“There’s no reason on the face of the planet that you should be—”

Jameson doesn’t step inside, like he would if this were a real emergency. Instead, he puts his hands in the air. “Sir, I wouldn’t be knocking if—”

“It’s my wedding night.” Jameson has put up with a lot of shit from me, and this, of all nights, should be a time when nobody gets in my way. There’s no shadow to stand in tonight, and yet here he is, standing in the hallway, looking at me with a curiously blank expression. “What do you need?”

He clears his throat. In the quiet of the suite there’s a soft rustling, followed by Bellamy’s voice: “Graham? Is everything okay?”

“There’s breaking news I thought you should be aware of.”

“Breaking news? Are you fucking kidding me?” I run a hand through my hair. I’m sloppily dressed, shirtless, angry, and Jameson reaches for the door to pull it shut. I block it with my hand. “What breaking news?”

He’s out of his element, shaking his head. “Turn on the news.”

“Is this coming from the White House? Because so help me God—”

“It’s coming from me.” Jameson yanks the door out of my hand with a swift tug and closes it.

In the bedroom Bellamy is tangled in the sheets, her face glowing in the moonlight. “We didn’t bother to close the curtains,” she says, her voice warm with sex and sleep. “I like it like this.” She turns her head and looks at me. “What are you looking for?”

“The remote.”

“Are you in the mood for something saucy?” Bellamy laughs, but her laughter fizzles out. “It’s right here. What’s wrong?”

The languorous mood snaps in half. I take the remote. “Jameson says there’s breaking news.”

“What kind of—”

“I don’t know.”

She turns back over and fumbles at the bedside table while I stab at the buttons on the remote. The television comes to life on the hotel’s private channel, which is all sweeping views of the lobby.

“—plenty to do in Washington, D.C. during your visit. We’re centrally located between—”

“God, what a nightmare.” I flip through the first few channels—how are public access channels still in existence?—and finally land on one of the major news networks.

“—we’re all listening, and we’d love for you to repeat what you’ve just said for our viewers joining us. We’re with Julia Derhen.”

I’ve never heard that name before.

It’s a stream from somewhere else—somewhere with a white curtain in the background. Someone’s living room. A woman with dark hair, dark eyes. Those eyes are wide, fearful.

“I’m begging him to intervene.” Her voice is strong, but I hear the hint of a quiver, the hint of a crack in her strength. “The President needs to put people on the ground in Bahara. Every day he waits is a disaster for the country.”

“What the fuck?” I look for the button to power it off. This has nothing to do with me.

Bellamy puts her hand on my wrist and stands up next to me. “Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Ms. Dehren, why do you believe it’s so essential for the United States to intervene from a military perspective?”

“She’s not an expert,” breathes Bellamy.

“What?”

“The President has no other choice. His godson is a citizen of Bahara. The son he supports like his own blood has family there. How can he let them be torn apart by insurgents.”

I drop the remote.

“Holy fuck.”

The anchor asks another question, but it blurs out into nonsense. My brother has never so much as mentioned a godson, and from the way the word rolled off this woman’s lips, this child—whatever child it is—is not only a godson. Does my brother have a secret baby out of wedlock? Perfect Andrew Blackpool with a hidden child?

“That can’t be real.” Bellamy shakes her head. “There’s no way. She must have some other agenda. She must have—”

“She’s the reason.”

Bellamy goes still. “The reason for what?”

“For all of this. For us.”

“No way. A godson? That can’t be it.” I see it in her face—doubts rising like the sun.

“Can’t it?” I take a deep breath and unclench my fists. “You don’t think my brother would goad us into this to cover up his own indiscretions?”

“He ran a clean campaign,” Bellamy says softly. “He campaigned on honesty and transparency.”

“He lied.”

My chest is caving in under the weight of a thousand memories. Andrew onstage at my father’s company picnic, the son who’s going places. Andrew onstage at the presidential debates, telling the nation that they could trust him. “I have nothing to hide,” he’d said, flashing that smile.

I’d been the perfect foil. The irresponsible playboy.

How quickly he’d changed strategies.

One questionable party in the first month of his presidency, and he’d leveraged it to turn me into a savior spectacle, denying all the rumors in the press and marrying a so-called whore. Anything to turn their heads. Anything to keep their attention.

This is what he didn’t want them snooping around for.

Oh, it all makes so much sense.

“He’s awake right now, I know it.”

“I can’t imagine he’d sleep through something like this.” Bellamy blinks at the television screen. A few moments ago she was on the verge of peaceful, sexed-up slumber. Now she’s wide awake. “I’ll go shower.”

“Shower? Are you going somewhere?”

“We’re going to the White House.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder, her spine straight, her chin lifted. “I want an explanation.”