DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (17 page)

“ The president. I mean Dad. I mean my father.” It would take time, she knew. “He said you would remain in town as my assistant while I prepare to come to Washington. I can’t just up and leave. I have to give no ce to my employer and say goodbye to my students and make sure Mom’s going to be okay. He said you’d stay here, too, to assist me in any way I needed. He said he trusts you with his life. Didn’t he tell you?” Chris an’s heart soared. “No,” he said, “but I do what he wants, anyway.”

“ Then you aren’t upset that a big city guy like you, a presiden all aide no less, would be stuck, for two whole weeks, in a nothing town like this?”

Stuck for two whole weeks in a nothing town with you, Christian thought. “Don’t mind at all,” he said.

***

“Did you see the news this morning?” he said before the usher could close the office door behind him.

Shelly Pra was seated behind his desk. “The president’s in North Carolina, yeah, I saw it. I just finished talking to him.”

“I can’t believe it. How did he know about her? I thought Max Brennan said he didn’t know a damn thing. And how did the press get wind of this?”

“Why are you asking me these ques ons?” the Vice President asked. “My people sure as hell didn’t leak it!”

“But I thought Brennan said the president didn’t even know he had a daughter!”

“Obviously Brennan lied.”

“We had that sonafabitch!” the Speaker shouted.

“We had him! All we had to do was wait on the DNA

“We had him! All we had to do was wait on the DNA results and then pounce. But he beat us to the punch.

Typical Harber. That bastard is the luckiest asshole alive! How in the world could he have beat us to the punch?”

“Just se le down,” the VP said. “Just because the press has wind of it doesn’t mean the American people are going to accept it.”

Jed looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“That girl hasn’t been interview yet.”

“You know how protec ve he is with that fat headed boy of his. He’s probably going to be the same way with this daughter. He wouldn’t dare parade her before a camera.”

“Has he men oned,” the VP asked, “that she’s a person of color?”

Jed shook his head. “No. Why? What difference does that make?”

“ The majority of the American people don’t mind that he has a black wife, they really don’t. In fact, a lot of them like the fact that there’s an interracial couple in the White House. It kind of makes them feel warm and fuzzy, like we’re all in this together. The president fell in love with a black woman, fine, they appreciate that. But this bastard daughter means he fell in love with another black woman, and possible others besides. Which means he may just have a thing for black women only, as opposed to his own kind. We can use that angle.”

“But that’s absurd, Shelly!” Jed said. “You forget all that trouble he had with Jennifer Caswell and Kate Marris and that other one, I can’t even remember her name. They were all blonde, blue-eyed white women.”

“But that was then,” Shelly said. “ This is now. And all the American people are going to see is this white man with his black son from his black wife and his black daughter from his black whore. Instead of being color blind, they may begin to feel blinded by all of that color.”

“What are you getting at, Shelly?”

“We’ve just got to make sure they get the visual, and sell hard the fact that he’s a deadbeat dad who knew about that daughter but cast her aside like a piece of trash. Even his loyal Congressional Black Caucus is going to have problems suppor ng a deadbeat dad.”

“But there’s one glaring hole in your argument,” Jed said. “He didn’t know about the daughter and I’m sure she’ll back him up on that.”

“How would she know?” Shelly asked. “And who cares what the daughter or even the daughter’s mother says. We’re the voice of this na on, you and me, and we are going to deploy an army of voices to denounce this president. He’s morally bankrupt, we both know it, and the American people will know it too. We are going to make him rue the day he ever tried to beat us at our own game.”

“You really want his job, don’t you?”

“So badly, Jed,” Shelly admi ed, “I can taste it. You should have seen the way they treated me in Florida.

Total disrespect. Now it’s my turn.”

Although Jed smiled, and pretended to be rah-rah-rah too, he was too much of a realist to pull it off.

Because he knew this was going to be an uphill climb.

Unsea ng a si ng president would be risky even under the best of circumstances. Unsea ng Dutch Harber, with his uncanny ability to snatch victories out of the jaws of defeat, was going to be damn near impossible.

