Home > The President's Wife(8)

The President's Wife(8)
Author: Kathy Myme

Immediately my whole body stops. I am a deer, frozen as I am stared down by prey.

Being stared at by the President of the United States would freak anyone out, I’m sure. But it’s not just that. I feel something else too.

Desire.

God. The gossip mags were right. Meeting eyes with the President makes me feel terrified, like I’m some sheltered girl who’s never seen a man before. And in a lot of ways… maybe I haven’t. Not a man like the President, anyway.

Just as soon as I acknowledge what I’m feeling - the heightened attention, the raised pulse, the curling in the bottom of my stomach - I hate myself for it. I’m being shockingly unprofessional. That man isn’t only my boss’ boss, which would be bad enough… He’s also my President.

It’s obscene for me to even think about this type of thing.

I break eye contact violently, forcing myself to look down at my screen and praying to every deity out there for him to leave. One of them was clearly the right god to pray to, because when I sneak a peek again there's no more President outside.

I try to throw myself further into my work for the rest of the afternoon. To not think about what I’ve just acknowledged. And for a time, it works.

Until the chaos starts.

It starts around 3:17PM, to be precise. I see it roughly two minutes after the initial tweet is published. The one that links to the article.

But I don’t move until at least five minutes after that. Because what I see on my screen can’t be real. It shouldn’t be real. My brain has to work overtime to even make out the words and string the sentence together properly.

@NewsNewsUSANow at 3:17:

You’ve heard the rumors about dreamboat President David Shepard. Now READ the TRUTH here…

There’s also a link in the tweet that leads to NewsNewsUSA’s homepage. And on that homepage, there’s an article. An article that has a picture front and centre underneath its headline.

Oh no, I sigh. I’ve only really been working this job, what, a handful of hours? And still I know what trouble looks like when I see it.

I scroll down, trying to get a better look at the picture.

There are two people in the frame. To my horror, it’s crystal clear who the man is. I’ve been stealing glimpses of his face for half the day.

President Shepard looks as handsome as ever. It’s a side profile of him, revealing so much of his hard cut jawline and tilted neck that it seriously should be illegal.

Ordinarily, photographs of the President wouldn’t be an issue. Mr Andrews had made it pretty clear this morning: although photographs taken by our own photographers are preferable, we really can’t do much about people snapping pics of the President.

“And the man is so photogenic,” Mr Andrews had laughed, “that it doesn’t really matter anyway. The President has no bad angles.”

But there’s definitely an issue here.

Because the President isn’t alone in the picture. Far from it. He’s bent over, half on the ground, but it’s fairly evident… that he’s on top of a woman. With his hands all over her. In an intimate moment.

Holy shit.

For one stupid moment, my brain short circuits. Nobody had told me that the President has a girlfriend. Or that he had this type of reputation. If the papers caught even the slightest whiff of anything scandalous going on, it’s a sure bet that they would have reported on it a long time ago.

But the picture can’t lie. The President is lying outside, tangled in the arms of some woman. I take a deep breath, checking my watch. 3:23PM. Checking Twitter, I notice that the post already has thousands of retweets. This is going to be huge.

I get the feeling I might be working late tonight.

But when I pull the picture up again, I stop. I stare. And my entire world begins to fall apart.

It clicks.

The woman in the photograph. It’s me.

 

 

David

 

 

“Get out. Now.”

The herd of people in my office stare at me in silence.

“Now,” I say, slightly louder.

They begin to file out, hushed whispers making their way through the small crowd.

The door shuts and I collapse back into my chair and loosen my tie. Shit. How could this have happened?

The last few months have been even more intense than I ever would have expected. But I can feel it, this is the point it might all come crashing down. And all because of one compromising photo.

“Fuck.”

It would have been one thing if I’d actually been fucking around and some photographer had caught us. At least then, it would have been my own fault. At least then, I would have been caught doing something actually questionable.

But this? This… photo? It’s a joke, a simple case of bad timing. I haven’t done anything even slightly wrong.

I sigh. The public won’t see it that way though. The public will see this as the President taking advantage of an innocent young intern. And we all know what happened the last time a president was caught in… a compromising position like that.

I pull the news article up on my computer and look at the photo again. If only I knew who took it, I swear to god I would…

I scroll down the page to the comments. They are not kind.

Some of them I expect. Tearing into me for taking advantage of an innocent girl, for abusing my position and my power. Some question whether I’m taking the job seriously, or if I’m just using the job title to pick up women. Others question whether I have a secret girlfriend, or a wife even, and say they will wait to learn more before judging. I like those ones.

Then I read something that makes me truly mad.

TruePatriot74:

What a whore. No doubt she’s been slutting herself up to fulfill her sick desires and distract the President, a True American Hero.

I can feel my heart beating faster as I clench a fist. How dare some piece of shit post that sort of thing? Veronica didn’t ask for this, none of it.

Then there’s another.

ShepardFanxx:

This makes me sick. The President would never take advantage of an innocent woman, clearly this skank has been forcing herself on him long enough. If I ever saw her in the flesh, I’d slap her a million times.

I stand up, the force bumping my desk and knocking some pens and files onto the floor. I don’t care, I’m pissed.

It was one thing when this was targeting me, but Veronica as well? It has to end.

Objectively, I can tell the protectiveness I feel for her is out of place given we’ve barely met twice, but right now all I want to do is hide her away from the world and these… people.

There has to be something I can do.

 

 

Veronica

 

 

“Miss Waters, is it true that you’re engaging in a romantic relationship with the President?”

Flash.

“Did President Shepard take advantage of you, Miss Waters?”

Flash.

“Veronica, do you have anything to say to the people watching at home?”

Flash.

Oh my god.

The paparazzi have to be psychic. Every street corner I go down, they’re there. I’m even taking the long way home from work, with three buses instead of two. Yet somehow they still seem to know my every move.

“Miss Waters, can we have a quick chat?”

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