Then it was gone and she was Lennon again. “What I was saying before you so graciously decided to check out right in the middle of our discussion, is that you don’t need to give me permission to go today. I already spoke on the phone with my mother and she agrees it’s a good idea to go and visit.”
That was news to me and I’d been on a call with Agent Collier this morning going over the schedule. There hadn’t been any changes then, so this must have happened in the past few hours.
Irritation filled me. There was nothing I hated more than someone going over my head when it came to my job. “So you’re telling me that I need to get your security together for a trip in the next hour to a place that I’m unfamiliar with so you can, what? Kiss some omegas and make your mother look better?”
Lennon shrugged. “If that’s all you think I do, then yes, you’ve made a very astute observation, Agent Onassis.”
I needed to leave this room or I was going to start yelling.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “But next time you have a request you should ask me before going over my head to your mommy.”
Lennon’s eyes widened at the anger in my voice and she opened her mouth to say something but I was already turning on my heel and leaving her room and stepping back into the main part of the suite where the rest of my team was.
“So, I take it we’re making a pit stop?” Dallas asked from where he was sitting in front of his laptop, probably already looking at aerial views of the omega center we were supposed to be visiting.
The way he said it grated on my nerves, like it had been a foregone conclusion from the start.
“It’s actually not that bad,” he continued, ignoring the stormy look I shot in his direction. “These centers take their security seriously and I highly doubt that they will scrimp on protecting one of the most high profile omegas in the country.”
“When did you turn into such a damned optimist?” I grumbled as I looked over the itinerary that would have to be changed.
“Once he realized that Lennon Holloway is an inescapable force and maybe it’s better to go with the flow?” Brooks said unhelpfully from where he was tying his tie in the mirror.
The way this hotel had their suites situated allowed us to be closer to Lennon while still giving her and her guests privacy. Our team had the entire floor booked out. Our outer team took the rooms closest to the hallway while her style team and my team took the rooms closest to the suite Lennon would share with her visitor.
A knock came on the door of the suite, cutting me off mid-rant.
“Maybe that’s something you’ll learn eventually?” Zeke asked hopefully as he clapped me on the shoulder and went to answer, peeking through the peephole before pulling the door open. “Mr. Holloway.”
Carter Holloway stepped through the doorway with a grin. As usual, the older Holloway sibling looked worse for wear—something the tabloids never forgot to mention in their reporting of him.
He had been notorious for his partying ways when he was younger. I could remember the newspapers splashed with his face during the first year of Athena Holloway’s first time, even from abroad.
Then the first gentleman, Ashton Carter-Holloway passed away and he was pulled out of the limelight. There were rumors that he was in and out of rehab, but nothing had been confirmed until we’d taken this job.
Hedidhave a history with drugs, but he was supposed to be clean at the moment.
“Howdy, gentlemen.” Carter waved gaily as he looked at us. “You look just as scary as the last time I saw you. Is my sister in there?”
He pointed to the half-open door to Lennon’s room and I nodded.
Once he’d stepped inside of the room I turned to his security team.
“What the hell is going on with him?” I asked furiously, my already shitty day going from back to worse in the blink of an eye.
Agent Miner, a tall African-American woman with a no-nonsense attitude, ignored my anger. “He’s fine. We’ve been with him non-stop.”
“He doesn’t look fine. He looks about two seconds from losing it,” I reiterated as I heard Lennon exclaim with excitement in the other room from seeing her brother for the first time in weeks.
“He struggles without his support people. It’s been hard on him to have Lennon and the President away for so long,” Agent Miner said with a shrug as a bellhop brought Carter’s suitcasesin. “But now that they are reunited for this leg of the tour things should get better and he’s been talking to his sponsor and his therapist.”
Carter was supposed to join us for the rest of the tour, right up until election day. He was even slated to speak at a few events—a rarity when it came to the older Holloway sibling.
Based on what I knew, Lennon had been working right alongside her mother and father since she could talk. Going from being the adorable accessory during her mother’s gubernatorial races to eventually speaking at events during Athena Holloway’s first election.
And Carter Holloway? He’d been kept out of the limelight. Whether it be because they were worried he would fuck it up or that he was too sensitive to have that much public scrutiny, I wasn’t sure, but either way the sibling relationship between the two seemed real fucking lopsided.
“He better or I’ll keep his ass in the hotel room,” I told Agent Miner quietly, still seething from my earlier conversation with Lennon.
