Roman paced the library at the manor house, looking out the window over the empty front drive before glancing again at the clock. Three o’clock in the fucking morning. Three! Did the woman sleep? Gus had been up early this morning for a critical meeting, so she should be pretty fucking tired, and yet she wasn’t tucked in her bed like a good girl. Nope, Augustine Spencer was traipsing around London—no idea exactly where—partying the night away. Goddamn it.

“I’m going to put a tracking chip in her.” Zack paced the room. If he kept it up, he’d wear out the carpet. “I can do it, too. I’m the motherfucking president of the United States. If I want someone’s location pinpointed at any hour of any given day, I’ll make that happen. And if I tell someone to stay put, she’d goddamn better stay put.” He stared out the window, his face tight with worry. “I’m only trying to protect her.”

He’d never seen Zack quite so angry and off balance. If he hadn’t been horrifically pissed at Gus, Roman might have found the situation amusing. It wasn’t often his pal dropped his presidential demeanor, but when Liz was involved it seemed to happen more and more lately.

“I know. When all of this is over and she’s happy, healthy, and alive, she’ll thank you.”

“I suspect after the past few days that we might be done.” Zack’s laugh held no humor at all. “I’ve loved that woman for years, and now she hates me. I’ll never get to kiss her even once.”

“Well, I know what that’s like.”

Zack turned, his eyes narrowing. “No, you don’t.”

He should let it go. Zack was on the edge, and Roman knew now wasn’t the time to poke at a touchy topic likely to lead to a verbal brawl. But he wasn’t in the mood to swallow the argument down. “Of course I do. You know I loved Joy.”

“Are we finally going to do this?” Zack took a long drink and then set the crystal glass down with a smack. “Maybe we should. Fucking honesty is long overdue.”

Was Zack tipsy? He rarely had more than one drink. Perhaps two, if the day was almost over and he knew he could go straight to bed. Tonight he’d had several. Roman had watched him all night at the dinner with the American ambassador and several of the PM’s senior aides. He’d been seated next to a gorgeous woman and hadn’t paid a bit of attention to her. He’d spent the entire night sipping Scotch and checking his phone as though waiting for some vital communication.

Had he been trying to text Elizabeth all night? Was the president of the United States behaving like a lovesick schoolboy?

“I think we should get you to bed. I’ll call Connor. He and I will find Liz and Gus.”

Zack sighed. “You didn’t love Joy, you big moron. Oh, I know you would have married her if I hadn’t, but you didn’t love her and that was exactly why you would have married her.”

Roman gritted his teeth. “That’s not true.”

“Oh, face it, man. This is your last chance and you’re fucking it up.”

“Last chance?” But he knew deep down what Zack meant, and Roman didn’t want to talk about it. Hell, he didn’t even want to think about it.

“With Gus, damn it.” Zack kept coming at him verbally, glaring at him as if he’d turned part idiot. “I loved Joy as much as I could. But she was not the woman for me. Or for you. She was smart and kind and patient—everything most men could want from a wife. And I didn’t feel any passion for her at all. She didn’t feel any for me. I don’t know if Joy was even capable of that.” Zack clammed up, then glanced down at the table where his drink sat. “This woman is going to drive me crazy.”

So Zack was back to mooning over his press secretary. Little surprise. Roman tried to refocus his friend. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means Liz is driving me to drink.”

Roman sighed, searching for patience. “That wasn’t what I was asking.”

Zack slanted him a challenging stare. “Tell me you ever felt an ounce of true passion for Joy.”

“Of course I did.”

“Bullshit. You had a hard-on for the idea of her, not the woman herself. And even that’s a crock of crap.” Zack tossed his hands in the air and resumed pacing. “God, how are we still here? How are we still stuck staring into our Scotches with long faces, denying ourselves everything our hearts want?”

Roman tried to hold on to his temper. Zack didn’t understand. He probably never would. “You might be. But you’re wrong about my feelings for Joy. You don’t really grasp what I want.”

“Is that what you think?” Zack scoffed. “You want a marriage that’s the polar opposite of your parents’. You want a wife who won’t fight with you, who never turns your gut inside out. You want to spend your life with a woman who’s incapable of making you wish you hadn’t met her one minute, and then forces you to realize that you can’t live without her in the next. You, my dense friend, want to feel nothing. You want a housekeeper, hostess, and cook you have sex with, one who wears your ring on her finger like a trophy and doesn’t tug on your heart at all.”

