We’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign, most of the funds coming from small donations from average Americans ready for a change. The technological infrastructure we’ve set up at headquarters in order to reach the three-hundred-plus million Americans through the net is unprecedented until this election. But people’s interests have never been harder to pique than in the days that we live in now.
“I think going heavy on the internet can get you a lot of traction with the young voters,” I finally say, “and if you can figure out a way to get them interested in your most exciting plans with each alphabet letter, it could really stick.”
He rubs his chin with the tips of his two index fingers, makes a hmm sound, and frowns thoughtfully. “C is for Charlotte.”
“J is for junk food in cafeterias, which must be stopped at once.”
He laughs.
I signal at his schedule. “Here’s the schedule for the months of April, and May. Since things get very heavy in late April, I thought I might include a free weekend for you to recharge.”
“That’s thoughtful of you.” He slips on his glasses and scans it.
“Yeah, well, I’m a thoughtful gal,” I say.
I turn away and glance out the window, because something about the times he slips on his glasses always gets to me.
“A thoughtful gal who somehow manages to make me think of her a lot.” I turn my attention back to him in surprise as he looks up at me over the rims.
My heart thuds.
He sets the schedule down and pries the glasses off, folding them and setting them over the schedule, his eyes fixed on me.
A silence settles in the room, making me aware of how disquieted I am on the inside.
“Why did you want me to be your new scheduler?” I ask quietly.
He leans back with a sardonic smile that quickly turns admiring. “Because I believe you have a good head on your shoulders, you’re dedicated and smart, and anyway”—he grins even wider—“I thought you were a tad too soft to keep answering those phone calls and letters.”
“I am so not soft!”
“P is for pudding.”
“So not pudding, Matt!” I narrow my eyes and lean one hand on his desk. “You wanted me to keep an eye out for letters like that one little Matt sent.”
“And I know you still are.”
I scowl. “How do you know me so well? Hmm?”
He spreads out his arms and crosses them behind his head. “Some say I’m a perceptive man.”
“I disagree. You failed to see how stone-hearted I am, able to read your letters, day after day. How hard I can be. H is for heart of stone.”
He laughs. It’s so nice to hear him laugh. “No, Charlotte, it’s optimally just one word per letter, so that’d make you just all heart.”
I shake my head, frowning. “I can show you my hard-heartedness in your next schedule I draft.”
“Be my guest—I thrive under pressure.”
“Good for you, ’cause I’m bringing it.”
“You always do.”
His gaze slides past my shoulder at the sound of a soft knock. Alison is at the door, watching us, narrowed-eyed. “Matt, the pictures you asked for.”
She walks in as I excuse myself and leave, but soon Alison catches up with me. “Were you just flirting with Matt?”
“What? No! We were having a discussion.”
“You were discussing with Matt?”
“I . . . no!” I flush and head to my desk, sit down, and lift my head to glance past his office window, where he’s wearing those sexy glasses of his, reading, a hand over his mouth as if to cover his smile.
14
EYES
Charlotte
I called Children’s National and told Carlisle about Matt’s visit so he could alert the press coordinator and everyone who needed to be involved.
“You’re coming with me,” Matt says before he leaves.
“Me?”
“It was your idea.”
I groan inwardly. Spending more time with Matt is the last thing I need right now. But I do love seeing him in action, so I hurry to slip into my sweater and follow him outside. When we reach the hospital, there’s a small crowd, waving placards and chanting.
“Matt!” one of the younger female crowd members breathlessly gasps out his name.
“Matt Hamilton!” her friend calls, louder, cupping her hands around her mouth so that her voice carries over.
He thanks them, then waits for me to go in along with Wilson. Little Matt is wearing a Redskins T-shirt, a matching cap, and an IV.
The way his eyes light up when his hero enters the room makes my chest tighten. I turn away and try to regroup when I hear Matt’s voice.
“Heard there was a tiger in the building. I had to come see.”
“Where?!” the boy asks excitedly.
“I’m looking right at him.”
When I turn back around, Matt is chucking the boy’s cap, smiling down at him.
The boy grins. “Wow. You came.”
Matt pulls up a chair to sit next to him in bed. “Charlotte—the lady you see by the door—seems to be as big a fan of yours as you are of me.”
“Wow,” he says.
Soon they get a crowd. Little Matt tells Matt he wants to be a football player when he grows up. The parents approach me and begin telling me how grateful they are as Matt and little Matt chat.
“If you win you’ll invite me to the White House—” tiny Matt says.
“Not IF, WHEN . . . you’re coming to the White House,” Matt promises.
He plays chess with the bedridden boy. The nurses start to line up out in the hall, grinning and ogling.
It’s not the fact that he’s doing this, it’s the fact that you can tell he’s genuinely having fun that touches me. I believed in him: Hamilton and all that the name represents. But right now if I’d never seen him and had a stupid little crush on him, if he’d never been raised under the spotlight and with the fame of his name, it’s today that Matt—for all the flaws the media tries to exaggerate—wins my vote.
