Chapter Four #2
As he stepped back from the podium, one of the reporters asked why Gloria had needed him most while another asked if he planned to resign, but he left the room without answering either question.
“God, I hope he doesn’t resign,” Sam said, shuddering at the thought.
The others laughed nervously.
“Have you guys heard anything?” Jeannie asked.
“Nothing official, but we’re holding our breath like everyone else.”
“You wonder how much scandal one administration can withstand before it becomes too much,” Cameron said.
“True, but he took a big mea culpa, and that ought to help,” Freddie said. “At least he owned it rather than denying it the way so many of them do.”
“His wife was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer when he had the affair,” Sam said as the others gasped.
“She’d chosen to keep the diagnosis private.
That’s what he meant about the timing. I wonder how long it’ll take for her illness to become public now that he’s alluded to there being something to find. ”
“Damn,” O’Brien said. “What a scumbag.”
“When that gets out, it could be game over for him,” Freddie said, looking stricken.
“Let’s hope they’re able to keep a lid on that info,” Sam said. “In the meantime, we’ve got work to do. How’s it coming with finishing the reports on the Conklin, Gallagher, Santoro and Ryan arrests?”
“Slowly.” Freddie answered for all of them. “We’re working with Vice, which is conducting the gambling portion of the investigation, and that’s what’s taking so long. They had thirty years’ worth of crap to sift through. Our part is mostly done. Just waiting on them.”
“Send me what you have, and I’ll take a look.” Sam’s phone rang and she took the call from Nick, signaling to her team to get back to work. “Hey.”
“How’s it going?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“The West Wing is in chaos. I saw Derek and he mentioned he’s thinking about resigning. He doesn’t want to work for Nelson anymore, and he’s not alone in that. People like Gloria, and they hate that he did this to her, especially when she was sick.”
“That does make it that much more disgusting.”
“Indeed.”
“Please tell me you think he’s going to be able to hold on.”
“I don’t know, Sam. If it gets out that Gloria was being treated for cancer while he was carrying on an affair with a staffer… I don’t know.”
“They’re not going to be able to keep a lid on that. Someone will leak it.”
“That’s my fear as well.”
His use of the word fear sent her anxiety spiking into the red zone.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the theater?” Sam asked.
Nick’s husky laugh echoed through the phone, reminding her that no matter what happened, she still had him, and he would always have her. “What was I thinking accepting this job from hell?”
“That’s a very good question.”
“I’m sorry to have done this to us.”
“Don’t say that. We both knew what we were getting into.” They’d had no idea, but he didn’t need to hear that. Not from her. “No matter what happens, we got this.”
“You won’t leave me if I have to become president?”
The question was asked in a teasing tone, but under the humor she sensed deeper concerns.
“Are you for real right now? I recently spent one week without you while you were traveling, and I thought I was going to lose my shit. Do you honestly think there’s anything that could happen that would make me leave you? ”
“Just making sure.”
“Nick…” That he could still wonder made her ache. “We’re going to discuss this further later.”
“I’ll look forward to that.”
“Until then, don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough to think about without stressing about things that’re never going to happen.”
“Never?”
Where was this coming from? “Never.” After a pause, she said, “Are we good now?”
“We’re good.”
“Call me if you need me, and hang in there. He survived a murdering son. Odds are good that he’ll get through this, too.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too, babe.”
As Sam slapped her phone closed, unease trickled down her backbone.
A sense of foreboding had her wondering how dire the situation was for Nelson and his presidency.
Nick didn’t use the word fear lightly. She placed a hand over her aching stomach.
Before him, the thought of her fate being tied to any man’s would’ve made her laugh.
Even when she was married to Peter, she did her own thing, which only added to the discontent in their marriage.
But with Nick, his fate was hers, and whatever happened, they were in it together. When she got home tonight, she’d make sure he fully understood her commitment to him.
If he became president, she’d have to give up her job.
There’d be no way she could continue to run the streets chasing down murderers as first lady.
The exposure was bad enough as second lady.
Though the first lady wasn’t required to have Secret Service protection, the stakes would be even higher than they were now.
Her lack of a detail as second lady had been a minor scandal that would turn into a circus if they were “promoted.”
