THE PRESIDENT 2 (30 page)

SIXTEEN

Caroline arrived downstairs just as Nathan Riles was escorting Max Brennan out of Victoria’s front door.
 
More than a little curious since Max was usually acting on behalf of Dutch, she hurried to the morning room where she expected to find her benefactor.
 

“What was Max doing here?” she asked the president’s mother.
 

Victoria, who was seated at a small tea table, sipped her tea.
 
“Business.
 
As in none of yours.”

That bitch, Caroline thought.
 
“Any word from Dutch?” she asked.

“None.
 
It’s as if he thinks he can dismiss us out of hand.
 
With no retribution.”

Caroline looked at Victoria.
 
“Will there be retribution?”

Victoria smirked, sipped her tea.
 
“What do you think?”

“I think you should pay me my money and let me be on my way.
 
Dutch doesn’t want me.
 
You should have seen the way he looked at me when he realized I was the one on top of him, kissing him, and not that wife of his.”

“It beggars understanding,” Victoria said, mystified.
 
“What on earth could he see in that woman?”

“Whatever it is, he’s not seeing it in me.”
 
Then Caroline’s bitterness began to show.
 
“If you would have left well enough alone,” she added, “I would be his wife today, you would have had boatloads of light-skinned grand kids, and there would be no issues at all.
 
Instead, you force me out of his life and get stuck with the daughter-in-law from the black lagoon.”

“She’s no in-law of mine,” Victoria said as the door of the morning room opened.

“Your guest has arrived, ma’am,” Nathan Riles said.

“Thank-you, Nathan,” Victoria said as she stood to her feet.
 
“You let me handle this,” she said to Caroline.
 
“Any talk of getting paid is far too premature.
 
You’re still on the clock-remember that.
 
I’ll not pay a dime unless you perform to my satisfaction.”

“And does that mean my getting back with Dutch, which is an impossibility and we both know it?”

“After what he did to me, the way he treated me, I don’t give a rat’s ass who he’s with.
 
It’s his destruction I want, not his happiness.
 
Not anymore.
 
Not after what he did to me.”

Victoria gave her a hard look, her cold blue eyes devoid of any hint of warmth, and then she walked out of the room.
 

And walked around two corridors to her parlor.
 
Waiting for her in the parlor was yet another one of Dutch’s females.

“Kate, darling,” she said as she entered the room, “how are you?”

Kate Marris turned around.
 
Stared Victoria in those cold blue eyes.
 
Making clear by her look alone that this had better be as profitable as Victoria claimed it would be, or she would live to regret it.
 
“Fine,” she said. “And you?”

***

The presidential motorcade was treated to cheers and applause when it arrived in Bethesda at Walter Reed.
 
The rescued hostages would be treated there before they would be released to their respective families, and the president and First Lady had agreed to meet their plane.
 
From the press to the military brass to families of the hostages and regular citizens, everybody wanted in on the excitement.

Dutch and Gina, LaLa and Christian rode in the president’s car, and they all were amazed at the turnout.
 

“They really love you, sir,” Christian said, looking out the window at the throngs of people.

“Don’t you believe it,” Dutch said, looking out of the window too.
 
“It’s a momentary condition called short memory.
 
As soon as the hoopla is over, they’ll remember ‘oh, yeah, I hate his guts,’ and get back to it.”
 
Christian and Gina laughed.
 
“It’s the name of the Washington game.”

Gina looked at LaLa, who looked barely there.
 
She went to Newark to confront Demps, who was still there.
 
She had expected him to deny everything, to declare that she was completely mistaken, that he hasn’t looked at any other woman that way in all the years they’ve been together, that he wouldn’t think about fooling around with another woman.
 
Instead, she got a man who didn’t deny a thing.
 
“Yeah, I did it,” LaLa had said he said, “so what?”

Of course Gina knew he wasn’t as bold as that, but the end result was the same: he didn’t want LaLa anymore.
 
And that, Gina thought as she looked at her friend, was what hurt LaLa the most.
 
The fact that he was so over her, so easily out of love after nearly a decade of love.
 
Or at least what LaLa thought was love.
 
Gina thought it was love too, until she moved the two of them to Washington and they both got a taste of life on the biggest stage of all.
 
