THE PRESIDENT 2 Read online

  THE

  PRESIDENT’S

  GIRLFRIEND 2:

  HIS WOMEN AND HIS WIFE

  MALLORY MONROE

  c2011

  All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her affiliates, is strictly prohibited.

  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

  MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  MALLORY MONROE:

  THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

  MOB BOSS 2:

  THE HEART OF THE MATTER

  ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

  ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR

  ROMANCING THE BULLDOG

  IF YOU WANTED THE MOON

  AND

  FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  KATHERINE CACHITORIE:

  LOVING THE HEAD MAN

  SOME CAME DESPERATE: A LOVE SAGA

  WHEN WE GET MARRIED

  ADDITIONAL

  BESTSELLING

  INTERRACIAL ROMANCE:

  A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

  YVONNE THOMAS

  AND

  BACK TO HONOR:

  A REGGIE REYNOLDS

  ROMANTIC MYSTERY

  JT WATSON

  COMING SOON

  MORE INTERRACIAL ROMANCE

  FROM

  MALLORY MONROE:

  DUTCH AND GINA

  ALSO ROMANTIC FICTION

  FROM

  AWARD-WINNING

  AND

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  TERESA MCCLAIN-WATSON

  AFTER WHAT YOU DID

  AND

  STAY IN MY CORNER

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  www.austinbrookpublishing.com

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  ONE

  They would not let up. Every question was an indictment. Every answer seemed wrong. And they kept on firing: How many students have been captured, sir? Why haven’t they been released? Is Al-Qaeda involved? Why can’t you give us more information, sir, after three long days? Why is your administration dragging its feet? What is your administration doing to bring our boys and girls safely home?

  Walter “Dutch” Harber stood behind the podium in the East Room of the White House and answered every question with the coolness he was known for. The room was packed with wall to wall reporters, many drained and overworked, all roaring like lions of opposition, determined, it seemed to him, to treat this unfolding hostage crisis as if it could be that one big story that could bring his presidency down.

  And here he stood, in that lion’s den, equally determined to maintain his cool. He certainly looked the part, more than a few reporters had already commented to each other, as he stood there in his pristine tailored dark blue suit, his polished Italian dress shoes, his jet-black hair slicked back in a way that highlighted the smoothness of his forehead, his wide, sexy jawline, his eyes that were so green they looked like jade. And in that calm, confident look of his he managed, even in the mist of their swirling accusations, to exemplify a startling contrast to their loud, raucous scruffiness.

  “I will say again,” he said for what seemed to him to be the hundredth time. “The United States does not, and will not, negotiate with terrorists.”

  “But what if Al-Qaeda kills those students, sir?” the AP reporter asked in follow up. “According to our sources, they’re demanding the release of Ben-al-Alawaiki or they will kill those students. Are you going to let those students die, Mr. President?”

  “It has not been confirmed by my administration what organization is responsible for the abductions, so I don’t know where you’re getting this information about Al-Qaeda’s demands. At this point we can’t even confirm how many students have been abducted. And if, let me repeat if, Al-Qaeda is responsible, they would be well advised to understand what it would mean for them if they harm any of those American citizens. But again, we will not negotiate with terrorists.”

  When he refused to deviate from his theme, when he refused to slip up and say something unscripted about the hostage crisis that the cable news channels would have a field day criticizing, the press moved on. But their next target, as it had been ever since he started dating her and spiked to frenzied proportions after he married her, was Regina Lansing-Harber.

  “Your wife, sir, gave an interview over the weekend where she said she’ll continue to focus on social justice issues in her role as First Lady. She even questioned the laws of our land, saying that many of those mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are the very reason why a disproportionate number of African-American males are incarcerated. She said those laws were unjust on their face. Why is your wife soft on crime, sir, and does that mean you’re soft on crime also?”

  The nerve of these people, Dutch thought with some degree of anger, although his face revealed nothing. “My wife is a trained criminal defense attorney,” he calmly pointed out. “She’s a professional who has been involved in social justice issues for well over a decade. She wasn’t speaking randomly or off-the-cuff. She was speaking as a woman with considerable experience and expertise in the area in which you cite.”

  “But she blamed the laws on the books, sir, rather than the criminals themselves, for their incarceration. You didn’t answer my question. Why is she soft on crime?”

