For the Love of Gina: The President's Girlfriend (17 page)

“Can
I go up too?”

“Not
right now, son.
 
Finish your breakfast.”

“But
Daddy, please.”

“Walter,”
Dutch said in that stern voice Walter knew so well.

Walt
scrunched up his face.
 
“Yes, sir,” he
said, and Dutch headed up the backstairs.

Dutch
had been out of town for three days and could hardly wait to see Gina
again.
 
And when he opened the door of
their bedroom, and saw her lying in bed with the covers exposing a part of her
bare ass, his penis began to throb. She was fast asleep, looking so beautiful,
he thought, and Dutch missed lying beside her.
 

He
walked up to the bed.
 
Although he
desperately wanted to rub her the way he usually did, he, instead, pulled the
covers over her exposed parts and shook her shoulder.

“Gina?”
he said.
 
“Gina?”
 
She began to stir.
 
“Wake up, darling.
 
Time to get up.”

Gina
heard Dutch’s soothing voice.
 
Then she
felt his strong hand on her shoulder.
 
She opened her eyes.
 
When she saw
him, her heart sank.
 
She loved him, but
she was still trying to forgive him.

“Good
morning,” he said to her.

He
was fully dressed, in a sharp blue suit, and although he was smiling, she could
see the weariness in his deep green eyes.

“Good
morning.”

“Better
get on up, kido.”

“What
time is it?”

“A
little after eight.”

Gina
exhaled.
 
“Okay.”

“I’ll
run your bath,” Dutch said and turned to go into the bathroom.

“I can
get it,” Gina said, sitting up.
 
She
refused to decide what she was going to do based on emotion alone.
 
She’d been through so much with this man.
 
She had to decide if she could take any
more.
 
Because if she stayed with Dutch,
she’d already concluded, there was certain to be even more drama.

Dutch
felt wounded when she refused his offer to run her bath.
 
She’d never in their entire marriage refused
him like that.
 
“It’s no problem,” he
said, trying with all he had not to look at her now naked body.
 
He failed.

“It’s
a problem and you know it,” Gina said.
 
“We have a problem.
 
And we aren’t
going to pretend that everything is fine and dandy because it’s not.
 
You promised me space---”

Dutch
held up his hands. “All right,” he said.
 
“I’ll give you space.”
 
Then he
exhaled.
 
“How did it go with LaLa?”

Gina
nodded.
 
“It went okay.
 
She’s hurting, so we kind of encouraged each
other.”

“She
says Crader is inattentive.”

Gina
yawned, nodding her head.
 
“Not just
that.
 
She’s afraid of the future with
him.
 
If she’ll be enough for him.”

“Which
is crazy.
 
She’s enough for any man.”

“That’s
because you love her unconditionally, Dutch.
 
I don’t think Crader knows the meaning of the word.”

“That’s
harsh.”

“That’s
how I feel.
 
Once a rat, always a rat as
far as I’m concerned.”

Dutch
studied Gina.
 
“I hope that’s not your
opinion of me.”

“You
know it’s not.”

“I
don’t know any such thing,” Dutch said heartfelt.
 
“Living in the servants quarters of my own
home?
 
Wanting to hold my wife, but
certain she’ll refuse me.
 
Terrified that
my son might figure out that all isn’t well between his parents.
 
And for what, Gina?
 
Because I . . .”

Gina
looked at him. “Because you what, Dutch?
 
Betrayed me?
 
Ruined the only
chance I could have had of getting to know my brother?
 
Caused me to feel guilty and at fault for his
death?
 
Because of that, Dutch?
 
Oh, yeah, that’s nothing.
 
I must be nuts to even feel bad about that.”

“I
wasn’t saying that.”

“That’s
what it sounded like you were saying.”

“I
just want this resolved so that we can be together again.”

“If
we get it resolved,” Gina said, “you’ll be the first to know.”

Dutch’s
heart dropped when Gina prefaced her response.
 
If
we get it resolved, she
said
.
 
If
.
 
Dutch couldn’t even attempt to think about
that right now.
 
“I’ll call you later,”
he said.
 
“Answer your phone when I do.”

Then
Dutch looked at her a moment longer, and left.

Gina
plopped her elbows down on her lap, and then dropped her head too.
 
She hated being in limbo like this, but she
didn’t see where she had a choice.
 
She
was tired of living a drama-filled life.
 
She was tired of it.
 
What
happened with DeAndre felt like the final straw to her.
 
For the first time in her marriage, she
honestly wasn’t sure if she had a future with Dutch Harber.
 
And that realization, that kind of truth, was
stinging her still.

Roman
Wilkes took the stairs two at a time, hurried past Gina’s support staff, and
walked straight into her office without knocking.
 
He had a pile of papers in his hand and he
plopped them down in front of her.

“Well
good morning to you, too,” Gina said.
 
