Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

‘What, afraid I might see something I’ve already seen before?’

I groan for probably the hundredth time in the last hour, slumping back onto my lavish new bed and scowling at the door on the far side of the room. It’s as if glaring hard enough will somehow erase the man and the history and the horrible, dirty little secret standing right on the other side of it.

I
knew
the party was a mistake.

*****

“Maddie, these things are SUPER exclusive.”

“Yeah, and it sounds sketchy as shit! I mean they flat out told you it was a SEX party?”

She rolls her eyes and shushes me, as if anyone can even hear us in the back booth of the practically empty mid-afternoon bar. “Okay, YOU’RE saying ‘sex party’ and that makes it sound super gross, by the way.”

“It is gross!”

“It is not!” She laughs, sipping at her chardonnay. “Dude, it’s like nothing you can even imagine. It’s all gorgeous people, everyone’s rich, and vetted for, the drugs are fantastic, and the whole thing is all really safe.”

“Do you even hear how crazy what you just described sounds?” 

“I’m telling you, the one I went to before was AMAZING.”

“Jess, who even goes to something like this?”

“Um, me, Mads.”

“Yeah, but you’re-” I stop, shaking my head and biting my tongue.

Jess giggles. “Oh c’mon, say it! What, ‘slutty’?”

“I did NOT say that.”

“Whatever, it’s kind of true.” Jess grins. “So I’m in my slut phase, big deal.” She leans across the table at me. “Look, my casting agent got me in last time, and I know he can get us in again tomorrow.”

“No way.”

“Mads, you need this.”

“Like I need another hole in my head.”

She laughs and pokes me in the arm. “Look, you’ve had a rough fucking year, okay? No, stop, you have, and you deserve an escape. Do you have any idea how much your life is about to change?”

“Jess I’m living in a hotel under an assumed name, in a city I don’t even know, a week before the the inauguration of my mother as the first female President of the United States.” I stick my tongue out at her. “Yeah, I’ve got an idea.”

“So come with! Dude, you’re going to be the most closely watched person in the fucking country in a week; do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to get laid?”

I laugh.

“I’m serious! You need to bang Harry right out of your head with one last night of crazy with your wild slutty friend who’s NEVER going to get to see you after next week.”

“It sounds super dangerous.”

Jess breaks into a huge grin, and I know her well enough to know that SHE knows she’s got me. “It’s exciting, and crazy, but it’s safe, I promise. It’s a certain class of people they let in.”

“I can’t believe we’re still talking about going to a fucking SEX party, Jess. This is nuts.”

“Oh stop calling it that, you’re making it sound so tawdry. And besides that, GO nuts, because after this, your life is planned to the letter
.”

*****

The knock on my door brings me back to the now, still slumped back on my bed,wearing my whole outfit from before; pumps, pearls, and all. I glare at the door to my room. “Oh
fuck off,
I’m not even peeing!”

The door opens and Emma, my new publicist-slash-personal assistant comes in, looking
very
confused. “Is that a new slang or something?”

I smirk. “Sorry, forget it.”

I’d call Emma my “handler”, but that’d be mean. And she’s actually been great so far this past week with gearing up for the inauguration, as well as making sure I’m aware that
all
family members of Presidents get people like her, and that it has nothing to do with my issues from school.

She’s young — probably barely older than me, bookish, timely, on schedule, and efficient like a well-oiled machine. And quite honestly, I could use a whole lot of
all
of that in my life.

“You okay?” Emma raises an eyebrow behind the thick black rims of her glasses, just a hint of a smirk teasing her mouth as she eyes me lying like a Jackie-O rag-doll across the bed still in my skirt-suit. “You look worn out.”

“I’m fine, it’s just my mom. It’s nothing, just remembering why I don’t live with her anymore.”

“Ah, yes, well, the President
does
have a lot on her plate.”

I roll my eyes. Okay, so Emma can be a
bit
formal and machine-like.

“Do you want to
change
or something? You know your schedule is cleared the rest of the night, you can relax if you’d like.”

“Oh, yeah, I was…uh,” I suddenly feel like a complete weirdo being worried about hidden cameras and spy-listening devices in my flowers.

It’s just the guilt, that’s it.

Yeah, the guilt and the physical, living reminder of that night that’s going to be following me around like a damned shadow for the next few months.

Fantastic.

“Are there cameras in here?” I blurt it out before I can stop myself, and immediately feel like a complete moron for letting it out. Emma and I are basically the same age, but while I’m a petulant, sulking hot mess of a law-school drop-out, she strikes me as someone with multiple ivy league degrees and her shit
together
.

Right, which is why she WORKS here and you’re COMMITTED here.

