THE PRESIDENT 2 Page 15

Caroline smiled. Gina chomped on her toast. “So you’re Caroline?” she said.

  “Yes,” Caroline said, surprised that she would put it that way. “And you’re Regina Lansing.”

  Gina simply looked at her. So she wanted to play it that way, did she? She could have corrected the wench. Could have told her that no, I’m actually Regina Harber, the First Lady. But she didn’t have the desire to even go there.

  “Where’s the president?” Victoria asked.

  “In a meeting,” Gina said, still remembering how welcoming it felt to have his arms around her all night; how wonderful it was to awake to the feel of his penis inside of her this morning.

  “In a meeting already?” Victoria asked. “My goodness. Where has his manners gone? The least he could have done was to say hello to his household guests this morning. Especially after last night.”

  They both glanced at Gina, as if begging her to ask about last night. That was why she chomped again on her toast, and didn’t.

  Caroline, in fact, was amazed at how she wasn’t asking her any questions. Your husband’s long-lost fiancée suddenly appears and you aren’t interested? Unless, Caroline thought a little less aggressively, Dutch had told her all she felt she needed to know.

  Victoria, however, knew there was a button to push somewhere on this female, and she was determined to find it. “Did he say when he would get back with us?” she wanted to know.

  Gina thought about this. “No,” she said, remembering nothing to that effect.

  “Not a word? I find that rather hard to believe.”

  “Then don’t believe it. But it’s a fact.”

  Victoria didn’t like her tone. In any other context a woman like her would be serving her, not sitting at a table with her, and would know the difference. “I understand you endured a harrowing experience yesterday,” she decided to try. “If the press reports are accurate.”

  Gina stared at her, wondering where was she going with what she knew was ultimately a line of attack.

  “According to those reports,” Victoria continued when Gina just looked at her, “you were visiting your brother, the murderer.”

  Bingo, Gina thought and actually smiled. “Yes, I was,” she said.

  “They commuted his sentence to life in prison, Caroline,” Victoria continued, “thanks to her friendship with the Governor of Texas.”

  “Really? I’m certain that didn’t help Dutch politically, a move like that. When I was his woman, before he was even considering politics, I would have known better than to do anything that would shed an unfavorable light on him. Especially having the sentence of a murdered commuted. And then to visit him? That’s just not done in our circles.”

  “Precisely,” Victoria said, and looked at Gina. “As I’m sure you are now aware, Caroline was the love of Dutch’s life before the plane crash. They were deeply in love and were to be married. Then tragedy struck. But, fortunately for me and Dutch, who love Caroline, she’s back with us. What it means for your future is an open question, of course. Dutch and Caroline will have to come together and make a decision on that in the next few days. But I just want you to know right here and right now that I will fight you with every breath in my body if you attempt, in any way, to obstruct the great love my son and Caroline have for each other. I’ll not allow your hijinks to overshadow their great love because believe you me the American people will be squarely behind their union as vociferously as they oppose any relationship you might think you have with my son.”

  Gina just sat there. This woman sounded as if she was living in a parallel universe where Caroline could just pick up where she left off and Gina’s marriage to Dutch never happened. It was so outside of anything common sensible that Gina didn’t even bother to respond to it. She drank the last of her coffee, wiped her hands on the napkin, and stood to leave. It was a stunned Caroline, however, who interrupted her decampment.

  “Wait a minute,” she said and Gina turned toward her. “I’m a little confused. You do understand that I was Dutch’s fiancée? The one he thought was dead?”

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  “Well, do you have any questions for me?”

  Gina stared at her. These people, Caroline and Victoria, were so accustomed to the world kowtowing to their every need, that they were utterly stumped when someone didn’t. And Gina wasn’t about to. If this wasn’t the White House, if Dutch wouldn’t end up taking a serious political hit for her actions, if Victoria wasn’t Dutch’s own mother, she would have kicked both their asses to the curb.

  “No,” she said. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  Caroline looked at Gina as if she had just grown a third head. “Why would I have questions for you?” she asked Gina.

  “Why would I have questions for you?” Gina asked her. Then smiled when Caroline was again taken aback, and left.

  ***

  Later that day, in her office in the East Wing, she relayed everything that had happened to LaLa and Christian. Neither one of them could believe it.

  “Did you have questions for her?” LaLa asked. “Where does that chick get off?”

  “Oh, she’s a beautiful woman. She’s got it going on all right,” Gina said, her arms folded, sitting behind her desk. “You should see her. Those pictures of her on the Internet do her no justice.”

