Jameson
The first thing I noticed on my daily report was that the use of a private jet for Georgie had been authorized. The second thing that I noticed was its destination—Helsinki. And finally, the names of the other passengers on the flight. I didn’t give a damn about any of them, except one—Maxwell Edison.
“Son of a bitch!” I roared, slamming my fist down on the small dining table in my hotel suite. The dishes all trembled, and coffee splashed out of the mug onto the table. I reached for a napkin to clean up the mess. “Goddammit, Georgie.”
I reached for my cell phone, which luckily had escaped the path of the spilled coffee, and called her constant shadows.
“You’d both better be on your way to Helsinki,” I growled when Jenkins picked up and put me on speaker.
“We’re not. Should we be?”
“First, you’re going to explain to me why Georgie’s on her way to Helsinki, and then you’re going to tell me why you’re not with her.”
“She yelled at us and told us not to come, that we were just your spies,” Lewis explained. I was finally getting to the point where I could distinguish their voices over the phone.
“You’re not telling me why she left the White House.”
“She’s angry, sir,” Jenkins added. There was a hint of hesitation in his voice but also defensiveness as well. They spent all their time with her, unofficial members of her staff, and they were protective over her. I saw it whenever they were together. One would always be on either side of her. It made me worry less about Georgie.
“Why is she angry?” And why the hell couldn’t my own fiancée bother to pick up the phone and call me herself?
“Because, since you left, you’ve largely ignored her. You haven’t called her to check in, like you normally do. And there’s also the implication that you are somehow having an affair with Lauren.”
“What? Of course, I’ve called, but every time I do, she never answers. I always get her voicemail.”
“Sir, with all due respect, she hasn’t gotten any of those phone calls. Prior to the science fair, she checked her phone multiple times a day. She was miserable and sick too.”
“Sick? Georgie is sick?”
In the background, I heard them muttering, like they were trying to hide something from me.
“What aren’t you telling me, gentlemen?” I pressed.
“I’m sure she’s fine now. She probably had the flu or something,” Jenkins quickly scrambled to explain.
“If you’re hiding something from me, then you’re both in deep shit.” Then I remembered they said something about Lauren. “Why are people saying that I’m having an affair with Lauren?”
“Tom Clayton, sir. He’s been spreading some nasty rumors.”
I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to shake away the burning rage that surged immediately through me. I’ve been made a fool of by people in my administration, and that was going to end.
“I want you both on a flight to Helsinki tonight. Do not leave her alone with Max. And if she’s sick, then let me know immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” they both replied in unison.
This morning was shot. I slipped off my dress shoes because whatever meetings I had this morning needed to be rescheduled. Someone was seriously fucking with my life, and I wouldn’t be able to concentrate unless I pounded the pavement. Or the treadmill.
I sent Sean a message, asking him to reschedule all my morning meetings. Then I changed into my running gear and cued up some of the newest additions from Georgie on my phone. She knew exactly what I needed to help me focus during my runs. Then I headed to the hotel gym.
Hours after my head was clear, I met privately with just Sean. If someone was trying to topple my administration, then he was the only person I could trust.
“I think Lauren is trying to double-cross me,” I confided in him.
“What do you mean?”
I explained my thoughts to him, which were the product of my run. Lauren was tasked with updating me on all the nasty news related to Georgie. I wanted to know who was saying what and when. That wasn’t happening anymore, if Tom Clayton was making the rounds, spreading his conspiracy theories. And if she knew what he was saying about Georgie, then she knew what was being said about me. That made her complicit.
“And then I want you to get us new phones. Lewis and Jenkins told me that Georgie wasn’t receiving my phone calls, so someone has tampered with them. Go directly to the head of the NSA or Secret Service. Don’t talk to a million people about this, Sean. I want to talk to my girl, and I want to do it now.”
He nodded his agreement between scribbling in his notebook. I was livid, angry that Georgie had done something so inherently reckless, like travel across the world without telling me. But I was also scared, not only because Lewis and Jenkins said that she was sick but because our communication was compromised. What if something happened to her? How would I find out? When would I find out? And if there was some plan to bring down my administration, then Georgie was potentially in danger. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I heard her voice.
“Lewis and Jenkins are on their way to her right now,” I told Sean. I didn’t even trust the agents assigned to her. What if they were somehow compromised?
“I want to talk to her Sean, tonight.” And then I tried to focus on what I was supposed to be accomplishing—world peace and preventing nuclear proliferation.
During my meetings, Sean slipped me a folder. Discreetly, I opened it and my eyes nearly bulged out of my head. There was Georgie, looking pale and miserable, cuddled up with Max Edison on the tarmac of a private airfield in Helsinki. That was exactly what I didn’t need to see. I could feel my jaw tense painfully as I glanced at each picture. I quickly closed the folder and slid it under the stack in front of me. No more.
There were still a few more hours before Lewis and Jenkins arrived in Finland and made their way to Georgie. No doubt, she was going to be pissed that I sent them. But I’d rather have her pissed off at me than the unacceptable alternative.
When my meeting ended, I asked Sean for a status update on the to-do list that I gave him.
“The phone thing is going to take a while. The NSA wants her phone first. I can ask Lewis or Jenkins to take it and send it in, but you’ll have to communicate through them.”
That wasn’t an ideal solution. In fact, it wasn’t a solution at all. My feet were itchy—I needed another run.
“Fine. I want Lauren gone and Bart here,” I instructed him.
“Yes, sir.” It was odd to hear him call me ‘sir’ because I never felt like his superior. Even when I outranked him during our military years, he was always my equal. I knew that ‘sir’ only came out when he was serious and focused.
“I’ll take care of her termination when I return. I don’t care what you tell her as long as she’s on a plane first thing in the morning. And put someone on her. I want her watched. I want to know what she does and who she is talking to. Especially if she’s not denying that we’re having an affair.”
The urge to go out and run myself ragged was strong, but as long as I could keep up this stream of conscience listing of things for Sean to do, I could resist it. My mind kept bringing up picture after picture of Georgie and Max. How sick she looked, and how comfortable he looked with his arms around her.
“And burn those photographs, okay? I don’t want to see them again.”
“That’s going to be hard, James,” Sean said hesitantly.
“Why?”
“’Cause they’re all over the European tabloids.” Sean turned his laptop toward me, and there was my nightmare splashed across the screen.
“Cancel the rest of my trip,” I said, right before I picked up his computer and threw it across the room.