When we leave, Wilson picks us up at the curb.
Matt is quiet.
I am too.
“Thank you.” His voice is low and sounds achingly honest.
“Makes me sad.” My own voice cracks, so I stop talking.
I glance out the window and try to regroup. He seems to realize he’s out of his element with a nearly weeping female in the car. “Let’s go get you some food.”
“No.”
He frowns, then his eyes gleam in confusion and amusement. “You’re too warm for politics, Charlotte. We need to toughen you up.”
“Take me sword fighting, but not eating. I’m not hungry right now.” I sigh and shoot him a sidelong glance. “It’s your fault.”
“Pardon?”
“I wouldn’t be in politics if you hadn’t run.”
“Says the lady who offered to help me when she was what? Seven.”
I arch my brows. “Eleven.” I thrust my chin out. “I can still vote for Gordon.”
“God, no. No,” he says emphatically. He laughs and runs his hand in frustration over his hair.
“Well, someone needs to knock you down a peg. Gordon Thompson has my vote,” I declare.
“You wound me, Charlotte,” he says.
“Oh you look so wounded, haha.”
He looks deathly sober except for his eyes, laughing at me. “My wounds run deep.”
“How deep? This deep?” I hold my fingers a hair’s breadth apart. He frowns, then takes them to readjust them to a centimeter. “This deep.”
I should laugh.
It was funny up until he touched me.
Now it’s warm and gooey and he’s looking at me with a frozen smile and intent eyes.
I see a flash of yearning in his eyes—yearning as deep as I feel, truly deep, not measured in tiny fractions.
I laugh, finally, as I try to stifle the sensations shooting
through me. “Wow.” I look at the centimeter. “A centimeter. That’s deep.”
I refer to the space between his fingers, but I don’t know what we’re talking about anymore.
“I told you.” He smirks. He lowers his hands, and I can’t help but notice how strong and long-fingered they are as he drops them to his side.
Every living woman in America has probably had fantasies about Matt.
And I have him close enough that my senses swirl.
I remain affected throughout our ride.
My mind rushes, wondering . . . simply wondering.
Matt checks some emails, his thigh touching mine.
He doesn’t move it away.
I wonder if I want to move it away.
No. I’m out of air and burning inside. And I don’t want to.
I have to remind myself that what I’m doing here is so much more valuable than a silly little crush. What I’m doing here transcends beyond me . . . beyond even Matt.
Not only has campaigning been exciting, but hearing about Matt’s views and ideas keeps renewing my hope.
I hadn’t fully realized how much we missed a strong leader, an inspiring leader, until every time I stare at the one I want.
He could make such a difference. A man like him could make such a difference.
So we ride like this, in silent tension, my mind full of Matt and my body empty.
His eyes meet mine, burning with importance. “I want you to be my eyes and my heart, to keep me in touch with the real people out there, the ones my whole life I’ve never gotten to meet.”
“Okay, Matt,” I say.
And then he leans over, and I catch my breath and close my eyes when his lips brush my cheek—and he kisses me there. It’s as brief a kiss as the one he gave me when I was eleven, but I’m a woman now, and he is all man, and suddenly, unexpectedly, his arm starts coming around my waist and he’s reeling me toward him, pressing me against his side.
Next thing, I feel his head dip down slowly toward me, his nose grazing my cheek. My breath catches in my throat, and I feel myself fighting the urge to turn my head just a fraction of an inch and kiss him flat on the mouth.
He smells like mint and a little bit of coffee mixed with his cologne. I inhale shakily and feel his lips touch the spot on my cheek where his nose had just been. His lips are warm, soft, yet firm.
His hand grips my hip, holding me close to him, as he tilts his head and places a kiss on my neck. I let my head fall back, and he chuckles darkly, rubbing his nose lightly against my neck, nuzzling me.
He uses his hand to turn my head to face him, and as I look into his eyes, I feel my world tilt on its axis and spin in all directions.
Everything else is drowned out as all of the thoughts in my head center around only him, and me.
All I’m thinking is what I’m feeling. How hard my heart is beating. How my breath is coming in faster intervals. How my skin is warm and tingling; how my whole body seems to be holding its breath in sweet anticipation for Matthew to move again, to touch me again, to kiss another part of me.
I whisper his name and he groans, “You feel incredible.”
He leans in and kisses my collarbone, running his nose along my neck and inhaling me.
“God, and you smell so good . . .” he brokenly whispers. His deep voice burning through me, consuming everything in its path and leaving only this deep, almost primal need to be as close to this man as possible.
When I feel his tongue between his lips tentatively touch the skin on my neck, I hear myself moan.
He holds me closer to him, until I’m almost sitting on his lap, his head buried in my neck, kissing and nuzzling, licking and tasting.
I start to get worried, wondering where we are and when we will get to the campaign headquarters. I know no one can see us, since his car has black-tinted windows and a partition separating us from his driver, but still, something about this feels dark and forbidden.