  “I heard she was a looker,” Christian said, “and that the president loved her so completely.”

  LaLa elbowed Christian, but she needn’t have bothered. Gina didn’t exactly want to hear any more talk of the president’s great love for that woman, but it was a fact. He did, back in the day, loved her. For Dutch to have asked the woman to marry him meant that she had something he liked well enough to make her his queen. But that crown, Gina also knew, now belonged to her.

  “What do you think she wants?” LaLa asked, standing, with Christian, in front of the desk.

  “Dutch, what else?” Gina said forthrightly. “She wants Dutch back.”

  “But she can’t have him,” Christian blurted out and both Gina and LaLa smiled.

  “No, Christian,” Gina said, “she can’t. And won’t.”

  “So why are you and the president allowing her to stay here?”

  “Because, young man, when you’re president and First Lady, everything has to be managed. He couldn’t allow her to stand on that vast estate in Nantucket and confess her continued love for President Harber, with his mother standing beside her in full agreement that my marriage should be annulled or something equally ridiculous so that Caroline can take her rightful place beside her rightful man.”

  “That’s crazy,” Christian said with a smile.

  “Yes, it is,” LaLa said, “but honey, if you haven’t learned anything since coming to Washington you’d better learn this: these people of privilege like this Caroline person and the president’s mother are just that crazy. They live in a bubble and expect you to conform to that bubble. Yes, sir, it’s nuts, but so are they. They see people like us as nothing more than pawns in their game. They get to make all of the moves. We just have to get out of the way.”

  “What about the president?” Christian asked. “Where’s he? Does he understand what’s going on?”

  “He understands perfectly,” Gina said with a smile.

  “Did you see his press conference this morning?” LaLa asked Gina.

  “No, why?”

  “It was all about you, that’s why. All about the ambush, of course, but also about why he allowed you to go and see a murderer. Or, as they put it, the murderer, as if no other human in the annals of history has ever committed such a crime.” Then LaLa looked at Gina. “Speaking of which,” she said, “Roman Wilkes called.”

  Gina looked at LaLa. “Oh, yeah? And what did he want?”

  “A meeting. Says he uncovered some very interesting information.”

  “Oh, my,” Gina said, knowing that any truth to Marcus’s claim would be great for Marcus, but terrible for her and Dutch and their life in this fis
hbowl, “then it’s true?”

  “He didn’t go that far. But he sounds as if he’s on to something.”

  “Set it up.”

  “For when? Tonight?”

  Gina remembered Dutch saying that they were putting the final touches on that hostage rescue. “No, not tonight. Tomorrow maybe, or the day after. I want Dutch present when we meet.”

  “Will do,” LaLa said. “You want me there, too?”

  Gina smiled. “Why? You have to get permission from Demps to come?”

  “Hell nall. Why would you say that?”

  “Even before that ambush yesterday, he seemed rather protective of you.”

  “Yeah, they always do when something’s undercover. To make sure you ain’t doing it too.”

  “Excuse me?” Gina said, puzzled.

  “Nothing girl. But anyway, I’ll set it up.” And LaLa, as if to avoid any further scrutiny, was gone.

  “What was that all about?” Christian asked.

  But Gina didn’t answer. Because she really didn’t know.

  FOURTEEN

  The president stood behind the podium in the East Room of the White House, the press assembled to ask questions afterwards, and read from the teleprompter. It was ten pm and his remarks were being carried live on every channel in the country. The networks had been alerted that the news was big, and worthy of the coverage, but it was only after receiving confirmation from the Vice President himself did they agree to interrupt their prime time shows to cover what they now knew would not be a routine press conference.

  The president began, looking nervous his mother thought, as she, Caroline, Christian and Gina looked at the press conference from the television in the residence. He looked gorgeous, Caroline thought, as she was becoming more anxious to have him now. The money Victoria had promised her was awesome and needful, but Dutch could give her so much more. More money, more hot sex, more everything. And it appeared to be working. Other than last night, their few interactions since her return had been very positive. But they hadn’t interacted at all since his wife hit the scene, a wife Caroline found almost insufferable. Dutch married that, she at one point wanted to blurt out. It was almost embarrassing to her that a woman of that low quality, a woman who was a total non-factor as far as she was concerned, would be her competition.

