Broken Protocol Read online

  Copyright 2018 Eden Butler

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Author Publisher.

  Proofread by Julie Deaton

  Cover Design by Lori Jackson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the word-marks and references mentioned in this work of fiction.

  CONTENTS

  ALSO BY EDEN BUTLER

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY EDEN BUTLER

  THE SERENITY SERIES

  Chasing Serenity

  Behind the Pitch

  Finding Serenity

  Claiming Serenity

  Catching Serenity

  THE THIN LOVE SERIES

  Thin Love

  My Beloved

  Thick Love

  Thick & Thin

  GOD OF ROCK SERIES

  Kneel

  Beg

  SAINTS AND SINNERS SERIES

  Roughing the Kicker

  THE PROTOCOL SERIAL

  Against Protocol

  Broken Protocol

  Final Protocol

  STANDALONES

  I’ve Seen You Naked and Didn’t Laugh

  Crimson Cove

  Platform Four

  Infinite Us

  Fall

  COLLABORATIONS

  Nailed Down, Nailed Down Book One, with Chelle Bliss

  Tied Down, Nailed Down Book Two, with Chelle Bliss

  Find out more about Eden’s books on her site www.edenbutler.com

  DEDICATION

  For my Himself because I still like smooching him.

  PROLOGUE

  Cruz

  Waterford, Virginia, June 2012

  LIA DIDN’T LOOK MUCH like a First Lady, but then, the gig was still new. I got zero Nancy Reagan or Barbara Bush feels from her as she moved around my condo, her hair pulled up in something resembling a bun, held together with a pencil she lifted from my junk drawer, and a damp dish towel knotted around her waist as she rinsed the dishes cluttering my kitchen island.

  “You don’t have to do that, Mrs. Harris.” I cringed when she frowned, realizing for at least the dozenth time tonight that she hated when I didn’t call her Lia.

  “Ridiculous,” she said, swatting my hand away when I tried taking a plate from her. “You and all this ‘Mrs. Harris’ business has gone on too long, Cruz.” She got the dish free from my hand with little more than the arch of one eyebrow. Devious. She knew I couldn’t take those looks from her. It was a challenge I wouldn’t accept, though I suspected she wanted me to.

  We’d danced around the vibe moving between us for over a year, starting on the campaign and still damn well there as she got used to being the newest First Lady.

  I was getting a little pissed off that we hadn’t finished it.

  “Protocol...”

  “You’ve seen me puking my guts out after six amaretto sours...”

  “We were stupid kids. College doesn’t count,” I tried, unable to keep the laugh out of my tone when she shook her head, disregarding my logic with a lazy shrug.

  “I’ve seen you so sick you couldn’t lift your head off the pillow.” She moved to rinse another dish, a wine glass this time and I couldn’t keep myself from watching her ass move in that modest skirt of hers.

  Heart shaped, still. Lia Baptiste, as I’d known her at Loyola my last semester, had the most perfect ass I’d ever seen. Time hadn’t changed that.

  “Such a Boy Scout,” she said through a laugh.

  “Boy Scout? I’m no Boy Scout, Lia besides, it...was Hartford and five below zero.” I hurried to gather more dishes from the island, standing next to her to keep from staring at that sweet ass like I wanted to take a bite. “Everyone was down with the flu.”

  “Not Lincoln.”

  “No,” I said, handing her two forks after I rinsed them. “President Harris was up for the job.”

  She shook her head, lowering her gaze to the water running from the tap. “Still seems so weird, doesn’t it?”

  “What? Him being president?” She nodded, and I wondered just then what she thought and why whatever those thoughts were, made her look a little disappointed. “You know that’s what the whole campaigning thing was for, right? Us getting up before sunrise, riding on a bus from state to state, him kissing...” She glanced at me and I remembered who she was. At least who she was now. The Lia I’d been with in college was gone. The woman looking up at me was the First Lady. I was an agent. We were galaxies away from who we’d been back in New Orleans.

  Time to check myself.

  “Kissing?” she said, prompting me to continue with a half-smile.

  “Toddlers.”

  She didn’t laugh. Even though during the past year as I was assigned to guard Lia and her husband, it had been commonplace for me to crack a stupid joke and for her to laugh no matter how idiotic it was, she didn’t then. Just didn’t seem to be much that made her laugh lately. At least, when she was in the White House.

  When she exhaled, pulling off the dish towel after she closed the dishwasher, I spotted the soft, small wrinkle between her eyes. That was uncommon, too, and I decided I didn’t like seeing her like that. It wasn’t the face she showed the world.

  “Yes, well, he’s kissing a lot more than toddlers now.” It was a slip, I spotted that quick enough when Lia’s cheeks colored, brightening her light brown skin. She hurried to make the frown move from her features, but I hadn’t missed it.

  “Hey,” I finally said, catching her when she tried to move away from the sink. My place was a disaster, but the party had been good. A bunch of the people we’d both known from our Loyola days converging on D.C., itching to hang out with the new First Lady and embarrass me in the process. But that had ended two hours ago. A car waited out on my drive ready to take us both back to D.C., but Lia hadn’t wanted to leave. She’d insisted on helping me clean up and when Lia wanted something, she usually got it. Now though, the fake smile, so practiced, so constant on her face, slipped as though the small comment was something she’d wanted to keep secret.

