Page 56 of American King (New Camelot Trilogy 3)
He pauses, his hand still at his mouth and his eyes glittering in the dark. And then I see his throat working again, a clench and swallow against some powerful emotion. Somehow I know, I just do, what he’s going to say.
“Embry,” he starts.
“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t ask. Please.”
“Why?” he asks in agony. “Why can’t I even have the asking?”
I could lie. I know I could, just as I know that he would recognize it for what it was immediately—and just as I know he would let me lie to grant me whatever shreds of dignity I wanted to grasp at.
But I won’t lie. Morning is almost here, and the truth is edging at the horizon with the sun, ready to shine a pale, weary light on us anyway.
“Because,” I say, fighting back more tears. “If you ask, then I won’t be able to say no.”
He rubs at his face with his hand, spending a long time with his fingertips against his eyes. “All you’ve ever done is say no when I ask you things. I don’t see why now is any different.”
His bitterness stings. “I suppose I deserve that,” I say.
“I’m sorry, ” he says, his voice tired. He drops his hand from his face and looks at me. “I want you, and I want to have you, and to keep you, and for fifteen years, I’ve been trying. And I can’t tell what’s the best way to love you, whether it’s trying to catch you or to let you go.”
“I’ll always want to be yours,” I say. It should be embarrassing, it should feel weak to admit it, but it doesn’t. Not here in the dark with our tears and our sweet Greer warm between us. “Always. But…” I trail off.
“But you can’t allow yourself that,” he finishes for me.
“It’s how things have to be, Ash. You know why.”
“I suppose.”
And we go quiet. The air is unsettled, painful, and just when I start thinking it’s time for me to leave, Ash gets off the bed and comes around to my side, crawling under the covers behind me and wrapping his big body around my own. His knees tuck behind mine and his arm snugs in across my waist, and his groin presses against my ass. He nuzzles his face against the back of my neck.
“You have to kiss me goodbye when you leave,” he murmurs.
“Yes, Achilles.”
And despite the oncoming dawn, I fall asleep in his arms, knowing that when I wake up and kiss him goodbye, it will be for real, and probably for always.
And it will kill me.
PART TWO
THE CROWN
FIFTEEN
ASH
now
TWO YEARS later
“MR. PRESIDENT,” Belvedere says, coming up behind me.
I turn from the journalist interviewing me to nod at him. “Ten more minutes?”
He gives us a wincing look and glances down at his watch. “You’ve only got five, sir. I’m so sorry,” he apologizes to the journalist. “We’ll of course be happy to set up a call to pad out anything else you need for the piece.”
The journalist—a short and jowly bulldog from Time Magazine—sighs at Belvedere’s words but doesn’t push back. When the bulldog glances down at his notes, I wink at Belvedere, who gives me a little smile back. He’s my keeper—he keeps me, and most importantly, he keeps my time. He plays the bad cop whenever it’s time to bustle me away from eager crowds and curious reporters, and he’s got the “apologetic but firm” performance down pat.
I finish my five minutes with the reporter—it’s for one of those campaign profiles they will inevitably cover with a close-up shot of my face, shadowed and serious—and then Belvedere whisks me back to my office on Air Force One, expertly fending off some milling members of the press corps who are not pleased their usual time with me has been cut short because of the Time feature, and shepherding me past my personal photographer, who has been begging for more candid shots on the plane.
