Dutch and Gina: The Power of Love Page 6

  Gina finally realized the timing. “The first week in July?” she asked. “But that’s when Dutch is going to the Asian-Pacific Conference in Japan.”

  Of course Robert already knew that. That was why the date of the dinner was rescheduled to ensure that Dutch wouldn’t be there. “Oh, is it?” Robert feigned ignorance. “But surely you can give us a night of your time before going on to be with hubby?”

  But it still wasn’t adding up to Gina. “But I still don’t get the why,” she said.

  “What’s there to get? It’s a quid pro quo, I’ll admit that. You’re an attorney, you know what that means. You speak at my dinner, encourage the president, and I’ll give you an audience with the only person who can set your brother free. Your husband can’t pardon him. Your brother would have to be out of prison for five years before he can request a presidential pardon, and his offense would have had to be a federal crime, which it is not. Governor Feingold is all he’s got left.”

  “But why would the governor be willing to pardon my brother?”

  “Because I’m asking him to.”

  “And?”

  Robert smiled. “Very shrewd of you. And because there’s a pot of gold at the end of his rainbow after the pardon is issued, and after his term in office is over.”

  Gina knew it. She knew there was something shady about Robert Rand. It was rare that a man could become that rich and connected without something dirty going on.

  But if what he was saying was true, and Marcus could actually be freed . . . Then she shook her head. “I can’t,” she said.

  “And why not?” Robert asked this as if he was amazed she would even dream of turning him down.

  “Because it’s unethical, Robert. Because it’s plain wrong. Because Dutch is not going to let me do it.”

  “I don’t see where there’s anything unethical or wrong about helping somebody,” Robert said. “But as for Dutch not going along with it, why, I ask you, does Dutch even have to know about it?”

  Gina stared at Robert. Some friend, she thought.

  “I mean, think about it, Gina,” Robert said as he leaned forward, certain she was finding him a little too slick for his own good right now. “This is your brother we’re talking about. Your brother. If something doesn’t change, Marcus Rance will most definitely spend the rest of his natural life in prison for a crime you’re certain he didn’t commit.”

  LaLa looked at Robert. “How do you know what the First Lady is certain of?” she asked him.

  “She went to Texas to plead for a new trial for him,” Robert said. “I doubt seriously that she would have stepped out that publicly if she questioned his innocence.”

  He was hitting on all cylinders, saying all of the right things. And Gina felt torn. Because Robert was right. Marcus was not going to be granted a new trial, and if the current governor of Texas left office, it was for certain a new governor was not going to grant him any pardon. But Dutch had already told her, when she returned from Marcus’s last hearing, that he didn’t want her involved anymore in that matter. He barely allowed her to go to Texas in the first place. Now Robert was asking her to go to Montreal and plead her case there?

  But no way was she turning down what could amount to her brother’s last grasp at freedom. That, to a loyal woman like Gina, would be equally unethical.

  “Okay,” she said to Robert.

  Robert was taken aback. This quickly? “So you will attend and meet with the governor?”

  “Absolutely,” Gina replied, to LaLa’s shock.

  “And you will encourage Dutch to sign the Helm Amendment?”

  “I can’t guarantee any outcome, but yes, I’ll encourage him.”

  Robert grinned. “Well, all right,” he said. And then, to not overstay his welcome, he stood. “I guess I’d better not keep you ladies any longer.” He was so inwardly elated that he forgot about LaLa. He quickly realized his error. “Oh, and Loretta,” he said, “would you care to have dinner with me tonight?”

  LaLa looked at him. “No,” she said bluntly.

  Robert didn’t like her tone, and the fact that she had turned him down so abruptly, but he smiled just the same. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said, thanked Gina again, and then was shown out by the White House usher.

  When he left, LaLa looked at her friend. “Dutch is going to kill you,” she said.

  “I know,” Gina admitted, a look of contemplation on her face.

  “I’m serious, Gina. Dutch is going to beat your behind, lock you in that bedroom, and decimate you, girl! How could you agree to get in some scheme with that slime ball? And it’s all shady too, he makes no bones about it.”

  “He’s paying for the privilege of having the First Lady speak at his dinner.”

  “I get that. Although I’m sure you would have done it without him having to bribe some governor.”

  “Look, I know. It’s ten percent about my speaking at that dinner, and ninety percent about that casino he wants to build in Atlantic City. I get that too. He figures I can put in a good word for him with Dutch, and Dutch will sign that bill and make it happen. But this governor of Texas is likely to be my brother’s last chance at winning his freedom. And I can’t just sit back and let chance slip away.”

  “But the idea that Dutch is going to sign some legislation he’s already said he’s going to veto just because you ask him to is ludicrous.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. But I can’t help what Robert thinks. Besides, if this governor agrees to pardon Marcus, he would have done it long before Dutch has to sign or veto the Helm Amendment.”

  LaLa looked at her friend. “So you aren’t going to tell Dutch about this deal you just made with the devil?”

  “Of course I’m going to tell my husband, what do you take me for?” Then Gina exhaled. “But the timing has to be right, and I’m not sure when that will be. Because you’re absolutely right. He is going to be so pissed. It is not going to be pretty.”