She was seated behind her desk, going over their new mission statement,
trying with all she had not to keep thinking about Dutch.

“Good
morning,” Roman said.
 
“I hope you’re
having a good one because I’m having a fabulous one.
 
Sign them, babe.”

“They
said yes?” Gina asked excitedly.

“They
said yes!” Roman blared out and Gina jumped up from her seat and gave him a big
bear hug.
 

“Oh,
Roman, this is fantastic!
 
When did it
happen?”

“Late,
and I mean late last night.
 
I would have
phoned you, but I knew you had your own problems and was probably finally
getting some much needed rest.”

“This
would have perked me up,” she said, glancing down at those papers.
 
“So we sign and then what?” she asked as she
signed.

“Then
we wait for the bank’s final approval, and then watch the cash take BBR from
here, all the way up to here.”
 
His hand
went from his mid-section to above his head.
 
“We will be the premiere legal center in America when we’re done.”

“Legal
center my foot!
 
We do legal, and I’ve
let you run that department.”

“Which
I’ve run brilliantly.”

“Which
you’ve run brilliantly, yes,” Gina admitted with a smile.
 
“But we do a lot more than that.
 
We also counsel prostitutes and drug addicts
and feed the homeless, and clothe the naked, we do a lot.
 
That money will help us change a lot of
people’s lives.
 
Five million
dollars?
 
That’s the single biggest
donation we’ve ever received.”

Roman
retrieved the signed papers.

“So
it’s money in the bank,” Gina said.

“Thank
God,” Roman replied.

“Schedule
a board meeting, Ro,” Gina ordered.
 
“We
want to make sure we have the right plans in place before we spend a dime.”

“Will
do,” Roman said, and then he hesitated.

Gina
looked at him.
 
“What?”

“I
heard about your brother,” he said.
 
“I
heard he hung himself?
 
Is it true,
Gina?”

That
sinking feeling reemerged from the shadows deep inside of Gina.
 
“Yes,” Gina was sad to say.
 
“It’s true.”

“That’s
a crying shame.
 
Why would he do a thing
like that?”

“He
lost hope.
 
He didn’t know I was his
sister.
 
He didn’t know I was on my way
to do everything within my power to get his name cleared.”

“I
guess you wish you would have called first and told him you was on your way.”

“Lord
knows I wish we would have.
 
But how can you
expect something like that?
 
Somebody
hanging themselves?”

“And
you guys are sure the cops didn’t have a hand in this hanging?”

Mitchell
had some people check it out.
 
It was
suicide.”

Roman
shook his head.
 
“Crying shame,” he said.

“All
he knew was that some attorney Dutch sent to question him told him that the
best he could hope for is life without parole.”

“Oh
no he didn’t,” Roman said.
 
“Who was the
attorney?”

“William
Bates.”

“Oh,
he’s a big time attorney, that’s for sure, but still.
 
He should have known better than to go there
this soon with a client.
 
Life without
parole?
 
He tells that to an eighteen
year old? Are you serious?
 
Why would
Dutch even send somebody that insensitive to talk to the boy?”

“Wait
a minute now,” Gina said.
 
“Dutch didn’t
know Bill Bates was going to tell DeAndre a thing like that.”

“What
do you mean he didn’t know?
 
He sent him
there didn’t he?”

“Yes,
but he thought the guy was just going to get information, not give out advice.”

“Ah,
there you go again,” Roman said.
 
“Defending
that husband of yours.
 
No matter what
happens, it’s never his fault.”

“I
didn’t say that.”

“Yes,
you did, you always do.
 
Because if my
spouse would have kept something that major from me, it would have been
over.
 
No questions asked.
 
I would not have been able to trust that
person again for as long as I lived.
 
Your brother died not knowing about you.
 
That’s a shame, Gina, and Dutch should be ashamed of himself.”

“He
thought he was protecting me,” Gina offered.

“There
you go again,” Roman said, shaking his head.

“There
I go what again?” Gina wanted to know.

“Defending
him!
 
He can never ever do any wrong in
your eyes.
 
He wears a hallo as far as
you’re concerned.”

“That
is so not true.”

“It’s
true, but no matter.
 
I’m too happy to be
depressed.
 
Let me get to the bank,” he
said, as he began to leave.

Once
he left, Gina leaned back in her chair.
 
It was the reverse for her.
 
She
was too depressed to be happy.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Movie
night in the Harber household and Dutch felt like a kid again.
 
He was in the guesthouse, having just made it
home from work, and had time only to put down his briefcase before heading
across the estate to the main house.
 
He
had missed dinner with his family (due to crucial meetings he could not avoid),
and had already received two phone calls from Little Walt reminding him of
movie night.
 
Dutch smiled as he left his
place and made his way across the estate.
 
It was more like Walt’s night when he thought about it.
 
