Page 24 of Commander

Chapter Seven

After a long showerand a giant cup of coffee, I found myself working in the home office of my townhouse.

I’d tried my damnedest to focus on the list of tasks I had to complete, but Casey’s words kept haunting me and left me in a foul mood.

In love with Ashur, as if.

Ashur and I had become friends over the last year and a half, moving past the anger and heartache of our youth. However, that didn’t mean I was in love with him. And our mutual attraction only indicated that we’d have mind-blowing sex. Nothing more.

I was not in love. I knew better than to fall down that rabbit hole.

I glanced at my ring and sighed.

Who was I kidding? I was fucked. And not just literally. Great, now I was thinking about the dream.

I groaned and pressed my fingertips to my temples.

“Ms. Zain. Your gown has arrived, and the designer wants to make sure it fits.”

I turned my office chair toward my assistant, Eleanor, or Eli as I called her.

She was a slender woman in her late forties with long blond hair and gray eyes. I’d hired her as my assistant eight years ago, right after her husband, a former Solon agent, had died from a heart attack. As a new widow, she was looking for a complete change of career from teaching theater at the University of Washington. Eli understood the lifestyle I lived, having experienced decades of it as an agent’s wife. She also accepted the complexity of managing a public career and having another very secret one.

I’m not sure what I would have done without her. She had a way of keeping me in check, and sometimes I wondered if she knew more about my job than I did.

Thank God she’d agreed to move across the country with me. She was the presence I needed to keep me grounded in this intimidating world I now existed in.

“What gown?”

She typed away on her tablet with a distinct frown on her face. “The one for your first official dinner as the first lady.”

“Oh, God.” I dropped my head onto the desk. “I totally forgot about the fitting.”

The last thing I needed to focus on was a state dinner planned for the week Ashur and I returned from our honeymoon.

I had to get these last-minute tasks completed for my law practice, make sure Tyler was set for as smooth a transition as possible, and double check the details of Ameera’s auction and hopeful rescue. And then there was the fact my body hurt like hell from the beat-down Casey had given me at my insistence. If the pain I felt in my hip was any indication, I’d have a bruise. Shit, now I’d have to explain the mark as Casey predicted I would.

What the hell had I been thinking?

That you needed a distraction from thoughts of jumping the man you’re marrying but shouldn’t want so desperately.

“Can we reschedule? I have too much to do. Plus, I have to get to the last-minute wedding logistics meeting before the rehearsal.”

“No. The designer is here, and it’s better to get it over with. The meeting isn’t for two hours, giving you plenty of time have the fitting and finish up your work.”

I wasn’t going to win this one. No one got between Eli and her agenda.

“Fine. Have them set up in the guest bedroom. It’s the only room not filled with boxes.”

She nodded, stepped out of the room, giving Casey instructions, and then returned in less than two minutes.

“Please tell me you aren’t wearing red to your first official gala as first lady.”

“It was the only thing that looked great on my body and didn’t cost an arm and a leg.”

“You do realize you’re marrying a billionaire? He can afford a high-end gown.”

That was something I didn’t need a reminder of. I was going to use Ashur’s money for more important things. Like freeing Ameera.

---