DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (14 page)

‘Put on a condom,’ she insisted.

“I don’t have a condom,” I told her, and I was ready to explode with release. But she kept going on about a condom and I kept rubbing my penis against her ass and she caved.”

“Not Miss Perfect Sam,” Gina said mockingly,

“Not Miss Perfect Sam,” Gina said mockingly, although, in truth, she envied the woman. “She allowed you to bang her raw?”

“We were caught up in it, Gina. We were young and I got her caught up in my game.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t her fault?”

“It was nobody’s fault. We were in bed, we were naked, we were in heat. We fucked, okay? We fucked.”

Gina didn’t like his tone. “And that one moment of pleasure,” she said with her own brand of bite,

“produced a child?”

Dutch opened his eyes quickly, as if the reality was only beginning to hit him. “Yes,” he ull mately said. “I didn’t find out un ll a er we’d both graduated. She came to Nantucket.”

Gina looked at him. “To your parents’ home?” He nodded, as pain swept over his face. “Yes. It was like three weeks later, it wasn’t that long a er that night, and Max and I were on the tennis courts with our girlfriends.”

Gina could only imagine how his “girlfriend” looked.

“And yours was some tall, blonde number, right?” Dutch hesitated. “Yes,” he said.

“Not Caroline?”

“Not then, no. Just some girl, I couldn’t even tell you her name if my life depended on it. And there was Sam Redding, at my front door. Nathan put her in the morning room.” Gina knew Nathan Riles to be the long me butler that served Dutch’s now-deceased parents for over forty years. He was a loyal but cra y black man who eventually was given the en re Nantucket estate, along with an estate allowance, by Dutch.

Dutch went on: “Max, figuring it was nothing but trouble, came into the morning room with me. And Sam being Sam, didn’t beat around the bush.

‘I’m pregnant,” she said, and if a once vibrant man could suddenly look as if the wind had been knocked out of him, I was that man. And I stared at her.

‘Pregnant?’ I said. For some reason I hadn’t expected that. But she was so certain. ‘I triple checked,’ she said. ‘It’s no false positive.’

She went on to explain how she had forgo en that she stopped taking her pill since her last boyfriend or something like that and suddenly, just the thought of somebody carrying my child overwhelmed me. I didn’t know what to say.”

Gina snorted. “I’ll bet Max had plenty to say.” Dutch nodded. ‘How do we know it’s Dutch’s child?’

he asked her.

‘The same way we know you’re an asshole,’ she responded to him. ‘Because I said so.’

Gina smiled. Good come back on a toad like Max Brennan, she thought.

Dutch con nued: “So I asked Max to excuse us, and he le , and Sam and I just talked about it. She said she didn’t want money, she didn’t want sympathy, she didn’t want anything from me. She just felt, as the father, that I had a right to know. And I felt so lost, G. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to respond.

It felt so out of le field, even though it shouldn’t have given how we behaved that night. But it did. Of course I offered to marry her---”

Gina looked at him. She was genuinely touched.

“You did?”

“Of course I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘get real,’ and then she said something about how she’d rather marry a mountain lion than some rich layabout like me.”

Gina smiled.

Gina smiled.

“And she turned down my invita on to stay at the estate a few days, so we could think things over and reach some kind of agreement. She said she was going back to her apartment in Cambridge, that she was soon to begin med school and wasn’t about to waste a few precious days on some island for the idle rich like Nantucket. And besides, she said there was nothing to talk about.”

Gina frowned. “ There was plenty to talk about. She needed to know if you guys were going to share custody, or how were you going to take care of the baby, and if you didn’t care for the baby she should have made clear that she would have your ass in child support court.”

“I know, but she left anyway.”

“And you just let her leave?”

“So that I could think, yes, Gina, I let her go. This was some shocking-ass news she had laid on me. So I let her go. And it was the last time I ever saw her.” It was as if a balloon had deflated on the balcony where they sat. Gina could hardly believe it.

