McDaniels rolled his eyes and for the first time ever I was pretty sure that he and his boss were on the outs. “All I was saying, ma’am, was that your approval rating goes up every time Lennon is out on the campaign trail. That’s a fact. Besides, Collier over here keeps saying that the White House is safer butwe’re literally sitting here talking after an intruder infiltrated the damned Kennedy garden for crying out loud.”
Collier and McDaniels exchanged a glare that was so angry that it could have peeled the wallpaper off of the walls before huffing and turning back to the president again.
“As you can see,” Athena said, looking irritated at the bickering between two of her top people. “We seem to be at an impasse. I’m partial, of course, to keeping my daughter safe. So, what do you think, Agent Onassis?”
“We will do whatever you order, ma’am,” Maverick said, his expression unchanging.
“Mom—” Lennon began quietly but Athena ignored her daughter.
“And who ordered you to get into a verbal altercation about my daughter’s personal relationships this evening?”
The room temperature dropped several degrees and I found myself shifting from foot-to-foot, feeling the discomfort of the president’s alpha pheromones filling the space.
It was rare for alphas to do this because it felt like something completelywrongwas brushing up and down your bare skin, urging you to bare your neck and submit.
My inner alpha had never been particularly strong, so I surrendered easily despite the other three alphas on my team remaining upright.
A grunt slipped out from between my lips before I could catch it and Dallas shot me a look, a thin sheen of sweat shining on his forehead.
“Ma’am, I apologize for my team’s lapse in judgement earlier tonight, it will not happen again.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, the sensation leaking out of Athena Holloway was gone and the room seemed to brighten again.
“Very well, see that it doesn’t. You are Lennon’s bodyguards, not her friends. Had you not been so instrumental in protecting her life tonight you would be on your way back to the state department by morning. Now, Agent Onassis, I was serious earlier when I asked your thoughts about the rest of the election.”
Maverick shot Collier a questioning look and the man shook his head.
I glanced over at Lennon, who looked miserable as she watched her fate be decided right in front of her face, something that seemed to be the regular around here.
“Ahem,” I said, speaking up despite every instinct in my body screaming at me not to.
“Yes, Agent Wilson?” Athena asked, her blonde brows drawing together with irritation as she turned her steely gray gaze, so much like her daughter’s, over to me and pinned me right where I stood.
“No offense, ma’am, but shouldn’t we be asking Le—Ms. Holloway what she wants to do? She’s the one who will have to do it, after all.”
Everyone in the room turned to look at Lennon like they’d forgotten she had been there the entire time, but Lennon was looking at me.
And,man, did that look she was giving me feel good.
I felt like a knight who had just saved his princess in the nick of time right before the jaws of the dragon closed around her.
Omega happy,my inner alpha purred, pleased as hell with my choice to speak up despite being the one screaming at me to shut up just seconds before.
“You’re right, of course,” Athena said quickly, looking more flustered than I’d ever seen her. It was obvious to me that Athena Holloway was the kind of woman that was full-speed ahead at all times and needed someone to slow her down… except thatperson had probably been her late husband and now she had no one. “Lennie, sweetheart, what do you want to do? Stay here at the White House or keep going?”
Lennon looked over at us one more time with her mascara smeared eyes and wet hair before opening her mouth.
Chapter Nineteen
The night before an election rally — Michigan
1 month & 3 weeks until the election…
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Zeke as my shaking hands gripped the steering wheel of the too-big SUV he had me in the driver’s seat of.
I still wasn’t sure just how the heck he’d managed to pull off us sneaking away from the hotel suite on our own or how he’d commandeered one of the official Secret Service SUVs, but here we were and he was teaching me how to drive.
It had only been two weeks since someone had shot a gun at me in the Kennedy garden at the White House. The event itself had been covered up, of course.