“That’s pretty fucking hypocritical coming from a man who chose the same path.”

“I did, and you know what? I regret it. I didn’t wait long enough. I wasn’t patient, or maybe I just didn’t believe in love. Life is all about perspective, isn’t it? I know you hated the seemingly endless cycle of your parents’ breakups and makeups. Their fighting and the resulting upheaval. But I saw something different. I saw passion. I saw two people who loved each other so much they were willing to fight every day and never give up the struggle to make their marriage work. My parents never did that. My father was the head of the household and when my mother became a problem, he decided she was no longer an asset. So he sent her to a mental ward. Tidy and clinical. Cold. Ruthless.”

Roman conceded that Zack’s father had been downright arctic where Constance was concerned, but his friend didn’t understand what it was like to grow up with constant bellowing and shrieking rattling the walls. To this day, he had recurring nightmares about the stairs vibrating under his feet with the thunder of his parents’ shouted obscenities and slurs while he sat praying they wouldn’t kill each other. The next morning, he’d often creep from his room, expecting another bloody battle in World War III, only to find them sharing a kiss so fiery they’d forgotten he even existed.

“You and Joy were never chilly strangers.”

“No, we were friends. We cared deeply for each other and shared common interests. We were compatible because we had one mutual goal to bind us together: the White House. That was all we talked about, all we planned for. We had sex maybe twenty times our entire marriage.”

Roman felt his jaw drop. They’d been married for six years before her death. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m pretty sure you and Gus went at it more than that the first week you started sleeping together. You can discount that kind of passion all you like, but I can’t live without it anymore. I can’t be this hollow on the inside for the rest of my life. I need Liz to come back.” Zack cast an agitated glance out the window again.

Roman watched numbly. Oh, his first week with Gus. He remembered those golden days with perfect clarity, as if they had just happened yesterday. The two of them had gotten into a horrible argument about politics. One minute she’d been calling him a blind nationalist who couldn’t see the future because his head was too far up Zack’s ass…and the next he was tearing off her clothes and thrusting as deep into her as he could manage on the kitchen table.

He’d been so desperate. He hadn’t wanted sex with Augustine. He’d needed it. He’d had to have it or he would fucking die.

And that had scared the shit out of him.

Roman stood. “I didn’t know about you and Joy.”

Zack took a deep breath and turned. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I went into the marriage knowing exactly what it would be. I expected peace. What I didn’t expect was the emptiness. I truly loved her, but I was never in love with her. Then, when I met Elizabeth, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.”

“Augustine isn’t Elizabeth,” Roman insisted.

“And you aren’t me. But Elizabeth drives me crazy.”

“The way Gus makes me insane,” he admitted.

“But in a good way…if you’d let her.” Zack shook his head. “I see you making the same mistakes over and over. It damn near kills me. What the hell are you doing with Darcy Hildebrandt? A woman like that would put you to sleep for the rest of your life.”

“I’m not doing anything with her except working and being polite. Why does everyone assume there’s something going on between us?”

“Because I watched you with her tonight.”

Roman couldn’t BS Zack—or himself. He’d paid careful attention to Darcy. The woman had been nice to a fault. She never raised her voice and she knew how to make a man feel as if he was in control, powerful. She checked a lot of the boxes on his list.

Damn it. Even listening to his own thoughts, he sounded like he needed therapy. Or a swift kick. He didn’t want to be this asshole.

“Are you going to date her?”

“No.” Roman couldn’t. While he admitted that Darcy interested him on some level, she didn’t intrigue him. She didn’t tie him in knots and make him sweat. She certainly didn’t make him hard, like Augustine, who was so close he could almost taste her. “I want Gus. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”

“Why the fuck should you stop yourself? I understand the past. We were all young and stupid and ambitious, but I’m going to ask the only question that matters now. Are you happy?”

“Of course.” Wasn’t he? He’d accomplished everything he’d promised his ladder-climbing twenty-something self he would. He’d reached the pinnacle of power.

“Well, I’m not. I’m done. When we get back to the States next week, I’m going to announce that I won’t seek a second term. Maybe if the Russians figure out I’m not going to play these games anymore, they’ll let up.”

