THE PRESIDENT 2 Read online

  “But I just got sworn in for my second term a month ago, Gina. That’s nearly four years you’re talking about being separated from me.”

  “I can come and see you on the weekends, the way I used to do when we were dating.”

  “Are you out of your mind? I’m not seeing my wife only on the weekends!” Then he exhaled, to regain control, to ease the fear that continued to grip him. “It’ll get better. I promise you it will. They’ll move on to other things, they always do. Bashing my wife is just the flavor of the month for them right now. But please don’t talk about leaving me.”

  There was such a plea in his voice that it startled Gina. She stared into his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  Dutch tried to smile, but failed. “I’m okay. But please don’t leave me, Gina.”

  Gina moved around and sat on his lap. Then she placed his gorgeous face between her hands. “I’ll never leave you, Dutch. I promise you. I was just trying to make it easier for you.”

  Dutch pulled her into his arms, his eyes closing tightly. “Your being here, with me, has made it easier. You make it easier. Don’t ever think that leaving me will make it easier for me, because it won’t. Without you it would be unbearable, Gina.”

  Gina closed her eyes too. She hated politics, hated it with a passion, but would endure every political game they threw her way for Dutch’s sake.

  Then he stopped embracing her and looked at her, as if suddenly realizing something he must address. “I know they treat you horribly, honey,” he said. “I read those press accounts. The racism in their coverage is so obvious that it sickens me. But if I didn’t think you could handle it, I would send you back to Newark myself. But you’re strong, Gina. You can handle this. I know you can.”

  Gina nodded. Her handling it was never the issue for her. “I know I can too,” she assured him. “It’s you I’ve been worried about.”

  “I’m okay,” he said with a smile, revealing lines of age on the sides of his eyes. “There’s just a lot of crap going on, that’s all.”

  “And here I come with my nonsense.”

  “You didn’t come with anything. That reporter took you there. That’s why I ordered Max to have a conversation with her publisher.”

  Gina frowned. “But is that a good idea, Dutch? That publisher could claim we’re trying to encroach on the freedom of the press or something.”

  Dutch smiled this time. “Don’t worry, sweetie,” he said, wrapping his arms around her again. “That’s how the game is played around here. We complain, the publisher feels as if he’s in the loop because he gets a phone call from the president’s chief of staff, and he mentions it, off the record, to the reporter. Next time, the reporter, careful to keep her job, careful to please her publisher, is just a wee bit less aggressive. That’s how it’s done around here.”

  Gina shook her head. “Everything’s a game. It’s a wonder that anything gets done in this town.”

  Dutch stared deep into her eyes. “Promise me you’ll never leave me, Regina.”

  Gina looked at him. She thought they had already established that. “I never said--”

  “Promise me.”

  His seriousness concerned her. “I promise.”

  Dutch leaned her against him, as if a load had just been lifted. “Thank-you,” he said.

  Gina was distressed by his need for her reassurance that she didn’t know what to say or what to do or how to make it clear to him that she was in this for the long haul. She decided to move on, to lighter matters. “Now that that’s settled,” she said, moving to rise from his lap, “I’d better get started.”

  “Get started?” Dutch asked, holding her back. “Get started doing what?”

  “Cooking your dinner,” she said, as she got off of his lap and headed for the kitchen.

  Dutch, knowing how awful a cook his wife really was, panicked. “Gina, wait,” he said, rising too. But Gina, knowing she wasn’t about to cook anything, took off running, laughing as she went. Dutch, remembering the few meals she did try to cook for him and how dreadful each and every one of them were, took off running after her, terrified as he ran.

  When he caught up to her, in the doorway of the kitchen, he grabbed her from behind. When he realized she was laughing so hard she was bent over, he smiled too. “You almost gave me a heart attack, child,” he said.

  Gina laughed even harder and turned around to face him. When she did, she could see that their nearness was beginning to affect his midsection. “Is my cooking really that bad?” she asked him, already knowing the answer.

  “You were a good attorney when you worked as an attorney. You were an excellent businesswoman when you ran Block by Block Raiders. And now you’re the perfect wife for me. But a good cook, darling, you ain’t.”

  Gina smiled. “So it’s like that, hun?”

  “It’s exactly like that,” Dutch said, pulling her voluptuous body closer against his growing erection. “Although I failed to mention one other thing.”

  Gina stared into his eyes, moving even closer against his erection. She knew her husband well enough to know where he was going with this. “Oh, yeah? And what did you fail to mention?”