  “I’m being...a little pathetic,” she said, stepping back from me, readjusting her shirt as I watched her. She didn’t seem to like the way I stared, like she knew I could make out the bullshit she tried to pretend she wasn’t giving me.

  “Lia, you are the least pathetic person on the planet.” That had her glancing at me, giving up the pretense that she wasn’t sad. She didn’t speak as I nodded to the island, kicking back a stool with my foot for her to sit. I grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the glass cabinet next to the fridge and she kept silent while I dug out two tumblers and poured the bourbon straight. The glasses full, I moved my chin to the bourbon in front of her and I held my own in front of my mouth. “Drink,” I told her, taking a sip. “Then spill.”

  She took two sips, both she slammed back with her eyes closed. I wish she hadn’t done that. It had been hell enough watching her, keeping quiet for the past year as Lia smiled and gushed and perfected the role of a politician’s wife. Some nights I’d spot her rubbing at the ache in her cheeks because she’d let some forced smile freeze on her face for hours.
r />   Those smiles weren’t genuine. Neither was the shit I’d seen of her and Harris on the campaign. I’d turned my back on most of the fights they’d had, but I couldn’t walk away. That was the gig. You manned your people. You watched their backs and sometimes, shitty as it was, you pretended you couldn’t hear the insults they flung at each other. Or, worse yet, the loud, angry make-up sex they had when the fighting was over.

  “Tell me,” I said, taking another swig to keep the make-up sex memories at bay.

  Lia paused, staring down at the bourbon in her glass, swilling it around like she’d find something other than a headache at the bottom of that glass. Then, she inhaled, glancing at me before she spoke.

  “Off the record?”

  “You’re in my place. No surveillance here.”

  “And you won’t say...”

  “Lia,” I started, motioning with my hand resting over my heart. “Secret keeper.” I pointed to my temple, glass still in hand. “In the vault.”

  She nodded, downing what remained of her bourbon before she pushed the glass away. “He fucks anything that wiggles and I don’t do much wiggling around him.”

  Eyebrows up, I narrowed my eyes, debating if I should say what immediately popped into my head at her confession. When I kept quiet, Lia folded her arms, expression tight.

  “Secret keeper remember?” She grabbed the bottle as I polished off my glass, then smiled when I took it out of her hand to pour us both another, fuller glass.

  The liquid from my gulp went down hot and I could feel her gaze on my face as I drank. “What?” I said, putting down my glass.

  “Just wondering when you decided to go all soft and quiet on me.”

  “Soft?” I said, sitting up straight.

  “The guy I knew back home would have thrown something if I told him my man was stepping out on me.”

  I laughed, waving off whatever sarcastic tease she was about to release by holding up my hand. “I was your man back home.”

  “More reason for you to get a little pissed off. It’s a loyalty thing.”

  My elbows arched a little when I leaned forward, slouching as I held the glass in my loose fingers and watched the First Lady, trying to organize my response before I let something rude and stupid leave my mouth. Fact was, I suspected what Harris did and I hated him for it even if I had no proof. I hated him for a lot of things that had to do with Lia but hating him for not being able to keep his dick in check was top of the list.

  There was a light over the island that glinted in her eyes, made them shine like glass and for a second, I got caught up in them, remembered how they’d change depending on her mood. Sometimes they looked wild, the color of whiskey, and full of fury when she was angry. Sometimes they lightened from their normal brown color to hazel, almost green when she was drunk or laughing hysterically over something. A flash of memory shot to the front of my mind when I remembered how dark those eyes got when she was turned on, when she wanted to take and give back only what would make me desperate and needy and keep me belonging to her alone.

  Fuck me, I had to squash the bullshit recall of what we’d had back in New Orleans.

  “Unless,” she started, sitting up as she held her glass against her chest, like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to drink from it or hurl it at my head. I held my breath while she decided between the two. “You knew.” She released a short laugh, clipped and unamused before she set her glass on the granite counter. “Of course you did. It’s your job to know, isn’t it?” Lia’s mouth dropped open as she watched me, eyes narrowing like she thought staring hard enough at me might loosen my lips. “Did you...oh, God, Cruz, you covered for him, didn’t you?”

  “Lia...”

  She wouldn’t hear anything I had to say, instead, she left the stool, moving through the kitchen, down the long, dark hallway and into the guest bedroom where she’d stashed her purse. There were boxes stashed around the foot of the bed, but otherwise, it was neat though there was a mild hint of lavender lingering on the quilts my sister Mya sent me folded in a square on top of the window seat.

  “...Why wouldn’t he?” Lia was saying, not speaking to anyone or anything but the blankets on the bed and the pictures of my sisters that lined the bookshelf above the window. “His job is to protect the president, not the First Lady...” She dug behind a box of vinyl records I had stashed at the foot of the bed when the party started to kick up, but Lia still seemed unable to find her stuff. “Watching him, having his back while I...”

