Secret: A Military Stepbrother Romance (38 page)

“You know, I sort of thought the White House would be different.”

I choke out a laugh and sniff into Jessica’s shoulder. “How so?”

“Oh, less crying, for sure.”

I laugh and squeeze my friend tighter as I try and stop the tears blurring my eyes. 

“Hey,
hey!
” Jess strokes my hair. “You just had some
shit
, girl, I mean you were
attacked
.”

“It’s not that…” I mumble out.

It’s the day after the attack, and we’re back in D.C. Back after being whisked away by Secret Service with a jacket over my head, orders barked around me, and a mad SUV drive through San Francisco. Thirty minutes after leaving the lecture hall, my mother and I were back on Air Force one and in the air, leaving the shattered debris of what happened in our wake.

Leaving Hunter.

There was screaming, and threats, and me trying to fight my way back off the plane. But then there was the physician, telling me to be calm, and then injecting me with something that had me slumping in my seat lost in a dream state the rest of the trip home.

There wasn’t any screaming after that, only silence and my mother pointedly looking out the window.

Jess gives me a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

“No, Jess, it’s not. I humiliated myself.”  

“Nah, you didn’t”

“Are you kidding me? I did! And my mom and everyone else too, and it was all on
national television,
Jess!”

My friend pulls back from me and rolls her eyes. “Dude, you got
saved
on national television by your hunky bodyguard. Or ex-bodyguard or whatever.”

“You mean my stepbrother.”

Jess groans. “Do you
seriously
think anyone cares?”

“Yes?”

“Who? Weirdos and prudes who didn’t and weren’t ever going to vote for your mom anyways? People who you’ll never see, meet, or have anything to do with? C’mon, Mads, what do you care about those people anyways?”

“
I’m
the weirdo, Jess.”

“Right, yeah, you’re totally weird for being attracted to a guy who looks like Hunter Ryan.” She rolls her eyes again. “
So
against the grain being into a tall dark and handsome man with a ripped bod and a military record.” She sticks her tongue out at me as I make a face. “Dude, you’re fixating on the wrong part, will you look at the paper today?”

She opens the
Post
on her phone and shoves it into my hands, and my eyes widen a little at the headline:

‘Hero of the Hour: Decorated Marine Corp Sergeant Saves First Daughter.’

And beneath it is a picture of me, being cradled by a bleeding, grinning Hunter looking every damn inch the “hero of the hour”.

“Yeah, but Jess, this is before they realized who—”

“Ugh, Mads, you’re the worst,” Jess laughs. “Before they realzied what, that his dad and your mom like each other which still doesn’t make you related at all?” She snatches her phone back, clicks to something new, and turns it back to me. “Look, dude you’re trending on twitter right now.”

“
Huh?
” I grab the phone and stare at the screen, scrolling own and feeling the bizarre surreal feeling of it all wash over me as I see hashtags with my name, and Hunter’s, and both together.

“Mads, there are fucking
memes
about the two of you.”

I groan. “Oh,
wonderful.
”

“No! Good ones, you moron. Look, did you not watch “Good Morning to the Nation” this morning?

“Oh, yeah,
sure
, I definitely was watching TV with this all going on.”

Jess gives me another look before she brings up a video clip on my phone and turns it towards me, and my jaw drops.

It’s the same three hosts who interviewed Hunter and I when we were on before, talking animatedly about the whole thing in San Francisco.

“Look,” one of the blonde, peppy hosts is saying. “I’m just saying, can we all just appreciate what an
amazing
guy Hunter Ryan is?” The whole damn audience goes nuts, cheering and standing and clapping as the hosts beam at the cameras. “I mean,
ladies
, am I right? When’s the last time you were with a guy that got
stabbed
for you?” 

The crowd whoops and cheers again as one of the other hosts laughs and slaps her knee. “You know, Erica, it was
so
great to have both him and Madison on before, before they went public I guess we could say. But they were just
so
lovely, and
wow
are they adorable together now, huh?”

The crowd whoops and hollers again as the third host shakes her head, laughing. “Joan, you are
so
right. I mean, their parents getting married and all that just makes it
so
much more romantic doesn’t it? They’re a like modern day star-crossed lovers.”

Modern day star-crossed lovers?

Jess laughs at the shocked look on my face. “See? I
told
you, dummy. Look at that shit!” She points as the camera pans out over the studio crowd again, and they’re holding
signs
with my damn
face
on them. They’re holding marker and poster-board signs with “Maddie + Hunter” scrawled across them, posters with blown-up shots of that
Post
picture of me in Hunter’s arms.

“This is…”

“Awesome?”

I bite my lip, feeling the breath catch in my throat. 