  “That you’re also very good, wonderful even, in bed.”

  Gina’s heart started hammering. She placed both hands on the sides of his face, her big eyes narrowing as she gave him that earnest look of hers he loved so much. “I can’t cook, but I can fuck, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  Dutch couldn’t help but smile at the way Gina always managed to keep it real. “That’s what I’m telling you. So,” he said, his mouth moving slowly toward hers, “if you want to do something fantastic for this sex-starved husband of yours, why don’t you do that which you’re good at doing?”

  His mouth pressed against Gina’s and began kissing her in that slow, circular way she loved, with his tongue and her tongue soon adding to the circle.

  And they kissed long and hard and repeatedly. They stood in the doorway of their private kitchen and kissed with a growing urgency that helped them to unload the stress and tension and craziness that swirled around them. To unload the remains of the day.

  When he lifted her, and she straddled him, and he carried her into the bedroom, their kissing never for a second eased off. Because this was their moment, their chance to forget all else and concentrate on each other.

  They continued kissing as he laid her on the bed and moved on top of her, wrapping her even tighter into his arms, still searing her with kisses he couldn’t stop releasing. Until he had to release more.

  He undressed her until she was completely naked, and he stared into those smoky brown eyes of hers until he had undressed himself and was naked too.

  He knelt down at the bottom of the bed, opened her legs wide, and began to lick her between her thighs. It was gradual and tender, and Gina closed her eyes to experience nothing but the sensation of his touch. And as his tongue flicked and flicked her clit, the intensity caused her to release so much juice that he began to finger her, slipping into folds with one and then two fingers until she was so saturated that he knew he had to saturate her too.

  He moved his chiseled body on top of her and entered her, gyrating inside of her in a perfect slow drag, making her feel heady every time his long, thick rod slid against her walls and then hit her spot. Over and over he did this, sliding deeper inside of her, and then hitting the bulls-eye with that preciseness that made her quiver. She moaned as he fucked her, as he kept sliding and hitting, sliding and hitting. Until he began to get thicker, and she took it all in.

  Dutch laid his body down on hers as he began to expand to near explosion. And his once slow and steady gyrations became almost frenetic. This was more than just making love to his wife. This was more than just banging her, pounding her, fucking the shit out of her. Because he was doing all of that and more as he plunged into her, as he couldn’t slow his pace again even if he willed it so. Because this wasn’t about that.

  This was about
giving his all to her, to strengthen her against the madness she had to endure every day since becoming his wife. This was about reminding her that he would always be in her corner no matter what they threw her way. This was about her. That was why he kept staring at her closed eyes as he moved deeper inside of her. Staring at her exposed neck and radiant black skin and wondrously puckered African lips. That was why his face was beading with sweat as he fucked her; as he made it his mission to continually hit her where he knew she felt his sweetness the most. He wanted her to remember their togetherness in such fond sensuality that she would never again talk about separating herself from him, no matter what the reason. Because she just couldn’t live without his sex. Because she just couldn’t live without what she had to know was his total, complete, and undivided love.

  Tears were in his eyes as he made love to his wife.

  THREE

  They all stood nervously when President Harber entered the Office of the Oval within the hectic West Wing of the White House. Present were what Max called the big three of the national security team: Secretary of State Gary Fecarra, Secretary of Defense Logan Winzieki, and General Matt Sullivan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Max was also present, along with Allison Shearer, the president’s press secretary. Dutch had called this meeting as part of his daily NIE, or National Intelligence Estimate briefing, and he wanted no more bull shit, Max had already warned them. He wanted answers.

  Dutch sat behind his desk in the opulent Oval Office and immediately felt the weight of that office. He couldn’t help but feel the weight as he sat behind what was historically known as the Resolute Desk, backed by a sweep of rich gold drapes, and fronted by an oval-shaped, presidential-sealed, pale gold rug of sunbeam design. Even above his head the ceiling bore a plastered replica of the magnificent presidential seal. It was the most impressive room in the White House, and Dutch kept it formal, as his team sat back down and provided answers.

  Dutch sat back and listened carefully about possible threats around the country and the world, the terror alert warnings, and then the main issue: those hostages in Afghanistan.

  His team spoke of every possibility, from military intervention, to an out-and-out covert operation, to sending in the SEALS in an effort to secure the release of those foolish college students.