Roman stopped, his whole world tilting askew. All of their lives, they’d worked to be here. When other kids had dreamed about being baseball players or rock stars, he and Zack had dreamed of the White House. Now Zack intended to throw it all away without a fight? “How could you make a decision like this without consulting me?”

Zack slumped back on the couch. “I don’t know what to do, Roman. Some moments I think that’s the right move. Others…I’m not sure if announcing I won’t seek a second term would launch the conspirators’ plans into more rapid motion. The not knowing is killing me.”

Roman sat beside him. There was zero chance he would allow Zack to give up his second term. They still had a lot of work to do for the people, policies to implement that would make a difference in Americans’ lives. Zack was a popular president who knew how to get things done. And Roman would protect his friend’s legacy, as always. That meant dealing with the situation they found themselves mired in now.

“I’ll figure this out and take care of everything,” he promised Zack. “I leave for Homewood Sanatorium the day after tomorrow. I’ve got myself set up at a B and B. It’s way out in the country. I doubt anyone there will know who I am. I’m going to figure out what happened to your mother. Maybe then we’ll know who’s coming for you.”

“And why. I want to know why.” Zack looked older than his years, a deep crease of worry furrowing his brow. “I want to know why all these people around me had to die. What do these assholes want? Why did they put me here? Roman, what if I’m not Zack Hayes?”

His stomach flipped. He’d looked at the problem from all angles, and this was one of the ugliest scenarios he’d considered. “You are. I don’t care what happens or what comes out of this investigation. You’ve got to be Zack Hayes.”

“What if I’m really Sergei?” He finally voiced the question, his tone strained and hollow.

This was the possibility they’d all begun to fear. “You’re Zack.”

“Natalia Kuilikov gave birth to a son around the same time I was born. Her child died, according to all the records. And yet when Connor and Lara talked to her, she still spoke fondly about her Sergei, as if he was still alive.”

This was the most compelling evidence they had to support the conclusion that Zack was actually the son of his former Russian nanny, but it was all circumstantial. With one bullet, the Russians had ensured that Natalia would never talk to anyone ever again.

The only other way to know for certain, comparing DNA samples, was impossible. The president of the United States couldn’t demand the genetic material of a dead Russian citizen who’d cared for him as an infant without raising brows and setting chins wagging. And since Franklin had given away everything of Constance’s shortly after her death, Zack had no hairs from a brush or the like with which to compare her genetic material to his. Nor could he exhume her body for answers since she’d been cremated. Even if he could, turning up graves wouldn’t go unnoticed—either by the press or his enemies. “We don’t know for certain if that was her son’s name.”

“We don’t know it wasn’t, either. I remember my mother babbling about a baby dying. She did that when she was drunk. She’d also weep, apologize. I didn’t understand. My father never explained. When Mom got on a jag, he’d hustle her out of the room before I could ask questions. But recalling those times got me thinking. What if Constance’s baby died and I’m the one they replaced him with?”

“No.” It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. That would make Zack a non-American born on Russian soil, and thus constitutionally unable to serve as POTUS. He’d be impeached. Dishonored. The repercussions of that were too horrible for Roman to even contemplate. “Impossible. You look so much like your father.”

“We both know my father likely had an affair with Natalia Kuilikov. God knows he was never faithful or even terribly discreet. Maybe he got her pregnant, and I’m the result. It would explain so much. If that’s true, the Russians would have the perfect reason to ensure I made it to the White House. Once I was sworn in, they had a nearly foolproof way to blackmail me into doing whatever they want. Which could be anything. We have sanctions against Russia right now. Putin is looking to expand his power base. They could ask me to look the other way as he annexes another part of the old Soviet block. They might want me to pull out of NATO altogether. I won’t do it. They’ll have to kill me before I’ll betray my country.”

Roman clenched his fists. Zack had been thinking about this possibility a lot, and he hated to admit it…but this theory made far too much sense. “Have you asked your father?”

“Asked him what?” He laughed, the sound bitter. “He’s not in his right mind. Hell, most days I’m the only person he remembers.”

Once it was clear the dementia had completely overtaken Frank Hayes’s mind, they’d tried to put him in a memory care facility. But the man was a master of escape. Once he slipped out and tasted freedom, he inevitably found himself surrounded by the press. Or maybe the scumsuckers found him and took advantage of the old man’s state. Either way, reporters snapped pictures of him walking the streets in his robe and slippers, ranting that his son was never around.