Emma
does
have her shit together, and people with their shit together tend to put your life in very sharp perspective, first daughter or not.

But she only chortles;
chortles
. “Oh, my, no.” She smiles genuinely at me. “No cameras in the living quarters, I can assure you.” She winks. “The public bathrooms on the ground floor for tours and stuff though?” She wags her eyebrows at me and grins, and I decide right there that I like Emma. 

“Feel free to change, Madison.” Emma says, tucking a lock of hair behind her eyes. “Relax and take it easy tonight, and tomorrow we’ll worry about how complicated things are about to get for you.” She gives me a little nod and a smile before she walks out.

Right, things are
about
to get complicated for me. I groan as I flop back on the bed and try to force the image of Hunter Ryan out of my head.

Way ahead of you, Emma.

CHAPTER SIX

“Jesus, they’ve got you wearing the earpiece and everything, huh?”

Dexter; my younger brother, my best friend, my exact fucking opposite. The lip piercing, the rock t-shirts in the fucking White House, the “I stand for nothing so I’m above it all” bullshit attitude. Okay, so I was basically
exactly
like that before the Marines. Shit, I was
worse
back then when Mom was still around. But still, the kid’s gonna have some serious fucking growing up to do when he’s suddenly in the spotlight.

“It’s my
job
, Dex.”

“Sir! Yes sir!”

I roll my eyes at his goofy-ass salute and shove him back onto the couch. “Dude, you better get your shit in line man.”

He pulls a face. “For what, my ‘presidential duty’ like dad? Fuck that, I’m not marrying a President.”

“Guilty by association buddy, get used to it.”

It’s two days after the inauguration, and the whole house has been a whirlwind of new staff, new protocols, and even new decorators. Eleanor is having everything from the Lincoln bedroom to the Oval Office redone, which apparently is pretty standard for incoming Presidents, but it still has the place charging along like an absolute shit-show.

On the upside, the fact that my dad and Eleanor have got Dexter and me quietly set up in rooms in the apartment quarters of the White House — separate from the main living quarters, but still — seems to have gone fairly unnoticed. 

“So, what’s the deal with our weirdo stepsister?” Dexter pulls out a pack of cigarettes, which I promptly snatch out of his hand. He makes a face. “What was that
freakout
man? She looked like she was going to hurl right in the Oval Office.”

“Hey, chill. She’s just put off by the whole thing. It was a surprise for her too, man.”

Holy shit was it ever.
 

“Oh
there’s
that chivalry.” His eyes flash as he grins at me. “And hey, don’t get weird with it, dude. “

“What?”

“Oh c’mon,” Dexter reaches for his cigarettes but I hold them up high over my head. “Hunt, like neither of us thought it.”

“Thought
what
?” I know where he’s going with this and I can feel myself tense up, even if I know I need to play it cool.

“Uh, that she’s hot?”

“Don’t be disgusting, Dexter.”

“
Yeah
, that’s what I’m telling you!” He makes a last snatch for his smokes, and I’m too on edge by the direction of this conversation to yank them back this time. He shakes them triumphantly as he heads for the door to one of the side garden patios. “Thats off limits, pal.” 

I roll my eyes. “Of course it is.” 

“Hey, you’re the one that can’t keep it in his pants.”

Oh you have no idea.

But the job comes first; that’s the first thing you learn when training for the Service. The job is all that matters, and I have to put what happened with Maddie that night out of my head and just move on. We’ll get over it.

It sounds a whole lot less convincing by the third time I repeat it in my head.

*****

As if staying on top of security during a massive redecoration of the most iconic house in the western hemisphere wasn’t crazy enough, Eleanor has also decided that day three of her presidency will involve a charity event on the
lawn
of the White House.

The lawn, in Washington D.C., in
January
.

Okay,
yes
, there’s a tent, and it’s clear and the whole thing is heated with the solar technology stuff she’s been pushing as part of her platform, and won’t it just be the
perfect
media event. Yeah, well, it’s also going to be a
major
pain in the ass, security-wise. 

And speaking of ass pains, it’s yours truly’s job to make sure the royal princess herself is ready to stop sticking her head in the sand and act the part. She’s been avoiding me — well, me and anything else that involves leaving her living quarters — for the past two days. But let’s be real: her mom is going to be President for
at least
four fucking years; she’s gotta come out
sometime
before then.

One conversation, two days ago, and that’s it. One snippy little accusatory bullshit conversation where somehow
I’m
the bad guy here for having sex with a very hot,
very
willing girl in a fucking mask who was
explicitly
at that place to get laid. Somehow
I’m
the dick for not
divining
with my sixth sense that that same girl would be my stepsister at some point in the future.