The disappearance of the seatbelt sign interrupted the silence.
After she had interrupted Nadine, no one had said another word and an uncomfortable silence had spread in the room. After a while of silence, she had pulled out various folders and started to read through reports. Nadine had devoted herself, shortly after to her documents. Also Dasiy had not needed long, until she dedicated herself as well to her work. She had typed incessantly on her tablet and flipped wildly through her calendar. Every now and then, Elizabeth had heard the sound that announced that a mail had been sent. Each time, shortly after, she and Nadine had heard a ringing sound when the mail was received by them. She exhaled in relief as the silence was broken by the rustle of hurried footsteps in the hallway, papers gathered together, and muffled voices.
"Thanks again for the calendar adjustment. Let's hope everything stays quiet and we don't meet at the Stanhope until tomorrow morning." She stood up and nodded to Nadine and Daisy. Now she would just have to make the drive to the hotel with a smile.
At the end of the hallway, Andrew stood waiting for her. An apologetic look in his eyes, he looked at her. As she walked toward him, she straightened her shoulders and raised her head, avoiding any appearance of weakness. My goodness, she was the Secretary of State. She wasn't going to let him get the best of her.
"Sorry about later." She just gave him a contemptuous look. Before growling back "My circulation and the thin air from flying..." Andrew nodded slowly. He knew it wasn't that and it was just the cover story. "Mmm, sure." She just shook her head with a snort.
At the door to the outside, she stopped short. She took a few deep breaths in and out before reluctantly grabbing his outstretched hand. She leaned over to him slightly "Don't flatter yourself." They stepped into the doorway together. From now on everyone would be able to see them, she thought as she put on her Secretary smile and stepped into the Brussels sun together with him. As they both waved in greeting, Elizabeth took another deep breath. She would have to suppress her renewed restlessness a little longer.
Together, they both descended the stairs. One step at a time, they approached the bottom. Andrew gave her a questioning sideways glance. In response, she gave his hand a quick squeeze. As he kissed her she could taste coffee and alcohol. Her mind immediately started racing again. She wanted to push him away, get in her SUV, go to the hotel and lock the door behind her. Just don't let him get to her. But she couldn't do that if she didn't want even more attention from the press. She could already see the headline in front of her 'How safe is America in the hands of the Secretary if she can't even save her marriage from falling apart?'
That was all the crap that had gotten her into this situation to begin with. The press. She had sworn to herself that she would never throw her personal life to it, but that very thing, had driven her further and further into a corner. Now she was faced with a decision: no press attention and unhappily married to Andrew, or press attention and happily divorced. To what extent happily was the right word, she dared to doubt...
When he started biting her lower lip, she growled and brought her hands between them. She had given him the green light for a kiss, based on the press, but definitely not for a make-out scene. Besides, since when did they do that? Only after she punctuated her growl with light and barely visible taps with her palms on his chest he let go of her and stare at her. "You're so fucking beautiful." At his comment, Elizabeth winced. It was starting again. If she remembered correctly, there were two dormitories in the suite, then she would really hurry at one to quickly close the door behind her.
As they both walked hand in hand toward the waiting cars, Elizabeth overheard some reporters talking to each other. "That's what makes it fun to photograph. Just look, you'd have to be that lucky. As soon as they land, they're making out." "I don't even want to know what else happened in the air." "I'm just saying, Mile High Club" Then laughter. A third voice sounds "They don't usually do that, do they?" "That's what I'm saying, I don't even want to know what kind of arousal they couldn't take anymore. I'm sure it's going to get really hot in the hotel."As the men's laughter died down the closer they got to the motorcade, Elizabeth thought about what the first man had said. 'You'd have to be that lucky.' She wasn't lucky. At least not now. Then, before, two years ago, maybe. Definitely not now. She shook her head.
Andrew looked at her. In her head, the journalist kept talking. 'There's bound to be a lot of action at the hotel.' A bitter laugh escaped her as she replied in her mind 'But not the way you think.' Andrew stopped short and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Preempting his question, she quickly said "All good, just been thinking about something." He seemed satisfied with her answer and started moving again.
Just before the cars, they both turned back to the waiting cameras. Andrew had his arm around her waist. For the couple picture, for which they had always posed together in front of the cars.
Daisy exited the plane behind Jay and Nadine. The Secretary's DS agents had already gotten off with her, so she was the last. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she reached out an arm and touched Nadine on the upper arm. "Hey." Nadine slowed her pace so that she was soon walking beside Daisy. Jay had continued unperturbed toward the waiting motorcade. "Um, I'm not sure how to say this right now..." Daisy faltered and continued only after an encouraging look from Nadine. "... But, um, ..." Nadine interrupted Daisy's stammering "Just say it." She sounded slightly annoyed. Daisy swallowed and spat out after a moment "What's wrong with her shoulder." Daisy knew Nadine knew who she meant by 'she'. "Is that ..."
"Yeah, looks like it." Said Nadine quietly after a short pause with a sad nod. Daisy gasped for air. Nadine put her hand reassuringly on Daisy's upper arm. "Like I just said, it's none of our business. We won't know anything until she tells us. Before that, everything is fine." She repeated „It's none of our business."
"I know. But if it's what we think, she needs help." said Daisy, exasperated. "Damn. Such a strong woman like her. Would you have thought?" Nadine watched her. She understood the distress Daisy was feeling. She felt it, too. But it just wasn't any of her business. "No," she finally whispered. „My goodness, the press will be all over her when this gets out. Oh God, oh God." Daisy began pacing frantically up and down in front of the cars.