  “Hey,” I finally said, grabbing her arm to stop the pointless babbling. Lia blinked up at me, expression still shocked, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a lot disappointed. I wanted to touch her face then, like I’d always done. I’d wanted to do that a million times during the campaign, when her worry was so thick I could taste it on my tongue. But it wasn’t my place to console her. My job was to keep her safe, not happy. Still, that look, that disappointment, no way I’d catch the blame for that shit. I’d committed no sins. “Listen to me and hear what I have to say, okay?” She flinched when I gripped her tighter, a little desperate for her to believe me. “I’ve done some shitty things doing the jobs I’ve had. Really shitty things not you or anyone else on the planet gets to know about.” She lowered her shoulders, and I took a half-step back, giving her the space I knew she needed. Lia watched me like she was on autopilot, following my gaze to the bed, sitting with a soft bounce. Her eyes were wide, still focused on me.

  “I wouldn’t...” She rested her hands in her lap, but the wide-eyed, curious look she gave me didn’t lessen. “National...security?”

  “That’s the gist of it.” There was more, hell of a lot more that I wanted to share and couldn’t but none of that made a damn bit of difference right then. She didn’t move when I knelt in front of her, wanting her to see me close, get the measure of my meaning by whatever she saw on my features. “None of those shitty things included covering for Harris when and if he stepped out on you.” Lia’s expression relaxed, and I felt what seemed like an anvil lifted from my chest. “He knew we’d been...you and I were close once.” She wanted to correct me. Saw that shit clear in how she moved her eyebrows up, how small patches of pink rose to her face, but I moved my head, telling her with one shake to let me finish. “He’s a smart man and no matter how entitled a man is, he’s not going to let his wife’s old college friend get any ideas about him with other women.” Lia looked down at her hands steepled together and I hated not knowing her thoughts. She was getting good at the First Lady mask she wore. “Besides, if I’d found out, you know I would have given you a head’s up.”

  “He’s the president,” she said, sounding surprised by my confession.

  “You’re my...friend.”

  It wasn’t a lie. She knew that as much as I did. New Orleans, college, that was a lifetime ago. We’d loved each other. A few short months and it happened. Love is fierce when you’re young, it makes you drunk, it tempts you to try and top the sensation of that first-love feeling. But I’d never told her that and now, she was just my assignment, “Buttercup” to the president’s “Wesley.” Still, somewhere in the back of my head, she was Lia, the girl I’d wanted with the power of a typhoon. The woman I knew deep down I wouldn’t easily recover from.

  A lifetime happened between then and now and I was left with what remained. It wasn’t the whole truth, but calling her my friend wasn’t a lie. I could not have what I wanted from her, so I’d take what I could get.

  “You...have my back?”

  “No one has it more than me,” I said, curling my hands against hers, fingers between hers.

  Again she lowered her head, watching our fingers threaded together, moving her thumb along my knuckles like it was something she’d done a thousand times. She hadn’t, not since I’d been guarding her. Not since I walked away from her.

  “You said that to me before,” she admitted, still watching our fingers. “When you...”

  “When I left New Orleans.” Lia nodded, but kept her
attention on her lap. There weren’t many times during the campaign that left me the chance to just watch her. I did that now, staring, looking at her closer than I’d been in a long time, trying to see how different she was. There weren’t any lines on her face, no wrinkles had formed, no gray hair lighting around her temples. Her face seemed older, still ridiculously beautiful, and her eyes carried the light of a thousand things she had told herself but could never speak aloud. I’d never noticed anything like that in any other woman. I’d never had reason to.

  “You kissed me goodbye and held me so tight.”

  Duty keeps you silent. It wears down the need to speak your mind. Just then what I wanted to say got louder than what I should have done. Damn well couldn’t help myself.

  “I didn’t want to leave you.”

  Lia blinked like something had caught in her eyes and then she shut her eyes as though she needed to squeeze them tight to get whatever images that flashed forward from her mind. But then, she gripped my fingers, her head, her gaze coming up, a slow progression I watched holding my breath.

  “I didn’t want you to go.” Lia pressed her lips together, looking uncertain before she lifted her hand from our joined fists to skim a nail over my cheek. “Most days,” she said, voice soft, a little awed, “I don’t want you going anywhere.”

  “Lia,” I said, grabbing her wrist with the intention of pulling her hand away from my face. But then she shook her head, eyes shutting again, and my insides burned, my chest tight when I spotted tears leaking between her lashes and then down her cheek. “Ah...hell...”

  She fell against me when I pulled her to my chest, holding her still, fingers in her hair. “I’m sorry,” she said through a low cry she tried to hide with a cough. “Cruz...I’m so...”

  “Hush. Please.” She held onto me and I let her, loving how thick that sweet flowery scent smelled in her hair, how well she fit against my chest, how this moment beat anything I’d imagined all those lonely nights I lay awake in some hotel room wondering if Lia was okay on the other side of the wall. Wondering if Harris knew how one frown from him, one passive aggressive comment at her expense could deflate her until she was nothing resembling the woman he married. Most days on the campaign it had taken every ounce of my strength to push back the urge to throttle him.