THE PRESIDENT'S GIRLFRIEND

  THE

  PRESIDENT’S

  GIRLFRIEND

  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.

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  ONE

  TEN YEARS EARLIER

  The cab stopped in front of the Embassy-Grand Hotel in Miami Beach and Dutch Harber stepped out and walked inside. It had been a long day of meetings and more meetings and his body was near exhaustion. But the idea of going to bed alone, in that lonely hotel room not unlike all of those other lonely hotel rooms he’d had to endure since taking over the southern division of his father’s company, was so unappealing to him that it was downright intolerable.

  That was why, within seconds of entering the room, he exited back out. Back on the elevator to the lobby, back into the lobby through the east end colonnade, across the colonnade enclosed with gardens and fountains, and into the hotel’s lounge.

  It was rather rowdy for such a swanky lounge, but when he took a seat at a back booth and ordered himself a drink, he realized why. A group of young, raucous conventioneers were at a large table near his booth, laughing and talking and drinking like there was no tomorrow.

  It was a large group, with the men displaying the kind of loud exuberance that equal doses of success and arrogance often bred, and the women, all tall, mostly blonde and thin as rails, solicitous to the men to a point that seemed almost calculating.

  Except for one woman, Dutch noticed, the only African-American in the group. Nothing blonde or thin or solicitous about her. She, in fact, unlike the other females, seemed to exhibit that superior air the males displayed, rather than that coquettish submissiveness displayed by the females at the table. Although she appeared far too young to be their boss, and none of the females were kowtowing to her, she, unlike them, wasn’t kowtowing to any of the males.

  As the waiter returned with his drink, Dutch found himself watching her more closely. She was an interesting one, that lady. Had a style all her own. And forget thin and boyish-looking. She was voluptuous, with that curvaceous, oh-so-feminine body that always turned Dutch on. She wore a pale pink cocktail dress that crisscrossed at her cleavage, highlighting for all to see two ripe, plump breasts that, as soon as Dutch’s eyes caught full sight of them, caused his penis to give a little thump.

  And her face, now that was her money shot, he thought. Big, gorgeous eyes, a small, narrow nose, full lips that curled to a peak at the middle and trailed down in a soft sweep at the sides. And all of it put together on deep-toned, dark brown skin that seemed so smooth, so velvety rich that Dutch could imagine the warm, soft feel of it in his very capable hands.

  Oddly enough, it wasn’t anything remarkably beautiful about her that drew his interest, but it was more because she had that something about her special attraction that seemed to transcend mere handsomeness. And that look about her, that above-the-fray, uncompromising look that could just as easily be construed as arrogance as much as confidence and independence. Seemed to him a self-assured female like her would be a tough sell in that group of superficial, spray-tanned Barbie and Ken dolls, but who was he to judge? Maybe she was just as superficial as they were, but was better at camouflaging it.

  He asked for and received a copy of the Wall Street Journal, flapped it open to the daily stock market report, and crossed his legs. But every time he tried to read any article, he kept getting interrupted by bursts of laughter from the conventioneers. It became so bad that even the Maitre d attempted to rescue him.

  “Perhaps you’ll feel more comfortable at a table in a different section, sir,” he had suggested. But Dutch had declined. Let kids by kids, he always believed. He certainly was when he was their age.

  He snorted at the way he phrased that. He’d only just turned thirty-three himself, but was talking as if he was his father’s age. Certainly his father’s poor health changed him, forcing him to take on more and more of the day to day operations of the family’s numerous business interests, and the fact that his fiancée had died in a plane crash a little less than a year ago, would make any young man old. And although the loud conventioneers seemed to all be in their twenties, and was therefore not that much younger than he, youthful exuberance was about as foreign to him now as this new life of responsibility on top of responsibility was familiar.

  As he buried his head in his newspaper and eventually learned to live with the noise, he suddenly felt the presence of someone standing at his booth. When he looked up, that same young lady he was observing earlier, the black woman, was right in front of him.

  “Hi,” she said in a soft, warm voice that reminded him of those smoky-voiced jazz singers his father used to love to listen to when Dutch was a kid.

  “Hello,” he replied, removing his reading glasses.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Dutch’s eyes, as if by reflex, trailed down to her breasts. “Not at all,” he said. “Have a seat.” He stood up slightly as she sat down.

  “We’re disturbing you, aren’t we?”

  “Why would you think that?” he asked, sitting back down.

  “Because every time a roar goes up from our table, you cringe.”

