanding career.” If there was one thing she’d learned early, it was that men didn’t like women with demanding careers, especially if the woman was smarter than their testosterone-laden counterpart. So she’d taken to viewing the men around her as chess pieces. Or if they were excellent in bed, playthings. That’s all. “I’m afraid I’m married to the White House.”

“And when Zack moves on?” Connor asked quietly.

She was always a girl with a plan. “Then I take on consulting work and make an incredible amount of money. Why the sudden interest in my future?”

Connor sat back. “You know, I suppose a man gets to a certain age or a certain place in his life, and he looks back, wonders where things went wrong. You know what I’m talking about, right? I’ve been reflecting, trying to pinpoint where things turned. We were friends, Gus. And then we weren’t.”

She didn’t like the sudden turn of this conversation. “It’s hard to be friends with a man who spends most of his time in classified locations doing things I’m not allowed to know about.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Gus. I would come home—and yes, by home I mean your home in New Orleans. One Thanksgiving we were fine, and the next you were cold and rebuffed my every attempt to talk to you. At the time I thought you disapproved of my job, but then I realized you’d stopped talking to all of us for about four years. Except Mad. Eventually, we started seeing you again, slowly and in small doses. But I’m not really sure what happened.”

Okay, so maybe she didn’t appreciate the softer, more caring Connor Sparks after all. The hardened spy had at least stayed out of her business.

She gave him a smile because the drama of all that tragedy was behind her, and sometimes the truth was the best way to hide a secret. “I’m sure you know that Roman and I spent a hot year together. When he finished law school, I suggested we make it official. He declined. We argued. It wasn’t pretty.” She shrugged as if age and wisdom had given her immense perspective, so she could dismiss that girl of her past. “I struggled with my embarrassment.”