Chapter 27

Connie

 

I woke to the sound of insistent ringing. It was Saturday morning and when I rolled over, Mitch was sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching his phone to his ear.

I stretched languidly and yawned. Mitch set down his phone and got to his feet. He stared down at me grim-faced.

“I have to go into work,” he said.

“Today?”

“Yes. I’ve been summoned to a meeting.”

“It’s Saturday,” I started to protest.

Mitch looked dire. “The President wants to see me in the Oval Office.”

I sat up. “That was his secretary on the phone?”

“No. That was the President calling directly. I have to go.”

 

 

 

Mitch

 

There were two Secret Service men from the President’s personal detail to meet me when I arrived at the White House. They escorted me through the standard security checks and walked with me all the way to the Oval Office. Waiting outside the door was the President’s Chief of Staff. The man looked bleary-eyed and a little hungover from the previous night’s reception.

“Morning, Jim,” I nodded. “What’s this all about?”

The man’s expression was gloomy but he didn’t get a chance to reply. At that moment the door to the inner office opened and the President stood in his shirtsleeves.

“Come in,” the President said.

I walked into the Oval Office with the Chief of Staff following me. We both stood near the facing sofas. The President went around behind his desk, flicked through a sheath of papers, and then came back across the room so that he and I were standing toe-to-toe.

“A journalist from the Daily Leader newspaper has apparently snapped several compromising photographs of you in the company of a very young woman at last night’s reception for the Russian delegation,” the President began. His voice was laced with frustration and suppressed anger. “They were taken backstage before you gave your speech.”

My face stayed impassive.

“What I want to know is whether it could be true or not. I want to know if this journalist might really have something this scandalous.”

I remembered the voice of a journalist questioning one of the hotel managers as Connie and I had waited behind the curtain. And I remembered the way she had boldly reached for my cock.

“It’s probably true, Mr. President,” I said flatly.

The President turned on his heel, fuming with anger. He paced across the carpeted floor and then came back to me. His face was tight, the temper burning in his eyes.

“Goddammit, Mitch!” his voice stayed low but his temper made each word shake. “The last thing we need right now is a fucking scandal. We are two days away from signing the most important trade deal with the Russians to ever be formalized. And now, on the eve of this historic event, the man who negotiated the deal and made it happen gets caught by a fucking journalist with his dick in the hands of some young piece of fucking fluff!”

I stood, unmoved in the face of the President’s withering tirade. His face was twitching.

“Can I ask who else knows about the photos?” I enquired softly.

The President drew a deep breath and scraped his hands through his hair.

“I phoned the Russian President earlier this morning and warned him of the situation. I believed he had a right to know that there was a potential scandal brewing that might disrupt the official signing. Apart from him, no one else knows.” 

The President stepped back, switching instantly from outrage into damage-control with all the experience of a practiced politician.

“The journalist is threatening to publish the photos, Mitch. He’s using this like blackmail leverage. He wants a direct line to this office to break future stories, and if he doesn’t get that access, he’s threatened to splash those photos over every newspaper and fucking website in the country.”

I said nothing. The President’s mouth was drawn in a tight line of contempt.

“Jim,” the President turned on his Chief of Staff. “How badly can something like this hurt us?”

The man beside me looked sheepish. He cast me an apologetic expression of helplessness.

“It’s not a good look,” the Chief of Staff said in understatement. “And it’s bound to tarnish the deal. All the good press that could have come from this signing, and the bump in your approval numbers could vanish, Mr. President. Given the choice, the media is going to run with the scandal. That will push the benefits of the deal off the front page…”

The President hung his head and raged around the room. He had his hands on his hips, prowling back and forth like a caged animal. At last he spun back to me. His eyes were like steel.

“Who is she?” he demanded.

“Her name is Connie Wyatt,” I answered.

“And what is she, Mitch? Is she a hooker…?”

“Sir, Connie was a temporary assistant who worked with me. She came to Russia with me when I negotiated the deal.”

The President’s eyes grew wide with mounting horror. “You were fucking this girl while she worked for you?” his incredulity rose. He could see the hint of a scandal suddenly becoming something even worse.

“No,” I said flatly. “And when we returned to Washington I transferred Miss Wyatt to another department. There was no sexual contact between us while we were working. None at all.”

The President’s Chief of Staff had Connie’s file inside a folder. He had seen Connie at the reception, of course. He would have pulled her records in the meantime. He handed the folder to the President who flipped quickly through the record of her employment and then settled uncomfortably on the photograph of her that was attached to her personal details.

“Jesus, Mitch!” the President looked aghast. “She looks like she’s fucking twelve years old.”

“She’s twenty,” I said. This time I left off the ‘sir’. Behind my blank expression I was becoming annoyed.

The President threw Connie’s file down on the coffee table and breathed a deep sigh of frustration. He stared at me from a few yards away. “She has to go,” he said with absolute finality. “Mitch, I cannot allow this potential scandal to embroil the trade deal. I will not allow it to happen. Now you and I have been friends for almost thirty years, and I owe you my personal loyalty. So I want you to get rid of this girl today. Get her out of your house, out of your life. Just remove her from the picture. Do that,” he pointed a finger at me, “and I’ll stand beside you. We’ll ride out any media scandal and you will have my support and the support of this office. It’s either that – or you resign your position. There are no other choices.”

“I understand,” I said flatly. Then I turned to the Chief of Staff. “Jim, could I talk to the President alone for a minute?”

The Chief of Staff looked a question at the President. The President nodded his head curtly. The man quietly left the room and I was alone with the President.

“Okay,” the President loosened his tie. “We’re alone. Say what you want to say.”

“Before I do that,” I moved for the first time, unbuttoning my coat and relaxing my stance to something more informal. “I want to know who I’m talking to. Am I talking to my President… or am I talking to the friend I have known for thirty years?”

The President shook his head cruelly. “You’re talking to your President,” he said, the anger still in his voice.

I nodded. “Very well. Then fuck you, Mr. President. I resign.”

For a long stunned moment the air sizzled with outrage and shock. The President blinked and looked perplexed.

“You’re resigning?”

“Yes,” I insisted. “Connie Wyatt is my companion – my girlfriend. We’ve been living together for about a month and I’ve made no secret of our relationship. Hell, I might even love the girl. And despite what you think and anyone else might think about our age difference, we happen to be compatible and happy. I won’t give that up for anything… or anyone,” I said pointedly.

I had a blue visitor’s tag clipped to the lapel of my jacket. I snatched it off and tossed it contemptuously onto the coffee table as I headed for the door. “You’ll have a copy of my resignation within the hour.”