THE PRESIDENT 2 Page 5

  “You will have to cancel your appearance at the G-8 summit in Brussels,” Max said. “At least until this hostage crisis is over.”

  Allison agreed. “The nightly newscasts are beginning to count the days that the students, and now they will add the businessmen, including a billionaire, have been missing. America Held Hostage: Day Four, is the way they’re playing it. The same way they played it when Jimmy Carter had that Iranian Hostage drama that was one of the issues that may have brought down his presidency. They’re trying to compare you to Jimmy Carter.”

  “What else is new?” Max wanted to know. “Dutch won reelection and they still try to compare his administration to Carter’s.”

  “Is that why she wanted to meet?” Dutch asked Max.

  Max exhaled. “She wouldn’t tell me at the time, but I’ve since confirmed, yes.”

  “Set up a meeting.”

  Max looked at Dutch. “Do you think that’s wise at this point, sir?”

  Dutch nodded. “Set it up.”

  “Here?”

  “No. In the residence.”

  Max and Allison exchanged glances. “Yes, sir,” was all Max could say to that.

  Allison looked at Dutch. “Is she going to be a problem, sir?”

  Dutch just sat there. Jennifer was so beautiful that she was one of those women most men automatically considered got to fuck material. But she always thought of herself as so much more. She married Ralph Caswell, a man in his sixties, because she was ambitious and wanted to be a billionaire’s wife, but also because Dutch, the man she claimed she really wanted, wasn’t making any moves in that direction. But her heart, from what he’d since been told, was always with him. Now, if he didn’t play to her tune, he knew she could cause major difficulties for his administration.

  Not to mention for his new, fragile marriage.

  ***

  That night, after dinner, Dutch and Gina were playing a game of Chess in the White House billiards room. He watched her as she stared at the board, as her intelligent eyes seemed unable to quite know what move to make. Max had advised him to keep her out of it, to meet privately with Jennifer and see what she has to say before he even mentioned it to Gina. Jennifer, as Max well knew, was a selfish bitch who was never above making trouble for anyone, including the President of the United States. This could get messy, Max had warned, and if Dutch didn’t want to add to Gina’s reticence about being in DC in the first place, he’d be wise to keep her out of it.

  “Perhaps you’ll make your move before the end of the year,” Dutch said mockingly to her.

  Gina smiled. “Don’t rush the master,” she said as she continued to survey the board. Then she glanced up at him, saw that look on his face she was beginning to know so well, and looked back down at the board. “How did it go?” she asked him.

  “How did what go?”

  “Word around the House,” she said, to Dutch’s smile, “is that you had a meeting with the Big Three today, and that they had more bad news.” She glanced at him again when she said this. By his hesitancy, she knew it was true. She stared at him. “What is it, Dutch?”

  “They still don’t know where the hostages are.”

  “Yeah, I already worked that one out. But what else?”

  Dutch exhaled. “In addition to the seven students, there are apparently four businessmen being held.”

  Gina stared at him. “Confirmed?”

  Now Dutch was staring at the board. He nodded.

  “But--”

  “And one of those businessmen is Jennifer Caswell’s husband.”

  “Are you serious? The billionaire?”

  Again Dutch nodded. “Yes.”

  “Dang, Dutch. This is getting out of hand. Are your people up to the job? What’s the Defense Secretary telling you?”

  “They’re up to the job. It’s a tough situation.”

  “And everybody’s blaming you, but nobody’s blaming those silly rich students.”

  “And now four not-so-silly businessmen.”

  “Why would they even be over there?”

  “A fact-finding mission, according to Gary.”

  “In a war zone?”

  “I know,” Dutch said. “But there you have it.” He stared at Gina. And he knew he couldn’t take Max’s advice.

  Gina quickly picked up on his concern. “What is it?” she asked him.

  “Are you busy tomorrow night?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I have a meeting with Jennifer Caswell tomorrow night. I want you to attend.”

  Gina didn’t understand why, but she nodded. “Okay.” She expected Dutch to explain. When he didn’t, she asked.

