“Hello, Vice President Delano,” I said quietly as I straightened my spine and tried to look like I hadn’t been two seconds away from fainting just moments ago. “I was taking a quick breather before heading back, you know how that is.”
Delano’s smile tightened in the corners at the formal way I’d addressed him. He’d been trying to get me to call him by his first name for years, but I’d resoundingly refused once I realized what he’d wanted from me.
Most people thought of the alpha as endlessly captivating—especially seeing as he and his pack were still single in their mid-to-late thirties. The most eligible bachelors in the United States is what most news outlets called them.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling ofwrongnessI felt whenever the man spoke to me and I wasn’t sure whether it was because I knew he wanted to use me for his political benefit or if it was because my omega instincts were telling me that he and his pack were not right for me.
“We should eat dinner together tonight in order to discuss the next few stops of the tour,” Delano continued, seemingly moving on from his displeasure with me. “We’re going to be together for the next few months after all.”
Somehow, the vice president’s electioneering stops had aligned almost entirely with my own.
I wasn’t sure if that had been a coincidence or if there were deeper machinations at work. It reeked of my grandfather’s meddling, but I couldn’t be sure until I saw them at Camp David for Labor Day.
It would be the exact kind of thing he would do. My grandfather doted on me, but I also wouldn’t put it past him or my grandmother to try and play matchmaker to spice up their boring retirement in the name of ‘setting me up with a good life.’
Too bad I didn’t want to have anything to do with Frank Delano or his pack.
“Ms. Holloway has a prior commitment,” Dallas cut in suddenly, blocking my view of the vice president again.
“Really? And I’m sureLennonhas a mouth and can speak for herself.”
There was a beat of silence between the two alphas and it took me a minute to realize they were engaging in what amounted to an alpha dick-measuring contest.
Which was completely stupid considering the current situation.
Rolling my eyes, I ducked around Dallas’s shoulder, offered Delano my fakest smile and shrugged. “He’s right, I can’t tonight—we’ll have to set something up once everyone is back in D.C. I’m sure my mother will be thrilled to have you.”
Delano grimaced knowing that a dinner at the White House amounted to pulling an extra shift at his job.
I hoped that made it clear enough to him that I wasn’t and would never be interested in becoming a trophy wife for him and his pack, nor would I give him the connection to the Holloway family that he so clearly desired.
It wasn’t so much the fact that he was seven years older than I was—I didn’t mind an age-gap—it was more the fact that I had never once, in the decade that I’d known the man, seen him be genuine.
There was too much polish and practice with every twitch of the alpha’s body and I wanted nothing to do with it.
“Mr. Vice President,” the attendant from earlier hurried up to us, his brow drenched in sweat as he held his hand over the microphone of the headset he was wearing. “You’re on in two.”
Delano looked as if he swallowed a lemon before turning to head up the stairs without another word.
“What an asshole,” I heard Dallas mutter under his breath.
“You shouldn’t say that,” I told him as we stepped back underneath the baking sun and started to head for the bus.
“Why?” Dallas asked, frowning at me as people bustled past us working to keep the event going.
I shrugged, glancing over at him and trying to gauge what he was thinking and feeling but coming up short when his expression seemed to smooth out into neutral in the blink of an eye. “You could get in trouble.”
Dallas snorted. “You think I care if I get in trouble? Please. If a guy is an asshole, I’m going to call him an asshole, vice president or not.”
Again I found myself surprised by the alpha next to me. It felt like a breath of fresh air for someone to voice what I’d been secretly whispering in my mind for years—not that I would ever admit to it out loud.
I wanted to say something, anything else to get to know the man next to me, but the rest of his team came into view and he took a wide step away from me, creating not only a physical separation, but also a mental one too.
Upon seeing my face, they began fussing over me as I was passed over to Alan and taken inside of the blessedly air conditioned bus.
I didn’t see Dallas for the rest of that day as, by the time I showered and changed into more comfortable clothes, he had disappeared behind one of the curtained bunks lining the interior of the bus.
But when I saw the water bottle and bag of skittles sitting on my laptop, I somehow just knew that he was the one who had left it.
