I keep my head down to avoid any paparazzi, which I thankfully manage to do as I head to my apartment to get Matt’s jacket.

Once I reach my building, I hurry inside and spot it in the same place I left it.

My heart does that flip again.

I walk toward it slowly, almost as if I expect it to bite me like a cobra. But that’s not really why suddenly time seems to slow down—it’s because I suddenly don’t want to take it back.

I want to slip his jacket around me one more time. I want to wear it and hug myself and pretend that my arms are his arms. I want to tuck my face back into its collar and breathe in his scent.

The urge to do this is so enormous. I stifle the impulse with a lot of effort, calling back my professional side, the side that knows last night was not just unplanned, but a mistake.

So I take the jacket in my hands and fold it neatly into a department store shopping bag, then I head back to The Jefferson Hotel, determined to be professional and to put last night behind me as our farewell.

39

YOUR NAME IS CHARLOTTE

Matthew

There’s a calm I didn’t expect as we wait for the popular vote results to come in.

Charlotte brought me my jacket a while ago. Hell, I didn’t want it. I wanted a piece of me with her. I can’t shake her off and when it comes to her, I’m selfish enough that I don’t want her to shake me off either. Her concern for others keeps mystifying me. She’s been more concerned about a scandal than I have all this time. More concerned with making sure that the man the country sees is the one she makes me want to be.

She’s in my veins, this girl.

Nobody would guess that I sit, watching and waiting, lifting my eyes to find her watching the screen, twirling her hair on one finger, biting her lips, sometimes looking back at me—nobody would guess how much I want every inch and piece and breath of hers.

The suite is flooded with the most integral members of my team. Carlisle of course, as well as our chief strategist, our communications director, and some field operatives.

There’s a buzz in the air. Carlisle chain-smoking, oozing tension.

And here I am, calmer than I expected, my mind divided in two equal parts: one wondering about each vote, each state, each poll result; the other fixed on the woman across the room who was in my arms only hours ago.

A part of me wants to draw her aside and say something that will appease us both, but even I know there are no such words. I’m running for the most powerful office in the land. Ironic that I can’t promise something as simple as my love to her.

My mind drifts as I imagine what I’d do if Jacobs or Gordon beat me in this election. I picture heading to the Senate, working my way back to the race, dividing my attention between work and the woman I’m obsessed with. But when I’m back in the race again, what then?

Both my mother and I lost my father the day he became president. I don’t want Charlotte to lose me. I don’t want to lose the spark in her eyes whenever she looks at me, full of admiration and respect and desire—the spark that inevitably dies when you keep hurting those who love you, even if unintentionally.

It can’t work, I tell myself. You’ve known it and you still couldn’t keep away. You still want to hold this girl and never let her go even as that’s exactly what you prepare to do with every piece of news filtering into the room.

It streams on the TV and on live podcasts some of my team members are playing on their phones.

“Matthew Hamilton’s win requires every young voter out there, every minority, every woman, to come out and vote, and the turnout has been unprecedented today . . .”

“Early returns have been astounding . . .”

“Hamilton leading in Texas. Alabama. New York. People want change and they want it now.”

“They’re saying you’ve got Ohio,” Carlisle says.

“Yeah?” I lift my eyebrow, a kick of restlessness settling in my gut. One I can’t run out of my system right now. I scan the room for Jack and whistle him over. He leaps on the couch and sets his head on my lap. I stroke his head absently as Carlisle skims through the channels, remote in one hand, cigarette in the other. He stops on one.

“That’s right, Roger, the Hamilton campaign pulled off an impressive feat this year until, well, that incident where Hamilton failed to appear and give comments on the rumors—” the anchor is saying, and I grab the remote and shut off the TV, glancing at Charlotte in silence.

It bothers me to have the media speculate about her, and today I have no patience for it.

Her crystal-blue eyes look at me and pink crawls up her sweet cheeks. There’ll be no kissing the pink away from those cheeks. And suddenly the feeling of impotence bothers me too.

The room falls silent as I toss the remote aside. Carlisle lights up another cigarette by the window, and I soon leave Jack on the couch and join him. I can almost hear the clock ticking in my head when Mark barges inside.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

“Turnout was unprecedented,” Mark begins.

She looks at me helplessly for one second, and my eyes meet hers, the excitement in Mark’s voice crackling in the room.

“You’ve won enough states to secure the electoral college vote.”

A chorus of gasps and exclamations follow the declaration.

“Holy crap!”

“OH MY GOD!”

“Fuck, I knew it!” This last remark from Carlisle.

The second it takes my mind to process what I heard, I am with my father. He’s standing in this room wearing that proud grin he used to when he talked about me, and he’s telling Charlotte, He’s going to be president one day …

My eyes seem to have a will of their own as they slide unerringly to lock on Charlotte.

She’s looking down at her lap, with a smile on her lips and a single tear on one cheek as she stands to face me. It seems to take her a moment to fully realize what she heard too. She’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen as she wipes the tear away, leaps like a girl, and clasps her hands together. Her pulse flutters, and my mouth wants to be right on hers, I want my hands on her, I want myself in her.

She keeps a distance and allows the others to come and congratulate me first. Hugs and cheer, and claps, Carlisle booting up the TV for even more confirmation, and I look at the screen, strongly resolved to take care of what I’ve been given. America is mine.