“ The last me?” she asked. “But I thought she was going to med school at Harvard? I thought---”

“A few days later, when I called her and got only a disconnect recording, I went to Cambridge. She had withdrawn from the medical school, had vacated her apartment in the middle of the lease, and nobody knew where she had gone. I was able to find out, through some female connec ons I had in Admissions that she was from some small town outside of Philly. I got the phone number and called her parents’ home, but that number belonged to somebody else. I went to the small town, Malbridge, or some name like that, but her parents had moved a couple years before and nobody had seen Sam since she went away to college. So I had nothing, and went back home. A couple days later I get this call from her.”

There was a long pause this me. Gina’s heart was hammering against her chest.

“She said she had had an abortion,” Dutch said.

Gina looked at him.

“She said it was her body, her choice and that’s what she decided to do and that was the end of it. She told me as far as she was concerned there was never any pregnancy and she’d deny to her dying day if I ever so much as whisper about any pregnancy. It was over, I could go on with my life, and she was going on with hers. She didn’t want to see me again or hear from me again, she didn’t want to know if I was dead or alive.

That was how blunt she was. I asked her where was she, since the number was coming up as unknown, but she told me that was none of my business and cut the call. And that was it.”

“You never heard from her again?”

“Never.”

“And you just took her word about this abortion?” Dutch hesitated. “Thus my shame,” he said. “Yes. I just took her word.”

“But why would she come all that way to Nantucket to tell you about the baby, and then have an abor on?

That doesn’t make sense, Dutch.”

“I know it didn’t.”

“But yet you took her at her word?”

Dutch ran his hand through the hair his stylist had not long before perfectly groomed. Now strands were falling across his forehead. “Yes. I was twenty-two years old, Gina. I really didn’t want a kid right then. I just didn’t. I was floored by what she said, yes, I was.

But I was relieved too. God help me, but I was relieved. So I didn’t pursue it. I didn’t hire private eyes or troll the internet in search of her, I didn’t do any of or troll the internet in search of her, I didn’t do any of that. I believed her because I needed to believe her.

And I went on with my life.”

A fateful decision, he now realized, that may have been the biggest mistake of his life.

“I’m so ashamed, Gina,” he said, wrapping her tightly in his arms. She turned and put her arms around him too.

“What are you ashamed of?” she asked him, although she already probably knew.

“I’m ashamed I didn’t do more to find out the truth.

If that report is right, I have a grown daughter in this world, Gina. A child that belongs to me. I should have taken steps to make certain that a day like this would have been unthinkable.”

Gina closed her eyes ghtly and pushed her body as close as it could go into his powerful arms. Because that was how it felt to her, too.

Unthinkable.

NINE

Cornwall, North Carolina was a short boat ride from the majes c Outer Banks, but a world away from Brussels. But it was here, in this sleepy coastal town, did the President of the United States, along with his wife, find himself the very next morning a er his return from Europe.

Although nothing occupied his mind more than this, he had to fulfill his obliga ons at the G-8 before they could even consider making a move. Once the Summit was over, with only Band-Aid solu ons to gunshot problems, he and Gina, along with the US delega on, flew across the globe to Andrews Air Force Base. Then he and Gina took a short, helicopter ride over to the White House via Marine One.

While the world assumed that they were safely in the White House fast asleep or nearly there, Chris an Bale, as he did most nights, took a slow drive out of the White House gate in his older model, nted window Ford Explorer SUV, waved to the Marines on duty, and made his way up Pennsylvania Avenue. To the reporters s ll around the press office, or to anyone else who happened by, such a sight would not have been unusual at all. What was unusual, however, was that Dutch and Gina, along with a small con ngent of secret service agents, were also in the SUV. It, in fact, had been purchased in Christian’s name and armored by the Secret Service, for these very outings.

By the me the SUV was rolling out of town, along with a sca ered protec on force of over four different inauspicious vehicles, all filled with agents and driving at various points on the road also, the vehicle had stopped and the Secret Service had taken control of the wheel. Dutch sat on the second-row seat of the SUV

with Gina asleep on the back bench. Chris an sat on the seat parallel with the president. It all seemed so surreal to him. Here was the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, with one hand across the top of his seat in an old school SUV, and the other hand on the sill of the vehicle’s window. He was dressed in suit and e, the shine of his expensive shoes even evident in the unlit truck. He would occasionally turn around, to make sure his wife was okay, Chris an assumed, and then he’d turn back okay, Chris an assumed, and then he’d turn back around to face the long road ahead of them.

