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

Since Roman had joined his fiancée and the rest of the women, who were now peppering Mad with questions he likely wouldn’t answer, they were mostly alone. Elizabeth stared at him for a moment. “I don’t belong here. I don’t even understand what’s going on, but I’ll spin this any way you want me to. I need some time to think, and I definitely need my computer.”

He bet she did. “You’re not here to work.”

“Then why am I here?”

“Because someone’s planning my assassination and they might use you to get to me. I’ve changed my mind about keeping you out of my problems. It hasn’t worked, so we’re trying something new. You’ll stay close to the group, close to me. Settle in. It’s going to be a long weekend.”

He turned and walked away because if he remained beside her for a second longer, he would show her exactly how close to her he wanted to be.

Zack glanced down. His glass was empty. He was going to need a lot more liquor to survive the next few days.

* * * *

Mad hung back. He knew the guys all wanted him to talk, but he needed Freddy to round out the explanation. Freddy knew every last detail. He could answer each and every question, as well as corroborate the story Mad knew they’d all see as insane. But Freddy was also notoriously paranoid and convinced someone was out to get him. How much would he actually tell a roomful of virtual strangers?

A problem for later. Right now, Mad had to somehow hold everyone off until Freddy arrived. Thomas was looking for him now…but Freddy could be notoriously slippery. All Mad could do was hope the retrieval mission didn’t take too long. Or that Freddy didn’t give Thomas too much hell. Until then, everyone would simply have to wait and be patient. It wasn’t right or fair to put off telling the whole story, but this way everything would make more sense to everyone. Hopefully then, everyone would be on the same page.

Except maybe Liz. Mad wasn’t entirely sure which side she was on yet.

He stepped outside and dragged in a long breath. The rest of the guys were still inside, but somehow he felt a disconnect from them he hadn’t expected. He’d genuinely believed that once he was standing beside his best friends again that he would find some acceptance, even peace. A connection to his old life. Maybe he’d been naïve, but he honestly hadn’t expected their anger.

What happened next would make or break him. He had to explain everything he’d discovered, help them understand why he’d disappeared. Most of all, he had to convince them that every move he’d made had been for the sake of his family. To keep all of them safe.

But that was later. Right now, he still had to prepare for the last shock of the night. Everly. Since she was Gabe’s wife now, she would be here soon. She would have a lot of questions, his sister. Mad would answer them and start being her big brother. If she let him.

He didn’t know when he’d see Sara. God, soon, he hoped. He’d missed her so fucking much. He wanted her back. Wanted to start their life together. Wanted to be there for his baby’s birth. Wanted to make Sara his wife.

A door closed behind him. Mad tensed. Gabe.

“I need to ask you a few questions. Not about what you and Freddy cooked up while you were gone. Personal stuff.”

Mad had known this was coming. While he’d hoped Gabe had forgotten some of their personal drama those last few days before his “death,” he should have remembered that Gabe had the memory of an elephant.

He kept his stare fixed on the trees swaying gently as sunset approached. It was more peaceful than seeing the resentment on his best friend’s face. “Shoot.”

Gabe moved in beside him. “Why did you have your Deep Throat tell Everly she couldn’t trust me?”

That was an easy one.

Now Mad turned to face the man who had once been his best friend. “Because I overheard everything you said about her that first day you walked into Crawford. So I decided to protect my sister.”

“From me?” Gabe’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

Mad had been so enraged when he’d heard Gabe casually discussing how he intended to “deal” with Everly Parker. “The way you talked to Connor about her in my office, like she was trash you needed to take out... It was bad enough that you assumed she was my mistress and intended to fire her. But when I heard that you’d met her at the funeral and used her for stress relief, then nearly let her go? Yeah, I was pissed. You acted like an asshole and you didn’t deserve her.”

“You had the office bugged.”

He didn’t feel any remorse about that. “I had to keep up with things. And it wasn’t a bug, per se. Connor would have found that. There’s a backdoor into the desktop in my office. I can control pretty much everything from there, including the microphones and camera. You and my sister have sex on my desk way too often.”

Okay, he did regret parts of his scheme now—small ones. He should have shut his surveillance down when he’d realized Gabe and his sister were happy together. But he’d kept it open, desperate for those brief times when he heard anything at all about Sara.

“You really want to talk about sisters?” Gabe asked, his jaw tightening.

Oh, Mad was so ready for this fight. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I want to talk about the fact that I begged you to believe me that day at Cipriani’s and you wouldn’t. I thought out of everyone who knew me that you would…I don’t know…have a little faith. I told you I loved Sara.”

“Then you left her.”

“When had I ever said I loved a woman before Sara? When? Did I ever once confide to you that I was in love? Not fucking once, Gabe. So you should have known something was wrong. I promised you I would take care of her. I can be a massive asshole, but never once in all our years as friends, have I promised you something I didn’t make good on.”

Gabe pointed a finger in his chest. “It doesn’t matter what you said. It’s what you did. You walked out on her. You knew she was pregnant and you left her—cruelly. You dumped her over text and went out the same night with a fucking supermodel. What was I supposed to think?”

“What about Zack? He’s done roughly the same thing. If you hadn’t known about this giant conspiracy trying to bring him down, what would you have thought of Zack snubbing Liz?” Mad challenged.

Gabe paused. The guilt that crossed his face kicked Mad in the gut, even though he knew exactly what his friend’s answer would be. Hell, he’d known it before he’d asked the question.

“It’s not the same.”

“Because Zack is Captain America, and I’m an overprivileged asshole who treats all women like crap.” Mad backed away. “That was all I needed to know, buddy.”

“Damn it, Mad. She’s my sister.”

“And she’s the love of my life. I hope and pray she understands better than you.”

She would, right? Sara knew him, after all. When this mess was behind them, he would stand in front of her and finally tell her everything. He hoped he’d see understanding and forgiveness in her eyes. And god, he hoped all this was settled before their baby was born.

But after his less than warm welcome tonight, Mad was beginning to worry…

“What is it you want me to understand?” Gabe gnashed his teeth. “You told her you would pay for her abortion. You texted it.”

Mad had hated every word he’d tapped out—and himself—that night. But he’d also known it was necessary to protect Sara. “Another thing that should have tipped you off since, again, I promised I would take care of her. Do you remember what we did two nights before I left Sara? Remember running into those old Yale friends at that bar in Hell’s Kitchen, then sitting in the park afterward and talking about how fucking sad they seemed?”

“Yeah. I do,” Gabe replied, his tone softer now. “I remember joking that if I ever spent hours talking about baby crap you should shoot me.”

“What did I say, Gabe?”

“You said it wouldn’t be so bad. You said maybe we were the sad ones because neither of us had been smart enough to find a woman

who would put up with us. You said maybe it was time to grow up.” Gabe sent him a speculative stare. “You already knew about the baby.”

“I’d known for a few days,” he admitted. “When Sara told me, it was the best night of my life. It took everything I had not to tell you about it while we sat in that park, but Sara wanted to wait to announce our good news until she’d followed up with the doctor. And she wanted to think about how to break it to you. I already knew I was going to marry her, but my proposal had to be special. Man, I had a plan. Everything was set for the night of the Met gala… And the Russians fucked it up.”

Gabe ran a hand through his sandy-colored hair. “I didn’t think about that night we talked in the park. I didn’t think about anything except the fact you destroyed my sister.”