  Christian walked reluctantly into the Woodley Park home the president purchased for him and his new bride. He was reluctant because their short marriage had been a rocky one, as they couldn’t seem to agree on anything, and he wasn’t up for a fight tonight.

  But as he entered the home that was Secret Service protected, and called out Jade’s name, he began to sense that something was different.

  “Where are you?” he yelled. Again there was no response. And just like that he began to panic. He understood he wasn’t married to just anybody. He was married to the president’s daughter, a daughter whose protection now was his responsibility. “Jade?” he yelled again as he hurried from the living room into the dining room into the kitchen.

  “Jade?” he yelled yet again, ready to press the panic button that would cause the Secret Service to enter the home, but this time she responded.

  “I’m back here!” she yelled.

  But now he wasn’t going to be satisfied until he saw her for himself. He hurried from the kitchen, back through the dining room, back through the living room, into the hall that led to the master bedroom. And when he hurried into the master bedroom, his blond hair now fluttering down across his forehead, making him look even younger than his twenty-six years, and saw his wife, he stopped in his tracks. For there she was, standing there, towel drying a completely naked soft brown body of perfection even with the pregnant bump in her stomach. And nobody, not even the woman of his wildest imagination, could have looked more beautiful to Chris.

  “I was in the shower,” she said. Then she smiled. “Why are you staring at me?”

  Christian smiled too. “I didn’t realize I was staring.”

  “Well, you are. Not that I’m complaining. With this body I’ll take all the goo-goo eyes I can get.”

  Christian frowned. “With this body?” he asked. “Your body is wonderful, are you kidding me?” He walked over to her, moved behind her, and placed his arms around her small waist. “I love your body.”

  “I mean this,
” she said, rubbing over her small brown mound.

  “I love that too,” Christian said, rubbing her mound. “And even after the baby comes and you still have a big tummy, I’ll still love every inch of your body.”

  Jade smiled. This was the Christian she loved. If only he would stop attempting to dictate every faucet of her life, including her career, then he would be everything she had hoped for.

  Christian began rocking his body against hers, and the feel of her softness, and the smell of her sweetness, caused him to close his eyes. He moved his hands from her stomach to her bare breasts and began to fondle them. “I’ve never wanted a woman more than I want you,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Then have me,” Jade whispered back and Christian’s eyes popped open.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said as he quickly began taking off his suit coat, his tie, his shirt, unbuckled and unzipped his pants and removed them along with his shoes and underwear. And then he sat her down on the side of the bed, his penis enlarging without any manual stimulation, and knelled down in front of her.

  Jade laid back on the bed as he opened her legs and began to fondle her. She closed her eyes as the feeling of his tongue moved along her folds, up to her clit, and kept flicking it with such wonderful movements that she began to groan.

  And when he got on the bed beside her, and entered her from the back, her anticipation gave way to a reality that was even more intense. Christian made love to her in a way that was so innocent, yet so powerful that she began to grind naturally to the movements of his expanding penis. He did nothing fancy, he just moved in and out of her in a slow-drag rhythm, but it was as if he was her lover from way back. Because she loved the feel of that slow-drag penis inside of her. And all she wanted was for that penis to remain, to continue to engorge, to stay inside of her.

  Christian, too, didn’t want their rhythm to be broken. He moved within her vaginal folds with movements so slow and sensual that he felt the intensity along every vein of his dick. And when he felt her climax, when her body’s muscles became constricted and all she could do was buck against his own body, it set off what he called his burst. Because he released with a ferocity inside of her that caused his own body to buck.

  And when they both could not bear it any longer and had to stop all movement, he wrapped his wife into his arms.

  “I love you so much, Jade,” he said against her hair. And she smiled. Affection wasn’t something she was comfortable sharing. Neither she nor her mother were those kinds of people. But she’d been watching her stepmother, Gina, who wasn’t all that older than she was, and she saw the way Gina so easily responded to the president’s affections. And just watching Gina made Jade hopeful. It made her certain that she was at least getting better at it.

  “I love you, too,” she found the courage to reply.

  FIVE

  Dutch and Crader stepped onto the private elevator inside San Francisco’s Burk Hotel, after a long, hard slog of a day. Crader handed him his cell phone.

  “It’s Gina,” he said.

  Dutch took the phone. “Hello, my darling,” he said into the phone.

  “Hi,” Gina said with a smile. She was at her dressing table in their bedroom now, preparing for bed.

  “How’s the boss?”

  “He’s good. He kept calling for you. Daddy, daddy, he kept saying. He misses you. Like mommy.”

  Dutch smiled. “I miss you, too.”

  “So how did it go?”

  “How all of these fundraisers go: wonderfully lousy. What about you? How did your day go?”

  “It went okay. Had a staff meeting and a few photo-ops with tourists, that sort of day.” Then she hesitated. “Robert Rand paid me a visit,” she said.

  Dutch frowned. “Robert? Did he?”

  “He did.”

  “And why did he pay my wife a visit?”

  Gina smiled. He almost sounded jealous. “He wants me to speak at his foundation’s dinner in Montreal.”

