Kamal wasn’t speaking to Derek. Ever again. Well, if he was completely honest, he doubted it would be that long, but it definitely wouldn’t be anytime soon. Derek had fucked up his own career and Melville’s presidential bid so badly that Kamal couldn’t stand to look at his best friend, much less speak to him.

For fifteen years, they had worked to climb the ladder of success in politics and government. Kamal had financed Derek’s consulting business when it had first opened, and Derek had gotten some of his high-powered clients to lobby for Kamal’s appointment as ambassador, giving the Egyptian parliament the impression that Kamal already had significant American ties who would be likely to support Egypt’s interests in the US.

But now Kamal had lost his temper, told Derek off, and quit speaking to him. And because of that, he was avoiding the Powerplay condo like the bloody plague. But today he had to risk it because he needed Jeff’s help. Or, more specifically, Colonel Jefferson Thibadeux’s expertise.

“So, we know that the Bratva made the attempt, we know why, and we suspect that your father and President Abbas are both in bed with the Bratva. Anything else?”

Kamal stretched across the pool table to line up his next shot, tapping the cue ball and sending it bouncing softly into the six that rolled to the very edge of the pocket and balanced precariously there.

“Son of a bitch,” he complained. “Something’s been nagging at me. How did the Bratva know that we were considering those particular trade provisions that would stymie their operations? The accord is no secret, and the areas of policy we’re exploring aren’t either, but how could they have ascertained from that general public information that we’d be getting in their way?”

“A lucky guess?” Jeff countered as he sank the three ball in a corner pocket.

“I doubt it.”

“I do too. Let’s talk possibilities.”

“Okay. Someone on my staff. Someone on the president’s staff.”

“And how would they know? Do you discuss the details with particular staff members?”

“I don’t,” Kamal said, his hand poised over the cue stick while he thought. “I give my notes to my secretary so she can type them up and maintain the digital files.”

He sent the cue ball careening into the eight, which promptly shot at his balancing six ball, sending both balls into the pocket.

Jeff chuckled as Kamal tossed his cue stick on the table in frustration.

“I assume you don’t want a rematch?” Jeff asked, one eyebrow raised.

Kamal rolled his eyes and made his way to the sofa instead of picking his cue stick back up.

Jeff opted to shoot alone while the conversation continued, his cropped hair and military uniform both in perfect order as he moved around the table, capturing different angles.

“Do you think the president treats her notes the same way?”

“I’m guessing so,” Kamal answered. “You need to have at least duplicate copies of everything, and since there aren’t stenographers there when we meet, our personal notes are the only record, so I’m guessing we both try to get those digitized as quickly as possible.”

“Is it possible for someone to access those files of notes? A hacker maybe?”

It was the words files and notes that triggered his memory. Kamal sat forward on the sofa, every muscle in his body suddenly tense as it all became clear to him.

“The bomb threats,” he gasped.

“What?” Jeff stopped playing with the pool table and walked over to stand looking down at Kamal.

“The bomb threats we kept getting…”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Every time it happened, I would come back into the office and the sweepers would have opened all the drawers, unshelved all the books. I had to go around putting things back together.”

“Shit,” Jeff growled, already understanding where this was going.

“The last threat we had, I went to close the drawer in my desk, and one folder wasn’t quite replaced—it was sitting up too high, preventing the drawer from closing.”

“Let me guess—this was the folder that contained your notes on the accord?”

Kamal nodded, anger washing over him. “Son of a bitch!” He pounded his fist on the table in front of him. “The crews that swept the embassy after the threats were all Egyptian security staff. There is only one way someone could get an insider on that crew.”

“Your father,” Jeff murmured, casting a sympathetic glance at Kamal. “Are you going to tell the president now?”

Kamal sighed heavily. “I don’t know. If it were only my father involved, I would immediately. He deserves what he gets, but it’s Abbas too. If I give information involving him to the Americans, then I’m a traitor to Egypt. I’d rather not end up in an Egyptian prison cell.” Kamal’s head throbbed, and his throat felt as though it was closing up. Because he was beginning to realize that getting his money away from his father and out of Egypt had really been the least of his concerns.

