"I just mean that you've guarded your personal life so closely that it has just made people more curious," Tracy continues. "You're young, attractive, rich, and single. You're also the youngest President in the history of the United States and that's left the public curious about you."
"So you think I should be completely transparent with my personal life?" I ask, tapping my pen on the office's Resolute desk in increasing agitation. "Don't you think I deserve as much fucking privacy as anyone else?"
"That's not what I'm saying," Tracy replies. "Not exactly to that extreme anyways. I think the public thinks that you're hiding something."
"Hiding something?" I ask. "Like what?"
"I can't help you there," Tracy shrugs, her blouse bunching at the shoulders. "It's just a hunch."
I lean back in my leather chair, and put my feet up on the desk. None of my other advisors have dared to speak.
Then I hear Tracy clear her throat. "Another thing," she says, and I can't help squinting my eyes shut. This can't be good.
She continues, "Living up to your promise to 'clean the cave' has also earned you some powerful enemies."
I immediately put my feet down on the floor and sit up straight in my chair.
"Like who?" I ask.
"Well, Bob Walker for starters," she says.
"That fucking bastard," I mumble to myself. He resembles more of a marshmallow than he does a man. I campaigned against him for the presidency. Walker thought for sure he'd be president, and so did everyone else. But in a surprise twist of events, he lost.
He's now Speaker of the House, but I know he's looking for any chance he can get to snatch the presidency.
"I agree," Reese Dawson, my VP, says, speaking up and breaking the silence. "He's been spitting venom ever since you beat him."
Then Tracy continues, "The press isn't going to let up, especially not with Bob Walker pushing them, but I have an idea."
"You do?" I ask, raising my eyebrows in disbelief. "Go on."
"Well, the way I see it," Tracy says, "is that the press is going to dig until they get something. It's like a dog digging up a bone in a yard—they won't stop until they have what they are looking for. So, I think we should give them something."
"Such as?" I ask, trying not to sound too skeptical.
"A wife," Tracy replies matter-of-fact. "Well … a fiancée. "
The entire Oval Office is silent. It's so quiet, I swear you could fucking hear a cotton ball bounce across the carpet. Everyone is staring at Tracy now in disbelief, including me.
But then it dawns on me that maybe she's right.
"We could hold a press conference," I suggest, standing up from my chair and pacing behind my desk. I tend to do that when I'm deep in though. Movement helps. "I understand that my negotiations with the South Korean ambassador were above board. I'll let the public know that I'd never do anything to damage the most important relationship in my life."
"Exactly," Tracy chimes in. "That's perfect. And then you can drop the bomb that you're engaged."
I hear murmurs of approval from my staff. They are all nodding their heads in agreement. While this plan does seem crazy, I also think it can work.
Then Tracy continues, "You can tell the press that you didn't want your engagement to distract from the country's real issues and that you and whatever woman we pick were on and off but you realized after the South Korean ambassador that you needed her in your life or something like that."
Jesus fucking Christ.
It might just work.
Tracy is right. Now I'm totally fucking convinced that this plan is just crazy enough to work … as long as I don't really have to get married. Because there's no way I can agree to that.
Tracy seems to know exactly what I'm silently thinking and she places one hand on my shoulder, "Don't worry, Austin, you aren't really getting married. We're just giving the press, and the public, what they want—a bone to dig up in the yard. Something to grab onto."
"Okay, now that we've got that figured out, who are we going to get to play the role of the fake fiancée? It's not everyday that a woman agrees to be put into that kind of spotlight."