Which, for Dutch and Gina both, made it all
the more special.

Although
it was nighttime, the estate was still lit up bright as a football stadium as
the gardener, the pool man, the maids cleaning off the terraces, all were still
at work.
 
And every one of them spoke to
Dutch, whom, to a person, they admired and respected above any other man they’d
ever worked for.

Dutch
spoke to them all as he walked.
 
It had
been a long day, and an even longer week, but being able to spend time with
Gina and Walt again made him bear any tough day.
 
And as soon as he entered the home and made
his way downstairs into the movie room, Walt jumped from his mother’s lap and
ran to Dutch.

“You
made it!” he said with such joy that Dutch became overjoyed himself.

“I
told you I would.”

“Come
on,” Walt said, pulling Dutch by the hand toward the sofa.
 
Dutch gladly moved with the pull.
 
“You sit here,” Walt said to him.
 
“By mommy.”

Gina
smiled and shook her head as Walt made sure Dutch sat next to her.
 
“Closer,” he even said when his father, in
his mind, wasn’t sitting close enough to his mother.
 
So Dutch obliged him, and he and Gina were
touching arms.
 

“Better?”
he asked Walt.

“Yes,
thank-you,” Walt said, and then left them and went and sat on the floor with Nanny
in front of the movie screen, the way he always did, and watched the just
starting movie.

Dutch
frowned.
 
“What in the world is
that?
 
The Wiz?”

Gina
looked at him.
 
“Dutch, you’ve never
heard of the Wiz before?”

“I’m
reasonably sure that I haven’t.”

“It’s
a remake of the Wizard of Oz.
 
With an
all-black cast.”

“Oh.
 
Really?”

“Yes.
 
With Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.
 
It’s an old movie.
 
But sometimes that’s what Walt likes.”

Dutch
shook his head.
 
“We birth an old man,
Gina,” he said, and Gina couldn’t help but laugh so loud that it caused Walt,
who was a good distance away from his parents, to turn around and place his
finger to his mouth.
 
Then he quickly
turned back to the movie.

Dutch
looked at Gina.
 
They were close enough
that he could feel her body heat, and he knew she could feel his.
 
He wanted to hold her, or even just place an
arm around her, but he knew she would probably get up and leave.
 
But at least they were far enough away from
Walt that they could speak freely and not be heard.
 
He decided to speak freely.
 
“So how are things going with you?” he asked
her.

“It’s
. . . going.
 
We received a major
donation that we’re really excited about.”

“At
BBR?”

“That’s
right.”

“I
thought BBR was on sound financial footing.”

“It
is.
 
This donation is like icing on the
cake.”

“If
you needed icing, you should have come to me.”

“No,
Dutch, you’ve given all you’re going to give to BBR.
 
You’re easily our number one donor.
 
That’s enough.
 
You aren’t spending another dime of our son’s
inheritance at BBR.”

Dutch
smiled.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, although
they both knew that donating to BBR was just a drop in the bucket of Walter’s
inheritance.

She
looked at him.
 
“How did it go in Vegas?”

“It
went well.
 
There’s a good possibility
that we might be expanding our reach.
 
I
was pleased with the investors.
 
They
seem like people I can do business with.”

“That’s
good.”

Dutch
hesitated.

“What
is it?”

“I
also took a drive and saw Jade.”

“Oh.
 
Okay.
 
Well that’s good.
 
How is she
doing?”

“I
caught her having sex with her psychiatrist.”

Gina
turned to him, astounded.
 
“You have got
to be kidding me.
 
Sex with him?
 
Are you sure?”

“I
caught them in the very act,” Dutch said.

That
Jade, Gina thought.
 
“Was it the same
psychiatrist that wrote all of those glowing reports about her progress?”

“One
in the same,” Dutch said.
 
“He was fired
on the spot, from what Dr. Forbes later told me.
 
Jade was reassigned to a different
therapist.”

“Jade,”
Gina said, shaking her head.
 
“What is
wrong with that girl?”

“I don’t
know,” Dutch said, “and right now I don’t care.
 
She’s not interested in getting better.
 
She’s interested in playing games.”

Gina
would have to agree with that.

“But
when I asked how you were doing,” Dutch said, deciding to move on, “I didn’t
mean how were you doing at work.
 
I meant
how were you doing period?”

Gina
frowned.
 
“You know how I’m doing.
 
This is a very difficult time for me.
 
Decisions have to be made.
 
It’s tough.”

Dutch
felt as if he was on the edge of a ledge, and only Gina could say the word that
would pull him back in.
 
“How’s Walt been
doing?” he asked her.
 
“I’m sorry I
missed dinner with him tonight.”

“He’s
been doing well actually.
 
And as long as
you never miss another movie night, he’ll be okay.”
 
Dutch smiled.
 
“As long as he doesn’t suspect any problems with us, he’ll be okay.”

