Hopefully, the pills would kick in soon before the headache ruined what was left of her day.

* * *

Nick took a cab to the West Wing entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue. Terry was waiting for him in the ground-floor lobby where they produced identification and went through security. The area was deserted late that Sunday, a day when the White House was closed to the public.

Terry looked almost as nervous as Nick felt. “Derek didn’t say what this is about?” he asked in a low tone.

“Well, I assume it’s about the president making a last-ditch effort to talk me into a job I don’t want, but no, Derek couldn’t say anything more than come at four.”

A Secret Service agent escorted them to the West Wing Lobby. “Please have a seat, Senator. Mr. Kavanaugh will be right with you.”

“Thank you.”

Nick and Terry sat on a sofa beneath a painting of George Washington crossing the Potomac.

“That bookcase is from the seventeen hundreds,” Terry said. “It’s one of the oldest pieces in the White House collection.”

“Where’d you get that random piece of trivia?”

“I was an intern here when I was in college. I paid attention. I once had rather lofty aspirations.”

“Whereas I still feel like an imposter every time I walk in here with business to conduct. I felt that way even when I was only a staffer, and now it’s even more surreal knowing what he wants to talk to me about.”

“You’ve earned it, Senator. Look at what you’ve accomplished in the last year.”

“What have I accomplished exactly? I stepped into a job that was handed to me when my best friend was murdered—”

“And you won reelection. Resoundingly. That’s why they’re so interested in you—that and the fact that you have national name recognition due to your amazing convention speech. Not to mention your connection to my dad and your high-profile marriage.”

“Neither of which have anything to do with the work.”

“In politics, those things are everything. Come on, Nick,” he added softly. “You’ve been around this game long enough to know that.”

Terry was right, but that didn’t make it any more palatable to Nick to be under consideration for the number-two job after only a year in the Senate. “It should be John.”

Terry shook his head. “They wouldn’t have asked him. Even though he’d been in the Senate five years when he died, he was still immature as a politician, and as a man. The stuff we’ve learned about his womanizing since he died would’ve derailed any higher ambitions he might’ve had. Besides, he never wanted what he had, let alone anything more than that.”

“I didn’t want it until it was thrust upon me,” Nick reminded him.