Page 2 of The Bodyguard and the Alpha (Witch Twins #2)

I couldn’t even hate him for being a man-whore.

Because he didn’t sleep around. Not that it would have been easy.

As President he couldn’t just go down to a bar and find someone for a one-night stand.

And he couldn’t afford the scandal that would come with calling in a professional escort.

But he’d met hundreds of beautiful women in the years I’d worked for him.

With careful planning and an ironclad NDA he could have dated one of those women.

Plenty of them had made their interest clear.

In my experience though, not one of them had seen his true smile.

Despite the number of offers I’d seen thrown his way, he would always just give a self-deprecating laugh and excuse himself, gracefully.

But I knew that Shifters had high sex drives.

Matteo, Charlie and Stefan, the Shifters who formed the rest of the security team often bragged about their sexual conquests of human women.

They were grown men who acted like teenagers.

Always horny. Some of them would probably cry if they were told they couldn’t have sex for five days, let alone five years.

Sure, I didn’t work every day. I did get days off and vacation time, so maybe I’d missed something. But the guys gossiped like old women. If the President had invited someone for any private time, I’d have heard about it.

So I didn’t hate him. I had never hated him.

My life would have been simpler if I had hated him.

If he had been a jerk who treated women badly, I could have been comfortable in despising him, and my heart wouldn’t have been affected.

That first day when he’d taken my hand, he’d made my heart race and my palms sweat.

I wanted him then. And I still wanted him five years on. But I would never get what I wanted.

My breaths grew shallow. My heart sped up. My head swam.

Fuck. I couldn’t have an anxiety attack now.

Not today. Today was the first day of the Summit.

Grievances between humans, Shifters and other supes would be aired and resolved over the next week.

Violence was always possible. And sometime this week, it was probable.

Bastien was head of the Moderates and there was always pushback from someone.

Whether it was Shifter Nation or Humans First, both radical groups who sought to undo the peace that had lasted since Bastien’s mother had forced through legislation giving all groups equal rights, there was always someone.

And in the lead up to this Summit, things had been more tense than usual.

More violent attacks on supes by gangs of humans.

Retaliation by Shifters. And that wasn’t the worst of it.

Only recently, my sister and her new mate, Bastien’s brother Luc, had stumbled on a terrorist plot.

While we had no firm ideas of their plans, they’d stolen a journal which contained a coded spell to smother magic.

My sister and Luc had almost died after Calypso had been kidnapped to force Luc to hand over the journal.

They had survived, but the journal had been taken.

In the Palace we were all on high alert.

Bastien had refused to cancel the Summit.

My pre-cog hadn’t fired since Caly had been hurt, but I no longer knew if I could trust myself.

If the people who had stolen the journal knew how to cast the spell that had been in it, they might be planning harm right now and I wouldn’t know.

I needed to be at my best. I couldn’t afford to break now.

The Palace was bristling with armed and dangerous Shifters but if shit hit the fan, I was the last line of defence for the President.

I had to believe my magic would give me just enough warning of imminent danger that I could put up shields or use offensive magic.

Whatever was required. I could do it. I’d trained for this since my powers had shown.

Relentlessly. Tirelessly. I couldn’t afford to fail.

I couldn’t let Bastien get hurt on my watch.

I couldn’t fall apart now. Not yet. But after the Summit, I was done. I couldn’t live this half-life any longer.

I gave myself one minute of pretend. Like I did every morning.

Just sixty seconds to imagine what my life would be like if I was an ordinary human and Bastien wasn’t the President.

If I’d said yes when he asked me out and we’d been able to explore the attraction between us.

If we’d been together for five years, maybe we’d be married, with a child on the way.

I could see the picture in my mind so clearly.

He would kiss me goodbye when he went to work, making sure to bend down and speak to the baby growing in my belly.

He’d hold my hand in the supermarket. At night, in our bed, he’d spoon his big body around mine.

My watch chimed, breaking into my daydream. Six-thirty. I forced my emotions back into the box where I stuffed them every day. Time for another day for the Ice Queen to rule. But after the Summit, I was done.