“Given
how insistent he was for me to sit next to you,” Dutch said, “I’m not so sure
if he isn’t aware that something isn’t right already.
 
You saw how perceptive he was about Loretta
and Crader’s problems.”

“I
know, yeah.
 
But I’ve been paying
attention to him, and Nanny has also.
 
We
haven’t seen anything disconcerting.”

Dutch
decided to go there, certain that Gina hadn’t thought this separation through
to the most obvious, yet most tragic, conclusion.
 
“But what if this goes on for an extended
period of time, Gina?” he asked her.
 
“What if we never get back together?”

Gina
felt her chest constrict at the mere thought of it.

Dutch
continued.
 
“What if we have to sit our
boy down and tell him that . . .that we’ve, that his mother and father, have
decided to go our separate ways?”

That
sense of dread came over Gina.
 
That
feeling of queasiness in the pit of her stomach.
 
She couldn’t even think about it that
way.
 
“We’re not . . . I’m not anywhere
near that, Dutch, so that’s not even something I’m thinking about.”

“I
suggest you think about it,” Dutch said seriously, and she looked at him.
 
“Because that’s where these
give me some space
and
I need some time away
requests can
lead.
 
Straight to divorce court.”

Gina
stared at him.

“And
if that happens, Gina,” he said, staring into her eyes, “it’ll break my heart.”

Gina’s
heart dropped at just hearing Dutch say that.
 
She didn’t want to hurt him.
 
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
 
“Going to counseling can’t help this, because it’s not that kind of
problem.
 
It’s something I need to think
through on my own, and it’s going to take time.
 
I need to know for certain if I want to. . .”

She
didn’t finish.
 
Dutch, however, did.
 
“If you want to what?” he asked.
 
“Still be with me?”

But
Gina didn’t back down.
 
“Still deal with
the drama of being with you,” she said.
 
“This was supposed to be our happy days, Dutch, but it hasn’t been like
I thought it would be at all.”

“What
are you saying?
 
You haven’t been happy
since I resigned the presidency?”

“I
never dreamed you’d keep my own brother a secret from me,” she said.
 
“That changed everything, don’t you
understand that?
 
What else is out
there?”

“I
told you,” he said and then realized he had a sharp edge to his tone, although
Walt still wasn’t hearing them.
 
But he
lowered his voice anyway.
 
“I told you
nothing else is out there.
 
Nothing.”

But
Gina still wasn’t certain of that.
 
She
remembered all those times long ago, long before he decided to hide DeAndre’s
existence from her, and how he would always say that he wasn’t a saint and he
wasn’t perfect whenever she brought up issues of fidelity and trust.
 
Even then she used to suspect there was
something out there Dutch wasn’t sharing with her.
 
And it had nothing to do with her
brother.
 
Back then, even Dutch didn’t
know her brother existed.

But
the thought that this would lead to her divorcing him was a scary thought.
 
She looked at him.
 
Although her anger and disappointment with
him was still there, she felt a need to reassure him.
 
“We’ll work this out, Dutch,” she said.
 
“You’ve just got to give me some time.”

Dutch
looked into her big, golden-brown eyes.
 
He placed his hand on the side of her dark-brown face.
 
And he saw some anger, yes, and still some
disappointment.
 
But he saw love there
too.
 
A lot of love there.
 
The kind of love that made him suddenly
confident that he could kiss her right now, and she would not recoil.

So he
did it.
 
As Michael Jackson and Diana
Ross were singing
Ease On Down the Road
,
he placed his thumb and finger on Gina’s chin and slowly placed his lips on her
lips.
 
When he saw Gina close her eyes as
soon as their lips touched, he closed his too.
 
It had been so long since he kissed her that it now felt as if he was
kissing her for the first time.
 
It felt
just that intoxicatingly wonderful.
 
But
he didn’t rush it.
 
He didn’t attempt to
wrap her in his arms or give her any reason to pull away from him.
 
He didn’t suspect she’d give him more than a
kiss tonight, and that was why he was going to milk what she was willing to
give.

Gina,
too, felt that surge of intensity when Dutch started kissing her.
 
For all of her bravado and tough talk, she
was still deeply in love with this man.
 
And his kiss.

And for
minutes on end, she allowed him to kiss her.
 
For minutes on end they kissed sweetly, then passionately, then
tongue-kissed with sweeping kisses.
 
Until they were getting too loud, smacking too hard.
 
Gina pulled back when her hand slipped and
touched his penis-area, and she felt just how rock-hard he had become.

Dutch
quickly placed his arm around her shoulder and pulled her back against him. He
rested his forehead on hers.
 
He was
breathing almost in hyperventilation now.
 
He wanted to be with her so badly that he could taste it.
 
“Go upstairs with me, Gina,” he said.

“No,
Dutch, we can’t.”

“Please,
Gina,” he begged.