The president was dancing. Kamal looked on, a smile spreading across his face as he watched, her earbuds in place, ass shaking while she mouthed the words to the song and sifted through papers on the credenza behind her desk.

He scratched his head, not sure how he was supposed to handle the awkward situation now that he was already in the room.

“Oh, dear,” Vanessa Smith, chief of staff, muttered. She rushed all five foot two inches of her compact body across the room, tapping the president on the shoulder.

Jessica Hampton jumped as she spun to face Vanessa. She pulled the earbuds out of her ears. “What is it…” Her voice faded away as she caught sight of Kamal standing at the doorway, smirking.

“Oh.” She swallowed visibly. “Mr. Ambassador.” She smoothed her hands over her red sheath dress, and Kamal couldn’t help but notice how the motion pulled the fabric tight over her lush breasts and small waist.

“Madam President,” he said, taking a few more steps into the room. “I’m sorry to, uh, interrupt you, but I believe we had a meeting for three o’clock?”

The president glanced at Vanessa, who nodded, body stiff and face full of tension.

“Yes, of course,” she said, striding forward with her hand extended. Kamal took the slender thing in his big paw, noticing how slight she was when he was this close. He also noticed that she smelled like lavender and her eyes were a lovely shade of blue—cornflower, he thought they called it in his nephew’s crayon box.

“Vanessa, if you would please ask the staff to send in some tea and cookies?”

“Yes, Madam President,” Vanessa said, handing her boss a file folder.

“Mr. Ambassador.” Jessica gestured to the seating area at one end of the Oval Office and sat on one of the two love seats separated by a coffee table. Kamal took the facing love seat, crossing one long leg over the other knee and sitting back to watch and wait.

As the new Egyptian ambassador to the US, Kamal Masri had an entire list of items to address, but one of the first was the proposed accord between Egypt, Jordan, and Israel—the Millennial Accord—something the US was advocating and the president herself was brokering.

So, it appeared that Kamal would be visiting the White House weekly to hammer out details of the agreement, and he had to admit that if he got to see the president dancing when he did, it was well worth the trip. Jessica Hampton was a beautiful woman, and Kamal definitely enjoyed beautiful women.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Ambassador,” Jessica said.

Kamal gave her his best panty-melting smile. “Of course. The Egyptian government is very interested in finding a way to make this agreement work for all the parties involved.”

He watched her as she maintained a carefully professional expression, her slick red lips curved into a polite but cool smile.

The door to the office opened, and a member of the household staff entered with a tray of tea and cookies. He set the items down on the coffee table and left the room.

“Now,” Jessica began. “I would like to begin with discussing the border along—”

“Your staff disrespects you,” Kamal commented, irritation lacing his voice.

“I beg your pardon?”

Kamal sat forward on the prissy love seat and pinned Jessica with a dark look. “Your staff disrespects you.”

The president’s brow drew down, and her lips pursed. “I’m not sure why you think that my staff’s behavior is any of your business, but regardless of that, you’re wrong.”

“No, they are definitely disrespectful. Your chief of staff didn’t bother to tell you that I was here for our meeting before she let me into the room, thus putting you in the embarrassing position of not being prepared for me.”

The president blushed, and Kamal couldn’t help but notice that it was incredibly appealing.

“And your steward didn’t offer to pour your tea for you. In fact, he didn’t address you at all, simply set the tray down and left. It was rude and disrespectful.”

Jessica sighed. Kamal had to admit in his own mind that it sounded a great deal like the sigh his best friend Derek often gave him.

“Mr. Ambassador—”

“Please call me, Kamal, Madam President.”

“Kamal. I apologize for the way you were introduced to the Oval Office, but that wasn’t Vanessa’s fault. I knew I had an appointment at three p.m., and I simply got distracted.”

He filled her teacup, something that the idiot waiter should have done from the get-go.

“Madam President, you are a head of state. You are, in fact, the head of the greatest state in the world at this point in history. You are permitted to dance around your office whenever and however you choose. And it is the job of your staff to ensure that you have appropriate privacy to do that. No one should ever be allowed entry to your office without your express permission at that moment.”

She blinked at him, seemingly struck speechless.

“And as for your waitstaff, they should absolutely address you when they enter a room, they should serve your food and drink, including placing it on your plate, cup, or glass, and then they should remain standing and ready for further instructions. They should not leave a room until you have dismissed them.”

The president of the United States let out something between a snort and a laugh.

“Mr. Ambassador—”

“Kamal.”

“Kamal. I appreciate your suggestions regarding my staff, but I think you are noting some things that are merely cultural differences in expectations. However, I will certainly take your remarks under consideration.”

Kamal knew that meant she was going to ignore him. Damn obstinate woman. If she was going to bother with being president, she should at least insist on appropriate behavior among her staff. And without a husband to stand behind her and enforce her preferences, the staff would ride roughshod over her. Hell, over the whole nation. As a woman in this office, she needed to be twice as tough and demanding as a man. And that had to start with her own staff.

