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Authors: Mallory Monroe
For the Love of Gina: The President's Girlfriend
FOR THE LOVE OF
GINA
THE PRESIDENT’S
GIRLFRIEND/
DUTCH AND GINA
SERIES
By
MALLORY MONROE
Copyright©2014
Mallory Monroe
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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are
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INTERRACIAL ROMANCE
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MALLORY MONROE:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
SERIES IN ORDER:
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND
THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND 2:
HIS WOMEN AND HIS
WIFE
DUTCH AND GINA:
A SCANDAL IS BORN
DUTCH AND GINA:
AFTER THE FALL
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE POWER OF LOVE
DUTCH AND GINA:
THE SINS OF THE
FATHERS
DUTCH AND GINA:
WHAT HE DID FOR
LOVE
THE MOB BOSS SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS
MOB BOSS 2:
THE HEART OF THE
MATTER
MOB BOSS 3:
LOVE AND
RETRIBUTION
MOB BOSS 4:
ROMANCING TRINA GABRINI
A MOB BOSS CHRISTMAS:
THE PREGNANCY
(Mob Boss 5)
MOB BOSS 6:
THE HEART OF RENO
GABRINI
RENO’S GIFT
BOOK 7
RENO GABRINI:
A MAN IN FULL
BOOK 8
RENO AND TRINA:
GETTING BACK TO LOVE
BOOK 9
THE GABRINI MEN SERIES
IN ORDER:
ROMANCING TOMMY GABRINI
ROMANCING SAL GABRINI
TOMMY GABRINI 2:
A PLACE IN HIS
HEART
ADDITIONAL BESTSELLING
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ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR
ROMANCING THE BULLDOG
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TOMMY GABRINI
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BOOK ONE
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CHAPTER ONE
The
car was out of control as it veered off the highway, slung onto the dirt road,
and swerved wildly until it skidded broadside into a tree.
The two Tarver brothers were the first to
bail, leaving DeAndre Clarke to fend for himself.
When he realized he was no longer flying
around like a human projectile, he jumped out too.
The
sirens were deafening, coming closer and closer with every pounding beat of his
heart, and he knew they would blame him.
He could try to explain all night long.
He could beg them to listen to reason all day long.
But they would still blame him.
He was a powerless eighteen-year-old black
kid in the back woods of Gipson, Georgia from the wrong side of the
tracks.
He didn’t stand a chance.
He
ran.
Through
the pitch-black night, he slung his arms like sling blades through the thistles
and foliage and stinging high weeds.
Across
the knee-high creek, he high-stepped through muddy water that drenched his
jeans and splashed like sharp needles into his face.
Along
the boarded up old train depot that no longer welcomed trains, he slammed
against the door, trying to break it down to hide inside, then realizing that
would probably be one of the first places they checked.
He
ran.
The
Tarver brothers had gotten so far ahead of him that he didn’t have a clue which
way they went.
So he went the only way
he knew.
His heart was beating so fast
he could hardly contain his fear.
His
big eyes were stretched even wider, as he kept looking back, kept feeling as if
somebody was going to grab him at any second, kept running as if his life
depended on his speed.
He
ran.
Behind
the football field of the high school he used to attend, across the bank’s
empty parking lot, across the First Baptist Church graveled drive, all the way
around Brandenfield Road, Mortimer Avenue, to Jasper Lane.
To his big sister’s house.
Neighbors’
dogs were barking and rattling their chains as he ran onto her dark porch and
slammed his slight body against the front door.
He frantically banged and turned the locked knob and tried with all he
had to force that flimsy door open.
He
kept looking back, kept expecting those cop cars to suddenly appear, until the
porch light came on.
His sister
undoubtedly eyeballed him through her peephole, because she immediately opened
the door.
DeAndre
flung into her home as if he was being thrust inside, and Brandy Clarke,
stunned by his display, looked out into the dark night to see what in the world
was chasing him.
When she saw nothing
but the darkness, she quickly closed and locked the door.
She
looked at her kid brother as he roamed around her living room like a man
intolerable of his own skin.
“Dray,
what’s wrong?” she asked, tying her bathrobe, her heart pounding too.
“It’s
messed up, sis,” he said, walking and then reversing direction, and then
walking and reversing again.
“I’m
fucked, I am so fucked!”
Brandy
grabbed him by the arm and turned him around.
It was bad, she knew that without asking, but he had to settle down and
tell her to what extent.
“What
happened?” she asked him.
“Tell me
what’s wrong.”
DeAndre
stopped walking and ran his hand through his low-cut fade.
When Brandy saw the extent of the anguish on
his light-brown face, she released her grasp.
And anguish appeared on her own darker face.
“I
know something bad happened,” she said, attempting to remain calm.
“Just tell me what it is, Dray.
That’s the only way I can help you.
Tell me.”
He
shook his head as if it was all so hopeless, and then walked over to the sofa
and plopped down.
He looked at her.
His normally tranquil eyes looked wild.
“I
didn’t know,” he said.
“You
didn’t know what?”
“I
didn’t know what they were up to.”
He
was only eighteen, but right now, tonight, he looked younger than ten.
Brandy walked to the chair flanking the sofa
and sat on the arm of the chair.
She saw
where his jeans were wet, she saw the sweat on his shirt, she saw the horror in
his eyes.
She was inwardly hoping that
it wasn’t so.
That it wasn’t as bad as
he seemed to think it was.
But life’s
highways never curved that way for them.
It was probably worse.
“You
didn’t know what, Dray?”
she asked him.
“They
said there was this girl they knew.