Jeff watched him, patiently waiting for him to sort through everything. His heart hurt, his chest burdened by a weight that had been building for weeks now. While he had resigned himself to cutting ties with his father, he hadn’t resigned himself to cutting ties with Egypt.

His relationship with his homeland was complex, and sometimes even he didn’t understand it. He had lived in the shadow of Egypt his entire life. It was always there, even when it was across an ocean; it was in the mirror when he looked at his own reflection; it was in the food that he was served in his embassy dining room; it was in the voices of his staff as they spoke to one another. Egypt was in the fabric of his DNA, and in every lesson and responsibility he’d been given over the course of his life.

But, at the same time, he’d spent very little time in Egypt. In fact, no more than a month at a time in the last ten years. His two years in the Egyptian army had been split between assignments in Egypt and others outside the country. So, while Egypt was in his blood, it wasn’t in his life. Not on a regular basis. At the age of thirty-four, he found that Egypt seemed more than a little foreign to him when he visited. Like an elderly relative’s home that he’d been to enough times to know his way around, but not often enough to feel at home.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked Jeff, for once in his life not seeing a clear path.

“How about this? I’ll present the information to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”

“It would beat the hell out of me taking it to the president,” he muttered.

“The only thing is that we have to figure out how to get some evidence if we can’t use you as our source.”

“Christ, what a mess.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Can you work on figuring out how to do that?”

“Of course. Can I have access to your security chief? I don’t want to use any of my men. It puts them in a very awkward position since it’s not an official assignment. I don’t mind risking my own career, but I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s.”

“Of course,” Kamal said, quickly standing and putting his hand out to shake Jeff’s. I’ll have Tariq get in touch with you immediately, and you can just tell him how to proceed. Please don’t do any of it yourself. Keep your hands clean, and when Tariq’s found something that will suffice, you can take it to the general and tell him that you have a source within the Egyptian embassy. I’ll make sure that whatever investigation Egypt might conduct into finding that source goes nowhere.”

Jeff nodded sharply. “Good. And in the meantime, you need to be extra careful with any information about the accord. Put it in a safe, keep it on your person, encrypt those digital files, whatever it takes. They may already have what they wanted, but in case they don’t, let’s not hand over anything else.”

Kamal picked up his jacket and walked toward the door.

“One other thing,” Jeff said from behind him.

Kamal turned, waiting. Jeff leaned against the bar, hands in the front pockets of his uniform slacks.

“When you spend time with the president, watch out for her. They’re undoubtedly still gunning for one or both of you.”

Kamal swallowed, his jaw tight, not sure if Jeff was saying what he thought or not.

“Peter Andrews, on her Secret Service detail?”

Kamal’s heart sank, but he nodded silently.

“We served in Afghanistan together. We’re very close, very old friends.”

“Fuck,” Kamal hissed.

Jeff cleared his throat. “You care about her?” he asked, his face stern, his words soft.

Kamal cleared his throat, the tension in the room ratcheting up like a fire being fed oxygen. “Very much,” he confessed.

Air left Jeff’s lungs in relief. “There’s no way it can end well.”

“I’m hoping it doesn’t have to end,” he bit back.

Jeff shook his head, and Kamal bristled at his friend’s pity.

“Who else has he told—Peter?”

“No one. I mentioned you in passing, and he asked how well I knew you. I told him we’d been close friends for several years and that’s when he brought me into the loop. He’s a very good man. He would never betray the president, but he’s concerned, and he asked me to speak to you.”

“So, you’re warning me off, then?”

“I’m telling you as someone who cares about you and cares about my president that I don’t see how this can have a good outcome.”

Kamal jerked his head in affirmation, his jaw set. “Thank you for the warning. I’ll have Tariq contact you this evening.”

Jeff nodded, obviously aware that the subject of Kamal and the president was now closed.

But when Kamal reached the elevator and slumped against the wall in the empty metal box as it lowered to the parking garage, he couldn’t help but think that Jeff and Peter were right. Nothing good was going to come from the president of the United States and the Egyptian ambassador.

* * *

John Hampton, Senior had served four terms in the United States Senate, one as governor of South Carolina, and two in the state House of Representatives. His father before him had been governor of South Carolina as well. He was an elder statesman in his party, as well as the patriarch of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the South. And while he’d recently had surgery for prostate cancer, he looked almost as imposing as he had the day Jessica had first met him when she accompanied her new boyfriend home from law school for Thanksgiving break.