On the one hand, she felt sorry for Daisy that she seemed so distraught and seemingly overwhelmed by the situation. On the other hand, it was amusing to watch the usually professional Daisy hurry back and forth there, hands clasped over her head. Good thing the Secretary and Director Munsey had already departed.
"Will you sit down already. I'm tired and I want to get to bed." Daisy stopped short and looked at Jay, aghast, before realizing herself and realizing that she couldn't get anything done here like this. She slid into the back seat of the car next to Nadine and Jay. She still couldn't help but make a biting comment to Jay, though. "You missed the whole flight. Might as well have read over the reports already."
"Sorry, but I got more than 4 hours of sleep at a time for the first time in weeks, what am I saying, months. The little girl still won't let us sleep through the night."
Just as Daisy was about to follow up, Nadine raised her voice. "I'm begging you. Can we please put aside the arguments now and have another quick look over the plan for tomorrow? I just got another request from the Spanish Foreign Ministry, Foreign Minister Pérez would like to talk to the Secretary again before she has the meeting with President Jensen. It would kind of be about mango tariffs and the current situation in Nigeria. Please don't ask me. My Spanish is not good enough. Besides, I don't understand the connection of the two things and the reason for our trip, the bananas and cars." At a questioning look from the two people next to her, she explained "Yes my goodness, some countries still haven't managed to train their staff... You should read the appointment requests from Russia. If you're lucky, at least they tried to translate it and you have a little fun while you read. But I think Blake can tell you a thing or two about that."
Daisy's eyes nearly fell out of her head when she heard that. "Excuse me? I thought it was common knowledge that English is the service language." Nadine waved it off. "That's just the requests, after all. The reports really do come in English. But the mails are often not. Most of them are written by the diplomat's secretariat, so sometimes they don't pay attention to which mail goes to whom and in which language..."
"Crass..."
"Enough of that. Ask me for some stories over our next drink. Can we please take care of tomorrow now."
"Of course." Daisy dug her calendar out of her pocket and started flipping through it wildly. She grunted in displeasure and squinted her eyes as she tried to decipher the scribbles inside. Loud strokes, annotations and shifts made it somewhat difficult to make sense of it. After a moment, she finally looked up. "Theoretically, they could have breakfast together tomorrow. Anything else is going to be really difficult."
"Well then. Breakfast it is. We'll meet with her for a briefing an hour before then." Nadine clapped her hands on her thighs before looking at Jay. "And you please notify the Secretary that she has breakfast with Pérez at 7:30 a.m. and her workday starts an hour early in the Congressional chamber with us." All that came from Jay in response was a sullen grumble.
She looked out the window. Observed the life beyond. Her thoughts kept drifting to the journalists' remarks. She didn't know exactly how long they had been driving, but it had certainly been a while, judging by the increasingly pungent smell of alcohol in the air. The hand that slid onto one of her thighs made her startle up and push them away from her. "Ahh"
"It's just me." A dark laugh escaped her. "You know, that doesn't exactly calm my nerves." He looked at her reproachfully before repeating his action from a moment ago. This time he gripped tighter and Elizabeth whimpered softly in pain. Her whole body was still so battered and every touch hurt. If she remembered correctly, the imprint of the last time was still visible exactly where he had grabbed her. But he was not impressed by that. Rather, her reaction seemed to spur him on to continue. He slid closer to her on the back seat.
She squinted her eyes and bit her lip to stifle the sounds of pain that threatened to escape her as he began to knead her leg. She put her head back to stop the tears that threatened to run down her cheek from flowing. Just don't show him any more weakness, Elizabeth. It's the alcohol, was the only thing she could think about now. It's the alcohol that's about to make him do what had happened the last time seven days ago and so often before that she'd already stopped counting. The number was too big and the shame involved was too great. They would be at the hotel soon, until then he wouldn't dare...
His murmur in her ear interrupted her thought. "You're so hot." One hand kept wandering up her thigh while he stroked her breast with the other, playing with the buttons of her blouse. It shook her. Not with arousal. Of disgust. She knew exactly where this was going tonight. She would have to run the hell out of her way to be able to close the door behind her and in front of him. He was making the whole situation even more complicated.
While she had managed to resist the urge to slap his hand away and snap at him, this was clearly too much now. She pushed him away. "Don't do that!" Either he would back off now and reconsider, or he would back off but make her pay for his rebuff afterwards. Judging from his expression, she guessed the latter. Oh God, she would really have to put her foot down. The only problem was that she was still the Secretary of State. How would that look if she ran away from her own husband? She let out a frustrated breath. No, she would have to do it differently. She just couldn't make a fuss, couldn't draw attention to herself. Couldn't make a sound. She had to pretend that everything was good. Only that not everything was good.
She would have to wait until the elevator. And then hope that he would keep his fingers to himself until then, after all, her agents would still be riding with her. So her only chance was after they arrived, when the elevator doors opened and they would enter the foyer.
Confirming her suspicions, Andrew turned away from her. The way he mimicked her with a dark undertone, however, she still understood. "Don't do that."
Fortunately, at that very moment the car came to a stop and she avoided an answer. She took a breath of relief and hoped he wouldn't notice. For the time they were in the public eye, everything was fine. She forced herself to put on her Secretary face -After all, she was still on official busines- before stepping out of the car door held open by Fred.
The fresh air did her good. She took a few deep breaths as she waited for Andrew to come around the car. When they were both standing side by side, she confidently took his hand in hers and started moving toward the hotel entrance. As she walked past people, she heard the cameras clicking, people talking excitedly to each other, and the footsteps of Fred, Frank, Simon, and Matt guiding them both into the building.