BACKSTORY: It has been one year since Crisis Management expert, Olivia Pope, walked out of President Fitzgerald Thomas Grant’s life, after helping the White House avert what could’ve been a catastrophic scandal, that would have ended the Grant presidency. But Olivia, Fitz and First Lady Mellie Grant, are among the few that know that the positive outcome, came at a price.

    Olivia has managed her heartbreak by throwing herself into her work, at her firm, Olivia Pope and Associates. And it will be a big case, that will bring Olivia back into Fitz’s life once again. A case that involves a family by the name of Grayson...

                                                                         ****

    The news hit on a weekend, which usually is a slow news cycle. Olivia was actually having lunch with U.S. Attorney, David Rosen, in a downtown Washington cafe, when both of them received phone calls.

    David’s revealed that the government had enough evidence to go after Conrad Grayson, for the plane crash that David Clarke was convicted of being responsible for. David Rosen had heard rumors over the years, of course, that Clarke had been innocent, but had never really believed that...

    Meanwhile, Olivia was on the phone with Edward Grayson, patriarch of the Grayson family and father of the now accused Conrad Grayson. Olivia excused herself briefly from David, before walking outside to finish her call.

    “Mr. Grayson...”

    “Now Olivia, you know it’s Edward. You’ve heard the news?”

    “No...though I have heard rumblings in certain places, that the government now thinks that David Clarke was framed by someone within your family’s circle. Any truth to that?”

    “What ‘certain places’ would that be? Not Rosen’s bed?” Edward asked calmly. Olivia pursed her lips before speaking.

    “This conversation is over.”

    “Olivia, now don’t be angry! This is serious and I need to know if you have a conflict of interest here. I know you’ve been seeing him.”

    “Edward, we’re friends. And we never talk about business.” Olivia assured him.

    Edward said nothing to that.

    “Olivia, you helped restore my grandson, Daniel’s image. The Grayson name is on the line here. I’m in the Hamptons and I need you to fly up here so we can do some damage control.”

    Olivia glanced back towards the cafe.

    “You know I have to ask: how do you want to do this? Do we defend Conrad or...”

    “The hell with Conrad! I’m grooming Daniel to take over and one day run for political office.  And hopefully when that day comes, Conrad’s stink won’t still be clinging to Daniel. I want to play this like none of the rest of us knew a thing.”

    “Did you?” Olivia asked.

    “Just come up. To the house. We’ll fix things from there.”

    Olivia nodded.

    “Fine, Edward. I’ll be on a plane tonight.”

    “Good girl!” Edward said, hanging up. He then turned to one of his executives at Grayson Global, who just happened to the ex Chief of Staff to Vice President Sally Langston--William ‘Billy’ Chambers.

    “So, what you just told Livvie was a lie.” Billy said, sitting down in front of Edward’s desk.

    “My son isn’t going to prison.” Edward said matter-of-factly. “But Conrad WILL step down. I want you to take his place at Grayson Global and train my grandson to take over.”

    Billy said nothing at first. The idea of training that unchristian brat, Daniel, made his stomach turn. He would never be as qualified as himself or even Conrad, to head a company like Grayson Global--even after 20 years of training.

    But Billy swallowed his contempt and responded.

    “And somehow you think that Livvie can make this happen? She’s good but she’s not a miracle worker.”

    Edward leaned forward.

    “What if I told you that I was sent a DVD. From an anonymous source. One that showed that Olivia Pope and the President may have been intimate? At least once?”

    Billy eyed Edward, as his mind raced back to a private meeting he had had, with President Grant’s Chief of Staff, Cyrus Beene, over a year ago. They had been investigating Olivia and the members of her firm, and it had come up that Olivia might have had an affair with someone on the Grant campaign...

    Cyrus had immediately shut the idea of looking into it, down. He claimed it hadn’t been important. Edward eyed Billy.

   
    “What? You know something, don’t you?”

    Billy leaned forward.

    “Let’s just say that things that I often wondered about, now make sense. Starting with why Livvie left the White House in the first place. You said someone sent you a DVD?” Billy asked, more than a little surprised that he had never heard about this ‘DVD’. He only had the recording of the president supposedly making love to his own wife--which Billy knew was horse crap!

    “Yes,” Edward answered, “and I don’t like anything being ‘anonymous’. I need to know who knows about this and...”

    “Wait a minute! Can I see this DVD? I mean Mr. Grayson, I want to make sure we’re on firm ground here. These things can go wrong.”

    Edward smirked.

    “You should know. Alright, knock yourself out.” Edward said, handing over a copy of the DVD. “Meanwhile, I’m going to get the President and Mellie down here as well.”

    Billy was about to walk out of the office, when he turned and gaped at Edward.

    “Hold on! You want to invite President Grant and First Lady Mellie Grant, here to your home in the Hamptons, the SAME weekend you’ve invited Olivia Pope?”

    “My family was one of the biggest contributors to Fitz’s presidential campaign and his father and I go way back. I doubt very much anyone wants the president to end up a one termer. That would be embarrassing.” Edward grinned. “Oh and by the way--YOU invite them down here, Billy.”

    Billy said nothing. He knew where old man Grayson was going with this. If it wasn’t going to be difficult enough to get the invite through to the White House, Billy would also have to communicate as to WHY Fitz Grant had better get himself to the Grayson compound this weekend.

    Edward Grayson planned to force the White House to keep Conrad Grayson from going to prison--by using Fitz Grant’s affair with Olivia Pope, as leverage. Billy nodded and left the office, oddly enough, feeling only sorry for Olivia in this thing. She thought she was coming down here to do damage control, not knowing the part she would play in this thing.