Whenever he and Zack secured Frank in the White House, the man was calmer, as though proximity to the son he’d invested his life in quieted the demons ravaging his brain. He still had moments of lucidity. Not many, but every so often Roman would hear Frank talk about how proud he was of his son and share a fond memory or two. “But there are times he remembers the past.”

“They’re getting fewer and further between. Let’s see what we can find out while we’re in the UK,” Zack replied. “If we come up short, once we’re Stateside again I’ll try to probe him about the past. Maybe he’ll have useful information, if he can recall anything. I spoke to his nurse earlier tonight. Seems he’s okay right now. He thinks I’m in another part of the White House working.”

Frank could be difficult when his son was gone. They’d catch him roaming the halls, looking for Zack—his last link to a normal life.

The gravity of the political tangle they were in sucked the air from the room. Roman shifted and glanced at the clock again. Worrying about Gus was far preferable to worrying about Zack’s future as the leader of the free world. Not that he could keep his mind off the vixen for more than a minute or two.

“Where the fuck are they?” Zack asked, in sync with him as always. “I should have left her at home.”

“If you had, you wouldn’t have been able to watch over her. We shouldn’t let Gus too far out of our sight, either. Her father already lost his life over this plot. I can’t lose her too.” He sat back, realizing how possessive and protective his words had come out. “I mean, Dax… He couldn’t handle losing his sister.”

“Sure you did, buddy. Let me give you some advice. Ditch the Brit for tomorrow’s event. Take Gus instead. Bend a little. You know you want her. You’re both older and wiser. Try again.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Even if I do, it’s got to be kept quiet. The last thing we need is the scandal pages making a big deal out of me dating someone who… Well, we all know the rumors.”

“Are you serious? Fuck the rumors. You know damn well they aren’t true.”

“Some of them are. She did sleep with Mad. And everyone in the free world thinks she had sex with you, too. Do you want some rag putting together one of those maps connecting us with a million and one lines running through Augustine’s square?”

“So we’re back to me being a whore. Nice.”

Roman whipped around to the sound of her voice. Naturally Gus chose that moment to stroll in. Liz followed her. Both women looked stunning in low-cut designer cocktail dresses made to catch the attention of any heterosexual man with freaking eyes. Liz’s blonde hair flowed around her like a halo while Gus’s sun-stroked brown curls and vampy lipstick made her look like sultry sin personified. The angel and the she-devil. They’d likely had every man in London panting after them.

“Elizabeth, I thought I made myself clear.” Zack stood, his eyes turning steely. “You were to stay here unless you’re working, and then you are only allowed to leave if someone I approve of accompanies you.”

“They were out having a few drinks.” Connor sauntered in behind them with an easy smile, waving a hand as though telling them to cool off. “And they weren’t alone. They had three Secret Service agents with them. They weren’t even far, just a couple of blocks away.”

Roman could bet they’d had a Secret Service escort. He knew a few of the detail would have had time off tonight. Had Augustine gone looking for Matthew Kemp? Had she spent the evening flirting with him? Making arrangements to meet up with him later for a hot fuck?

“Then why the hell didn’t you find them more quickly?” Zack asked. “You’ve been gone for hours.”

“I spotted them about an hour ago. I thought they deserved some time out, like the rest of us. As neither one of these lovely ladies is attached, I didn’t see any reason I should play dad and drag them home like wayward girls. So I watched over them and let them have some fun,” Connor replied, his tone even.

“That wasn’t what I asked you to do. I asked you to find them and bring them back immediately,” Zack spit out. “And Elizabeth, if you disobey me one more time, you’ll find yourself in custody.”

Liz frowned. “With the same hot Secret Service guys we just spent the evening with? Count me in, Mr. President.” She gave him a terribly sarcastic salute. “And I’ll be up bright and early. I know you have a date tomorrow night. We’ll need to make sure your tux is pressed and you’re presentable. You’ve clearly done some drinking tonight. I’ll make sure the cook brings you my momma’s patented hangover cure.”

“I’m not drunk,” Zack shot back.

It didn’t slip past Roman that this was the same argument Zack and Liz had earlier, the roles merely reversed.

“Still, your date tomorrow night is barely twenty-two. We’ll need to work overtime to ensure you don’t look like a creepy old man next to her. You getting so little sleep won’t help the cause.” Liz turned to Gus with a hug. “Thanks for tonight. I had a blast. I’ll see you in a few hours, and we’ll go over our schedule.”

