Page 6 of American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy 1)
Ice-blue eyes and day-old stubble. High cheekbones and a straight nose, full lips and a tall aristocratic brow. A face made for brooding on a moor somewhere, a face made for Victorian novels or Regency period dramas, the face of the prototypical elitist stranger at a ball in a Jane Austen book.
Except this man’s no stranger to me.
Embry Moore.
Vice President Embry Moore.
I scramble to my feet. “Mr. Vice President,” I manage. “I didn’t—”
His eyes crinkle at the edges. He’s actually a year younger than President Colchester, who took office only six months before turning thirty-six, but years of sunshine and four tours of duty have given him the tiniest lines around his eyes, visible only when he smiles.
Like right now.
I swallow again. “How can I help you, Mr. Vice President?”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Okay. How can I help you, Mr. Moore?”
He steps forward into the office, and I can smell him. Something with bite—pepper maybe. Or citrus.
“Well, Ms. Galloway, I wondered if you were free for dinner tonight.”
Oh God.
I peer around him, and he waves a hand. “My security detail is waiting for me at the end of the hall. They can’t hear us.”
I should ask him why he’s here, why he’s at Georgetown, in my office, at nearly midnight. I should ask why he didn’t call or email or have some secretary chase me down. Instead, I ask, “Isn’t it a little late for dinner?”
He glances at his watch without uncrossing his arms. “Maybe, but I’m confident that any restaurant you’d pick would be happy to open up for me. Or open up for you—I’m pretty sure there isn’t anyone in this town that doesn’t still owe Leo Galloway a favor or two.”
“I don’t throw my grandfather’s name around,” I say, a little reproachfully. “I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”
“Just because you want to forget who you are doesn’t mean the rest of us can forget you.” His voice is soft.
I take a step back. I swallow. A subdued and dignified anger, sculpted into a careful, quiet shape after five years, rises from its slumber. Because, of course, Embry had once been very good at forgetting me.
“Why are you hiding away here?” he asks, uncrossing his arms and taking a step forward. His voice is still soft, too soft, the kind of soft that croons promises in your ear and then breaks them.
I should know.
“I’m not hiding,” I say, tilting my head at my desk, stacked high with papers and books and Moleskin journals. “I’m working. I’m teaching, I’m writing a book. I’m happy.”
Embry takes another step forward, swallowing up the space in my office with one long stride. He’s close enough that I can smell him again, a smell that hasn’t changed after all this time.
I close my eyes for a minute, trying to reorient myself.
“You never were a good liar,” he murmurs, and when I open my eyes, he’s so close to me that I could reach out and run my fingers along his jaw. I don’t, turning my head away and looking out the window instead.
“I’m not lying,” I lie.
“Come to dinner with me,” he says, changing tactics. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
“Five years.” The words are pointed, and to his credit, he doesn’t parry them away.
“Five years,” he acknowledges.
Strange that such a long time can sound so short.
