Pictures are printed lies.

I know it when he walks in the door, as surely as I’ve ever known anything. Accuracy. That’s what photography is. That’s what I thought it was, until I saw Graham Blackpool in the flesh.

His face has launched a thousand tabloids. The President’s “Playboy Brother,” they call him, and there is no shortage when it comes to pictures of that face. They are everywhere.

None of them do him justice.

Not even while he’s wearing a half-surprised expression, taken off guard like I’m someone he wasn’t expecting to see.

In fairness, the polo shirt is hideous. It could disguise even the most fabulous of forms under its boxy silhouette, and if I wasn’t studying myself to the bone to pass the bar, I’d find it in my heart to hate it.

I’d hate it now, but Graham Blackpool is standing across the counter. My job has never seemed better or more humiliating.

Why didn’t I plan what to say?

I knew this was coming. The Secret Service agents rolled in here an hour ago, like the first pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof. Shit, I always say. I don’t have an umbrella. All that time, answering their questions, and I never planned what I’d say. It’s not as if they briefed me on who was going to be walking in the door. Masters of building anticipation, those guys.

Graham Blackpool takes a breath, and oh, shit; this staring thing has gone on long enough for us to breathe.

This is my moment to shine.

This, working at the Capitol Bean.

Wearing this polo shirt.

A blast of steam from the espresso machine jolts me out of my frozen stupor, and I throw a glance that’s half-pissed, half-grateful to my manager, Jamie, who wasn’t thrilled with the agents milling around and mumbling into their earpieces for the last hour. It distracted from his performance of being the best barista in Washington, D.C., the mirror image of a bartender, everybody’s friend.

I look at Mr. Blackpool like he’s any other patron—only a thousand times sexier and the brother of the most powerful man in the country—and pray that my smile doesn’t look deranged.

“Good morning, Mr. Blackpool. Welcome to Capitol Bean. What can—”

He rolls his eyes.

He rolls his eyes at me. It’s only a flicker, the tiniest movement, but I see it, and my cheeks flame.

Listen, buddy, I want to growl through gritted teeth. I was studying for the bar until three in the morning. I took a generous three-hour nap, so I could be here to serve your filthy rich ass coffee. And now...

He wouldn’t care. I squash all of it down into the dark, empty place at the pit of my gut.

I smile.

“What can I get for you today?”

He steps closer to the counter. “Good morning, ah—” We don’t wear name tags at Capitol Bean. This is a directive from on high to make it “easier to connect with customers by offering personal information.”

“Bellamy.” I hover a finger over the register keys.

“Bellamy,” he repeats, and damn it all to hell, my name sounds wonderful in his mouth.

Over his shoulder, something black pops into view at the front window.

A camera.

That’s why Graham Blackpool is here, with his security contingent in tow.

A bone for the press.

I clear my throat.

“Is there something you had your eye on? We have—”

“Latte. Three extra shots.” He barrels over me like I haven’t spoken, and there it is. The exhaustion creeping behind my eyes. The pressure weighing down across my shoulders. The itch to bend my head over a book, to make sure that nothing, nothing, stops me from passing the most important test of my life. This guy has no idea what that’s like. None.

It snaps something inside of me, and those barbed words sink into my skin in a way they never do while I’m standing behind this counter.

“Are you sure about that?” My tone is casual and deadly, all at once, and I’ll be shocked if he notices. I tilt my chin at the photographer with his lens pressed up to the window. “They probably want a picture of you with something All-American and traditional.”

The corner of his beautiful mouth twitches. “How are they going to know what’s inside the cup? They’re opaque, are they not?”

“The cups might be opaque, Mr. Blackpool, but the windows are as see-through as they come.” I lean in conspiratorially. “And I’m sure you already know this, but once you leave, all those journalists are going to come in here and ask what Graham Blackpool ordered at a place like Capitol Bean.” My heart pounds, leaning those few inches closer to him, as if this is a real confrontation; a real storm about to break over the store.

He leans in too, and damn, if his face doesn’t telegraph I am really enjoying this commonplace, completely legal and regular, experience.

All except his eyes.

His green eyes, shot through with sunflower yellow, flash with the reflection of my polo shirt. “You wouldn’t lie for me?”

Boom. My gut turns over.

I don’t like it.

I’m overtired and overworked, but I don’t like it, the way he thinks I’d be dishonest on his behalf. It ratchets up the adrenaline pumping in my veins to a level that’s borderline uncomfortable. I want to rip off the Capitol Bean visor and stomp on it.

“No. I don’t lie for anyone.”

Is it flirtatiousness or something else that drains from his face? The expression is gone before I can name it, his mouth settling into a hard line.

He straightens up.

All of me rocks from side to side with disappointment like a ship on rough seas.

It doesn’t make any sense, that disappointment, because all he’s done is move himself a few inches away from me. Also, he’s an asshole, so I don’t know why I should care.

I punch in his order.

“Never change.” He takes out his wallet and tosses his credit card onto the counter between us, the dead plastic husk of a bug.

I let a beat pass before I pick it up between my fingernails, cheeks smarting, the blush spreading down to my chest, smiling for the press. “I won’t. Thank you, Mr. Blackpool.”

He takes his card back as the receipt prints out, shoves both into his pocket, and moves down the line to where Jamie is waiting with his drink.

Graham Blackpool’s voice is low and smooth, the whine of the espresso grinder covering his words. Jamie’s is loud and booming. “Large coffee, black.” He hands the cup over with his most charming grin.

My pulse is about to burst out of my veins and sink into ice.

I couldn’t tell you if I did it on purpose, or not, but I can’t breathe while I wait for his reaction.

Graham Blackpool looks down into the cup.

He looks back at me.

Then he nods, like I’ve won this match, but not the game.

Disappointment and relief smash against each other at the pit of my gut. What the hell is wrong with me? Why did I want him to make a scene? To be who he always is in the gossip rags? Volatile and beautiful, all at once?

It’s awful, but I can’t take my eyes off him.

Not when he fits the lid carefully on the cup.

Not when he leaves, his broad shoulders filling the doorway.

And not when the money slips out of his pocket and onto the floor, wedged against the corner of the trim.