Two weeks later and the White House was burs ng at the seams with excitement. From the Usher and the housekeeping staff, to the Chef and the kitchen staff, housekeeping staff, to the Chef and the kitchen staff, and every aide in every office, the prepara ons were well under way for the arrival of the president’s daughter.

The night before, while he and Gina lay in bed, Dutch was so nervous that he could hardly sleep. Every me Gina woke up, he was s ll wide awake. Finally she gave up even a emp ng to sleep, removed her gown, and got on top of him.

Dutch moved to respond to her, but she pinned his arms back down. “Just relax,” she said as she leaned down and kissed him passionately on his mouth.

After a long kiss that had Dutch groaning, she turned her naked body around, s ll straddling him, but with her ass in his face and her mouth giving him head. His limp dick woke up, slowly at first and then with an erec on that kept growing with every lick, ever suck, every rub Gina gave to it. It felt so wonderful to Dutch that he closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensa ons ripping through his rod and every part of his body. If her goal was to relax him, she succeeded only mildly.

If her goal was too excite him, she exceeded all expectations. He was completed aroused. She knew how to do him. Of all the women he’d ever had fumbling around down there, only Gina knew how to kiss it just right, and lick it just so, without slinging her mouth up and down on it like she was having some kind of a fit. She never rushed it, but finessed it, slowly and lovingly, until he always came.

Only this time he wanted to come inside of her.

He flipped the script, and put her on her back, and within seconds entered her ght, wet tunnel with the feeling of a wonderful encapsula on. He laid down on top of her, as his dick probed deeper and deeper inside of her. And he closed his eyes as the penetra on hit the mark.

He began fucking her in a slow, controlled rhythm that made him forget, if only for a few minutes, that the daughter he’d only seen once was coming to Washington tomorrow to officially become a part of his family. But for right now, the only thing on his mind was pleasuring Gina, which always ended up becoming his own pleasure too.

For the longest me he made love to her, in a steady but forceful way that seemed perfect for the occasion.

And then he hit her g-spot just so, and her juices caught his fully expanded head just so, and he could hold on no longer.

“Oh, babe, you’re making me
cum
!” he grunted as his gyra ons increased and he swooshed out in a tense, hard, needful release.

Although Gina’s climax required more thrusts, Dutch hung in there, thrashing her walls with a penis that stayed erect and efficient on love alone, determined as always to never get his pleasure without his wife getting hers too.

Gina held onto Dutch as he fucked her, as the events of the past weeks had her too wound up, too sca ered in her thoughts, to fully engage. It was as if his concerns were now her concerns and she was parro ng the restlessness he earlier felt. But as his gyra ons increased, as his own arousal returned, as his dick moved in so deep that his balls were pounding her flesh, her body relented and climaxed with a clenching that caused her to not only grab the sheets, but pull them out of their tucks.

“
Dutch
!” she screamed as he pounded her. And he couldn’t stop, because he was climaxing too.

Again.

And they came together.

But when they collapsed, he just laid there, on top of his wife, barely able to move.

his wife, barely able to move.

Gina hugged him, even as his dead weight was practically smothering her, until he finally fell asleep.

And it was only then, a er she managed to roll him off of her, did she began thinking about Jade, and if she would turn out to be as sweet as she seemed in North Carolina, or if she would turn against Gina too. She closed her eyes and prayed, for Dutch’s sake, for her and Li le Walt’s sake, that this reunion was more a blessing, than a curse.

ELEVEN

In the early morning fog Dutch and Gina, along with Crader and LaLa, stood at the West Por co as the motorcade drove through the White House gates and stopped at the porch steps. Gina, who wasn’t a morning person, sipped piping hot coffee and moved her s ll sleepy body side to side to get the cobwebs out. Dutch, a morning, noon, and night person, was completely awake, completely alert, and a li le nervously giddy.

Especially when the limo stopped, the door was opened, and his daughter, along with Chris an, stepped out.

Jade Redding had been anxious for this day to come ever since her father le Cornwall. Although she stepped out of the limo bewildered at first, when she saw her father’s handsome face standing there, looking so elegant in his double-breasted suit and smiling that smile she was so anxious to see again, her en re demeanor relaxed.

