Page 2 of The Illusion of Power (Passion and Politics #1)
SELENE
“ T he motherfucker didn’t even apologize to you,” Monique Walker exclaims for what feels like the hundredth time since Aubrey’s speech two weeks ago.
“I know, Mo. I was there.” There’s a marked lack of patience in my response that causes my best friend of over twenty years to pause. Even though we’re on the phone and not face to face, I know her full lips are pursed in a regretful frown.
“I’m sorry, Sel.” She sighs, relenting for just a second. “I just get so pissed off every time I think about it. He had you move an entire product launch for that press conference, and he couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge you?”
Monique’s anger tries to seep its way into my bones, but I don’t let it.
I simply can’t hold another ounce of negative emotion.
There’s no room for it in my body. I tilt my head back and close my eyes, allowing the buttery leather of my headrest to cradle my skull while my best friend and business partner continues her diatribe.
Nothing she’s saying is wrong. Every point she makes about Aubrey’s remarks during the press conference is an echo of truths I am resigned to hold deep inside of myself because if I let them out, I will explode and destroy everything in my path, including America’s next President.Every point she makes about Aubrey’s remarks during the press conference are an echo of truths I am resigned to hold deep inside of myself because if I let them out I will explode and destroy everything in my path, including America’s next President.
Aubrey wasn’t even supposed to run this year.
The plan was always for 2028. That’s what we’d settled on when AJ was born the same year Monique and I started Culture Code—a digital firm operating at the intersection of technology and social justice.
At that point, Aubrey was a low-level state senator with a dream, but I always knew where he wanted to end up.
We made a plan. A timeline we dedicated our lives to and never deviated from, but then AJ died, and everything changed.
The loss of our son became cannon fodder for Aubrey’s political career.
Suddenly, everyone, including Scott Warner, the President at the time, knew who he was and what we’d lost. Out of the haze of our grief, Aubrey emerged.
A bright and shiny star with enough political capital to launch a Presidential campaign a whole election cycle early.
“You can’t stay with him,” Monique is saying now, her voice cutting through my thoughts. “Please tell me you’re not going to stay with him.”
“Mo, I don’t know what I’m going to do, okay? I’ll think about it after we get this facial recognition software on the market.”
“This is the part where I remind you that software would already be on the market if it weren’t for your cheating husband.”
“I don’t need a reminder, Monique. I’m well aware.”
Canceling the launch had hurt me and frustrated the hell out of my team.
We’ve been working on this software for nearly six years.
Writing and rewriting lines of code, building an extensive and diverse database of photos for the software to compare faces to, sacrificing sleep and sanity, all to get to a day Aubrey and Jordan stole from us without a second thought.
“You only call me Monique when you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you .” I sigh, opening my eyes and looking at the house that no longer feels like home to me. “I’m just mad in general.”
“Good. Anger is good. You can use it to pack up all your shit and leave that cheating asshole in the dust.”
Sometimes I love how Monique can make everything that feels complicated seem simple.
When I tend to overthink things, a rare but not unheard of occurrence, she comes swooping in with an outstretched hand, ready to lead me down a path she cleared for us.
This is not one of those times, though. Because we’re not conducting a cost-benefit analysis for a new community outreach program or determining how many new employees we can take on, we’re talking about me leaving my husband of eighteen years.
Yes, I’m angry at Aubrey for cheating. Furious at him for denying me the public apology I have more than earned, but leaving him just doesn’t feel like something I can do when I don’t understand why any of this happened in the first place.
I need answers, and Aubrey is the only one who can give them to me.
Not that he’s been particularly forthcoming these days.
Every time I try to ask him about the photos, about the affair, about what drew him to Sutton in the first place, he shuts down, denying me access to the information I need to solve the problem in our marriage, I wasn’t even aware existed.
Monique won’t understand any of this. She’s a heart-first person.
Driven by emotion, especially in relationships.
As soon as she starts dating someone, logic is a foreign concept.
