Page 1 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)

SELENE

I cringe when he reaches for me.

The reaction to my husband’s attempt at affection is involuntary.

A quick tensing and releasing of muscles I have no control over, but will be blamed for anyway, because everything is my fault.A quick tensing and releasing of muscles I have no control over but will be blamed for anyway because everything is my fault.

The strands of my hair yielding to the humidity in the late August air and reverting back to their natural curly state?

My fault.

My husband’s wandering eye?

My fault.

My body recoiling when he reaches for me with his adulterous hands?

My. Fault.

The injustice of it all flares in my gut.

A hot and insistent sensation that makes me want to be anywhere but here.

Here, being the freshly erected stage on the front lawn of the home Aubrey and I have shared for the duration of our eighteen-year marriage with a blood-thirsty press corps at our feet, waiting for Aubrey Taylor—Democratic nominee and Presidential hopeful—to admit to something they already know he’s done.Here, being the freshly erected stage on the front lawn of the home Aubrey and I have shared for the duration of our eighteen year marriage with a blood thirsty press corps at our feet, waiting for Aubrey Taylor—Democratic nominee and Presidential hopeful—to admit to something they already know he’s done.

I mean, weren’t the photos of him spreading his former speech writer out on the conference room table in his campaign headquarters admission enough?

I swallow the question down, making sure not to let it show on my face because I don’t want to give Jordan St. James—Aubrey’s campaign manager—yet another thing to critique me on when this press conference is over.

She’ll already be on me about moving away from him, and it won’t matter that it was just an inch, barely noticeable to the naked human eye, because Jordan St. James is far from human and she notices everything.

Which is how I know she knew this day would come.

Her knowledge might have felt like a betrayal if I hadn’t accepted a long time ago that she isn’t here for me.

Aubrey is her primary concern. His political career and the viability of his Presidential bid are all she cares about.

It’s all anyone cares about. The Oval Office is the frame through which everything is viewed, and there’s no room in the frame for my humanity. For my pain, humiliation, or anger.

There’s only room for practiced stoicism that comes too naturally.

For relaxed features that give nothing away to the cameras that have come to capture everything.

To broadcast yet another moment in my life where I have to stand tall when all I want to do is give in to the urge to crumble.

I gaze into the crowd of reporters, as familiar with them as they are with me, and my mind conjures the memory of the first time I stood in front of this many cameras.

Outside of my son’s school, with droves of sobbing and worried parents at my back and police and paramedics at my front.

Aubrey was at my side then too, but I’d leaned into his touch instead of away, using the strong lines of his frame to hold me upright when the senior officer on the scene let us know that AJ, our only son and Aubrey’s name sake, was one of the twenty-eight students who died in the bullet ridden hallways of the public high school we enrolled him in because his father didn’t want being a Senator’s son to stop him from having experiences in the real world.

AJ’s death had thrust me into spotlight I never wanted to stand in.

Photos of me and Aubrey graced the covers of magazines and newspapers for days on end, and in every one of them, I was weeping.

Open mouth, body wracking, sobs frozen in time.

My grief a commodity, available for public consumption.

I refuse to feed them today, to let them see the insecurities Aubrey’s affair with Sutton Ellsworth—the young, bubbly, blonde speechwriter—have awakened in me.

Because I know this time around, there will be no national outpouring of sympathy, no empathetic messages from mothers who also go to bed with images of blood-soaked textbooks clutched by lifeless hands they grew inside of their bodies, filling their heads.Because I know that this time around, there will be no national outpouring of sympathy, no empathetic messages from mothers who also go to bed with images of blood soaked textbooks clutched by lifeless hands they grew inside of their bodies filling their heads.

No, this time there will be think-pieces, blog posts, podcast episodes, and social media threads that will turn a conversation about Aubrey’s infidelity into a discussion about my perceived shortcomings.

Aubrey reaches out again, and this time, I let him catch me.

His hand cups me just above my hip—a practiced gesture of decency everyone now knows is a lie—and I turn my head to give him a thin smile.

One that spells solidarity but not happiness, just like Jordan asked me to.

And for just a second, as he stares down at me, his blue eyes soft and creased at the corners, his mouth a tender line of contrition, he looks a little like the man I married.

Serious but sincere.

Young but experienced.

Fierce but fair.

My heart squeezes, plagued by nostalgia and past potential, and I force myself to look away from him, back into the crowd of vultures hungry for my heartbreak.

Aubrey follows my cue, and, thankfully, releases me from his hold as he turns back to the podium to shuffle through the papers of the speech he’s already memorized.

I thread my fingers together and let them come to rest in front of me.

As I scan the crowd, photographers snap pictures of my face, and I have to fight the urge to smile.

I don’t feel happy right now, but smiling when a camera is pointed at me is a reflex at this point.

A result of a four years of press training that began the day after Aubrey was re-elected for a third time as a U.S.

Senator for the state of Virginia, and not even a full year after we buried our son.

Everything changed after that. He fired his previous campaign manager and hired Jordan, who brought on a team of women tasked with turning me into a Stepford wife with just a bit more personality, and I went from being a Senator’s wife to a future First Lady.

Aubrey clears his throat softly, but the microphone in front of him picks up the sound and carries it across the stage and into the crowd gathered on the sprawling lawn of our five-acre estate in McLean, Virginia.

The idea of building a stage and holding a press conference at your own home might sound ludicrous to some people—okay, most , people—but when Jordan pitched it, no one batted an eye.

Aubrey’s mother had raved about how incredibly smart it was to do it here, where we could drive home the idea that we have the same values as every other American family.

“Thank you all for being with us today,” Aubrey says.

He’s a skilled orator, and everyone hangs on his every word as he drones on about honor, temptation, and overcoming challenges meant to keep you from your destiny.

I bite the inside of my cheek when he says that part.

It’s the only way to hold in the bitter laughter threatening to break free from my chest. How he can stand here with a straight face, painting his choice to break his wedding vows as a personal challenge that required Herculean effort he wasn’t in possession of is beyond me.

Staying faithful has never been particularly challenging for me, but perhaps I’m made of stronger stuff.

“I’d like to thank my family and friends for standing beside me during these trying times, and last, but certainly not least—” he pauses, and I turn to look at him because I’ve listened to him rehearse this speech a million times.

Jordan made him practice until I knew every word, every inflection, every pause by heart, and this pause does not belong here.

Dread coils deep in my belly as I watch him fold the paper in half, making the words I was most looking forward to hearing disappear.

To my left, I see Jordan shaking her head, her green eyes narrowed underneath fire engine red brows that are curved with disapproval.

She looks as if she’s trying to will Aubrey to go back to the carefully constructed script, to read the paragraph where he states how deeply he regrets breaking his wedding vows and betraying me, where he finally says he’s sorry.

Aubrey presses his lips together, fighting against the words he should be saying and replacing them with ones that will do nothing to mend what’s broken between us.

“Last but not least,” he repeats, flicking guiltless blue eyes over to me before turning them back on the crowd.

“I’d like to thank you , the American people, for your constant support and understanding.

I am, admittedly, an imperfect man, but I’m also a man who loves this country.

A man who cares about the person behind every vote.

A man who, if given the chance to serve as President of the United States, will never stop working to make this country a place we can all be proud of. ”