Her Secret Service (Jane Roe 1) by Jason Letts (sites to read books for free TXT) 📗

at the intensity of his gaze, the only thing Jane could fall back on was the core of her mission.

“I think I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. Not because it would cost me my job and it’s what I’m supposed to do, but because of what it would mean about myself and my capabilities. I’m not ready to accept that pure chance can ruin what I’ve spent so much time working to keep safe.”

He looked down at the table and his empty plate for a moment.

“Why do you care so much?” he asked, and she was so entranced in her thoughts that she said the first thing that came to mind.

“Because you’re the president.”

Alex pursed his lips and something in his eyes changed. Whatever this had started out as, it was ending as a work meeting, and being reminded that all of his security and the threats requiring it had to do with his position wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear.

“Well, I’m very glad for your support in that respect,” he said, though that brought to mind a truth that was even worse than the one she just uttered. At least this time she managed to keep something in that she could never speak aloud, but that left her without anything to say. Definitely nothing that could fix what she just broke.

“Alex…”

The door to the terrace opened beside them and a young male aide stepped out and approached the president. Jane sat feeling guilty and rueful while he whispered into Alex’s ear. Her riding partner’s eyes flashed. Something was happening, and he took one last glance at Jane before getting up.

“I’ve got something to take care of.”

Jane hastily stood up as was proper when the president departed a room, and after that all she could do was watch him slip back into the palatial cabin to attend to whatever urgent matter had been brought to his attention. It was a good reminder that no matter how close she got there would always be deeper layers she would never reach, but right now there was a hole in the pit of her stomach over how something that might’ve been happening between them fell apart. At least chance and outside influence weren’t to blame; it was all her fault, and her conversational skills that she prided herself on had failed catastrophically.

Keeping her head down, she couldn’t even look at Dedan as she passed through the living room to the front door on her way out.

The silent ride back to her apartment in D.C. was full of self-chastisement. It was one thing to put her foot in her mouth, but now that the brunch was over she found herself feeling ridiculous having expected that anything was supposed to come of riding and eating waffles together. What, was he going to decide that she was the one he wanted when he could have pretty much any woman on the planet? And surely he was acutely aware of the promise of a scandal with the president propositioning a female federal employee.

But back at her dreary apartment building in her tiny apartment with the paper-thin walls on the couch with the ratty fabric, she found more things to suddenly be dissatisfied with. She wasn’t twenty-five anymore, and it struck her that she’d spent enough of her life living in slum-like conditions on the pretense of saving some money.

After stepping into another world at Camp David with private chefs and expansive and manicured grounds, she didn’t think she had a right to any of that, but maybe she could find a way to raise her standard of living even if it left her bank account a little lighter. On an agitated whim she wrote to her landlord letting him know that she’d be breaking out of her month-to-month lease at the end of April. That gave her a few weeks to find a better place to live, which couldn’t be that hard even if she rented someplace else sight unseen.

Doing something about her own life that had been long overdue made her feel good, and she wondered why she hadn’t done it before. The answer came quickly when her phone buzzed, and she realized it had to be someone from work. That was why. Ditching her cheap place to live when she was likely to find herself out of a job any day may not have been wise.

But she couldn’t make herself regret deciding to leave her apartment, even if she didn’t see another paycheck for years. If she was reaching a sink or swim moment in her life, she could embrace the challenge and find a way to keep her head above water.

Her phone ended up being a text from Nathan with something startling that told her she wasn’t the only one making mistakes and going through a rough patch in her life.

He’d sent her a link to a tell-all interview with Leslie Hodge that had just been published called “My One-Night Stand with the President.”

Gritting her teeth, Jane couldn’t bring herself to read more than the first line, which called Alex “needy” and “careless with other people’s hearts.”

Setting the phone down, she thought it sounded a lot like herself.

10

The Washington Post

1301 K Street NW

Washington, D.C.

Oliver was at work doing some video editing with Heath in the screening room when the call he’d been dreading from the FBI came. But it wasn’t to his phone.

“Let me just see who this is,” Heath said, picking his phone up from the desk. Oliver had only glanced at the number with no identifying information for a second, but he already knew that the authorities had finally circled back to them. Unlike a journalist like himself who was used to getting random calls, nobody dialed a technician out of the blue, unless he was a witness to a bombing on Air Force One.

Oliver didn’t say anything as Heath left the room to take the call, his mind already reeling with frantic thoughts about what he