Leo softly chuckles and kisses me again. “Love you, too, pet. Good evening?”
“Yeah.” I shift a little. The aches and pains from our earlier play are starting to settle in. While I’ll hurt tomorrow morning I’ll enjoy every moment ofthatkind of pain and the delicious memories of how I received the bruises that will no doubt mark my flesh. “Thank you, Master.”
“My pleasure, pet.”
This is perfection.
No, wait.
Perfection would be Leo waking up with us every morning and me being able to simply lie there with the two men I love and not be on an international stage. To have no other obligations than to make my guys happy as some small way to repay them for their years of putting up with me years of irrational love and loyalty.
Thatwould be perfection.
But then again, I have no one but myself to blame for my current predicament.
I’m the one who wanted to be here.
Or so I thought, once upon a time.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
THEN — INAUGURATION NIGHT
I’mglad nearly every second of today is being filmed because I likely won’t remember much of it after the fact. At some point I’ll want to watch it.
Right now it all feels absolutely surreal.
Jordan has skillfully shepherded me through today, cleaned me up following my earlier mental reset, and now insists I look handsome and presidential in my tux as we head out for the last and, in my opinion, the worst part of today.
The balls.
Notthosekinds of balls. Balls as in parties.
If I were talking about the other kind of balls believe me, I wouldnotbe grumbling.
Tonight is supposed to be all about celebrating my win and yet I feel so…detached.
From everything and everyone.
Except Jordan.
Standing in yet another ballroom of a hotel—I can’t remember which one—and with my cheeks aching from pretending to smile, I stare at the sea of attendees of what is my third ball of the evening. Once Leo finishes helping Shae, Chris, and Kev he’s supposed to return to Blair House, change into his tux, and catch up with me. From that point on he’ll ride in the limo with us for the remainder of the night.
Before we arrived at the first ball Jordan ordered me not to ask him when Leo would arrive. It’s taken an act of sheer willpower on my part to obey. Meaning I’ve spent more time worrying about Leo’s arrival than I have what’s going on around me, or who’s jostling to talk to me, or how I’m coming off to these people.
Which…now that I’m thinking about it, I’m relatively certain that was Jordan’s intention.
Over in a far corner I spot Stella where she’s pouting and holding court with a young Blue Dog senator from Idaho and some of his coterie, all while under the watchful eye of a Secret Service agent whose job tonight is to keep her and her friends away from me, and from Ciro and Ily. Stella arrived about ten minutes after we did.
I know she’s pissed off about being relegated to a separate limo—don’t know who’s paying for that but it’s not me or the US government—and not being photographed with me every time I turn around. I told her it was a security issue.
She wrongly assumed she would spend the entire night marching her friends and clients over to me so everyone could take pictures with me.
Yeah…no. I shut that shit down and told her absolutely frickingnot. Then I specifically ordered Secret Service to keep Stella and her groupies away from me unless I passed word through Jordan she could approach.
Leo and Jordan are proud of me for taking that stand.
Screw Stella anyway. I won’t be the only Woodley offspring not getting what they truly desire most tonight. She’s lucky I let her participate as much as I did today. Forever, when people look at pictures or video of my first swearing in, they’ll see her holding the Bible for me.
