Page 52 of Tempting the President

The sky was blue. The clouds were white.And, I thought painfully, everyone’s lips were a beautiful shade of red as they smiled genuinely happy smiles, smiles that showed they were alive.

“Aria?”

Hearing him say my name startled me, and by the way he looked at me, I knew he was wondering where my mind had gone to.

“What flavor do you want?”

I pointed to the bag of blue cotton candy.Bubblegum.

Moments later, and Kellion had the bag in his hand and was carefully tearing off a strip of cotton candy to feed me. “Say ‘aah’.”

I opened my mouth with a sound.

He grinned. “You are the most unromantic girl I have ever known.” He popped the strip into my mouth. As I chewed, he added, “Probably more unromantic than Bobby.”

I scribbled on my board. NO ONE IS AS EVIL AS BOBBY.

He laughed. “So it’s true then? You all think she’s the evil redheaded queen.”

LIKE MALEFICENT.

He laughed harder. “I should tell Leandro that. I think he’ll love it.” When he saw my eyes widen in horror, he said reassuringly, “Don’t worry. I just want to make him jealous.”

I cocked my head to the side.How come?

“You don’t know?” He popped another strip into my mouth before answering. “He’s jealous of Angelina Jolie because Bobby hero-worships her.”

My brows lifted up.Really?

“Yeah. One time, Bobby had to choose between celebrating...mm...I think it was their 8thmonth together? She could either go out and have dinner with Leandro or attend a charity ball that had Angelina Jolie as the guest of honor. Guess which one she went to?”

I almost, almost laughed.

When I was sufficiently in control again, I turned to him and found the biker looking at me. He asked quietly, “Why don’t you want to talk?” When I showed no signs of answering, he said gently, “You do know that I can find out the truth, right?”

I blinked at him. I hadn’t thought of that, but now that he mentioned it, I realized it was true. He was Kellion Argyros, after all.

“But I don’t want to learn about you that way. I want you to be the one to tell me the truth,terataki.”

Tell...him...the...truth?

I scribbled on my board again. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

His lips curved at the way I deliberately evaded answering. He said finally, “Terataki?”

I tried not to sigh in relief when he accepted the change of subject. I scribbled again.YOU MAKE ME SOUND LIKE A JAPANESE DISH.

His smile widened. “It’s worse.” Before I could react, he had popped another strip into my mouth. We didn’t talk after that, our hands remaining entwined while he continued feeding me.

His phone beeped once, and Kellion took it out, his face impassive as he read the message before returning his phone to his pocket. When he ran out of cotton candy, he asked, “Shall we go?”

The question startled me. If I was honest, it disappointed me a little, the fact that he had said the words first. I looked at him and realized that he had changed. Without even me knowing, he had changed.

The man next to me had turned into a cold stranger, and an intimidatingly blank mask had fallen over his gorgeous face.

Why?I wanted to ask the words but I couldn’t. Did it mean he had lost interest in me? One moment he was warm and wicked, doing his best to tease me into reacting. And then all of a sudden, he was...not. All of a sudden he was everything I had feared someone like Kellion Argyros would be.

Unreachable.