“I—”
“Shhh . . . just let me do this, Charlotte. Please,” he says as he lifts his head from my neck and holds my head between his hands, his eyes gazing into mine and then lowering to my lips, and then traveling back up to my eyes.
I feel him inch closer to me, and I slowly start to realize that he wants to kiss me. Right now. In this car.
Matthew Hamilton, possible future President of the United States and my first crush, wants to kiss me.
I reach out and hold his face in my hand too, and his eyes flare.
I don’t know whether I should do this or not, but right now all I hear my body say is that I need to touch this man.
I kiss his cheek, my lips lingering.
I feel him relax, but his grip on me tightens.
What are we doing?
“Sir, we’re here,” Matt’s detail’s mumbled voice sounds through the partition.
I think I hear Matt curse under his breath. I inch myself off his lap to sit back in my own seat, and inhale a shaky breath as Matt opens his own door and comes around the car to open mine.
The look we exchange when we lock eyes as I come out of the car I cannot possibly describe. It’s charged with need, lust, longing, curiosity, and something else . . .
I force myself to look away and walk toward the building, the feel of his lips still on my skin.
15
GETS LONELY AT THE TOP
Matt
That was me being a whole lot reckless and foolish.
I’ve been thinking of red hair, blue eyes, soft lips, and how much I wanted to dip in my tongue and taste her. I wanted to open her mouth and kiss her, slow and savoring, then fast and wild. At this point, only both can satiate me.
I thought that following that one impulse after the hospital would be enough to calm the fire burning me . . .
It’s not.
She’s been in my head for the past eighteen hours.
I’m running on no sleep. I need a good workout or my focus scatters, but my schedule couldn’t allow one today. My grandfather flew in from Virginia after the resounding success of our first two months of campaigning, and my mother—who’d opted to quietly ignore the fact that I’m running—had no other choice but to welcome us for breakfast this morning.
I’m aware of early campaign troubles. Among them, my grandfather.
My grandfather was the tireless political engine that drove my father to the army, to the Senate, and later, to the White House. He pulled strings left and right and put my dad on George Washington’s white horse, but it was my dad who rode the horse like he owned it. The one who’d won the reelection by the biggest margin in history, keeping almost 70 percent of the country happy when polled about his first term. My granddad got him there, but my dad stayed there.
I don’t want my grandfather’s political engine to back me now—it would require sacrificing merit for favors during the appointment of my cabinet. That’s a sure way to keep the country from growing and blazing brighter than ever, and that’s what has been keeping us from irrefutably being the most powerful force in the world.
Habits need to be put aside, new ideas proposed, new blood brought in to freshen up the antiquated outlook on how to run America.
The world is changing, and we need to be on the forefront of that change.
My grandfather has made it no secret that he wants me on the forefront . . . but of one of the parties. Who like to keep the status quo.
I’m the last to arrive at my mother’s brownstone.
My mother sits in a high chair, regal in pearls and a white designer skirt and jacket. She’s a modern Jackie Kennedy, sweet and composed, morally as strong as titanium. There are strong resemblances between our families, the Kennedys and Hamiltons. To the point where the media has speculated, after Father’s murder, on whether the Hamiltons also have a curse on their heads that won’t let them carry out their bright destinies.
Mother sits as far away from my grandfather as possible, her hair still the same near-black shade as mine, her pois
e remarkable.
Big, brusque, and no-nonsense, Patrick Hamilton’s relationship with my father was a close one. Until my father was gone, my grandfather meddled and insisted I get into politics. The last thing my mother wanted was to see me do that.
“Get a life, Matt. Go and study anything you want, be anything you want.” Except a politician. She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. In her mind, she wouldn’t be a widow, but instead a happy wife had my father not been president. In her mind, she’d have lived a happy life. She led one of duty instead, and she did it formidably, but no makeup and hairstyle can hide the shadows in her eyes regarding my father’s unresolved murder.
I kiss her forehead in greeting. “I’m sorry this is making you worry. Don’t,” I command.
She smiles lightly at me and pats my jaw. “Matt.”
Only one word, but combined with the look in her eyes, I’m quietly reminded that my father was one of five sitting presidents to be killed—all by gunshots. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, JFK, and Hamilton.
I take a seat in the living room and she signals for Maria, her live-in cook, to bring us coffee.
“I had lunch with the Democrats,” Grandfather says as he sips his coffee. “They want you joining the primaries; they’re sure you’ll win the ticket.”
“I’ve already told them, I’m running independently.”
“Matt, your father—”
“I’m not my father. Though I do plan to continue his legacy.” I glance at my mother, who seems to be battling a mixture of pride and worry.
“Why won’t you at least consider the Democrats?” Grandfather insists.
“Because”—I lean forward, looking him dead in the eye—“they failed to protect him. As far as I’m concerned, I’m better off alone.” I stare him out. He’s not an easy man—but I can be as difficult as he is. “My father told me never trust your own shadow. I’ve kept people at bay, but now I’m choosing who I let in. And out. Out is my competition. I’m letting in my country. They deserve better than what they’ve gotten lately. I’m going to pave the path for that better.”