Reason a distant memory. Everything is angst, high stakes, and a burning passion that fizzles out fast. Monique has always enjoyed the thrill of those kinds of bonds, but they’ve never been for me.
I’ve always appreciated the calm, steadiness of my marriage.
Aubrey and I are both solution-oriented people.
We have never faced a problem we couldn’t sit down and parse out a solution to.
Until now.
“Goodbye, Monique.” I lean forward, allowing my finger to hover over the red button on the display screen in my dashboard that will end the call.
“Thought you weren’t mad at me?” She tosses back, not bothering to say goodbye before ending the call herself.
It takes me ten minutes to work up the energy to go inside.
Every day, I come home from work and walk into something new and unexpected.
Campaign staffers using my dining room to make calls to unregistered voters.
Jordan, Aubrey, and Torrance Belford—Aubrey’s running mate—having a working dinner in my kitchen.
A news crew on my front lawn, getting shots of the house and property for a profile piece they’re doing on Aubrey.
It’s always something, and today it’s a strategy meeting in my living room that includes Aubrey, Torrance, Jordan, and a large group of serious-looking men in black suits that I’ve never seen before.
I take one look at the scene and turn the other way, opting to go work in my home office instead of subjecting myself to another long, drawn-out meeting where no one wants or needs my opinion on anything.
When I sit down at my desk, I release a deep breath to ground myself, so I can actually get some work done.
Pushing back the software launch has created an intricately tangled web of complications I’ve been trying to unwind on my own for the past two weeks.
The process would move a lot quicker if I allowed my assistant, Nichelle, and the launch team to help me, but I need the small sense of fulfillment that comes with resolving at least one issue in my life, and they need to be moving on to other projects.
Once I start working, finding the stride of productivity I was unable to access at the office, time moves quickly.
Two hours pass with my eyes fixed on the screen of my computer and my fingers flying over my keyboard.
I pay invoices for the new venue space and a steep cancellation fee for the old one, approve a marketing campaign and the associated print materials that had to be updated to reflect the new date and location, and reply to email after email from investors and stakeholders who don’t think adultery is a sufficient reason for a delay.
By the time I’m done wading through my to-do list, my head is hurting, and my eyes are begging for a break from blue lights and screens.
I begin to shut down my computer, intending to grab a quick snack from the kitchen and go up to bed, only to be interrupted by the chime of an incoming video call from my mother.
An involuntary groan slips through my clenched teeth as I glance heavenward, praying today’s call will be shorter than yesterday’s and less invasive than the call we had on the day before that.
“Hey, Mama.”
I force the words to come out even and free of the annoyance I feel building inside of my chest. Daily communication with my mother isn’t something I’m used to.
Our relationship is nothing like the one she has with my younger sisters, Robin and Jessica, who live all of five minutes away from the house we grew up in and visit or call our parents every day.
Mama says the difference between her relationship with my sisters and her relationship with me is need.
My sisters need her, they’ve always needed her, and I don’t.
Apparently, I’ve always been that way—strong, independent, apart .
The child she never had to worry about. She’s worried now, though, and it shows in every line of her round face and mahogany skin.
It hangs on the corners of her downturned lips and lingers in the creases of her almond-shaped eyes, winking at me from the depths of brown irises with toffee colored puddles sprinkled throughout.
They’re my eyes. One of the only things my mother gave me while everything else came from my father.
“The baby girls are all you, Justine,” the ladies who frequented my mother’s hair salon used to say , “but that oldest girl? She’s all Albert.”
While I’m sure they meant well, the sentiment created something of a division between me and the rest of the women in my family.
My mom and my sisters were always a unit.
Their similarities made it easier for her to see them, to identify their needs and meet them, while my differences made me a puzzle no one tried to solve except my father.
And even he gave up sometimes, opting to stash me in front of the old desktop in the back of his auto shop to play Solitaire when I refused to spend another day sweeping up hair and organizing perm rods by size and color in Mama’s salon.