Chapter Twenty
The news about Sanborn had cast a pall over Nick’s day. He could still remember how excited they’d been when they realized Sam might be pregnant, and before they could even officially celebrate the good news, her altercation with Sanborn had led to the miscarriage.
It had taken months for them to get back on track after she lost the baby.
It had carried over into the week of their wedding when she’d finally opened up to him about her private agony.
Four miscarriages. His poor, sweet Samantha had been through the wringer.
Even knowing that, he still hoped against hope that one day they might conceive again and she might finally realize her dream of carrying her own baby.
He prayed for that every day of his life, but only because he knew she wanted it so badly. If she and Scotty were the only family he ever had, Nick would be perfectly satisfied.
After a brisk knock on his office door, Terry came in holding a stack of papers and a phone tucked between his head and shoulder.
He glanced at Nick. “Um, hmm, let me check with him. Hold on.” Terry covered the phone with his hand.
“There’s a woman at the gates claiming to be your mother.
She’s demanding to be let in to see you. ”
Nick’s stomach took a dive at that news. “Did she give a name?”
“What’s her name?” Terry asked into the phone. Holding it aside, he said, “Nicoletta Bernadino.”
Nick sighed and shook his head. This was the very last thing he needed today.
If he let her in, if he acknowledged her, it would screw him up for days.
The very smell of her perfume used to leave him reeling after her infrequent visits during his childhood.
He simply didn’t have it in him to deal with her today.
“Tell her I’m not available.”
“The vice president is in meetings,” Terry said. “He’s not seeing visitors today.” He listened to what was being said on the other end. “I’ll let him know.” Terry ended the call and put the phone in his pocket.
“What did they say?”
“She’s raising hell, apparently, making demands, throwing your name around, telling them she’s going to have their jobs.”
“Let them know their jobs are safe.”
“I’ll do that.” He looked as if he wanted to say more but didn’t.
“It’s okay. You can ask.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“It is when she shows up here and makes it your business. The little demonstration at the gate is a metaphor for my entire life. She shows up out of the blue, makes it all about her and leaves me flattened in her wake. It’s our pattern.
She’s long overdue for a visit. I haven’t seen her since she tried to crash my wedding and Sam ran her off before she could get her hooks in me and ruin the best day of my life. ”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, with a mom like Laine O’Connor, it would be hard for you to understand a mother like mine.” Nick got up and went to the window, trying to see the main gates, which were out of view. “You don’t think the press is going to catch wind of her being here, do you?”
“The Secret Service will take care of it.”
“Okay.” Staring out the window reminded him of countless Saturdays he’d spent looking out the window from his grandmother’s apartment waiting for her to show up.
More often than not, she disappointed him.
And on the times she did come and leave the distinctive scent of Chanel No.
5 all over him, he’d refuse to bathe for days afterward lest the scent disappear from his life once again.
To this day, the scent of Chanel No. 5 disgusted him.
He shuddered at the pain those memories could still invoke in the child who lived within him.
“You okay?” Terry asked.
Shaking off the past, he turned to face the present. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”
“I’ve got the final schedule for tomorrow from Nelson’s office. Just a few things to double-check. You, Sam and Scotty will be joining the Nelsons for services at St. John’s in the morning, correct?”
“Yes.” He hadn’t yet broken the news to her that they were going to church, but she’d roll with it for his sake.
“Here’s a copy of your guest list for the luncheon after the ceremony. Just want to make sure one last time that everyone is on there.”
Nick scanned the list: his father’s family, the O’Connors and Sam’s family as well as some of their closest friends including Shelby (thankfully her “boyfriend” Hill would be working and unable to join them), Nick’s former chief-of-staff Christina, Terry’s fiancée Lindsey McNamara, Derek Kavanaugh, Dr. Harry Flynn and Nick’s lawyer friend Andy Simone and his wife.
Freddie and Gonzo had been invited, but they’d be working like every other MPD officer that day, except of course the second lady.
Nick had also invited Scotty’s former guardian, Mrs. Littlefield, and two of Scotty’s closest friends from school. “That’s everyone.”
“Excellent, thanks.” He held up another piece of paper. “Your Twitter account is up and running. Are you ready to take on the world as VPOTUSCap?”
“Oh, I like that handle.”
“We wanted you to be able to keep it after you leave office.”
“Good thinking.”
