It was going to be another long night with nobody to warm her bed, Nia moaned in her mind.
The bright lights softly shined in the West Wing office, casting a sterile glow over stacks of briefing papers and half-empty coffee mugs. Nia Prescot hunched over her desk, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she refined the final lines of President Vince Harlan's national security address. The clock on the wall ticked past midnight, but sleep was the last thing on her mind. Every word she crafted, she believed, carried the weight of the nation's gaze, and more importantly, Vince's voice—deep, resonant, commanding attention without effort. He had made it compulsory that she must write with the vigour and manner in which he talks.
She paused, reading the paragraph aloud under her breath. 'In