Gus winked her way. “Bright and early, sister.”

Liz stopped when she reached Connor. “Thank you for giving us breathing room and time. It was good for me to see some of the world and realize how many possibilities are out there. I appreciate it very much.”

“I meant what I said, Elizabeth.” Zack seemed determined to get the last word.

“You always do, Mr. President. Right up until the moment your words become an inconvenience. Don’t worry. I won’t give you trouble and I’m done making a fool of myself. I thank you for being so concerned about my and Augustine’s welfare that you would send your friend after us. I’m so sorry you had to wait up. Bless your heart.” With that parting shot, Liz turned on her heels and strode away.

Roman winced and glanced at Zack. Yeah, he knew Liz’s last words were the Deep South’s equivalent of fuck you.

Gus smoothed out her skirt, using the gesture to smother a laugh. “On that happy note, I’ll go to bed myself. You two can continue plotting world domination or whatever.”

“No, you’re going to stay right here because we’re having a talk,” Roman insisted. It was time to put his foot down. He couldn’t tell her why they were acting this way, but he could damn straight let her know he wouldn’t put up with her rebellion anymore.

“Zack, I think you should go to bed. Liz is right about that woman you’re seeing tomorrow. She’s really young. You’re going to need stamina to keep up with her,” Connor said.

“I don’t need fucking stamina and you know it. I’m not touching that girl. Cancel the whole thing.” Zack started out the door, Connor hard on his heels explaining why that plan wouldn’t work.

“Darcy will be super sad if you cancel,” Gus pointed out. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint that sweet little thing.”

He wasn’t taking the bait. “Since that party tomorrow night is meant to welcome us to England, you know we can’t cancel. So let’s skip that subject and get to something worth discussing. What kind of stunt were you up to tonight, sneaking away?”

“Why is Zack acting like a massive ass? You answer my question and I’ll answer yours.” She tossed him a saucy glance over her shoulder as she approached the bar.

Roman gaped. “Are you kidding me? Connor just dragged you out of one bar and here you are pouring yourself another drink?”

“Is it hard to be that sanctimonious?” Gus mused as she filled her glass with two fingers of Scotch. “Do you have to shove the two by four up your ass all by yourself or do you have an aide do it for you?”

“I’m not joking, Gus.”

“I can leave, if you’d rather. I won’t be near a bar then.”

“Stop being such a smart ass. Why did you and Liz pull that disappearing act tonight?”

“What are you worried about, Roman? Two single women painting the town without—gasp—male escorts. I mean, our female minds could have gotten us into all kinds of trouble…”

“That’s not what I meant. Don’t play coy or stupid. And don’t pretend you’re innocent.”

She stood there, crystal glass in hand, all those gorgeous curves barely encased by the silk of her cocktail dress. “Of course I’m not. We both know what you think of me. I might as well wear a scarlet A on my chest. And if I keep this scandalous behavior up, I’ll ruin poor virginal Elizabeth.”

Why did she have to take everything he said or did and twist it in the darkest way? “I didn’t say that. That’s certainly not what I meant. And I’m sorry for what you overheard when you walked into the room. I simply don’t want all our personal issues aired in the press. I hate that.”

“You’re embarrassed to have slept with me. I know. You made yourself plain years ago.”

“Damn it, Gus, that is not what I said or what I’m trying to convey. I only insisted that I don’t want someone drafting a chart with lines drawn to show whom we’ve all slept with. If that makes me some kind of prude, then so be it. Hell, the last few years I have been a damn prude.” He needed to get back to the point. “But you can’t take Liz out like that.”

“Why?”

“It’s not safe,” he hedged.

She shook her head, her expression telling him she found his assertion terrifically stupid. “We were two blocks away, talking to Secret Service agents. We had a couple of drinks and some dinner with them. Apparently most of the time we had Connor watching over us, as well. How exactly were we not safe?”

“Did it occur to you at all that you’re a high-value target?” He had to try something. He couldn’t spend the entire visit running after her to make sure she wasn’t getting into trouble…or Matthew Kemp’s bed.

She snorted. “No. That did not occur to me. What’s smacking me between the eyes right now, however, is your paranoia. Again, we were with Secret Service agents.”

He couldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t a part of Zack’s inner circle. If this conspiracy had been going on for as long as he suspected, the Russians would most assuredly have a sleeper agent inside the president’s detail.

“Is that why you went out, to get close to those boys? Gus, please don’t make me fire them.”

“Why would you do that? As far as I can tell, they’re perfectly competent.”

“Yes, but I swear to god if I catch one of them looking at you twice, I will strip his credentials and march his ass out in a heartbeat.”

Gus slammed down her glass. It clattered against the bar. “Nice. You don’t want me but you damn sure don’t want anyone else to have me, either.”

That was where she was wrong. “Who said I didn’t want you? I wish I could stop wanting you. I want you every minute of every day, and I have since the moment I laid eyes on you.”

She shook her head at him. “So I’m like heroin? You know I’m bad for you but sometimes you just need a fix?”

“I didn’t say that, either, Gus.” He was so tired. Why did they always fight?

Roman sank down to the seat Zack had vacated and wished he could tell her everything. He’d give almost anything to stop keeping secrets that put him on one side of the fence and her squarely on the other. But he couldn’t do that without risking her safety. The more she knew, the more the Russians might see her as a target. Hell, he’d even settle for telling her that one of the reasons he’d convinced Zack to hire her three years ago had been simply because he missed her so fucking much after all these years. If he did, the way things were now between them, Gus would never believe it. Or she’d laugh in his face. Or maybe they’d fall into bed.

He wasn’t sure which outcome to fear most.

Even as he’d fallen in love with Joy, some part of him had ached for Gus. Sometimes he was sure he’d convinced himself he was in love with Joy because she was Gus’s opposite, and if his heart belonged to Joy then he couldn’t possibly still be hung up on his sexy, sassy Louisiana beauty. Because Joy had never once made him angry. She’d never challenged him. He had never yelled at her because she’d never given him a reason to. Joy certainly had never made him want to rip his own heart out so he didn’t have to feel so fucking much for her.

He was a coward.

“Go to bed, Roman. You’re tired. You can yell at me again in the morning,” Gus said with a sigh.

“I don’t want to yell at you.” He debated the wisdom of his words, then realized he couldn’t help himself. “I want us to be friends again.”

She sank down on the sofa beside him, leaving plenty of space between them. “I don’t know that we were ever friends. I think we were lovers, and I thought we could be something more at one time. But that’s long over. Now, we need to try to be good coworkers.”

Bland. Boring. He didn’t want to be her coworker. He wanted the right to touch her, make love to her, call her his. So dangerous… “And when we’re not working together?”

“Then we see each other at weddings and birthdays. We wish one another well.” She shrugged. “We send Christmas cards if we ever find the time to and think about that crazy year we spent together with fondness.”

“Is that how you remember us? Do you feel any affection at all?”

A wistful smile crept across her lips before it fell away. “Sometimes, but not often. I usually recall it as a cautionary tale.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“And yet you did it so well. I think what you truly mean is you never thought I could be hurt at all.”

“I thought I was one of your many boy toys,” he admitted because they were finally talking about the past. Even more surprising, no one was yelling. “There was a part of me that worried you viewed our year together as nothing more than my turn with you.”

She stared at him, rearing back for an instant. He felt the heavy weight of her judgment. “Of course. Because I’m something to be passed around, like a joint at a party. All your friends get a hit, right?”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” How could he make her understand? Everything between them was fucked up. He knew that, just like he knew he probably couldn’t change it. But that was also a year of his life he wouldn’t take back. “I knew you’d been with Mad. I heard the rumor you’d been with Zack, too. I rather thought you were working your way through us all. I know that sounds like I’m some misogynistic prick, but by that time there were women trying their damnedest to do it. Women who viewed us as trophies.”

“Oh, believe me. I knew some of them. Not a one of you argued with them or protested their ill treatment of you.”

Because they’d been young and stupid, and he’d never imagined the consequences. “You’re right. Back in those days, they were lovely, and we really only thought about fun while we plotted our futures. I admit I happily sent a few of those women right down the line. But not you. Never you. That should tell you something.”

“Yes, it tells me you didn’t want to upset Dax by shoving his sister in the same lot with the good-time girls.”

There it was, the frustration. Why couldn’t they have a straightforward conversation? She never listened to him. She always told him what he must be feeling—and she usually made it some insult he’d never intended at all. This was how their fights started, damn it. Roman was tired of the pattern.