“Thank you, Madam President,” he murmured, knowing enough to realize when he needed to pull back from a negotiation. But he made a mental note to observe the staff more closely the next time he came to the White House. America needed to treat its pretty president better, and he was certain he could be the man to further that cause.

“Now, shall we look at this issue along the northern border of…”

* * *

“Vanessa!” Jessica yelled out the door of the Oval Office.

“Yes, Madam President,” Vanessa answered almost instantaneously from her desk to the left of the doorway.

“A moment, please?”

“Yes, ma’am?” Vanessa asked as she entered.

Jessica turned and looked at her diminutive chief of staff. Vanessa’s hair was perfectly arranged, her clothes wrinkle free. It was infuriating the way the woman never looked rumpled. Jessica struggled not to look rumpled from the moment she woke until the moment she fell onto her bed for a scant three or four hours of sleep.

“I just had to endure the ambassador from Egypt dressing me down for not controlling my staff well enough.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“You let him into the office without announcing him first. I was—” Jessica held a hand to her forehead, wondering at what point her day had gone so wrong. “Dancing,” she groaned, “for God’s sake. It was humiliating, and then Josh didn’t pour the tea and address me when he came in.”

Vanessa looked at her like she was trying very hard to appear sympathetic but just couldn’t quite pull it off.

“Pour your tea?”

“Yes, you know, like proper British do.”

“Ma’am, we threw the British out a couple of centuries ago over tea. I’m not sure if we should be emulating them in that regard.”

Jessica’s blood pressure spiked for the umpteenth time, and she gritted her teeth. “Yes, Vanessa, thank you. Will you just make sure not to let anyone into the office in the future unless you’ve checked with me beforehand?”

“Of course, Madam President.”

“And tell Josh to learn how to pour the tea before the ambassador comes back next week.”

“Yes, Madam President.”

After Vanessa slunk out of the office, Jessica sat down in her large leather desk chair and laid her head back, closing her eyes. She’d been in office two years and eight months, and never did a day go by that she didn’t wonder what the hell she was doing here.

And now she had this accord to work out with the Egyptians. It was a crucial piece of her plan for stabilization of the Middle East, but damn if she didn’t wish she could pawn it off on her secretary of state. Kamal Masri was going to be a complete pain in her ass.

She thought back to the look on his face when she’d turned around from her booty-shaking exhibition. He’d obviously found the display entertaining—and in more than one way. She hadn’t missed the heat that had flashed in his dark eyes before the smirk took over.

He was an extremely good-looking man, the very definition of tall, dark, and handsome. His hair was perfectly styled, his suit was designer, his shoes buffed to a gleam. The one and only thing that wasn’t the epitome of high-level foreign dignitary was the small gold earring in his left lobe. She’d noticed it immediately because it was out of place. But she could imagine him as a pirate in a billowing white shirt, defined chest on display, tight pants and tall boots, with that earring. He was swarthy, and terribly domineering. He would have made a good pirate.

She opened her eyes, almost surprised to find the empty office still there, her fantasy had been so vivid. And, well, kind of hot.

“Lord, Jessica, pull it together,” she mumbled to herself. The lack of sleep must be getting to her.

The phone chimed, and she lifted the receiver. “Yes?”

“Senator Aronson is here to see you,” her secretary, Adam, drawled.

“Yes, send her in, please.”

The door swung open, and Fiona Aronson blew in like a whirling dervish, long scarlet nails, big Texas hair, and thousand-dollar pumps flying into the world’s most famous office.

“You absolutely will not believe what that prick Jason Arnot is trying to do with the appropriations package we put together,” she bellowed as she grabbed Jessica and gave her air kisses on both cheeks.

“Oh good, cookies,” she exclaimed seeing the remaining platter of cookies that the staff had left after the ambassador had gone. “I’m famished and the damn pro tem won’t give us a dinner break until after eight tonight.”

Jessica shook her head at her best friend. The woman was like a tornado blowing from one town to the next. “Why aren’t you grabbing dinner right now instead of bothering me and eating too many cookies?”

Fiona rolled her eyes in ecstasy as she bit into a chocolate chip and walnut cookie. “Y’all make the best cookies in this place. I swear I never thought I’d find better cookies than my nana’s back in Laredo, but since she’s passed on now, I can say that your White House cookies are actually better than hers.”

Jessica sat in an armchair and looked on, one eyebrow raised as Fiona stuffed a third cookie in her mouth, barely pausing in her word vomit.

“So Jason Arnot wants to take five percent of the education budget and put it into his new program for gun safety training, because of course the federal government is the right entity to be providing gun training to civilians.”

Jessica shook her head. “Don’t worry, that’ll never go anywhere. The other side of the aisle will nix it faster than you can talk.”

“The other side of the aisle loves their guns.”

“But they hate the government. Trust me, they don’t want the feds anywhere near their beloved guns, even for training.” Jessica plucked the last bite of a lemon crème cookie from Fiona’s hand. “And you love your guns too.”