  Dutch leaned forward over the board, his elbows on his knees, the V-neck sweatshirt he wore tight across his muscular chest. “She and I used to be an item, Regina.”

  Gina stared at him. “An item?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Gina’s heart began to race. “When?”

  “We first got together when I was a senator. It continued during my first term as president.”

  “What do you mean got together? You and she were lovers?”

  Dutch nodded. “Yes. But I broke it off after you and I became serious.”

  “But I thought you were seeing Kate Marris at that time.”

  Dutch placed both hands under his chin and began to rock unsteadily in his chair. “I was,” he said, studying her reaction.

  It didn’t take anything more than that for Gina to understand exactly what he was saying. This man she now found so virtuous seemed to have been even more of a cad than she had assumed. “Why did you feel the need to see two women at once?” she wanted to know.

  “They weren’t . . . They were sex partners, Gina. Nothing more than that.”

  They stared deep into each other’s eyes, until Gina looked away. Dutch’s heart broke when Gina looked away. He hated that she had to know that side of him.

  Gina looked at him again. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. She was nobody’s fool. Something more was at work here.

  “Because I was seeing her just before you and I became an item--”

  “Don’t say it like that!” Gina said snappishly, the stress of her new life beginning to show.

  Dutch’s heart plunged. “I didn’t mean it like that, Regina, you know I didn’t. I never thought of you that way.”

  “Just,” she said, not interested right now in his but you were different speech because she wouldn’t be at all sure if he hadn’t laid that same line on his other females. She frowned. “What were you about to say?”

  “I was seeing Jennifer before you and I became serious, but the press may not see the difference. They may assume I was cheating on you, which isn’t true. But I want you prepared should those kinds of questions come your way.”

  Shoes, Gina thought. Shoes! “Was she in love with you?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she studied her husband.

  Dutch hesitated on this question, which disturbed Gina even more. “It’s my understanding that she was, yes.”

  “Were you in love with her?”

  Dutch shook his head. “No.”

  Gina frowned. “I still don’t understand. Why are you so concerned if it was nothing to you?”

  “It was something to me; I’m not saying it wasn’t. It was mainly a sex thing, but I also cared for her.”

  “But I still don’t see why this old news is bothering you. What are you not telling me?”

  Dutch exhaled. “She could pose some difficulty for me.”

  “But how? Because you used to bang her?”

  “Because I used to bang her even after she was married.”

  This stopped Gina cold. She stared at Dutch. Dutch knew there was nothing he could say to sugarcoat a truth like that, so he remained silent.

  Gina looked back down at the board, remaining silent too. What in the world, she sometimes wondered since marrying Dutch, had she gotten herself into? She knew Dutch used to have that playboy t
hing going. Wham Bam Harber, after all, used to be his nickname. But somehow she thought he would have been more honorable than that. Sleep around, yes, she knew he did that, but why a man with his obvious gifts in the bedroom would need to sleep with a married woman? The only answer, that he couldn’t get enough of that particular woman, troubled her. And now he wanted her to meet this woman? What kind of town was this, she wondered.

  “Regina,” Dutch started but Gina immediately moved her Rook on the chess board. It was the wrong move, even she knew that, but at least, she thought with a kind of nervous sadness, she made a move.

  “Honey, listen to me. Please.”

  Gina reluctantly looked at him.

  “It was a terrible mistake,” he said, “and we both knew it was.”

  “A mistake?”

  “Yes,” Dutch said.

  “No,” Gina insisted. “Spilling a drink on the carpet is a mistake. Forgetting to say I’m sorry when you bump into somebody is a mistake. Sleeping with another man’s wife is no mistake, Dutch. You knew what you were doing.”

  “I didn’t know she had gotten married initially.”

  “So when you found out,” Gina asked pointblank, “did you then call it off?”

  “No,” Dutch had to admit. “Not right away.”

  “Why, Dutch?”

  “Because we were already involved.”

  “Then why did she marry somebody else if y’all were so tight?”

  “Because she’s a shameless gold-digger and she knew I wasn’t going to let her dig into any of my gold. All right?”