“Madam President,” the old senator said, taking Jessica’s hand and bending over to kiss it.

“Stop buttering her up, John,” Marjorie said as she reached them.

“I’m not buttering her up. She’s my damn daughter. I get to use her title if I want,” John senior growled at his fussing wife.

“You two stop,” Jessica interceded, smiling at them. “Do you want tea? Coffee? Snacks?”

“No, we’re fine, thank you, dear,” Marjorie said, casting a look of warning at her husband.

He grumbled, then shook his head. “She won’t let me eat anything but hippie food. You serve hippie food in the White House now?”

“We serve anything you want, Senator,” Jessica answered, using his title as well, because she knew it made him happy.

“Well then, he could have an iced tea. But no sugar. No more sweet tea for him.”

John senior narrowed his eyes but acquiesced.

After Jessica called for the refreshments, they all took seats in the sitting room of the residence. When her in-laws came, they stayed in one of the guest rooms in her residence rather than the official state guestrooms in other parts of the White House.

“Now, tell me how you’re feeling, Senator.”

“I’m good. But I don’t want to talk about my health. I’m sick to death of the damn topic, and Marjorie talks about it enough for both of us.”

Jessica threw a look of sympathy at her mother-in-law, who pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow in response. Jessica didn’t envy the woman right now. The senator had always been a bit gruff, although not with Jessica, but his illness was obviously making him even grumpier.

“I want to hear about the race next year.”

Jessica swallowed and took a deep breath. She’d known it was coming, but for some reason, that didn’t make it any easier. When John senior had called first thing that morning and announced that he and Marjorie were coming to stay for the weekend, she’d known why, but it still made her freeze up to face them over this particular topic of conversation. She briefly wished Kamal was by her side. His calm, measured presence would make this so much easier. Except for the fact that John’s parents were bound to view it as Jessica cheating on their son.

“What exactly do you want to hear?” she asked, trying not to wring her hands in her lap.

“When you’re going to announce and who you’re going to bring on as campaign manager,” John said, sitting back in his chair and looking at her expectantly. “I would have loved for you to use Derek Ambrose, but that’s out of the question now.”

Her eyes shifted to Marjorie, who also waited, excitement perched on her face like a pair of spectacles.

“Well, you remember the conversation we had over the summer. I’m not going to run again.”

John senior scoffed, and Marjorie gave a strange little hiccupping sound. “That was all fine and good when Melville was around, Jess, but now that he’s gone and botched the whole thing, the party doesn’t have any other strong contenders.”

She listed the names of several congressional representatives and a governor or two.

“No,” John senior said sharply. “You know none of those people can win this thing. You can’t expect the party to give up the highest seat in the land when they have a beloved representative holding it and eligible for another term.”

Jessica sighed. Yes, she knew all the qualities she brought to the occasion. But it didn’t matter. She was thirty-seven years old; she didn’t want to run the country. She wanted a nice town house somewhere with a flower garden and no bodyguards. She wanted to teach law at a university. She wanted to be able to go shopping with Fiona, eat dinner out with Kamal, and maybe, if it wasn’t too late, even raise a child. She felt certain that if anyone could qualify for an adoption as a single parent, it would be her, and the mere idea was so enchanting, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it in days.

“I’m sorry, John,” she said, trying to infuse as much determination into the words as she could. “I care about the party, and I’ll be happy to support and campaign for the next nominee, but I don’t want to serve another term. I need you to understand that.”

“Understand that?” John senior blustered. “Understand that you’ve been given the nation’s most prestigious position—hell, the world’s most prestigious position—something that people throughout history have lost blood, sweat, and tears for, bankrupted their families for, laid down their lives for…” He paused, his faded denim-blue eyes clouding over briefly.

“Senator,” Jessica interrupted before he could take the conversation down the road to John and his death, which always ended in Marjorie crying and Jessica choking on guilt. “Trust me, I more than anyone understand the amount of sacrifice that goes into being president. And I am honored that I have been given the opportunity to hold this office. That the people of this great country have entrusted their sacred pact to my supervision is awe-inspiring.”

“But,” Marjorie said, disappointment saturating the one simple word.