                                                                            ****

    Meanwhile, Emily Thorne, now Mrs. Daniel Grayson,  smiled as she sat next to Nolan Ross in his home. They both watched a live video feed of Billy Chambers going to his office to watch the damning DVD.

    “I would think,” Nolan sighed, “that this will be enough to throw Olivia Pope off of your scent.”

    Emily nodded. She had met Olivia when she was here before, helping shape her husband Daniel’s new image. The woman was good. A little too good for her comfort.

    “I hope so. And yet a woman like that, is going to want to know how Grandpa Grayson found that DVD. How DID you find it, Nolan?” Emily asked.

    “I have my ways. On it, Olivia Pope is clearly going into the same hotel room as our now president. The First Lady will be here, glaring daggers at the woman. Olivia won’t have time to be suspicious of you.”

    Emily nodded again.

    “And what about this fake miscarriage of the First Lady’s?” she asked,

    “It’s the second one,” Nolan corrected her, “and since she’s a pseudo friend of Victoria’s and Victoria isn’t crazy about you, we’ll need leverage on her as well.”

    Emily stood up.

    “Well I’d better get back. Victoria has asked me to let Olivia sleep in my beach house. So I’d better get rid of anything incriminating.”

    Nolan eyed her.

    “Have you heard from Jack?”

    “Not since I married Daniel.” Emily said, picking up her purse and walking out. She couldn’t think of Jack Porter right now. Maybe later, when this nightmare was over. And it almost was. Conrad Grayson was not weaseling out of what he did to her father, David Clarke. And soon, the Graysons would find out who she really was. But she couldn’t afford for a formidable woman like Olivia Pope, figuring it out first.

                                                                     ****

    Chief of Staff to the President, Cyrus Beene, walked into the President Grant’s office, looking quite dour. Fitzgerald Thomas Grant, known as ‘Fitz’ to those who knew him well, had thought that the times of seeing Cyrus wear that particularly negative facial expression, were over.

    Cyrus didn’t wait to be asked what was wrong. He just launched right into it.

    “I received a call from Billy Chambers.”

    Fitz leaned back in his chair. Now that was a name he had not heard in almost a year. And that was a good thing.

    “What the hell did he want?” Fitz asked, setting down some paperwork.

    “He’s inviting Mellie and yourself to the Grayson compound this weekend.”

    Fitz raised a brow.

    “Billy is inviting us to the Grayson compound...”

    Cyrus sighed.

    “Long story short, Billy works for Grayson Global now. Specifically he works for Edward Grayson. I know he and your father go way back.”

    Fitz nodded.

    “Yes and I know he was one of the biggest contributors to my campaign.”

    “And he will be for your re-election.” Cyrus reminded him.

    “Cyrus, what’s really going on here?”

    Cyrus sat down on a couch and came out with it.

    “You know about the Conrad Grayson investigation?”

    Fitz shrugged.

    “Yes, something about David Clarke the terrorist.”

    “It’s more than ‘something’, Mr. President! Conrad Grayson is being accused of framing David Clarke! That would have made him NOT a terrorist! That would have made him an INNOCENT man who went to PRISON for something he didn’t do--no thanks to the  family that is one of our biggest financial campaign contributors!”

    “Okay,” Fitz said, standing up, “calm down. We just turn down the invitation. When this gets cleared up...”

    “Mr. President,” Cyrus said, now standing up, “it isn’t going to get cleared up. My contacts at the Justice Department say that the government has solid evidence that will put Conrad Grayson away for the rest of his days. Billy is telling us that this is not an invitation we can turn down.”

    Fitz folded his arms.

    “You’re saying that Edward expects our help with Conrad? We can’t get involved!”

    “You’re damned right we can’t get involved! And it gets worse...God...I really wish Mellie and yourself had had that baby.”

    Fitz squinted at his Chief of Staff.

    “What the hell does that have to do with anything?!”

    Cyrus refrained from saying what he was really thinking: that he didn’t believe for two seconds that Mellie Grant had had yet another miscarriage. Hell, he didn’t think the Grants had really even tried for another child. And there was a reason for that...

    “Mr. President, Edward Grayson has called in Olivia Pope to handle the fall out. Or so she thinks.”

    Fitz just stared at Cyrus.

    “Livvie has been called into this?”

    “Livvie is about to be DRAGGED into this! According to Billy, Edward Grayson is going to force her to work some kind of miracle....without paying her. And he plans to force you to get Conrad cleared. Mr. President, there is a DVD of Olivia and yourself going into a hotel room together. The public, when they see it, are only going to assume one thing.”

    “Wait a minute!” Fitz finally snapped. “You’re telling me that Edward Grayson is planning on blackmailing me, into keeping his son out of prison for working with terrorists, who actually caused a plane crash. I’m supposed to get a man off, that framed an innocent man for the crime...David Clarke is dead, isn’t he?”

    “Yes and believe me, that’s going over really well with the public thus far!” Cyrus groaned. “We cannot get involved!”

    “What do you suggest, Cyrus? You said Edward has a DVD. It sounds like at the very least, Mellie and I have no choice but to go to the Hamptons this weekend.”

    Cyrus pursed his lips.

    “I don’t think it’s a good idea that the First Lady be involved in this at all. I’m going to call Olivia. We’ll meet with the Graysons and see if we can come to some compromise.  We all have a lot to lose here, Mr. President. I’m sure we can work out something.”

    “Something how? I’m not helping Conrad Grayson avoid prison.” Fitz said firmly.

    Cyrus eyed the President.

    “And you’re not confessing to an affair with Olivia Pope, either.” Cyrus said, just as firmly. He then walked out of the president’s office, leaving the Commander-In-Chief lost in his own thoughts, about a beautiful love affair that should have never ended...