And the first clue I get that implies I shouldn’t even be traveling with Matt comes from his grandfather. He sees me and asks, “Who is she?”

“My scheduler. She’s Senator Wells’s daughter and an old family friend.” Matt introduces us. “Charlotte, Patrick Hamilton, my grandfather.”

“I know who she is—why is she here?” his grandfather huffs, turning around and boarding the plane.

Wow.

The man hates me.

Matt shoots me an ignore him look and puts his hand protectively on the back of my neck as he urges me up the plane steps. A frisson shoots down my spine and though the touch lasted only a second, the feel of his touch lasts for much longer. Matt settles his big body on the chair facing the cockpit. I take the seat behind his.

I have never before been more grateful that Matt brought Jack. He lets him out of his crate after takeoff and Jack immediately comes over to sniff me and lick my hands. He’s keeping his eyes on Matt while I plug in my earbuds to give the men some privacy while they talk.

Still, I overhear them discussing various subjects—the stabilization of the economy, Matt running as an Independent.

“You’re a Harvard graduate, like your father . . . You’ve lived abroad; you know what’s out there,” his grandfather passionately argues. “Your father was too young the first time he wanted to run and was told to wait and he did. You take the cake of it all, Matthew, really you do.”

“People are loyal to him, Patrick,” Carlisle appeases. “No one sniped about Lawrence after his death. There were no unauthorized leaks of information regarding his presidency. The people are insanely loyal to the Hamiltons.”

“But they’re loyal to their parties, too,” Patrick counters with a meaningful look in Carlisle’s direction.

“What did you want me to be, a senator?” Matt asks in a steely voice that silences everyone.

Even his grandfather finally seems to shut up.

I’m aware of his grandfather constantly glancing in my direction during the flight. He doesn’t even try to lower his voice when he says, “You keep your hands off her. You belong to the country now.”

Dead silence falls.

Jack’s ears perk up as if he senses something. And though the air is thick with tension, Matt leans back in a lounging pose as he eyes his grandfather. “Yeah, Granddad. I appreciate you being here . . . but I know what I’m doing.”

Leaping off the seat next to me, Jack bounds up the aisle and sits at Matt’s feet, nudging Matt’s thigh with his nose.

Matt keeps his intimidating stare on his grandfather as he absently strokes a hand atop Jack’s head and glances at me. He’s got the sleeves of his shirt rolled to his elbows and he’s so muscular that veins pop out on his arms.

I remember our conversation and my mother’s words, not completely dissimilar to his grandfather’s, and I quickly break gazes—too sucked in by the dark, proprietary flash in his eyes—and get myself busy once again, going over all the names of the local aides we will be meeting and greeting at the Dallas headquarters today.

We check into the hotel and head to our local office, and for the next week, the marathon of media and crowds begins all over the Southern states.

Wherever we land, there’s always a receiving committee of people waving placards and chanting.

“HAMILTON FOR THE COUNTRY.”

“BORN FOR THIS!”

I’m so proud of stupid wonderful Matt and how he’s impacting people.

His easy charisma simply wins over the people instantly. For years he protected his privacy, while giving off the air of a handsome, cultured rake with unlimited money and unquenched appetites. He looks like the bad boy of politics at the same time as he looks like the man you want to entrust yourself and your children to.

He already has international respect. His father has a whole library in his name, as many ex-presidents do, and a history of preserving relics, and now it seems like the media has been waiting decades to lie down before the powerful Hamilton legacy again.

He knows just how to greet the reporters; he even knows the names of most. Bulbs flash as we land in Miami and step out of the jet toward a silver SUV.

“How do you do that?” I glance at Matt, who’s dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt, emitting more heat than the Florida sun up above.

He shoots me a questioning sideways glance. “What?” he asks with a grin, the wind playing with his hair. Damn wind. My fingers are jealous.

“Know exactly how to treat them,” I add.

He shrugs, as if getting along with the press is simply second nature to him.

“The thing with the press is,” he says, “you need to keep them fed so they don’t steal into your home and have a picnic at your expense. Keep them sated with just the right amount of info so they’re not hungry enough to try to rummage through the entire contents of your kitchen.”

I smile. “You’re cunning.”

“Cautious,” he easily contradicts.

“Calculating.”

He continues to smile, silent, then he looks at my lips for a second—long enough to make my stomach clutch with wanting—and he quietly admits, “No contest.”

I laugh and try to shake off his effect on me as we climb into the SUV.

I’m nervous.

Tummy-clenching, butterflies-fluttering nervous.

Not because of traveling. But you know the flutters that are there even when your mind is somewhere else? I have them. I’ve had them for the past week. I can’t get rid of them.

My breath keeps catching when Matt’s and my gazes meet. I keep feeling my sex grip when he looks at my mouth, or asks me for something and seems to purposely drag his fingertip over my thumb when I hand it over.

We’re in the car now.

I’m sandwiched between him and his grandfather, and yet the car is all about Matt. Matt’s smell, the space Matt’s body takes.

This is the first guy I’ve ever fantasized about, and the young version of him was only an inkling of the man he is now.

The whole ride to our hotel, I’m aware of a low, dull hum in the pit of my stomach and the things his hands are doing as he fiddles with his phone and takes a call from someone named Beckett, who I’ve learned is one of his Harvard friends and who it seems will be catching up with us later.

Quietly I stare out the window at the scenery, and then I opt to review the week’s itinerary. When Matt ends his call, he leans over my shoulder. His jaw is about an inch from touching my shoulder.