“Hi,” she said, moving past the chauffeur. There was a slight hesita on on her part, an awkwardness as to what she should do: hug him or shake his hand. But he quickly alleviated all of her doubts by pulling her into his big, strong arms.

Gina’s heart soared when Dutch held his daughter.

She knew how much this moment meant to him. And as Jade hugged her with just as much gusto, and as she introduced Jade to LaLa and Crader, she felt a kinship to the girl, too, that warmed her heart.

Crader’s heart was warmed too, as he couldn’t take his eyes off of the young beauty. And when she gave him the same friendly hug she had given the others, he could just imagine how she could make him feel. And even a er they stopped hugging and they all made their way into the White House, he moved beside her, as he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her.

Gina certainly no ced it. And when she glanced at LaLa, and saw the sadness in her eyes, she knew that LaLa was noticing it too.

Dutch, who also no ced it, placed his arm around both Gina and LaLa, and walked them into the house.

Over the next two months that followed, Dutch and Over the next two months that followed, Dutch and Jade spent as much me together as his schedule would allow. Walks along the Jacqueline Kennedy gardens, long talks on the Truman balcony, tea and cake in the East Colonnade, they both seemed amazed by the reality of it.

The poli cs, however, didn’t ease. There were the usual calls for his resigna on, the name-calling and recrimina ons between the Speaker’s office and the office of the Vice President, but it was irrelevant background noise to Dutch. He had his wife, his son, and his daughter. That was all that mattered to him.

It was blissful and Gina was grateful for the blissfulness. Dutch somehow blamed himself for not being a part of his daughter’s forma ve years, but Gina was so relieved that Jade didn’t blame him.

Sam was a different story. She didn’t blame Dutch exactly, but she didn’t blame herself either. From what Gina could see she didn’t deal with it at all. Dutch even invited her, more than once, to come to the White House and spend some me in Jade’s new life and around her addi onal family, but Sam con nually said no. She had a business to run, was her usual excuse.

Henry Osgood, Jade’s boyfriend, promised to bring Sam with him when he was able to come himself. Gina was skeptical, but Jade was hopeful.

“If anybody could do it,” Jade said one night at dinner, “it was Henry. Mom adores him.

“Why?” Chris an, who dined with the Harbers every single night since Jade’s arrival, asked her. “Is it because he’s a hot shot surgeon?”

“You’re a hot shot presiden all aide,” Jade shot back, “and you’re just a li le runt to her.” Dutch and Gina laughed, and even Chris an had to smile. “Of course it’s not because he’s a surgeon. She’s a doctor herself, or at least has her doctor’s degree. He helped her by inves ng in her bookstore a er her husband divorced her, and he steers a lot of his pa ents and business associates to the place. He’s good for business, that’s what I mean. If you know my mother you’ll know that she’s not into sentimentality at all.”

“ That’s kind of depressing for a woman raising a little girl, don’t you think?” Christian asked.

“Yes,” Jade admitted.

Dutch and Gina looked at each other, and then the dining hall fell silent, but for the cla er of forks and plates.

They didn’t want to s r up the waters because everything was going their way. And it went their way, month a er month, un ll the night Jade talked Chris an into breaking Dutch’s rule.

They were in the White House Billiards Room, Jade and Chris an, playing table tennis and listening to a Wynton Marcellus joint on the radio. Dutch and Gina were a ending a State Dinner in honor of the President of the Ukraine, Crader was with them, and LaLa was with Little Walt. And Jade was getting cabin fever.

“I’m so not used to this,” she said as she kept up with Christian’s frenetic serves.

“What aren’t you used to?” Chris an said, grinning.

“Being in the White House with a stallion like me?” Jade smiled. He really was too cute. “No,” she said. “Being stuck in the White House with a stallion like you, or in any house, for months like this. I’m used to working, going on a job every day. I’m not accustomed to being the idle rich.”

“He lets you go and come as you please, you just have to have Secret Service protec on everywhere you go.”

“Which negates me going many places. I’ll never meet new people or go new places if they’re always on my tail.”