Fiona scowled as she grabbed a macaroon from the platter. “I love my guns on my ranch. Doesn’t mean I think every homeowner in a major metropolitan area should keep five of them.”

Jessica nodded as she again took the last bite of cookie from Fiona. “You’ll thank me later,” she told her as she did it. “So aside from bitching about Arnot, what brings you by in the middle of a very long workday?”

Fiona sat up straighter, eyes sparkling. “Ooh, I thought you’d never ask!”

Jessica knew that voice. She’d been friends with Fiona since they were sorority sisters at Stanford, and that was the voice of trouble coming.

She slouched down in her chair and covered her eyes with her hand, taking a deep breath at the same time. She knew from all those years of experience that all she could do was ride this out.

“I have a friend coming into town. An old friend I’ve known for ten years. He owns a cattle ranch out in California. Old family property, next to the ocean in Big Sur.”

“Mmhm.” Jessica murmured. She saw what was coming. Dreaded it, would do anything to escape it, but time had taught her she had to endure it.

“So, my friend, Cade Jenkins—who is absolutely the handsomest man you’ll ever see—is going to be in town for a few days, meeting with some consultants who are advising him on going organic, and I thought, what if we got together for dinner with him? You, me, Cade—I’ll invite Denny as well, just to round us out.”

Denny was code for double date, because he was Fiona’s on-again, off-again guy, a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry, Fiona adored him until she would get disgusted by something big pharma did, and then she’d refuse to see him until she’d simmered down. Luckily, Denny understood that it wasn’t really about him but his employers, so he was patient with the intermittent fits and starts of their relationship.

Jessica sighed, wishing to all the gods that her best friend in the world wasn’t so obsessed with her love life.

“I don’t date. You know this.”

“It’s not a date,” Fiona sniffed, delicately wiping cookie crumbs from her lap.

“It is. It’s a double date, and I don’t date.”

“Well, why the hell not?” Fiona railed, tossing her hands up in the air. “You’re only thirty-seven years old, you’re beautiful, smart, and probably the most eligible woman on the planet. Why in the world wouldn’t you date?”

Jessica stood and walked to her desk. “Because I’m the president of the United States. I don’t have time to date, and it would be entirely inappropriate for me to date even if I could squeeze it in.”

“You really think the American people don’t want their president to be happy?”

“I really think the American people don’t want to think about any of their presidents having sex or being influenced by a paramour, that’s what I think.”

Fiona sighed, long and loud, staring down at her nails.

“He’s so lovely,” she intoned. “All deliciously tall and sun-kissed. He rides horses and surfs.”

Jessica sat at her desk and put on her reading glasses. “And lives in California, while I live in DC.”

“You won’t forever. You have less than two years left on your term, and we both know you’re not going to run for reelection.”

“You do not know that. I haven’t made any announcements.” Jessica scowled in irritation that her friend was so presumptuous.

“I do know that, because I know you, and I can tell when you’re unhappy.”

“I’m not unhappy.”

Fiona stood and walked to the desk, propping one hip on its edge. “But you don’t love being president.”

The tension headache that had been flirting with Jessica all afternoon gave a squeeze to her temples. “I don’t love being president,” she admitted.

“Well then, you need to start thinking about what your life is going to be like when you’re a former president, and that life ought to include a good-looking, well-to-do, accommodating man.”

Jessica laughed. Fiona had a flare for the dramatic, no doubt. “No Denny. Just the three of us so it doesn’t look like a double date.”

Fiona put her hands up as if the president was holding a gun on her. “Fine. No Denny. Just the three of us, and we can eat here so it’s not even public.”

Jessica nodded, and Fiona hopped up and down and clapped her hands.

A knock sounded on the door, and Vanessa’s head popped in. “Madam President, the president pro tem is looking for Senator Aronson. Shall I tell him she’s here?”

“Oh, Walter,” Fiona scoffed, rolling her eyes. “That old snake. He’s trying to use my absence as a reason to delay the appropriations vote and make me look bad at home.” She leaned down and adjusted the strap on her Louboutins. “Vanessa, be a dear and tell the president pro tem that I will be on the floor in the next fifteen minutes, but I expect there to be a vote before six because I cannot go without dinner until eight o’clock tonight. I might swoon in the middle of the chambers.”

And with that, Senator Aronson blew out in the same fashion she’d blown in.

Vanessa stood in the doorway until the senator was gone. “Ma’am, what would you like us to tell the pro tem’s secretary?”

“Just say that Senator Aronson is on her way to the floor now.”

Vanessa grinned. “Yes, Madam President.”

“And will you please have the scheduling secretaries get in touch with Fiona’s office about a dinner? We’ll be eating here, and she’ll have a guest with her.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Once Vanessa was gone, Jessica opened her web browser and typed in Cade Jenkins. The search brought up several images of a tall, well-built man with dark eyes and sun-bleached hair. In both his ranch clothes—cowboy hat on his head—and his business attire—suit and tie—he was classically handsome. But as the president of the United States looked at his photo, all she could think was that she really preferred pirates.