They
said she was kind of easy and we could . . . They said we could have some fun,
that’s why I went.
I hadn’t seen them in
a while and they was talking like this girl . . .”
Then he began to panic.
He leaned forward, clasping his hands.
“I didn’t know that shit was going down,
Bran!
I didn’t know anything about it!”
His
theatrics didn’t move Brandy one inch.
She wasn’t interested in his conclusions right now.
She wasn’t interested in his pleas of
innocence.
She needed details.
Everything would hinge on those details!
“Keep
going,” she ordered.
“We
were just going over there,” he continued.
“We were just supposed to go over there and hang out with this
girl.
I didn’t know that was going
down!
They didn’t tell me they were
planning something like that!
I would
have never gotten in that car if I would have known they were going to try
something that fucked up!”
“Dray,”
Brandy said, unable to conceal her own anguish.
“I need you to calm yourself down and tell me exactly what
happened.
Start at the beginning, leave
nothing out, and tell me what happened!”
DeAndre
ran his hand through his hair again, dropped his head, and then lifted it back
up with a heavy exhale.
His eyes were
bright with unshed tears.
“I was at
work,” he began.
“I was working the cash
register and it was like an hour before my shift was supposed to end.
But nothing much was going on.
We’d get a customer every now and then, but
it was real slow.
Then Will Tarver and
his brother Eddie walked in.”
Brandy
frowned.
Gipson was the kind of town
where everybody knew everybody else.
But
she’d never heard tell of any Tarvers.
“Who’s Will Tarver?” she asked.
“This
dude I went to school with.
His grandma
is Miss Jolene, the lady who sells honey-drippers over on Bishop.”
“Oh,
okay.
Her grandsons.”
“Right.
They came to stay with her when Will and I
were in tenth grade.
Then they left town
a couple years ago and I haven’t seen Will since.
But he and his brother came into O’Riley’s
and ordered a couple of burgers.
So
while they ate I went over to their table and hung out a little.
That’s when Eddie started talking about this
girl he knew and how willing she was and how we could have a little fun with
her.
They could wait around for my shift
to end and we could go over to her place and hang out.”
Brandy
folded her arms.
“Did this girl have a
name?”
“He
didn’t say her name.
Just some girl he
knew.”
Then Dray scrunched up his
face.
Right then, right there, he looked
just like his father.
“Go
on, Dray,” Brandy insisted.
“So
after work we get into Eddie’s car and head over there.
Me and Will sat in the back seat and talked
about Gipson High and what all he missed since he left.
And we laughed and talked and it was all
right.
We were just having fun.
And then Eddie drove us to this gas station.”
Brandy’s
heart began to pound.
She was staring so
intently at her baby brother that her eyes wouldn’t blink.
“He
said he wanted some cigarettes and beer to take over to this girl’s house, and
Will said he wanted some Turtles.
You
know, the candy?
I told him they didn’t
sell candy like that at some filling station, but he was so certain they did
that I got out too, just to show him how wrong he was.”
Another
pause.
“Will
and I entered the store and walked around the side where the candy section was,
while Eddie grabbed some beer and headed for the counter.
Will was searching hard but he couldn’t find
any Turtles, and I was laughing and telling him how I told him he would have to
go to Walmart.
That’s when we heard the
first gunshot, and then a real loud crash sound.”
Brandy
could hear her heart beating.
Her
brother was staring now, as if he was retelling a dream.
“We
didn’t know what that sound was at first, until we heard another shot.
We dropped down on our bellies when we heard
that second shot.
Then we heard two more
shots, bang, bang, real rapid-like, and then the sound of a lot of
scrambling.
And then Eddie yells for us
to come the fuck on, so we took off.
I’m
thinking the gunman was still in the store so I didn’t look back.
We flew out of there, jumped in Eddie’s car,
and he drove away so fast we kept swerving out of control.”
Another
long pause, this time even more agonizing than the last.
Then he looked at Brandy again.
“I had no idea Eddie was the shooter until I
saw the gun.”
Brandy’s
heart dropped.
She knew it was going to
be horrible, but hearing it from her brother took it to another level of
horror.
Her concern wasn’t what happened
anymore, but if DeAndre mitigated his culpability.
Because he was as culpable as Eddie
Tarver.
“Did you call 911, Dray?” she
asked her brother, inwardly praying that he had.
“I
pulled my cell phone out to call, but Eddie was driving so crazy we nearly
flipped over twice, and the phone fell out of my hand.
That’s when I saw the gun.
Eddie had thrown it under his seat.”
Then
DeAndre scrunched up his face again.
“It
didn’t matter anyway.
We were already
hearing sirens.
That store clerk must
have called the cops or pressed some alarm button even while we were still
there, because they were coming so fast.
We were hearing too many sirens!
It sounded as if the entire police department was coming after us.”
Brandy
was certain that they were.
Shots fired
in little Gipson?
And poor black boys
involved?
Every member of the force was
coming after them.
“But what did you do,
Dray?” she asked him.
“Did you try to
get out of the car?
Did you beg them to
let you out?”
“They
weren’t listening to me!
And how was I
supposed to get out of a car going that fast?
He was flying down that road, Bran!
You should have seen him!
It was
like he expected us to be surrounded within minutes before we heard the first
siren.
It just seemed so useless!”
He
paused again.
Then kept going.
“That’s why Eddie decided to ditch the car
and make a run for it.
Because he knew
we were about to be surrounded.
He knew
it was useless too.
So he slung the car
onto this dirt road, but he lost control.
We slammed into this tree and Ed and Will jumped out.”