  The information they managed to piece together so far was so weak and contradictory that Dutch wouldn’t even feel comfortable repeating it to the American people. The abductions occurred during an ambush of their convoy of cars that claimed many lives, according to his Defense Secretary, but the military couldn’t even confirm how many students were already dead, how many were being held, or if they all were even adventure-seeking students, as the press seemed to believe. The working premise was that some Al-Qaeda operatives may be involved and that the hostages were possibly being held within some of the more populated, easier to hide-in-plain-sight regions of southern Afghanistan: Kandahar perhaps, Helmand Province more likely. But nothing was certain yet and there were no clear, easy answers.

  Yet the press was demanding clearer, easier answers.

  “When will we be able to at least confirm the number of students kidnapped?” Dutch asked Defense Secretary Winzieki.

  “Soon, sir. We’re reasonably certain it’s seven, but we are not certain enough for you to go public with that number. However,” he added, glancing at the Secretary of State which, Dutch knew, automatically meant that some new news had broke overnight, “we are now able to confirm that four businessmen were also abducted.”

  This astonished Dutch, not to mention his chief of staff. “Four businessmen?” Dutch asked. American?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dutch’s anger began to rise. “And when exactly were these businessmen taken and why were they in that war zone to begin with and why the hell wasn’t I informed of this rather significant fact sooner?”

  “They were on a fact-finding mission, sir,” a now overtly nervous Defense Secretary said, “some kind of post-war business partnerships they were attempting to solidify, when their convoy came under attack and was ambushed yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yes, sir, but we had nothing on it until early this morning, sir. Somehow their convoy had managed to get deep in the heart of Taliban territory so we couldn’t even confirm that there was an ambush. And once we did confirm it, in the fog of war, we didn’t realize that there were any survivals. It wasn’t until very early this morning that we determined that four of the men survived and were captured. The Director of the CIA says our sources on the ground in Afghanistan do confirm that the four businessmen are being held along with the students.”

  “By Al-Qaeda?” Dutch asked.

  Winzieki nodded. “We are not a hundred percent certain but yes, sir, we believe there’s at least a loose affiliation to Al-Qaeda, yes, sir.”

  “Damn!” Max said.

  “Which means, of course,” Allison said, “that the press will insist that it’s Al-Qaeda period. They will barely mention that loose affiliation fact.”

  “There’s more?” Max asked, staring at the secretary of state.

  Dutch looked from Max to the secretary. “What is it, Gary?” he asked him.

  “One of the businessmen is Ralph Caswell, sir.”

  Dutch stared unblinkingly at his secretary of state. This couldn’t be possible.

  “Ralph Caswell?” Max asked. “As in the husband of Jennifer Caswell?”

  The secretary of state nodded. “One in the same. When I heard it too, I was stumped. We can’t possibly be this unlucky, I said. A billionaire? Are you kidding me? But we are just that unlucky this time. It’s him. We were able to confirm it just this morning.”

  The secretary of state, and none of the national security team, knew of Dutch’s prior relationship with the billionaire’s wife. But even without that knowledge they knew having a billionaire as one of the hostages raised the stakes.

  “Has she been notified?” Max asked. “His wife, I mean?”

  “She believed it all along.”

  “She believed it?” Dutch asked. “Then why the hell wasn’t I told anything about this belief of hers?”

  The secretary of state looked at the secretary of defense, who, in turn, looked to General Sullivan, the Joint Chiefs chairman.

  “We had absolutely no proof yet, sir,” Sullivan said. “No proof-of-life video, nothing.”

  Dutch could barely take it all in. “Do we know where any of these people are being held?”

  “We still believe it’s around the Helmand Province, or possibly Kandahar, but these are only our educated guesses at this point. We haven’t confirmed any of it. What we advise you to do is to keep making it clear that the United States will not negotiate with terrorists while we continue to get more consistent Intel.”

  Dutch, however, wasn’t as firm about their advice as they were. “And what do you advise I do if these terrorists take to heart my repeated declaration that we will not negotiate with them? What if they determine they have nothing to lose and start dropping bodies on us, dead American citizens, since we’re making it clear that we won’t negotiate their release? What do you advise me to do then?”

  All three men sat mute. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Dutch said, waving them away. “Okay, gentlemen, keep me in the loop, I don’t care how trivial the Intel at this point. I don’t want to be blindsided.”

  “Yes, sir,” the men said, stood, and left.

  Max and Allison stood around Dutch’s desk, waiting for him to give instructions. Although they were not even cabinet level appointees, everybody knew that Max and Allison were the real power center of the White House.