  “She’s not soft on anything,” Dutch said with a smile, although he was raging inside. He needed a release, and knew he would have to find that wife of his and get one as soon as this inquisition-masquerading-as-a-press-conference was over.

  But it would be nearly fifteen more minutes of back and forth before Allison Shearer, his press secretary, could shout Last question!, he could answer it, and then he and his staff could leave that press room and that unrelenting press behind.

  “That went well,” Dutch said snidely to Max Brennan, his chief of staff, as Max scurried to keep pace with his taller, more athletic boss. A train of presidential aides followed closely behind the fast-moving men.

  “We don’t even know who the kidnappers are yet,” Max said, virtually out of breath, “and they’re already demanding answers. Geez. And now Congress wants to parade you up on Capitol Hill like some guinea hen so they can get in on the Blame Dutch Harber bandwagon too. Which reminds me,” Max said, stopping Dutch’s progression by gently touching him on the arm. The aides, understanding, stayed back far enough to allow the two heavy hitters some degree of privacy. “The Congressional Hispanic Caucus wants to deal.”

  “Do they now?” Dutch asked. “That’s some good news.”

  “Yes, sir, but they want a parade too. They’re willing to offer public support for the Hearn Amendment only if you’ll agree to a day-long summit here at the White House, cameras rolling, on immigration reform.”

  “An all day summit?”

  “All day. I know it’s crazy, sir, but that’s their bottom line. And they don’t mean a hello-goodbye by the president, either. They want you to chair the event so it’ll get maximum coverage.”

  Dutch just stood there as he often did when his mind was deep in thought. He knew it would be virtually impossible to give any one event an entire day of his time. But he also knew that amendment would fail if he did not have CHC support. “If we can set it up, okay.”

  Max sighed relief. “Good. It won’t be any time soon, I’ll make that clear, but at least we can get that amendment out of committee.”

  “Set it up,” Dutch said, about to co
ntinue moving. But Max stopped his progression again.

  “Another thing, sir,” he said, in a voice even lower. “Jennifer wants a meeting.”

  Dutch shook his head. “No.”

  “But, sir, she’s the wife of a billionaire. She’s one of the Democratic Party’s staunchest supporters. You can’t say no to one of our most generous donors.”

  “I thought I just did.”

  “What I mean is, sir, we have tough mid-terms coming up in a couple years, with some serious collective bargaining and other ballot initiatives we’ve got to fight tooth and nail. We’ll need her money and the money of every donor we have on the books just for our ground game to be competitive, or we could lose those initiatives and the House could swing back into Republican hands.”

  “The answer is still no, Max.”

  “But why for crying out loud? Because you and her fooled around back in the day?”

  “Yes,” Dutch admitted. “But not just back then.”

  At first Max didn’t get it. He frowned. “I knew you two had a thing going when you were in the Senate, but I don’t see where. . .” And then he began to understand. He stared at the president. “Are you telling me,” he started, and then forced his voice even lower. “Are you saying that you’ve been with her, intimately, since you’ve been president?”

  Dutch hated to admit it. “Yes,” he said.

  Max could not believe it. He knew Jennifer Caswell was a great looker and there was a time when Dutch couldn’t keep his hands off of her. But when in the world did Dutch hook back up with her? And why, Max wondered, was he always the last to know?

  “When did all of this happen?” he asked the president, who also happened to be his best friend since childhood. “Was it since you’ve been with Regina?”

  “No,” Dutch said snappishly, finding the entire conversation disagreeable. “Of course not. Before Gina.”

  “But more than one time?”

  Dutch nodded. “Yes.”

  “But,” Max still wasn’t quite understanding this. “She’s married, sir. She was married during your first term.”

  Dutch looked at Max with great frustration, although his anger was more a reflection of his own disgust with the womanizing man he used to be, than any negative feelings he held toward his chief of staff. “I know she’s married, Max, why are you telling me that?”

  “I thought you didn’t, even in your most active days, I didn’t think you would fool around with a married lady.”

  “She married Ralph Caswell in some private, secret ceremony and forgot to mention it to me. Did we have sex while she was married? Yes, we did. Did I know she was married while we were having sex? No. Not initially, anyway. When I did find out I wish I would have immediately broke it off, but I didn’t. Jen was a sexual habit for me by then and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to break the habit that easily.”

  Max had heard about Jennifer’s freakishness in bed, that was why, he believed, Dutch was interested in her to begin with. “So you guys continued to see each other after you discovered the truth?” he asked him.