  Dutch, however, singularly focused on the task at hand, began his prepared remarks. “At exactly five thirty pm eastern standard time, three am Afghanistan time, a team of U.S. Navy SEALS stormed a compound in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan and rescued the captured American hostages. A gun battle did ensue, but our SEALS team was able to overcome them all. All six students and three businessmen that remained are now in US custody and their captors have been killed. We would like to thank the Afghan government and, of course, our men and women in uniform, for their brave and courageous actions.”

  As Dutch began taking questions, Gina’s cell phone rang. She moved over by the bar, to get away from the loud television, only to hear a very distraught LaLa on the other end.

  “What’s the matter, girl?” she asked her best friend.

  “I have proof,” LaLa said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I have proof,” LaLa said again. “How could he do this to me, Gina? After all these years how could he do this to me?”

  Gina knew it was about Dempsey, and based on the pain in LaLa’s voice, she knew it was bad.

  “Can you come over?” LaLa ultimately asked her.

  Gina “coming over” was no longer as simple as getting in a car and going, and LaLa, as Gina’s personal assistant, knew it better than anyone else. She wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t vital.

  “Yes, of course,” Gina replied. “I’m on my way.”

  She closed her cell phone, watched her husband answer press questions about the details of the raid itself, and then pulled Christian aside. Although their conversation was meant to be private, Victoria and Caroline listened with rapt attention to every word. Gina ordered him to contact the Secret Service and make the necessary arrangements. Given how LaLa sounded, given that Demps was still out of town, Gina also told him that she was probably going to stay the night with her friend.

  When she and Christian gave their apologies for their abrupt departure and left the sitting room, Victoria looked at the younger woman. Dutch’s voice, and the voice of reporters asking questions, droning on in the background.

  “You know what this means?” Victoria said.

  Caroline looked at her. “This is my chance?”

  “This is the night. He’ll be on such a high because of this hostage release story, which means he will more than likely be the perfect happy fool.”

  Caroline smiled. “What do you mean?”

  “Get him, that’s what I mean,” Victoria said in no uncertain terms. “He will be unawares. He won’t see it coming until he’s practically inside of you making, if the stars line up, a beautiful, healthy, white baby boy. And if the child isn’t conceived on your first mating, he’ll surely want more of you thereafter. You know my son. I remember how he couldn’t keep his hands off of you.”

  “Perhaps he’s changed,” Caroline said, not believing it herself.

  “Nonsense!” Victoria said. “People don’t change. You were his first great love, his only true love as far as I’m concerned. And that’s why this has got to work. You have got to earn your money tonight. Tonight will be the beginning of the end of that sham of a marriage. Because I will tell you and anybody else that I’ll not sit idly by and let that black wench get what she wants. There will be no little black boy who grows up to marry a little black girl and those blacks end up with everything me and my husband has ever worked for. And it’ll be theirs? Over my dead body! You will mate with Walter Harber, you hear me? And ultimately the two of you, the only one I know he has ever loved and still loves, will produce that magnificent baby.”

  A magnificent white baby, Caroline thought. She wants herself a white grandchild. Is willing to give up big bucks to make it happen. Is willing to ruin her son’s sham of a marriage, as she calls it, to ensure that no dark-skinned woman chocolate-up that vanilla bloodline. And ironically enough she wanted Caroline, whom Victoria, like most of the families in their Nantucket circle, knew was half-black herself, to keep that “pure” white line.

  But that was Victoria Harber, Caroline thought with a sneer: a living, breathing, eerily absurd contradiction.

  ***

  Gina and LaLa sat in the quiet living room of LaLa’s Georgetown home, one woman on one sofa, the other woman on the opposite sofa. Christian was there too, seated at the dining room table in the home with the open floor plan, and the Secret Service, as usual, had the home blanketed with security, although no one would ever notice it.

  Gina was looking at a series of photographs, all showing Demps in Newark, New Jersey with a tall, bosomy blonde.

  “Who took these?” Gina wanted to know as she watched, her brow wrinkled, her mind unwilling to conclude what these photographs, at first blush, obviously concluded.

  “A friend of mine in Newark,” LaLa said. “She saw him in a restaurant there with one of those females and they seemed so chummy that she decided to snap the picture. She knew he was going to be in town on business, but this didn’t seem like any business meeting to her. And when she saw him hug her as they waited for the valet to bring the car around, she decided to follow them. And she followed them right to Demps old apartment.”

  Gina stared at her friend. “It looks bad, okay, I’m not going to even front. But you need to talk to Demps first. After all these years he at least deserves a hearing.” Gina’s cell phone began to ring.