American Queen

That does rest my mind a little, although I’m still uneasy about this latest development. It almost seems unhinged, unstable, especially for a woman who’s spent years trying to perfect the most charming, put-together personality imaginable.

But then Ash’s hands are back under my dress, his stiffening cock warm against my hip, and everything else slowly bleeds away.

26

It turns out that finding a time for the three of us to talk is harder than it sounds. The rest of our stay in Geneva is busy, with Ash and Embry gone from six in the morning to one o’clock the next morning, and all the hours between are filled with helping Kay put out fires back home.

Abilene avoids me so expertly that I don’t see her until we fly home, and when we board the plane, she apologizes for her absence, blaming it on the Carpathian man she spent her days with. I watch her eyes as she tells me about him, as she asks me how much I’ve seen or talked to Ash since the dinner, and I realize she doesn’t know I know.

It’s dishonest, but I feed that belief, telling her everything she wants to hear. I act innocent, I act like I have no idea she’s still in love with Ash or that she tried to kiss him at the dinner, and it makes me a little sad to see how easily she swallows what I say. I think about the way she acted when I first told her about Ash and me, about the way she lied about something as trivial as how I looked in a dress.

Maybe Ash is right to say I shouldn’t trust her.

But once we get back home and settle into the fast-paced rhythm of work and life, I settle back into loving her. She’s just Abilene—passionate and fierce and impulsive. And I’m the last woman to judge another for making mistakes because of a man like Ash. I forgive her, go on loving her and having weekly lunch and sometimes grabbing cocktails after work on Thursdays, although I try not to bring Ash up around her any more than I have to, which seems to work for her just fine. She even acts happy when I ask her to be my maid of honor, though I can see the brittle displeasure in her face when she thinks I’m not looking.

But what can I do?

The wedding consumes every waking minute. There’s the planning, of course, but then there’s the endless rounds of interviews and photo shoots that Merlin and Trieste—the Press Secretary—keep signing me up for. Overnight, I’m transformed into America’s Sweetheart, the daughter of a former Vice President marrying the youngest President in history. My face is everywhere in print and online, to the point where I’m recognized on the street and where students I don’t know stop me on campus for Snapchat selfies. It’s flattering the first few times, but slowly it becomes a nuisance and then a real burden. All the work I did, all the choices I made to build a life of quiet solitude, it’s all undone in a matter of a few weeks. Even Grandpa Leo calls me to warn me about the dangers of constant press attention.

Both Embry and Ash are incredibly busy too, and it’s only once or twice a week that I get to sneak into Ash’s bed, and it’s only on Sundays that all three of us are together for church and sometimes football. But I’m usually grading papers or working on the book, and Belvedere and Kay and Trieste and Merlin are constantly in and out, and the moment just never comes, that moment where the three of us are alone and have unlimited time to just talk.

At first it’s agony, every missed day that turns into a missed week that turns into a missed month. Ash and I keep our word to each other and we both act carefully around Embry. He acts carefully around us in return, especially after Ash tells him that we need to wait to do anything until the three of us can talk. Ash tells me that Embry agrees to that, and I smile at the irony that we have all talked about talking but still haven’t talked.

I wonder if Embry knows how often we bring him up when we’re alone, sometimes as we’re having sex, but other times as we’re falling asleep or even as we’re simply working in silence together. Ash will set down his pen and rub his forehead and say my name in the kind of pained, quiet voice I know means that right now he’s missing Embry. And I’ll crawl onto his lap and whisper me too me too me too, and kiss him until we both feel better again.

And so the days pass, interminable and yet blinding in how quickly they fly by, until I find myself holding Ash’s hand as Air Force One touches down in Kansas City the day before our wedding, a warm day in May. Ash’s mother greets us with a big hug on the tarmac, and then we begin the painstakingly photographed dance of the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. All the while being achingly aware of Embry watching us, of Embry there like the unseen shadow of our future marriage.

He said it was hell watching Ash and me. Was watching us walk through the ceremony worse than hell? Is there anything worse than hell?

Yes, I decide as we make our toasts and speeches at the rehearsal dinner. Loving two men but only marrying one—that's worse than hell. Watching Embry quietly die is worse than hell. Watching Ash watch Embry, and wondering if he wishes he was walking down the aisle with him instead of me—that is much, much worse than hell.

Ash and I part that night with a chaste kiss. And I go to bed in my own room, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what new hell tomorrow will bring.

27

The Wedding Day

Abilene went to find the veil and some lunch, and so for the moment, I’m alone. I stand in my hotel suite, which also serves as my bridal dressing room, so silent and calm after all the rustling of tissue paper and the chatter of women and the noisy comings and goings of every single female relative Ash or I have. I turn to the mirror for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time, a cold dagger slices through my heart, slicing it right in two.