  “A few more times, yes,” Dutch admitted, “until I became so disgusted with myself that I could hardly look at myself in the mirror. Then I broke it off. For good.”

  Max looked at his boss doubtfully. Jennifer Caswell was always one bad mood away from being certifiably nuts. For her to give up a man like Dutch Harber just because she got married to some rich old guy with plenty of dough didn’t even sound like her. “And she just accepted that break?” he asked Dutch.

  Dutch’s eyes glazed over, remembering that crazy time. “Hardly,” he said. “I had to literally threaten to tell her brand new husband just to get rid of her. And that’s why I have no intentions of seeing her now.” Then he frowned. "Anyway, I need to talk to my wife before we head over to Capitol Hill,” he said, walking away, his aides now scurrying to follow behind him. “And get Ed Drake,” he added without turning around. “I want a briefing on the ride over.”

  “Yes, sir,” Max said as he watched him hurry to get to his wife. How a man like him could go from Wham Bam Harber, the love’em and leave’em specialist, to somebody completely devoted to that wife of his, was a mystery to Max. Especially considering that wife of his. Not that he had anything against black women, he didn’t. He found them just as attractive as any other woman. But the one the president had decided to latch onto was just too black: dark skin, full lips, voluptuous body, hair either braided or in some other Afrocentric style that irked Max no end. And she was unapologetic about her style too, even when many national magazines, except maybe for Jet and Essence, constantly complained about her lack of taste. She just didn’t seem to care.

  And now Jennifer Caswell was back on the scene, a woman who once held Dutch’s full attention. And held it, to Max’s dismay, even after she married billionaire industrialist Ralph Caswell. That could be a problem. Not just for Dutch, not just for the Democratic Party. But for Max, who was secretly positioning himself to seek public office himself in a couple years. What if Jennifer was still in love with Dutch, his ex’s never seem able to completely let him go, and that was why she was insisting on this meeting? Dutch was no longer interested, and was making it clear, but what if she was still interested? That could be a nightmare, just like Kate Marris had been a nightmare. Jennifer had the kind of forceful personality that could create all kinds of havoc for the president.

  Max began walking again, sighing as he walked. He knew he had to keep a lid on any more bimbo eruptions, not just for the president’s sake, not just for the party’s sake, but for his own as yet unspoken, but secretly very real political ambitions.

  Max’s assistant hurried up to his now-mobile boss. “You okay, sir?” he asked him.

  Max frowned, looked at his subordinate with contempt. “Of course I’m okay! What are you asking me that for?” he asked him, his eyes unable to shield what he could just sense was a fast approaching storm.

  ***

  Regina Lansing-Harber stood in the marbled shower stall inside the White House residence for far longer than it took to clean her already clean body. But she couldn’t stop thinking about this new, in the fishbowl, under the microscope, in your face life of hers. Dutch had warned her repeatedly. He had told her not to expect any degree of reasonable treatment from a DC press corps that feeds on unreasonableness. And she had smiled; hit him playfully on the arm, as if he had told her some distasteful joke.

  But she wasn’t laughing now.

  Dutch’s inauguration for his second term as president was barely a month old and already they were on his case: blaming him for the weak U.S. economy. Blaming him for the stagnation in the European markets. Blaming him for the abduction of those silly-ass, risk-taking rich college students who chose to spend their winter vacation in a war zone of all places, a war zone! And now Dutch, who had too much on his plate already, was forced to clean up that mess too.

  She leaned her head back and allowed the fierce stream of water to medicate her tense, black body, her hair freshly braided in small, neat rows dropped along her back. Although she loved Dutch dearly, she hated Washington and everything it stood for. They twisted and turned every statement, joked about every movement, loved to criticize her as if they were still sore that he didn’t marry some beauty queen from Nantucket, but an African queen from Newark. And all of it, the gamesmanship, the got-cha questions, the ridiculousness, was beginning to rattle her.

  She stepped out of the stall, not at all certain if she was ready to face another day in the hot seat, when she realized she wasn’t alone. Her husband was standing there, his hands in his pockets, his tired, gorgeous body leaned against the doorjamb of the bathroom’s wide entrance. She stared at him, and he stared at her, both worried sick about the other, about the stress the outside world constantly put on their brand new marriage, but both trying to get through it.