Her Secret Service (Jane Roe 1) by Jason Letts (top novels to read txt) 📕

“Alex, I just wanted to say something in reference to the point that you made last Saturday. I understand what you mean and want to apologize for my error. In truth, I appreciate what you meant. The office can be all-consuming, but don’t stop being you and finding ways to shine through it,” she said, holding her index finger in front of her. It felt like there was so much feeling being strained through a very narrow sieve. She was about to leave, overcome by a sensation of being ridiculous and out of place, but she turned back to look at him one more time. “And about the stuff that Hodge wrote, I don’t care at all.”

He looked at her sternly and studiously in a way she found unexpectedly withering, perhaps mostly because he didn’t move to approach her more closely like she wanted.

“Thank you, Agent Roe,” he said, and Jane nodded at him as she retreated.

As she shut the door behind herself and closed her eyes for half a second, she knew that he only saw her as a Secret Service agent, trapped within the confines of her position just as much as he was. The job that got her close to him was the same thing that kept them apart, and these days the Oval Office was not a place for igniting passion. Even though Evans, Royer, and all the rest would’ve never spoken a word in public no matter what they’d done, her professional reputation and mission were still important to her.

Somehow they had won the day and pushed her personal wants back where they were buried, again.

Back within her office, Jane had mixed feelings about her rushed trip and veiled declaration. Alex may well have thought she was crazy, another fawning underling who lost her mind in the face of the highest office of the land. But maybe he would see that she had come there of her own accord and had tried to say something, anything to make it clear she knew what went wrong. Mostly she hoped he would recognize that she’d been there for him and wanted to be there because of him, not what he did.

There was a lot of work to be done, mostly advance prep for a trip to a pharmaceutical plant the president wanted to take in the coming months, but Jane found it difficult to focus properly. She kept jumping back and forth between work and flipping through apartment listings in town, wondering where she was going to live.

She made good money at her job and could afford to live in a nicer place, but she had to factor in that she could end up being fired and forced to take whatever work she could get, even if it paid significantly less. Mostly her search revolved around finding a modest apartment in a better section of town that a middle-class single woman would feel comfortable living in.

But making much progress on either went out the window when Nathan stopped by her office, leaning against the doorframe with a magazine in his hand.

“I’ve tried to keep up on your investigation,” he said. “You hanging in there?”

Jane flashed the brightest smile she could under the circumstances.

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Nathan looked her over and nodded.

“I just think they’d be crazy to throw you out over this. People aren’t going to forget about the Air Force One bombing, but that’s far from the only thing swirling around the president. Did you read this?” he asked, showing the cover of the magazine in his hand. It was the one Leslie Hodge’s story had been printed in.

“Regrettably, yes,” she said, leaving out that she pretty much had the entire thing memorized at this point. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“A little provocative, don’t you think?”

A begrudging grin came to her face. She was coming to learn that this was the sort of thing Nathan would always find a way to bring up. He scratched his trimmed beard and shrugged.

“What gave you that impression, how she knew exactly how many minutes the intercourse lasted or that there were two full paragraphs dedicated exclusively to describing his penis?”

“She has to be angling for a book deal with this,” Nathan said, dropping the magazine on her desk. It had been folded so much that it naturally opened right to Hodge’s story. “It’s nearly ten thousand words with absolutely no detail left to the imagination. All of it incredibly critical of President Morrin. I mean, cut the guy some slack. So he wanted her to keep her bra on. Getting all Freudian and making the case that it was a precursor to the demise of their nascent relationship seems excessive.”

Jane nodded along, though debating the merits of Alex’s sexual preferences on this particular occasion wasn’t appealing to her. That did leave her in the minority, and as best she could tell that was exactly what everyone else in the country was talking about since the article was published. Maybe it was no wonder Alex wasn’t about to put himself in the line of fire for more feminine torment.

“A lot of research went into this too,” Jane said, happening to glance at a pull quote from an interview the president had given to Olly Ip that Hodge had included about the divorce. “That’s probably doing as much damage as anything. His poll numbers are starting to crater.”

“Anyway, I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it,” Nathan said. “Might be relevant in some way. I wouldn’t be surprised if angry women started threatening to kill him after reading the part about how he sent her away in the morning carrying her shoes. Though from what the guys have told me, that’s not exactly true.”

“Thanks,” Jane said dryly. “If you come across any other dumpster fires, let me know.”

Nathan winked at her as he pushed off from the doorframe and started away down the hall, leaving Jane and the magazine behind. Without an