No, she’d have to step aside because the distractions would make it impossible to do the job her way.
And while the thought of giving up the job she loved broke her heart, she’d do it to make life easier for him.
Maybe it was time to tell him that, to make sure he knew that there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him, even give up the job that had defined her adult life.
A job was just that—a job.
But he… He was her whole world, and she couldn’t have him wondering if she’d leave him if he became president.
That wouldn’t do at all.
“How bad is it?” Nick asked Terry when he returned from a briefing with Nelson’s staff.
“Bad.”
“Ugh, do I want to hear this?”
“No, you don’t.”
Terry was one of the few people who knew that Nick had no real desire to be president, despite taking the vice president’s job when it was offered to him.
Most politicians would’ve viewed it as a stepping stone to the most powerful job on earth, but Nick wasn’t most politicians.
To be president, you needed a fire in the belly for the job that Nick didn’t have.
Not now, anyway. And the more he saw from his vantage point close to the presidency, the less he wanted it.
“The Post is going to run a story within the hour detailing Gloria’s ongoing battle with ovarian cancer.”
“Fuck,” Nick hissed under his breath.
“I thought you might say that.”
For a long moment, the two of them stared at each other as the implications settled on them like a thousand-pound weight.
“My dad is on his way in with Halliwell,” Terry said, referring to the Democratic National Committee chairman.
Nick shook his head. “Tell them not to come. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, but when I told Halliwell you wouldn’t want to meet with him, his response was, ‘Too bad. This isn’t only about him.’ We need to take the meeting, and let them have their say. After that, we can do what we want.”
“We’re not doing anything. I can’t believe we’re already back in this boat so soon after the last time.
” When the scandal had erupted around Nelson’s son, Christopher, who’d gone so far as to torture Sam’s ex-husband to death looking for dirt on them, Nick thought he’d seen the precipice of disaster.
But this…
“This feels different than Christopher,” Nick said.
“Because it is. This one belongs squarely to Nelson himself whereas that was on his son, and while the argument could be made that the father was guilty by association, the fact was that he wasn’t the one who killed people.
This time, it’s on him, and it’s going to look bad when the American public finds out their beloved first lady was battling ovarian cancer while her husband was having an affair with a much-younger staffer on the campaign trail—and in the White House after the election. ”
Nick winced at Terry’s blunt words. “How did this happen without anyone catching wind of it?”
“I’m sure the Secret Service knew, but it’s not their job to stop or report it.”
“Did his staff know?”
“I don’t think they did. Hanigan is on fire,” Terry said of the president’s chief of staff, “and Derek didn’t have much of anything to say in our meeting.”
“Derek said he’s thinking about resigning, and who could blame him? No one signs on to clean up the kind of messes they’ve been dealing with lately.”
The extension on Nick’s desk buzzed. He picked up the receiver.
“Pardon the interruption, Mr. Vice President, but Senator O’Connor and Mr. Halliwell are here to see you.”
“Send them in.” He glanced at Terry. “Here we go.”
Senator Graham O’Connor, father to Terry, and mentor and father figure to Nick, came busting through the door, smiling from ear to ear.
Though he’d been retired from the Senate for most of a decade, he still relished being in the mix, especially when it came to his burning desire to see Nick occupying the Oval Office.
Nick hated to disappoint one of the most influential men in his life, but he didn’t share that burning desire, and sooner or later, he was going to have to come right out and say so. Judging by the glee on Graham’s sun-browned face, it was probably going to have to be sooner.
“Well, boys.” Graham made an attempt to tame his mop of untamed white hair but only succeeded in making it messier. “What we have here is known as a three-alarm fire.”
“And you don’t know the half of it,” Terry muttered, earning a glare from Nick. “They’re going to hear about it within the hour anyway.”
Nick waved a hand to tell Terry to fill them in.
“Nelson’s affair happened when Gloria was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer.”
As if the legs had been knocked out from under him, Graham sat in one of Nick’s visitor chairs, his mouth hanging open in shock.
“Jesus,” Halliwell said. “As if it wasn’t bad enough.” He took a seat, his shoulders sagging. “What’re the odds that’s not going to get out?”