  Dutch thought about it. “I see.”

  “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

  “Generically, no. The Rand Foundation does a lot of very impressive charitable work. It’s a good organization.”

  Gina wanted to tell him about the meeting with the Texas governor Robert was facilitating, and his Helm Amendment request, but now was definitely not the time for that. She wanted Dutch home, in her arms, when she even discussed it.

  “I miss you,” she said again.

  “And back to you,” he said.

  “Especially when I get in that bed and you aren’t going to be there.”

  Dutch closed his eyes. Gina’s sleek, naked body floated through his mind. “Yes,” he said. “That would be something to miss.”

  Gina laughed. “You are lousy at talking in code, you know that?”

  He had to laugh at that one as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. “I’ll get back with you later,” he said.

  “Okay, babe,” she said with a smile, and the call ended.

  Dutch handed the phone back to Crader. “Get you some rest,” he said to his tired chief of staff just as Crader was about to get off of the elevator with Dutch. Dutch was staying in the penthouse suite of the hotel.

  “Sure you don’t need me for anything else?” Crader asked.

  “I’m good. Get you some rest,” Dutch ordered again and Crader, relieved, remained on the elevator.

  Dutch greeted the secret service agents at the entrance of his hotel suite. Then, as he was about to turn the knob, he remembered something.

  “Is the young lady they brought to my room still here?” he asked the older of the two agents.

  “Yes, sir,” the agent said.

  Dutch nodded, he wasn’t really up to any of Liz’s dramatics tonight, but what could he do? He wasn’t about to turn her out into the streets in the condition she was in.

  He entered the room and closed the door.

  LaLa came out of the movie theater feeling about as bad as she felt when she had gone into it. She thought it would cheer her up, going to see the latest Tyler Perry release, but hearing the laughter and seeing the couples did nothing to help her mood.

  She got into her SUV and made her way home. Robert had asked if she wanted to join him for dinner tonight, but she had easily declined. He was okay, as far as it went, but she wasn’t interested. Not in him. There was something too underhanded about him for her taste. Too shady. Besides, he wasn’t interested in her, she had already concluded. Except in that you’re the First Lady’s best friend disgusting way.

  She put a Fantasia Barrino tape into the stereo, strummed her fingers on the steering wheel, and made her way home. It was an overcast night, but DC, as usual, was alive. It was an easy place to be surrounded by crowds of people while feeling deeply alone. Tonight LaLa felt that way.

  On her way home, however, she stopped through the drive-thru at McDonald’s, ordered a Big Mac, a large fry, a Chocolate Shake, and then went home.

  She stepped into her Georgetown home with a sense of purpose. She dropped her shoulder bag, kicked off her shoes, and sat her food on her small kitchen table. It was medication, she knew, and it was quickly becoming addictive. Eat away the pain. Forget about the heartache. Forget about the ten pounds she’d already lost.

  But that wasn’t what this trip to McDonald’s felt like. Instead of a reward for a job well done, it felt like punishment.

  Her cell phone began ringing just as she had turned on the TV and sat down, opened up her Big Mac wrapping, and placed the big sandwich in her hands. She looked at the Caller ID. It was Crader.

  “What’s up?” she asked into the phone as she sat the sandwich back on the wax paper and leaned back.

  Crader was still at the Burk Hotel in San Francisco, lying across the bed. “Nothing much,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Where were you? I
called your house a few times, but you apparently were out.”

  “I went to a movie.”

  “Oh,” Crader said. With which dude, he wanted to ask. Then he couldn’t resist. “Who with?” he asked.

  “I went alone.”

  “Alone? Enjoyed yourself?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Boring?”

  “No, it was really good. Just so much laughter all around you.”

  “Oh, yes, that terrible thing called laughter. Who would want that?”

  LaLa had to smile herself. “How’s it going with you?”

  “Going good. The president is a money-raising machine and tonight was no exception. The Democratic party is in good shape for the mid-terms. Listen, La, when I get back in town I really want us to sit down somewhere, alone, and talk. I mean really talk. I mean not leaving the room until we finish our talk. Can you at least allow me that much?”

  LaLa didn’t know if it was a good idea or not. She was just so over being hurt and disappointed and hopeful, only to be crushed again. She felt entitled to the little pity party she was having right now. “We’ll see,” was all she would commit to.

  It wasn’t quite what Crader would have wanted, but it was better than no. “I suppose that’s fair,” he said.

  And then silence ensued.

  “Dutch ordered me to get some rest,” he eventually said, “and I guess I’d better do as the man says. We have another big day tomorrow. So I’d better say goodnight.”

  LaLa smiled. “Goodnight, Crader. And thanks for calling.”

  This warmed Crader’s heart. “Stay sweet, you hear?” he said.

  She smiled, and killed the call.

  She picked back up her Big Mac, looked at it again, and then dropped it on the paper altogether. The thought of wearing that big sandwich on a body she was trying to whip into shape wasn’t something she cared to do. She therefore wrapped it back up in the wax paper, and tossed the hold thing, with fries and shake too, in the waste basket.