  Dutch smiled. “Do I really?”

  “You really do. And I mean it’s very obvious.” She extended her hand. “I’m Gina. Well, Regina, actually, but everybody calls me Gina.”

  Dutch removed his glasses from his right hand and shook hers. “Nice to meet you, Gina. I’m Walter.”

  “Whoa, you don’t look like a Walter.”

  “Everybody calls me Dutch.”

  Gina smiled a smile so white and bright and inviting that Dutch found himself mesmerized by her mouth. “That’s more like it then,” she said with a playful head bob, a bob that caused her breasts to shake ever so slightly but, in so shaking, caused his penis to thump yet again.

  “Are you from around these parts, Gina?” he asked her, oddly pleased to have her in his booth.

  “Not hardly,” she said. “I’m a Jersey girl. From Newark. What about you?”

  “Boston.”

  “Boston, Mass. A businessman?”

  “Now how did you guess?”

  “Wall Street Journal, reading glasses, legs crossed, tired eyes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, bud.”

  Dutch laughed. “So, what’s the deal? You and your friends here for spring break?”

  “Spring break? Like, do I look like a kid to you?”

  My goodness no, Dutch wanted to say. “Difficult to tell these days.”


  “Now that’s the truth. Some of these girls look old as me, and have the nerve to say they’re fourteen and fifteen. I’m like, really? Fourteen? But it begs the point, doesn’t it? About spring break? I mean, who plans a convention in Miami Beach during spring break? Like, who does that? Lawyers, that’s who!”

  “Ah, you’re lawyers,” Dutch said with a lift of surprise in his voice. He would have never guessed that she and her rowdy table companions were attorneys.

  “Public Defenders to be more precise,” Gina said. “We’re at the East Coast Public Defenders convention. Every year one person from our office has to go. Since I’m the newbie on the block, that duty fell to me.”

  “A new attorney?”

  “Brand new. Two months licensed. Most of us at that table are newbies, in fact, from up and down the coast. Except for the guys. Most of them are already successful attorneys in their own right, as their extra show of testosterone continually makes clear.” Dutch smiled. “We’re the brain brawl committee.”

  “The brain brawl committee?”

  “Ain’t it stupid?” she said with a smile so alluring that at that moment he wanted to kiss her. “But yeah, that’s what they call it. We’re supposed to come up with new and innovative ways to make our jobs less stressful. Like that’s possible in big, urban areas where most of us work. These people crazy! But that’s what they’ve tasked us with.”

  “And I take it you guys are loud and happy because you’re making bounds of progress?”

  “We’re getting sloshed more like,” Gina said and Dutch laughed. “But it’s all bullshit in the end, anyway, right? A less stressful public defender’s office? Come on. But those are the kind of assignments they love to give to geeks.”

  “Funny,” Dutch said, smiling but meaning it, “I don’t think geek when I look at you.”

  “That’s because I’m not a geek. I’m just smart, or so they keep telling me. And keep selecting me for these ridiculous committees.”

  “So those folks at that table over there aren’t your friends, but your brain brawl mates?”

  “Exactly. And I hang out with them because I’ve never been in Miami a day in my life, wouldn’t know where to begin to go, and the thought of sitting around alone in my hotel room, well, that wasn’t very appealing either. So they asked, I said yes, and here I am. Apologizing on behalf of all of us.”

  Dutch liked her. He liked her instantly. “Apology accepted,” he said.

  Gina liked him, too. Found him attractive, too. A little older than she was used to, but still young enough. Well-built, but not flaunting it. “Well, Dutch,” she said, about to rise, “I just wanted to let you know that we won’t be here long, since they’re talking about going to bed soon.”

  “Bed?” Dutch said before he realized it. “It’s only ten.”

  “That’s how geeks roll, what can I say?” He laughed. “But don’t worry. We’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

  Dutch, however, didn’t particularly want her out of his hair anytime soon. “What, are you the good will ambassador of the group?”

  “That group? Get real! I just happen to look up and see you cringe over and over, so I decided to give you the heads up, that’s all. And besides, getting away from that table breaks up the boredom.”

  “Boredom?” Dutch asked. “You’re bored?”

  “To tears. The only reason I came on this trip at all was because it’s mandatory.”

  “But even so, Gina, this is spring break. Why are your brain brawl mates sitting up in here? Why aren’t they out painting the town?”

  “They’re geeks,” Gina said with laughter in her eyes. “They think they are painting the town.”