Chris an didn’t know the details but according to LaLa it was big, something that could poten ally bring his presidency down. Chris an at first played it off, they’d thrown the kitchen sink at Dutch Harber and had yet to do any damage. But now, to have the president leaving Washington under the cover of darkness, and to take his wife with him, was different than anything else Chris an had ever experienced. This wasn’t the president and First Lady sneaking off to LaLa’s house in Georgetown for a break, but this was a long haul trip to North Carolina, a er they’d just come back from a long trip to Europe. Maybe this me, he thought, it was as bad as LaLa seemed to suggest.

Dutch understood its implica ons be er than anyone. That was why he couldn’t dream of res ng un ll he put it all to rest. According to Liz, Speaker Brightman and the vice president had no inten ons of going public un ll a er the DNA test was confirmed.

That gave them some me. The problem, however, as Dutch saw it, wasn’t the present me, but the reality of his past. Because if that report was true, and if he did indeed have a daughter out there, how in the world was he going to ever make up all of that lost time to her?

He ran the back of his hand across his red eyes.

He had no clue what to expect. It wasn’t as if they could call Sam Redding and announce that they were coming over. She’d undoubtedly head for the hills the way she did all those years ago, if that were to happen. But how would she respond to him? Would she con nue to deny parentage even with him standing at her front door? And what about the daughter? Did she know about him already? Did she look anything like him? Did she
hate
him? His mind was running a mile a minute with ques ons. With every possibility considered, reconsidered, and then re-racked and considered again.

“Scoot over,” a voice said and Dutch looked up to see his wife now wide awake and beside him, looking to sit with him. He moved over, so she could sit down, and then, as he suspected, she immediately leaned her body against his and would soon be asleep again. She was more a night person than a morning person, but this was nearly four in the morning, and this decision to drive through the night, he thought, would allow her to sleep more than to hang under him and worry.

He put one hand around her shoulder and smoothed down her short haircut with the other hand. “You’re a regular sleepy head,” he said affec onately, admiring the way her hair so easily bounced back in place.

“I just closed my eyes for a minute,” she said, nearly asleep again.

Dutch snorted. “Sure, bud,” he said.

She looked up at him. “You okay?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“What if it’s not your daughter and Brightman and Shelly have it all wrong? Would you be happier, or sadder?”

Dutch thought about this. “I don’t know,” he said.

Then he looked at her. “What about you?” Gina didn’t have to think at all. “Happier,” she said.

“For all involved. Especially the girl.” Dutch nodded. “Understood,” he said.

“Did you check on Li le Walt?” Gina asked as it suddenly occurred to her.

“I did. About an hour ago. Lore a says he’s s ll asleep, with no issues to report.”

“You really ought not call her so late at night like that.”

“She understands.”

“I know, but s ll--,” she started, but fell asleep

“I know, but s ll--,” she started, but fell asleep before she could finish.

Dutch grabbed her into his arms, placed her on his lap, and cradled her as she slept. Chris an looked over at them as the president held his wife. They’d been through so much together. But somehow they always seemed to get stronger. That was what Chris an wanted too. He didn’t just want a bedmate, he wanted a life partner, somebody who would stand by him and believe in him no ma er what the world said about him. Just as the First Lady always did with the president. Just as the president always did with the First Lady.

It was just a er seven am when they finally arrived in Cornwall, North Carolina. They pulled into the driveway of a big, Cape Cod-styled yellow brick home with a horseshoe driveway leading to a two-car garage on a quiet, tree-lined street.

The SUV turned in, in fact, just as the garage door li ed and a champagne-colored Mercedes was backing out. The passenger, Sam Redding, looked into her rearview mirror with surprise. Assuming it to be yet another pa ent dropping by her home for a free diagnosis (Cornwall was that kind of small town), she placed the Mercedes in park, got out, and walked over to the big, black truck.