“Jess, this is incredible, but…” I sigh, feeling the sudden elation start to deflate around me. “He’s gone, Jess. He’s gone, and it’s never going to happen.”

“So you’re just going to give up?”

“I’m not
giving up
, I just don’t know how this ends well for anyone. There’s no happy ever after for us in this picture, Jess.”

She pulls me into her arms, and I slump into her. “Thank you for being here,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut against her shoulder.  “And thanks for coming to the stupid press conference tomorrow.”

“Any time, dummy.”

“It’s going to be awful.” 

“Well,” she says as she pulls away and arches a brow at me, “we could always go to another party instead.”

I bark out a laugh. “You’re impossible.”

“I know; it’s why you love me,” she says, pulling me into her arms. “Now c’mon, let’s go.”

I frown, “Where are we going?”

“Mads, this place has a like four industrial sized freezers, a movie theatre, and a wine cellar. We’re getting ice cream and a bottle of something expensive and going to watch sappy stupid chick flicks until we puke, okay?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The three of us stare at each other in the heavy silence of the D.C. hospital room; me alternating between my dad and Eleanor and the two of them exchanging quick looks but mostly just looking at me, slowly shaking their heads.

The aftermath of everything that happened was as chaotic as you can imagine. A scene like that at a public appearance by the President certainly makes for an interesting afternoon. 

Secret Service swarmed over us in seconds, pulling us apart, heedless of Maddie screaming to let her go as they covered her with a blanket and their own bodies. Harry got taken down in seconds when a policeman spotted him trying to break out the back door of the venue. I have no idea what they’re going to do with him, but I feel like trying to assassinate the first daughter, that close to the damn President nonetheless, is a great way to visit the east end of Cuba faster than you can say “Guantanamo”.

Me, I got yanked out of there so fast I thought I’d dislocated a shoulder. Medics were all over me, restraining me as I tried to tell them it was just a nick on my arm even though they could
see
the blood on my chest from the second stab that I know Maddie never saw. It took four of them and a police officer to hold me down and tell me to be still while I fought them to get the fuck back to Maddie.

But it wasn’t going to happen.

Shit like that is
exactly
what the Service trains for, and they had the building locked down, Harry in cuffs with his face knocked in, and Maddie and her mother two miles away in the blink of an eye.

Dad and Dexter and I took a separate plane back, and two days later, I’m still stuck in the fucking hospital, like some sort of prisoner.

“Where is she?”

My father swears under his breath. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Hunter,” his brow furrows, the anger etched across his face. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to your mother’s offic—”

“She’s
not
my mother, dad,” I say sharply.

The Major tenses, but Eleanor puts a hand on his arm. I look at her quickly. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she says curtly.

My father shakes his head. “Hunter, what you’ve done—“

“What I did was
save Maddie
from that luna—”

“I know, I know,” Eleanor says, her face tightening as she steps forward, a look of fear and sadness on her face. “I— we both know you did, Hunter, and I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that. I can’t
begin
to thank you enough.” 

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, and when she looks back at me, she’s back to the strong, confident Eleanor Adams who swept the election. The bold, independent, powerful leader of the free world.

“Is it true? About you and Madison?”

I say nothing.

“Son,” my father says sharply.

Fuck this.

“Yes, it’s true.”

Dad swears sharply and whirls, pacing towards the window shaking his head. Eleanor just nods her head quickly. 

“Okay, that’s okay. It’s still early, we can get PR all over this.” She’s nodding to herself, as if already rehearsing the speech she’s going to give. “We can fix this, and stop it before—”

“
Where
is she?” I say louder, cutting her off.

“Hunter,” Eleanor says, her eyes burning right into mine, her tone polished and crisp. “As I said, I’m forever grateful for what you did today. You’re the hero, and that’s exactly how we’re going to spin this.”

“Where’s—”

“Hunter, you know I can’t let you near my daughter again,” she says quietly, and it’s like getting stabbed all over again. 

Because right then, the other shoe that I’ve been pretending was never going to drop finally does, and it feels like a fucking piano just landed on my chest. 

It all comes together right there in that moment in the hospital bed; why I didn’t think when I threw myself between Maddie and that piece of shit with the knife — I just
did
. It’s why the thought of harm coming to her brings up every fighting animal instinct inside of me, and it’s why being kept away from her right now is tearing me apart. 

Yeah, we’ve been fooling ourselves into thinking this was something it wasn’t for far too long, except we’ve had it all wrong.

We’ve been worried about the whole world finding out about us, when we should’ve been more worried about what happened when
we
found out about us. Because I’m pretty sure we never stopped to think about the consequences of what might happen if we both just woke the fuck up and realized what this whole “sordid, illicit affair”
actually
was.