Terry handed him the page that held his Twitter password. “It’s all yours, ready to go whenever you are. You’ve got a two-hundred-eighty character limit on tweets—and we’ve already had the account verified so people will know it’s really you.”
Nick opened Twitter and signed into his account where his staff had set up his profile with his official White House portrait and a line of text that said VP of the U.S. “I’m having performance anxiety.”
Terry laughed. “Just be you, and they’ll love you.”
Nick typed his first tweet: Hey Twitter, this is your VP here. Sam and I are looking forward to the inauguration tomorrow and the next four years. Then he read it to Terry. “I still have twenty-eight characters left. What should I add?”
“How about Scotty. Sam, Scotty and I…”
“Oh damn, good call.” Nick added Scotty to the tweet. “He would’ve been all over me for that. He’s already mortified that I’m going to be on Twitter in the first place.”
“Don’t let him fool you. He loves all the attention he gets with his dad as the VP.”
Nick posted the tweet and sat back to watch as his number of followers began to increase—rapidly. “Hey, check this out.”
Terry came around the desk and leaned in for a closer look. “Holy shit. Is that like a hundred thousand in a minute?”
“Looks that way to me.”
“That’s incredible. I wonder if you’ll break Twitter by joining.”
“Let’s hope not. We don’t need the whole Twitter-verse mad at me.”
“Listen to you with the lingo.”
“I pay attention.”
“That’s some crazy welcome to Twitter. Two hundred thousand! Wow. You’re a rock star, Mr. Vice President.”
“Whatever you say. Getting back to the schedule for tomorrow…”
“Right,” Terry said, dragging his gaze off the Twitter numbers. “What’ve you decided about the balls?”
“We’ll go to the Inaugural Ball, take a twirl around the dance floor and leave out of respect to Detective Arnold and his family.”
“I think that’s a good call. You make an appearance but you don’t party the night away.”
“Exactly.”
“Lindsey said things are pretty grim at HQ. I don’t know how they do what they do every day, knowing something like this can happen at any time.”
“It’s better for my mental health if I don’t think about how easily something like this can happen.”
“True. Sorry. Didn’t mean to strike a nerve.”
“It’s fine. It’s a raw nerve. I wish I could say I don’t think about it every day, but I do. I’ve learned to manage the anxiety, and then Stahl takes Sam hostage and Arnold gets killed. It’s the stuff of nightmares.”
“It really is. But if Sam could get through that situation with Stahl, she can survive anything.”
“Except a bullet to the face, of course.”
Terry winced. “Lindsey said Gonzo’s taking it hard. He’s blaming himself when there wasn’t anything he could’ve done.”
“It’s that sudden random out-of-nowhere shit that keeps me awake at night. But anyway, we have other stuff to talk about than my nightmares.”
Another knock sounded at the door and Terry got up to admit his father, who came bursting into the room, smiling from ear to ear. “Is this the office of the vice president of the United States who’ll be taking the oath tomorrow?”
“That’d be me,” Nick said, pleased by Graham’s excitement. “What’ve you got there?”
From under his arm, Graham produced the O’Connor family Bible. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous that you’d want to use this again.”
Nick took it from him. “Not at all presumptuous. It’s the closest thing to a family Bible as I’m ever going to get. Thank you.”
Graham put both hands on Nick’s arms. “Our family is your family as you know.” He straightened Nick’s tie and patted his chest. “And your family is extremely proud of you.”
“I’m here because of you.”
“Nah,” Graham said. “That might’ve been true a year ago when I helped you into the Senate, but this, this, my friend, is all yours.”
That might be true, Nick thought, but none of it would be happening without Graham O’Connor and his late son John. The two of them had shown him the meaning of family and the rewards of public service. There’s no way he’d be standing in an office in the White House without Graham.
“I declare this auspicious event requires a drink.” From inside his coat pocket, Graham produced a bottle of his favorite bourbon.
“How’d you get that in here, Dad?” Terry asked, amused by his dad even if he wouldn’t touch a drop of liquor. He’d recently celebrated one year of sobriety, and Nick was nearly as proud of him as Graham was.
“I never tell my secrets, son.” He poured the liquor into glasses Nick provided and then pulled a bottle of cola from his other pocket and handed it to his son. “At least the color is close.”
“There is that,” Terry said, laughing as he poured cola into a glass.
“To the vice president of the United States and to four years from today when we’ll be toasting the president,” Graham said.