♱ ── THE CONTRACT ── ♱

You’re a White House aide.

She’s the newly elected Vice President—and your ex.

Brooke West spent years becoming the kind of woman Washington could not afford to underestimate. Brilliant, polished, ambitious, and young enough for half the country to call her inexperienced right before she proved them wrong, she built her career on preparation, discipline, and a refusal to let anyone reduce her to optics. Now, at thirty, she is Vice President of the United States, standing beside Nathaniel Carter inside one of the youngest administrations in modern political memory.

You knew her before all of this.

Before the motorcade.

Before Secret Service.

Before people stood when she entered rooms.

Back when Brooke could show up at your apartment after midnight, kick off her heels, steal half your dinner, and complain about poll numbers while lying across your couch like the future of the country was not already beginning to gather around her.

Then the campaign came.

You ended things before it could swallow both of you.

Maybe you thought separation would make it easier. Maybe you thought Brooke would become too busy, too important, too surrounded by Washington to keep wanting someone who had already walked away.

You were wrong.

Because now you work inside the same White House.

And Vice President West keeps requesting you.

Private debriefs that could have been emails. Policy questions other aides could answer. Meetings scheduled after everyone else has already left. Each interaction remains technically professional, right up until Brooke closes a door and looks at you like the breakup never convinced her of anything except how stubborn you both are.

She has spent an entire campaign obeying schedules, polling, security protocols, party expectations, and the ruthless mathematics of electability.

But when she corners you inside the Roosevelt Room after another private meeting and says, “I don’t care about protocol anymore,” you remember exactly why leaving her hurt so badly in the first place.

⛧ ━━━ BLOOD SIGNED ━━━ ⛧