Fuck. I won’t.
I love the woman. Hell, I’d lay down my life for hers. I’ve never been crazier about another human being, but lately, we’re like gasoline and fire. The stress of the campaign and the added pressure Reagan continues to put on our marriage by only focusing on my career is weighing me down and killing the dream we gave so much to try to build.
I stalk down the street, wandering to God knows where. I walk for hours, winding down endless streets in downtown Chicago and ignoring every phone call until I end up at the steps of my old gym.
When I walk through the door, my old trainer yells, “Jude! What the fuck, man?” and jogs toward me with his hand outstretched. For a moment, I feel normal again. It’s almost like I’m the Marine who just returned from a battle to a warm reception and a kind handshake.
“So good to see you, Manny.” My smile’s easy as I shake his hand. “Can you fit me in?”
“Can I fit the future governor of Illinois in?” He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Don’t be a dick, dude. We always got time for you.”
“I need a few rounds in the ring. No holds barred.”
His eyes widen as his hand falls away from mine. “I don’t think…” he says, smashing his hands together in front of him as he glances behind his back. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I can go somewhere else,” I tell him with a shrug.
Manny peers up at me with a wicked smile. “No. No. I’ll just go easy on you. I can’t have that pretty face all messed up for the cameras.” He jabs me playfully in the ribs.
I laugh at his statement. “I’ll try not to beat you too badly, old man.”
He straightens at the put-down and puffs out his muscles, trying to make himself look bigger and badder than usual. “Those are fighting words, Titan.”
“Bring it,” I tell him.
3
Reagan
I don’t paymuch attention to what I’m throwing into my suitcase as I pack. Some of the clothes are still in their dry-cleaning bags. I’ll manage a few work outfits out of all this stuff.
I’m pretty pissed. After three weeks apart, Jude took off on me and won’t answer my calls or texts. I missed him like crazy, playing the role of doting politician’s wife while he campaigned.
He knows how much I was dreading that fucking interview and photo shoot for a magazine spread about our home life. Even with the cleaning and decorating help his staff hired, I had to make sure everything was just perfect myself. When a photographer is coming into your home, you have to make sure every last thing is on point.
But I gladly did all of it for him. He’s only home for two days before he hits the campaign trail again, and I’m livid that he fucked me and hardly said two words to me before storming out of here.
We agreed before we got married that nothing would ever come between us. Not politics, not my father—our marriage comes first.
But today his fucking ego came first, and I’m not waiting around until he decides to come home.
I’ve been sidelining my work for months now, focusing on helping Jude instead. And that’s been hard for me, because I’m passionate about my work. I’m the US Congress liaison for the Lancet Foundation, an organization founded two years ago to advocate for bipartisanship.
Jude and I have become the poster children for crossing party lines to find common ground. As congressional opponents, we should have been enemies. For a while, we kind of were. But I quickly fell for him, seeing that what brought us together was more important than what we disagreed about.
I didn’t drop out of the race because of our relationship, but rather because the revelation about my father’s secret family made me reevaluate what was really important to me. But I’ve taken lots of hits from women’s groups within the Democratic Party for stepping aside for my man.
Fuck them. They don’t know me, and they don’t know us.
I add a couple pairs of heels and my travel makeup bag to the suitcase, zipping it closed. When I pick up my phone, I see a text from Julia, my assistant. She’s booked my flight and arranged for me to be picked up in DC when I arrive late this afternoon.
I’ve been pushing this trip back for weeks, prioritizing Jude and his campaign. No more.
After texting Julia back, I send a message to my husband.Going to DC for work.
My anger starts to subside on the cab ride to the airport. Jude was right for thinking Dominic Marino would cause a blowup between us, but that doesn’t make him right for not telling me about it.
Dominic Marino buys politicians, plain and simple. He doesn’t care what party they are—I’ve seen people from both sides get in deep with him. He lures them in with his deep pockets and pretense of no-strings friendship, wining and dining them hard. But eventually, he calls in favors, and they’re never legal. He stands for everything Jude and I despise about politics.
