She stopped herself before uttering the word consensus, recalling in the nick of time that it was one of the Chief’s Forbidden Words.

She started again. “Surely we can agree that this is hardly a sex tape—”

“Disagree,” Ryan declared, interrupting her.

“Sorry?” She frowned at Ryan, startled.

“It’s a sex tape. That’s clear as day,” Ryan said.

Natalie looked from Ryan to Heath and back. Was he really denying the sexlessness of the tape?

“Don’t you need sex for it to be a sex tape?” she asked.

Heath clapped his hands, enthusiastically. “Love it. This is a he-said, she-said live in studio!” He beamed. “How’s this? What if we call it a caught-red-handed tape? Or a smoking-gun tape?”

“I like that, a smoking-gun tape,” Ryan said, swiveling to face Heath. “I’m not saying that cheating on the president is necessarily treason. But it makes you wonder why we can’t impeach a First Lady.”

It does? “Because the First Lady is not an elected office,” Natalie said with more edge in her voice than she’d intended. The two men raised their eyebrows and looked at one another sharing some kind of silent language. Natalie felt her stomach knot.

Down, girl, she berated herself. No one likes a scold.

Just then a voice crackled in Natalie’s ear. “Hey, can you unbutton your shirt?”

Natalie froze, trying to figure out if someone had accidentally keyed into the person’s wrong earpiece.

No way that’s meant for me.

The voice continued, “Don’t say anything, you’re on camera. But the Chief called and thinks you’re too buttoned-up.” There was a pause and Natalie remained still. “We’ll switch to a solo shot of the boys, if you can just unbutton your blouse one button?”

Wrong again.

Natalie flicked her eyes over to the live-to-air monitor, which showed that she was indeed out of the shot.

“Of course I meant that symbolically, not literally,” Ryan was saying. “When my dad was governor, my mom understood that she had to play hostess. It’s part of the deal.” With a sinking feeling in her stomach and a rising blush, she undid one button and looked down to confirm nothing was showing. Close, but still PG.

“That’s great. Great,” the voice said in her ear as Natalie imagined the entire control room staring at her chest in the wall of monitors.

No biggie, she told herself. Not like you’re doing a live shot in a bikini.