Page 2 of The Press Secretary's Passion
Kicking and screaming
One month earlier
The White House
“Ma’am,” his voice rumbles in a southern drawl, and not in a nice way. I’m sure it would be nice if he were nice to me, but for some reason I do not know, Captain Ryan Black cannot stand me. “I need you to come with me.”
“What? Why?” I ask. If there’s something seriously wrong, I need to know. It’s part of my job as the White House Press Secretary to be ahead of any and all situations and present statements to the Press on what is going on and how the President is responding to it. So my question is not at all out of left field.
“That’s not for you to know, ma’am,” he says curtly, and honestly that’s utter bullshit.
“Then no,” I respond. “I’m not going with you.”
Let him put that in his pipe and smoke it.
“Ma’am,” he repeats, and I can see the muscles in his jaw working, so he’s clearly trying to hold tight to his patience with me, but there he goes ma’am-ing me again. I get that he’s from Texas and they ma’am there and it’s a military thing, but the way he says it to me doesn’t seem very nice. Now, with Grace and Cara, he’s as sweet as can be, but with me, he’s all piss and vinegar, and I am over it. “With all due respect, you’re coming with me.”
I can barely hold back the frustrated sigh that’s threatening to burst free. I like to be direct, and I like people who are direct with me, so this talking around me in circles isn’t really making me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.
“With all due respect,” I reply, because I think we’ve danced around each other enough for one day and I have some two-day-old mu shu chicken in my fridge I either need to eat or toss and I’m really looking forward to eating it. So it’s time to get this show on the road. “When someone starts a statement with ‘with all due respect,’ in my experience, they mean absolutely none will be given.”
“That’s probably true.”
Wait, what? Did he… did he just admit he doesn’t respect me? What an asshole.
“You don’t respect me?” I ask, carefully holding my facial expression so I give nothing away, even though on the inside I’m steaming mad.
“I see nothing but a spoiled princess, ma’am,” he answers, and wow, that really stung. I wonder what I ever did to make him dislike me so much. “So now it’s time to get your spoiled ass in the fucking car.”
I don’t fucking think so. “No.”
“This was not a question. It’s an order,” he growls, and the deep, rumbly sound sends a shiver down my back and tingles in other places.
No!We are not attracted to the rude Neanderthal. He is an asshole. We decided we were done with men in New York.
I had been dating a co-anchor before Jake hired me to run his press room. He was tall, blond, and I suspected he was also Botoxed. I thought everything was going well, and in my head, I even started planning a spring wedding.
But then I had news story after news story pulled from me and handed to a young man fresh out of some state school in California and who had absolutely no business at a National News Channel such as Eagle News. He hadn’t paid his dues yet.
And then one evening, I used my key to surprise my boyfriend, only I was the one who got the surprise. They’re still together to this day, and the invitation to their fall wedding is pinned to my refrigerator. I wasn’t even hurt about it. We didn’t love each other.
Before that, it was another cheater, this time with a woman—or I should say a lot of them. And before that, it was a guy who stole my checking account number. So by the time my last boyfriend found his one and only not in me, I was over trying.
And I was not going to let this highhanded alpha male use me as a doormat, whether he had a nice voice and an attractive amount of silver at his temples or not. The way he filled out the trousers of his uniform wasn’t going to influence that decision either.
I was done.
“Then you’re going to have to drag me kicking and screaming,” I said as I landed my hands on my hips in the universal stance of a pissed-off woman.
What I did not realize in all of my introspection was that Captain Black was not a man to be challenged like that. If I realized that, maybe I would have made a polite but quiet excuse before I scurried away in order to regroup so I could fight another day.
No, I got in his face, which was not how I was raised. I’m Julia Fairchild of the New Haven Fairchilds, although we have summer houses in the Hamptons as well as the Keys and Hawaii. I was raised to be a lady, socialite, and then a trophy wife. And in my thirty-three-year tenure in the position, I had done none of those things.
I also apparently didn’t learn any real-world lessons. Otherwise, I would have taken a measured step back when I saw his eyes flare as I threw down my gauntlet. I would have seen the smirk that flitted across his lips and maybe also that the crotch of his jeans was a little more fitted than it was ten minutes ago. Or all of the above.
But I didn’t, and now I’m going to learn a real-life lesson handed to me by the sexiest man on the planet who also just so happens to be an asshole.
“Be careful what you wish for, princess.”
