Charlotte

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States!!”

I almost spill my drink when the announcement echoes across the ballroom.

I stand with Alison, who’s thrilled to be one of the White House photographers. While she was snapping pictures of the partygoers, I was mingling by her side, a drink in hand, when those words rang out.

And if someone had just grabbed a bat and smashed the air out of my lungs, I would absolutely believe it.

This is the smallest ball among all five being held tonight. Everyone expected the president to make it to the other grand balls first. I was barely prepared to see him—I’d only drunk one glass of wine so far!—and now he’s here.

Oh god.

I’m ten times more nervous than all the women in the room. Hundreds of them, all important, highly intelligent or highly beautiful women, all tittering excitedly as Matt Hamilton, my Matt Hamilton, walks into the room.

Um. No. He’s not yours, Charlotte, so you’d better stop feeling possessive over the man.

But I can’t help it.

The sight of him makes me yearn to be walking by his side, with my arm hooked into his, no matter how ludicrous the idea is. It was one thing looking at him at a podium. Farther away.

But it’s another thing being in the room he’s now occupying.

In a tux.

A hot black tux.

So much closer to me than he’s been in two months.

I can almost smell him, expensive and clean and male.

Alison is snapping pictures at my side.

Snap, snap, snap.

Matt takes over the room with his long, confident walk, briskly greeting those who greet him. Is he taller today? He really is towering over everyone. And are his shoulders broader? He looks so much larger than life. His very posture and stride that of a man who knows the whole world revolves around him. Which wouldn’t be entirely false.

“You know what I like about Matt? That he actually backs up the hotness with brains,” she says, making an O with her mouth and exhaling, then licking her lips with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Yum.”

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m licking my lips too. I really need to never do that again.

Alison shifts positions to capture a dozen different shots—not only of Matt but of people’s awed and ecstatic reactions to him.

His eyes are sparkling as he greets one person after the next. They crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and I remember that crinkle. I remember the feel of the stubble on his jaw in the mornings even though his jaw is smooth and perfectly clean-shaven now, his lips curved upward.

His hair is combed back, his features chiseled and beautiful. My whole body spasms uncontrollably. It’s as if every pore and every inch of me remembers him. Still wants him.

I lift my fingers to stroke the place where I used to wear his father’s commemorative pin—but all I touch is my bare skin, revealed by the long, strapless gown I’m wearing.

My heart thuds crazily as he continues greeting the people he passes, approaching where I stand with my drink frozen in my hand. He looks so happy. My stomach clutches with a mix of emotions. Happiness, yes. But his presence is also a reminder of what I’d lost.

Did I lose him?

He was never really mine.

But I was all his. His to take. Body and soul. And I would have done anything he wanted me to. But I’ve tried to regain my sense of self. While traveling through Europe, I’ve tried to see the reasons why it could never have worked, among them that I’m inexperienced and young and not the kind of woman a president needs. I am not ready for what he is. No matter how much I wish I were older, more experienced, more fit to be by his side.

Not that he wanted me there.

I am torn when the crowd keeps parting and he keeps advancing.

“I’m going to the restroom,” I breathe, and I head off, wondering why I came here. Why I said yes. It was his important day. I didn’t want to miss it. But it hurts anew, as if today were the day he was elected, the day I walked away from him—booked a flight to Europe and spent two months there with Kayla, freezing our asses off, drinking hot chocolate. I came back in time for his inauguration—I could not miss it.

But landing in the USA felt bittersweet—it’s the home I love, where I was born and want to die, and fell in love, but also the country that’s led by the man I love and am trying desperately to get over.

So I steal into the ladies’ room to find it vacant. And I just look at myself in the mirror—and whisper, “Breathe.” I shut my eyes, lean forward, and breathe again. Then I open my eyes. “Now get out there, and say hello to him, and smile.”

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever told myself to do.

But I exit the room, and watch him with every step I take as I head back to the crowd—everyone waiting to greet him. To be greeted. Acknowledged.

Alison spots me and snaps my picture. “You’ve got it bad. Can’t say I blame you,” she says.

“I don’t want to,” I whisper.

She smiles and continues snapping pictures.

I drink him up like a starved woman, six feet plus of pure fantasy, all packaged in a real man—beautiful beyond belief. So beautiful, I can’t believe beauty like that exists.

And then he’s three steps closer, his voice so near. “Thanks for coming.”

Two steps. “Good to see you.”

One step.

I try to smile when he stops before me, towering over me, dark and gorgeous. Everyone is holding their breath. A silence settles over the room. I blink in disbelief.

Matt Hamilton.

God. He looks hot as sin, his eyebrows slanted as he looks piercingly into my eyes, a half smile playing on his beautiful lips—lips that are full and lush, and very, very wicked.

There’s a catch in my breath, and so much pride welling in my chest as I duck my head in a slight nod.

“Mr. President.”

He reaches out to take my hand in his grasp, his fingers sliding over mine.

“It’s good to see you.” His voice is especially low.

I remember him telling me he’d get hard when I called him Mr. President, and now I can’t stop blushing. But it’s not like I’m going to bring it up now.

His fingers are warm and strong. His grip just right.

His hand so right.

We’re not even shaking hands. He’s practically holding my hand. And every part of me remembers this hand. This touch on me.

When he lowers my hand to my side, he slips something into my palm and ducks to murmur in my ear, “Be discreet,” and I grip what feels like a small piece of paper in my fist as he proceeds to greet the other guests.

Slack-jawed, I watch him retreat, then I discreetly open the paper. It reads:

10 minutes

South exit

up the elevator

take the double doors down the hall.

He’s expecting me.

I count the minutes as the live performance by Alicia Keys begins, and Matt opens up the dance floor with his mother.

The most handsome president I’ve ever beheld.

Where did he learn how to dance like that?

I’m holding a glass of wine as I watch him twirl her on the dance floor. She’s laughing, looking younger than her years, though the pain in her eyes never really fades. Matt is grinning down at her, trying his damnedest to relieve that pain.

I love this stupid man so much I want to punch something.

When the dance ends, other couples join, and I see Matt—who’s still causing titters in the room—excuse himself from his mother and head out a different exit than the one he indicated for me.

He’s tugging on his cufflinks as he crosses the room, his agents already moving at the sides of the room, toward the same exit, and I set my wine aside. I’m telling myself it’s no good—that if I go there, it’ll just be to get my heart broken a thousand times again. But a part of me . . . just doesn’t care.

This is Matt.

I crossed an ocean to forget him, but I’d swim across thousands for this man.

My heart will always beat for him.

The heart that had to put a whole ocean between us for fear of seeking him out.

The heart that beats like a mad thing in my chest as I go meet him.

I follow instructions to the T. I spot Wilson outside the room, along with an army of other agents of the Secret Service.