“No. Listen to the truth instead of inventing your own. I was jealous. Brutally, blindingly jealous that Mad had you first, and when I heard about Zack, I wanted to kill him. My best friend.”

Her eyes softened and so did the tone of her voice. “You know, I spread those rumors about Zack to save a friend, right? She was a preacher’s daughter, and he would have been very upset to find out the scooter he’d gifted her with on her sixteenth birthday had been used as a prop in the first sexual encounter of the future president of the United States. When the whispers started and everything nearly went to hell, she called me and I saved both their asses.”

He nodded, thrilled with her honesty. In the past she would have flipped him the bird and told him to fuck himself. That nasty well of resentment inside him cooled from a boil to a simmer.

“Yeah, Zack admitted as much later on.” Roman couldn’t help but laugh. “He was never any good at physics. If he’d paid attention in class, he would have known that scooter wasn’t going to hold the two of them while they fucked.”

Gus’s lips turned up in a brilliant grin. “He also should have turned it off. I hear he still has scars on his ass from the scooter taking off and him falling buck naked into the dirt.”

“Oh, don’t forget the poison ivy he got, too.” He turned to her, their knees brushing. It felt good to sit and talk with her, just be with her, nothing but laughter between them for this sweet moment. “Why did you do it? Why did you take the fall for her?”

“Well, it was fun to watch Dax make that terrible face he always does when he thinks he’s about to throw up. He goes green. I live for that.” When he raised a brow, she caught his stare and sighed. “Fine. I did it because I didn’t care what other people thought of me. Because I learned at a young age that the people who love me won’t stop, despite the silly antics I get into. They’ll still embrace me even if I don’t conform to what society thinks a good girl should be. And the people who don’t love me don’t matter, Roman. Ally was raised to believe that her father was the be-all, end-all authority figure and there were strict rules she had to abide by in order to keep his affection. By taking the blame, I spared her that lesson…though not forever. She married a man her father didn’t approve of and he cut her off. I believe his crime was being Jewish, and Daddy wouldn’t stand for that. So much for his ‘love.’ I don’t think Ally has seen her father in years.”

“But she’s seen you.” He could guess. Gus collected strays. She was that person who everyone communicated through because she cared enough to reach out. She kept all her friends together.

“Of course.”

Friendship meant something to Augustine. She was loyal and kind. And she was fierce. If she thought a friend was in trouble, she would send in armies to save them. Or Secret Service agents. She’d done that with her brother and Holland. When he’d found out how carefully she’d plotted to watch over Holland, he’d been blown away by the lengths the woman had gone to.

She was also no damsel in distress. Augustine Spencer waited for no one to save her when she could so competently save herself.

It used to make him feel small. When he was younger, he’d so desperately wanted to be the one who saved the girl. Now that he was older, he could see how nice it would be to have a woman who didn’t need to cling, who saw a potential disaster and simply handled it.

God, he wanted to talk to her about what was happening with Zack and the other Perfect Gentlemen. She’d probably be an asset. But he and the other guys had all agreed to keep the circle closed.

“But you can’t be friends with me?” he asked. “You still talk to people you haven’t seen in years, but we can’t be friendly?”

“You don’t honestly like me, Roman. You can cast any light you like on our year together, but I know the truth. People who are merely having fun don’t sleep together for an entire year,” she pointed out. “They don’t make up any excuse to see other. They don’t sneak in and out of each other’s beds so often they lose track and can’t remember whose house they’re at. If I’d been anyone else in the world, you would have called me your girlfriend. You would have introduced me around and openly dated me.”

Was she right? It had only been after she’d left him that Roman wished he had made more of their relationship than writing it off as a year-long hurricane of lust, sex, and anger. No one brought out the fight in him quite like Gus. At the time, that had seemed like such a destructive force.

“Do you know much about my parents?”

“Only what Dax and Mad told me. I know they fought a lot. Lots of couples fight. I also know they’re still married.”

They’d mellowed some over the years. Now his father was retired and they seemed to lead a more peaceful life. “They would fight like cats and dogs, so viciously I was actually afraid they might kill each other.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Was it an abusive relationship?”