“But I’m tired, and my youth is in the process of walking out the door. There are things I still want to do with my life, and I won’t be able to if I stay here four more years.”

“What sorts of things, dear?” Marjorie asked, looking befuddled.

Jessica sighed. How much she could or should tell them about her personal desires was a concern. She wasn’t sure how they would take certain things.

“I would like to teach law again. It was something I had a passion for, and I think I was good at it.”

“No reason you can’t do it in four years. You’ll be a former president. They’d want you teaching at Harvard if you were a hundred. There is no such thing as too old if you’re a former president of the United States.”

“There is if you want to be a mother,” she answered quietly.

Marjorie’s gasp of breath was sharp, and John senior cleared his throat gruffly. “A mother? I thought that after the miscarriage…” Marjorie’s voice faded away as the memories washed over them all.

Jessica had been carrying John’s child when he died, and in the two weeks that followed, she had told her in-laws, and it had been the thing that kept the three of them going. It was as if God had given them all a consolation prize to take away the soul-crushing pain of losing John. But then came the day that the general discomfort that she had attributed to early pregnancy had exploded into a pain that forced her to leave the Senate floor in the midst of a vote and go to an ER. And it was there that she discovered her pregnancy was ectopic.

In the sterile, cold surgical wing of Walter Reed Hospital, Jessica lost John all over again, and the last embodiment of the Hampton legacy died before ever really living. But along with it died Jessica’s ability to have a child, her fallopian tube so shredded, it had to be removed, and her uterus scarred, leaving her unable to bear children.

“Adoption,” Jessica clarified for her mother-in-law. “I want to adopt a baby, and I don’t want to be in my seventies when that child is grown, so I need to get on with it soon.”

“And who would be this imaginary child’s father?” John senior demanded.

“I would be,” Jessica answered, a spark lighting inside her that had never been there with her in-laws before. “There are many successful single mothers in this country, and I feel confident that with the resources I have available to me, I could handle it as well.”

Marjorie’s face was awash in sadness. “I guess I just never imagined that you’d do anything like that without John.” Her voice grew soft. “He would have loved to be a father so much.”

Jessica steeled herself against the grief. Yes, he would have, but he’s not here, and denying myself everything I want in life won’t bring him back, she reminded herself.

“He would have. But I will too, and because of that and many other reasons, I don’t want to serve a second term in office.”

John senior cleared his throat before standing somewhat unsteadily. “I think the travel has made me tired,” he said. “I’m going to go lie down for a while.” He patted Jessica’s cheek. “We’ll talk more about all this later.”

She nodded, dreading a fresh assault but resigned to it all the same.

After he left the room, Marjorie came and sat next to Jessica on the settee.

“You’re sure this is what you want? There’s no chance you’ll change your mind?”

Jessica shook her head gently as she clasped her mother-in-law’s hands in hers. “This wasn’t ever what I wanted—at least not like this.”

“You would have made a wonderful First Lady,” Marjorie said, tears in her eyes.

“And he would have made a first-rate president,” she answered. “I’ve tried to do his memory justice.”

“And you have, dear,” Marjorie said emphatically, the tears falling now. “No one could have worked harder than you to protect and further John’s legacy. He would be so proud of you.” Marjorie sobbed, and Jessica got that all too familiar ache in her gut. She knew how this worked. The ache would bloom, growing until it virtually consumed her, and then John senior and Marjorie would approach her again, and the defenses she had shored up would already be weak, cracked by the pain that was slowly eating up her insides. And that was when she would give in—agree to take John’s Senate seat, agree to run for president in John’s place, agree to make her life a shrine to John and his ambitions.

“I need to go do a few things in the office,” she told her quietly weeping mother-in-law. “Do you need anything? I can have the staff bring up some food. There is a whole new list of movies on the server. You remember how to work the TV, don’t you?”

Marjorie nodded, dabbing at her eyes. “Of course. We’ll be fine, dear. And I’ll just ring the kitchen if we want anything.”

Jessica nodded and kissed the older woman on the cheek before quickly exiting the room and nearly running down the stairs to the Oval Office. And it wasn’t lost on her that the same place that kept her prisoner was now the one place that set her free, because in the Oval Office, there was no time for guilt or pain or regret. There was only time for work.