Women wanted to be close to that power and in Demps they saw a way to get there.
 
Men saw it too, and tried to get next to LaLa.
 
But LaLa wasn’t thinking about those brothers.
 
Gina could see that Demps, however, loved the attention of those grand, supermodel-type women who, before his appointment as her deputy press secretary, wouldn’t have given a man like him the time of day, and he wasn’t so easily dismissive.
 

“You could have taken the day off, La,” she said to her friend.

“I told her,” Christian said.
 

“I know, but I prefer to work.
 
Besides, we have a victory.
 
It’s a rare thing nowadays.
 
I wanted to be a part of it.”

Dutch squeezed Gina’s hand.
 
He had been betting on Loretta and Dempsey, was certain they would go the distance.
 
But they get to Washington and start falling apart.
  
The cracks had to have already been there, he knew something like that didn’t just happen, but if they would have stayed in Newark perhaps those cracks would have had a chance to mend.

“He called me,” Gina said, and LaLa looked at her.
 
And that hopefulness in LaLa’s eyes, as if she wanted his conversation to have been all about his love for her, broke Gina’s heart.

“What did he want?” LaLa asked her.

“Reassurance from me that his job as my deputy press secretary was safe.”

“That asshole!” Christian said, and then, when everybody looked at him in surprise, caught himself.
 
“Excuse me, ma’am, and Mr. President, and excuse me, LaLa.”
  
They all, even LaLa, laughed.
 
“But the nerve of him.
 
He didn’t ask about LaLa, or talk about their relationship, he just wanted to know about his job?
  
He doesn’t deserve you, La.
 
I’m sorry but he doesn’t.”

“No man does if we left it up to you, Chris,” Dutch said and Gina looked at him.
 
Then back at Christian.
 
She suspected that he might have some kind of innocent crush on LaLa, but dang.
 
She had no idea he had discussed that crush with Dutch.

“But anyway,” Gina said, “that’s all he wanted to discuss, girl.
 
Keeping his job and nothing else.”
 
She wanted LaLa to bury any illusions she still had about Demps coming around.
 
He may come around, but she didn’t want her friend banking on it.

“So what did you tell him?” LaLa asked.

“What you think?
 
I told him he was fired.”
 
LaLa smiled.
 
“Nobody’s breaking my best friend’s heart and I welcome him back with open arms.
 
I mean, come on.
 
He was my deputy press-sec.
 
He gets hired and keeps his job at the pleasure of the First Lady.
 
I told him I no longer have pleasure in keeping him around.
 
And he actually was surprised by that, got all hot with me.
 
You should have heard him.
 
I told him no need to be getting upset with me.
 
He’s the one who messed up.
 
He’s the one who decided to break your heart.
 
What did he expect me to do?
 
Working in the White House isn’t like working in any ordinary business.
 
I have to have people around me I can trust.
 
How can I trust him if even the woman he had purported to love can’t?
 
I mean honestly?”
 
Then Gina shook her head.
 
“He has really changed.”

“He hadn’t changed all that much,” LaLa said and both Dutch and Gina looked at him.
 

“You mean you’ve had trouble like this before?”

LaLa nodded with a frown.
 

Gina could hardly believe it.
 
“Why didn’t you tell me, La?
 
I told you everything.”
 
She glanced at Dutch.
 
“Almost everything.”

“I know, but I didn’t want you or anybody else to get the wrong impression of Demps.
 
I mean, yeah, I’ve had my suspicions in the past, but he would deny it all so I believed him.
 
Or at least I wanted to believe him.
 
But when he got to Washington and got a look at some of the most desirable women in the world, and these women were paying attention to him, he just took it to a whole different level.
 
Great looking men were doing me the same way, so I can relate.
 
But what Demps didn’t seem to understand was that those women and those men weren’t seeing us, they were seeing our proximity to power; they were seeing our positions.
 
But he just knew it was him.
 
When I found out he had taken one of those
desirable
women with him on his trip back home, I just flipped and had to see it for myself.
 
And then, when I got there, and saw this woman in his apartment, saw this woman all hugged up with him, he treated me like I was the intruder.
 
Not the other woman, but me.”
 
Tears tried to well in LaLa’s eyes, but she forced them to stay at bay.
 
“It just hurts, you know?”