“Only when there was alcohol involved…but that was often. My mom would slap my dad then he would slap her back. And then after more screaming that would rattle the house, they would end up having unavoidably loud sex. In the morning, they’d act as if nothing had happened. They’re better now. Mom doesn’t drink at all and Dad limits himself to a beer or two, but when I’m with them all I can remember is how hard it was to sleep at night not knowing if they would both be alive when I woke up. I wondered a lot about how that cycle started. Did it begin when my father reached out in the middle of a fight and somehow threw my mom off balance? Maybe the next time he did it on purpose. I worry that I learned something terrible from him I never meant to.”

“Roman, that was forever ago. It was an accident. Believe me, if I’d thought for a second what happened on those stairs wasn’t a mishap, you would have felt my wrath.” Some unnamed emotion crossed her face and he could have sworn he saw a sheen of tears blanket her eyes before she blinked them away. She reached out, patting his arm. “So you’re saying you dumped me because we fought a lot?”

How long had he waited to have this conversation? “I didn’t dump you at all. I mean, I didn’t intend to.”

She huffed, an indignant sound. “Please. You were going on a double date with Zack the next night.”

He’d forgotten about that. How? That was the night he’d met Joy. Yet he couldn’t summon up a single memory of how the introduction—or the evening—had gone. He couldn’t remember her friend’s name or what restaurant they’d gone to. All he could remember about that night was how miserable he was knowing he wouldn’t see Augustine again. “I never intended that date to lead to anything meaningful. I was helping out Zack.”

“By your own admission, you were auditioning wives, Roman.”

“Well, I didn’t do a particularly good job, did I? Here I am, all these years later with absolutely no one at my side.”

She stood up abruptly, her movements stiff. “Yeah, well, you found your perfect woman and you let her marry your best friend.”

He felt his stomach knot. She knew about that? “I cared about Joy. I won’t lie, but it’s been pointed out to me lately that I had underlying reasons for the attraction.”

“She was the opposite of me, I suppose.”

He stood, unable to hold back another minute. He hated the distance she was putting between them. The distance he’d put between them long ago. “Damn it, Augustine. Yes. She wasn’t like you and I was trying my hardest to forget you. I was trying so hard not to remember how it felt to touch you, to have your body against mine, because nothing in my entire life has ever been as exciting as fucking you. Not winning the election. Not running the Oval. Nothing has ever made me feel as alive as you.”

Her eyes had gone cold. “And no one has ever broken me the way you did, Roman.”

No one had ever made her feel small the way he had. No one had ever made her feel used. He was the only one who could bring Augustine down, and he hated that. But didn’t she understand he could do the opposite, too? They were older now. He was better able to handle the kind of relationship they’d have together.

He reached for her. He couldn’t let her walk out on him. Not again. It killed him every single time she left a room because he always felt as if he’d squandered another opportunity to bring her back into his arms again. In persuading Zack to hire her, he’d managed to draw her into his life once more, but she maintained strict distance between. Now he couldn’t let her leave without saying the one thing he should have said all those years ago.

He moved into her space, letting their bodies brush. “Don’t walk away.”

“There’s no reason to stay,” she replied. But her words sounded a little breathless. She wasn’t struggling against him and she wasn’t stepping back. Her cheeks had flushed, her eyes had darkened, the color turning deep.

“There is.” They’d left so much unsaid, undone. It had taken him years, but he’d finally figured out that what he’d had with Gus was good. This might be all he was capable of having with a woman. Moments of pleasure. If he worked it right, they could have a private and a professional relationship, keep the entanglements and the fights to a minimum. “I’m so sorry for the way things ended. I’m sorry for making you feel less than extraordinary because you are, Augustine. You are an amazing woman and I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this. Tell me you don’t feel the same and I’ll let you go.”

“I haven’t missed you.”

But that wasn’t what he’d asked. He leaned in, his lips hovering oh so close to hers. “But did you miss the way you and I feel together? No other woman ever fit me the way you did. They felt awkward in my arms because you were the one I wanted there. I’m not asking if I was your best lover. I’m sure I wasn’t. But don’t tell me you fit together with anyone else the way you did with me. We were built for each other. I can’t stay away from you. I don’t want to hurt you again, but I can’t be in a room with you and not want to touch you. Kiss you. Fuck you.”

Her head tilted slightly and he felt her hands drift to his waist. Her lids fluttered shut. That was all the invitation he needed. He let his mouth find hers and the world seemed to explode.