  Dutch laughed. “I see,” he said, nodding his head, causing a thin strand of black hair to cascade down onto his forehead.

  She kept looking at him. Yes, very attractive, she decided. And although she was five-seven herself, he was well over six feet tall, with a hard chest and sinewy arms, a flat stomach, and that strong, ultra-masculine face you often saw in commercials for cologne or shaving cream. A rich mane of black, silk-textured hair dropped down to his neck. Large, forest-green eyes underneath perfectly trimmed dark eyebrows that only enhanced the green in those eyes. A long, thin nose, full lips for a white guy, and a jaw line that was rugged but curved at just the right angle to make him gorgeous in a way that many women would walk past and then, realizing what beauty they’d just witnessed, turn and take another look.

  It had been Gina’s experience, however, that powerfully good looking men usually meant a powerfully good amount of trouble, something she wasn’t about to get into right now, not when she was just beginning her career and just beginning to get over all of those other good looking men of her past.

  “I’d better get back with the pack,” she said, moving to leave for real this time. But Dutch touched her on her hand. She looked at his hand on hers, and then into his eyes. His tired-looking, but alluringly attractive forest-green eyes.

  Dutch looked into her eyes, too. And hers were big, bright, sparkling oak-brown eyes. Her eyes popped, as his father used to say, with that glassy, almost dreamy gleam. “You didn’t tell me your age,” he said.

  To his relief, she settled back into her seat. “Twenty-five,” she said, “almost twenty-six.”

  “Ah, you’re a baby,” he said with a kidding smile.

  “My baby days are long behind me,” Gina said, smiling too. “Trust, okay?”

  Dutch laughed, thoroughly enjoying himself. He, in fact, felt he had to keep asking questions, to keep the conversation going, to keep this interesting lady within his sight. “Why public defender?” he asked her. “Why not the private sector where your talents could fetch you top dollar?”

  Gina thought about this. “It’s not a question of money for me at this point,” she said, “it’s a question of where I’m needed, where I can be the most helpful.”

  “But you don’t have time to do much help, do you, in a busy public defenders office? Except maybe move the cases along?”

  “That’s what the vets say, but I still plan to do some good. To make sure the poor get solid representation. Or what’s the point, right? Because some of these sorry-behind PD’s I’m seeing at this convention, and those I’m already seeing in my office back home, leaves a lot to be desired, I’m telling you.”

  He smiled at her passion and looked down from her adorable face, to her thin, graceful neck, to those breasts again. He could see his hands squeezing them, his mouth sucking them. He had come into this lounge in need of a woman. But he didn’t just need this particular woman. He wanted her. And by night’s end, he inwardly declared, he was going to do everything within his power to have her.

  He didn’t realize he was staring unblinkingly at her breasts until she had already stood up. And he was mortified. He could have kicked himself for being unable to control his ever-increasing lust.

  “I’d better get back,” she said this time without hesitation and before he could stand up or say anything that would encourage her to stay, she walked off.

  Her very intelligent, very perceptive eyes had no doubt caught him assessing her, and probably didn’t like it. She had to be used to it, a woman with all of her attributes. But she was also probably tired of it. Probably thought she had to get away from this old-ass pervert fast. Then he snorted, shook his head. Women used to fawn over him, now he was scaring them away. He was out of practice big time, he thought.

  He tried to get back into his newspaper and forget about her, but he couldn’t stop taking longer and longer glances at that table of attorneys, not just when they had bursts of laughter, but even when they were subdued. She was laughing with them, and hoisting up drinks, but he also noticed that she’d put the glass to her mouth but rarely took a sip, while all the others were slinging it down. There was a smart, sensible lady, he thought, as his eyes fixated on her face, trailed down to her breasts yet again, as his loins throbbed hard at just the thought of having sweet Gina
in his bed.

  Fat chance of that now, he also thought, as he drained down the last of his drink, tossed a fifty on the table, and stood to leave. He was too exhausted to care anymore, anyway. And besides, he had a ton of meetings tomorrow and needed to get some sleep.

  As he turned to leave, however, he saw one of the attorneys, a very handsome young man, whisper something in Gina’s ear. Without a second’s hesitation, Gina took her glass and slung the liquid contents into the young man’s face, causing him to immediately stand to his feet in shock at the sudden cold liquid chilling his body.

  “Bitch!” the young attorney yelled and Dutch, his heart pounding, hurried to Gina’s side just as that same young man moved to slap her. Dutch caught his arm just as he was about to inflict his retribution, and pulled his hand back.