  Gina looked so flustered that Dutch wanted to pull her into his arms. But she stood up before he got the chance.

  “Gina,” he said as he reached for her arm. But she pulled away from him.

  “Gina,” he called again.

  “I’m all right, Dutch. I just need, I’m just going to go to bed,” she said, leaving as she said it.

  And Dutch watched her as she sashayed out of the billiards room, her entire body seeming to sag before his very eyes; sag with the weight of being his wife.

  And because of it, because of his part in her pain, he didn’t try to stop her. He let her go.

  FOUR

  It was a tough night all around. Dutch had to spend most of it in the Situation Room with his national security team, while Gina retired to the bedroom and stayed there. She was so emotionally drained, so unsure what to make of Dutch’s “confession” that she just wanted to sleep it off. It was one thing when the press accused her husband of being a womanizer, but it was something entirely different when he confessed that he was.

  It happened before she became his woman, and she understood that. It wasn’t about that for her. What concerned her was the fact that he would continue to fool around with a woman after she had married somebody else, and this woman would let him continue to bang her, was what Gina couldn’t get over. For this woman to continue their illicit affair after she was newly married, meant that she either didn’t give a damn about her new billionaire husband, or that she had some mighty strong feelings for Dutch.

  And although Dutch insisted it was just a sex thing for him, he also admitted that he cared for the woman. And now he wanted her to meet this woman? She fell asleep thinking about that, and wondering if there was more to this story than Dutch was letting on.

  She, in fact, wouldn’t see her husband again until that following night, just before the meeting was to take place. He slept in the guest room because he had stayed so late in the Situation Room, and by morning, when she did wake up, he had already gone to the Oval Office to begin his jam-packed day. Now it was evening again and she was relaxing with LaLa and Demps in the East Sitting Hall of the second floor residence. Christian was there too, but he was mostly on his Blackberry. Although she didn’t share with them what Dutch had shared with her, they could tell that something mighty was bothering her.

  “I’m okay,” she insisted. “Just a little tired I think.”

  LaLa looked at her friend. She’d known Gina too long to believe that. “Yeah, and I’m Beyonce. What’s going on, kid?”

  “She said she was just tired, LaLa,” Demps said. “I don’t know why you’re trying to make a federal case out of it.”

  “I know G, that’s why. And I know something’s bothering her. She may not want to share it with us, but it’s there. It’s sho’ nuff there.”

  Dempsey rolled his eyes. Christian grinned. “Mrs. Harber told me about your psychic powers, LaLa,” he said. Demps laughed.

  “Very funny,” LaLa said with a smile. But she continued staring at Gina. Christian, understanding, stood to his feet.

  “I’d better call it a day, ma’am,” he said to Gina. “Unless you still need me for anything?”

  “Chris has a hot date tonight,” Demps said, standing too.

  LaLa looked at Christian. “Really, Christian? Who?”

  Christian was suddenly shy. “Just a girl,” he said.

  Gina smiled. “Renita?”

  Christian blushed, and then nodded his head.

  “Good for you,” she said. “And you are free to go and enjoy your evening.”

  “Thank-you, ma’am,” he said, and hurried out.

  “Hold up, man,” Demps said, following behind him, “I want details.”

  When they were gone, LaLa looked at Gina. “Who’s Renita?”

  “She’s one of the president’s assistants. Really nice, attractive girl.”

  “Now back to you. What’s brewing kido? And don’t tell me nothing’s brewing because I know it is.”

  Gina stood up and walked over to the fanlight window and looked out at the US Treasury building, the Jacqueline Kennedy Gardens, the East Colonnade. She folded her arms. “We have a meeting tonight.”

  “You and the president?”

  Gina nodded.

  “Who with?”

  “Jennifer Caswell.”

  “The billionaire’s wife?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Why would you need to be in that meeting? It’s going to be about securing her husband’s release, right?”

  “That’s my assumption.”

  “Then why you’ve got to be there?”

  Gina exhaled. “Dutch wants me there.”

  “But why, Gina? Work with me, sister.”

  “Because,” Gina said, turning her back to the window and facing LaLa, “she and he used to be an item.”