Bellamy is sex-drunk and beautiful, and the sight of her keeps me wide awake.

Up until now, sex like that—possessive and raw and uninhibited—would have sent me into a deep sleep the moment my head hit the pillow. Next to Bellamy, I feel electric. She purrs underneath my touch, her hands wrapped around the pillow.

“Tell me a secret.”

She smiles. “I don’t have any secrets.”

“I thought you were a stickler for accuracy.”

Bellamy opens her eyes. “This is a really nice bed.”

I brought her here after the sofa and tucked her into the smooth, crisp sheets. They’ve never been slept in before, and now they’re against her skin for the first time. “Don’t change the subject.”

She traces my face with a fingertip and sighs. “It’s not fair that you ask me these questions when I can’t think.”

“Whose fault is that?” I kiss her jawline and settle back next to her, so I can watch every movement of her face.

“Don’t change the subject,” she says with a laugh. “I’m drawing a blank on secrets.”

“I want to know everything about you.”

“Any specifics? I’m a vast and untamed wilderness.”

I slide my hand to the curve of her waist, over her hip, and down the outside of her thigh. “Untamed, yes. But not vast enough that I won’t explore every inch of you.” I breathe her in. “Okay. What made you chase me out of that coffee shop? I was a complete prick. You could have kept the money.”

Bellamy closes her eyes, as if she can’t look at me while she says this. “When I was growing up, things were tense.”

“With money?”

“Not at first, but eventually, yeah.”

I wait.

“But my mom always insisted on doing the right thing. She insisted on telling the truth and being honest, even when it got her into trouble.”

This is more than Bellamy has ever said about her mother, and I don’t want to scare her off. “Oh?” Under my hand, I can feel the small tensions rocketing through her muscles. This isn’t a topic she’s interested in discussing.

“Anyway...” She shifts on the mattress, drawing herself a little closer. “I went to law school to do more good in the world. How was it going to look if I kept that money for myself?”

“Nobody would have known.”

“I would have known. And that kind of thing...it eats at you.” Bellamy opens her eyes, her gaze clear and direct. “Your turn. When was the last time you were in trouble?”

“That’s awfully specific.”

“It is not. Nobody makes a deal with a woman like me, unless they’re running from trouble. The press—that must have affected you too.”

I roll over onto my back. “It’s my brother who needs this more than I do. I thought—” I laugh. “I went to a party the night before I met you. It was an insane party, in more ways than one, and I didn’t expect it to go as far as it did.” Bellamy gapes at me. “I didn’t do anything illegal. But there are pictures that made it look like I did.”

“I didn’t see any pictures.” Her forehead wrinkles. “Those would have been in the papers, for sure. We got daily papers at Capitol Bean.”

“I don’t know what magic my brother worked—it was probably Brian—but he had it swept under the rug. But just in case, I had to do some...image repair.”

“At a coffee shop?” She snorts. “My coffee shop?”

“Little did they know...” I flip over and wrap one arm around her waist. “You’d come running out after me and ruin the entire plan.”

Bellamy runs her fingers down the length of my arm, toward my elbow. “All these plans...” She sighs. “In a way, I’m glad your overbearing brother is the president, because otherwise we might not have met.”

“Are you sure about that?” I say the words against her neck and wait for the goose bumps to rise on her skin. “You could have been with some nice boy from law school, or even undergrad...”

She makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “No. None of them interested me.”

“None?”

Bellamy shrugs. “Some of them interested me, but not the way you do. You’re so...” Her fingers move again, retracing their steps. “Arrogant.”

“Thank you.” I press a kiss to her neck. “I’ve been waiting all my life to hear that.”

She laughs. “I mean, you’re comfortable in the world. You’re powerful. And yet...”

“Yet?”

“You give as much as you take,” she finishes finally.

“I can accept that.”

“I wish there weren’t so many plans, though. So many webs. We’re always caught in someone else’s web. How are we supposed to build something real if it’s all”—Bellamy waves a hand in the air—“like this?”

I sit upright, and her eyebrows rise. “We leave.”

“What?”

“We leave the web.” I pull her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. “Where have you always wanted to go?”

“Graham, it’s the middle of the night.”

“So?” I hop out of bed and move to the dresser. There are traveling clothes in the second drawer. “The jet can be ready in an hour. We can be gone before the sun comes up.”

“Gone to where?”

I pounce back on the bed and kneel in front of Bellamy, who’s propped up on one elbow. “Anywhere.”

She thinks about this. “Somewhere warm?”

“That’s not very specific.” I kiss her. She is warm, like the tropics, like the sun. “But I’m sure I can think of a place or two that’s warm. Come on. Get up. Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Bellamy throws herself out of bed with a gleeful giggle and rushes for the bathroom. The shower runs, and two minutes later, she’s out again, hunting for a bag. She comes up with a Gucci duffel and laughs at it, even while she throws items of clothing from the dresser inside. I’m buzzing with delight, watching her. If this is what it takes to get her away from her cold focus on accuracy, on success, then I’ll do this every day for the rest of my life.

Twenty minutes, and we’re ready to go.

Twenty-three minutes, and we’re in the lobby, heading for the car that’s pulling around front.

Twenty-four minutes, and I hear him say my name.

“Mr. Blackpool.”

It’s a rumpled and sleep-deprived Brian, unfolding himself from a low chair in the lobby. I don’t recognize him at first, here in New York City, but then I do. He looks like he walked off a commercial plane, walked to my building, and sat down in the chair.

“Brian. What are you doing in my lobby?”

I meet him over by the chair, Bellamy following afterward. “Ms. Leighton,” he says, then looks back to me. “We have a situation.”

“What kind of situation?” The car is waiting outside. If this is about some stupid interview, I’ll walk away and never come back.

“We need to accelerate the wedding timeframe.”

I don’t roll my eyes, but it’s a near thing. “Tell my brother I’ll discuss this with him when I’m back.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jameson at the front door of the building. He’s probably getting impatient too. It’s cold as fuck out there.

Brian looks slightly ill. “In that case, President Blackpool has asked that you be brought to the White House for a personal conversation.”

I laugh out loud. “He wants to have me kidnapped?”

“He wants to have a conversation.”

“Brian, this is above your paygrade.”

He looks me in the eye. “I know.”

Bellamy stands close to me, and I can feel her disappointment in the air with every breath she takes. I don’t know how, as a man with means and power, I can be driven into a corner like this. No, wait—I do. Because Andrew Blackpool is my brother, and I’ll never escape his shadow.

But Bellamy is the light, and the pull to her is inescapable. “Give me the weekend.”

I’d call Andrew myself, but if he’s sent Brian to personally deliver this message, he’s likely planning on being unreachable.

That bastard.

I know I’m putting Brian in the lion’s mouth, but in this moment, I don’t care.

I wait.

Brian sighs. “You’ll meet him on Monday?”

I turn and head for the door. “I never let him down.”