Page 302 of Incisive

I force a smile in return. “Good morning. Did you…” I realize what I’m about to ask not only sounds lame but offhandedly cruel. “Did you sleep?” I finally settle on.

She nods. “A little. Your father’s still asleep.” She walks over and hugs me tightly.

I make no move to end it.

Didn’t realize how much I needed this from her even though I feel guilty that I should be comforting her right now as her commander in chief and not emotionally leeching off her as her son.

“Love you, honey,” she whispers.

I squeeze my eyes tight against the tears pricking them. “Love you, too, Mom.”

After a moment she sniffles and steps away, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ve been meaning to ask, is this special White House coffee?” she jokes as she reaches for a paper towel to blow her nose.

“Bulk buy from a discount warehouse.”

She tearfully chuckles. “That’ll make your father happy. You know how he is about saving money.”

“Yeah. Me, too. This is the same as what they serve downstairs in the Navy mess.”

“I’m surprised there isn’t anyone up here doing this for you.” She leans against the counter. “I never expected to see the president making his own coffee. I figured you had all sorts of people to do these kinds of things.”

“I left orders with everyone for today that unless there’s an emergency not to disturb us until Jordan lets them know it’s okay to come up. I figured we needed the extra privacy this morning”

She slowly nods. “Thank you, sweetie.”

“Besides, Jordan wanted to cook breakfast for us. You know how much he loves doing that.” I hand her a mug and reach over to the fridge to grab the carton of creamer from there.

“He’s certainly a devoted friend to you and Leo.”

I process the potential undercurrent of her tone as I’m closing the fridge door. “He is. Leo and I couldn’t do this without him. We trust him completely.”

“He doesn’t…have anyone?”

I don’t know if this means we’re doingthisbut rather than blunder into a revelation I don’t need to make, especially on a day that’s already emotionally charged, I opt for safety. “Jordan doesn’t have any family. Not really. So we’ve adopted him into ours.”

Technically that’s not a lie.

“I mean he doesn’t have…someone? A partner?”

Right, she’s fishing for information that’s piqued her curiosity. “No, Jordan doesn’t have a boyfriend.” Technically, Leo is his owner, and Jordan’smine.

Okay,ours.

We’re partners, spouses, more than simply boyfriends.

Muchmore.

Meaning technically I’m still not lying to her.

“Ah.” She falls silent as we wait for our coffee. Once there’s enough in the carafe I pour her a mug and then replace it to wait until there’s enough to refill mine. She mixes sugar and creamer into hers, slowly stirring it first clockwise, then counterclockwise, the tinkle of the spoon against the inside of the mug and the gurgling of the coffeemaker the only sounds in the kitchen for a moment.

There’s so much I want to confess to her. About me, about Stella.

Except…why? The first is making our time together about me when it’s anything but.

The second would be rubbing salt into my mother’s wounds and we’re all raw enough as it is. She doesn’t need to know what a shit Stella was to me nearly her whole life.

She damned sure doesn’t need to know I’m completely convinced Stella tried to save her own skin and fuck Ellis over by releasing the video when she did. They’re still trying to figure out who her source was about Belyaevskin’s poisoning, but that she didn’t report what she knew immediately speaks to her trying to play the game to her benefit, until she realized she was on the losing side. Leo learned from their pre-nup that Ellis being convicted for his role in the attacks would mean Stella received his entire estate, too, and could divorce him.