For the Love of Gina: The President's Girlfriend (15 page)

“I’ll
be in Vegas for a few days, I don’t know if you remember. I’m scheduled to meet
with those foreign investors?”

“I
remember.”

“But
I can stay, if you think that’ll help us?”

But
Gina shook her head.
 
“It won’t
help.
 
Take care of your business.
 
Please.
 
I need some time.”

“Okay,”
he said.
 
“But go on home in the
morning.”

“I
will.”

Dutch
nodded.
 
He felt at least a little
relieved about that.
 
But as he said
goodnight, with Gina refusing to even give him an option to kiss her, and he
walked out of that door, he knew his relief would be short-lived.
 
Because the ideal of living outside of his
home, with his family now fractured and threatening a complete break, was
almost too unbelievable for him to bear.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dutch
was stretched out naked on top of the covers, staring at the vaulted ceiling in
his bedroom.
 
Two hours ago he was in
Gina’s old house all but begging her to come back home.
 
Now he was alone in their home, showered,
unable to sleep, eat, drink or do anything else but think about his wife, and
how off the rails everything suddenly went.
 

What
he did to her did seem unforgivable to him now.
 
Especially after what happened in Georgia.
 
How in the world, he wondered, could he make
that right?
 
At the time, it seemed like
the absolute right thing to do.
 
His wife
had just been shot by another half-brother of hers.
 
She was fighting for her life.
 
The ideal that she would have to face another
out-of-the-woodwork relative wasn’t something he was willing to allow.
 
Not after what Marcus had done to her.
 
But he should have known her better.
 
He should have thought more about the
consequences.

He
closed his eyes and thought about Gina.
 
She was an all-in kind of woman.
 
She did nothing halfway.
 
Now she
was blaming herself for that boy’s death.
 
All because she felt, the way she always felt, that if she’d only had a
presence in that boy’s life, things might have turned out differently for
him.
 
And he’d still be alive.
 
It was nonsense as far as Dutch was
concerned.
 
But not to Gina.
 
She believed people affected other people
that way.
 
She believed people could
actually change the trajectory of somebody else’s life.
 
That optimism, in many ways, was one of the
things Dutch so deeply loved about her.

But
now he had lost her trust.
 
And she was
so confused about him now that it showed all over her pretty face.
 
It was going to take a lot of work, and time,
before he’d ever be that man in her eyes that he used to be.

But
just as he was thinking about what he had to do, his bedside intercom
buzzed.
 
He turned sideways and pressed
the button.
 
“Yes, Ramsey?”

“Excuse
me for disturbing you sir, but I’ve just got word from the front gate that the
First Lady is arriving.”

Dutch’s
heart soared.
 
“Gina’s here?”

“Oh,
no, sir.
 
Accept my apologies,
please.
 
I was referring to Mrs.
McKenzie.”

Dutch
was confused.
 
“Loretta?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“Is the
president with her?”

“No,
sir.”

Dutch
didn’t understand it.
 
LaLa rarely came
unannounced.
 
Or without Crader.
 
“Thank-you, Ramsey, I’m getting up.”

“Yes,
sir.”

And
by the time Dutch did get up, put a robe on his naked body, and made his way
downstairs, LaLa was walking through his front door.
 
Ramsey, who had let her in, quickly stood
aside and waited for further instructions.
 
And Dutch smiled.
 
He was
genuinely glad to see her.

“Hello,
Loretta,” he said as he hugged her and kissed her on the lips.

“Sorry
to come so late,” LaLa said, “but that’s the only way I can travel undetected
these days.”

“Think
nothing of it.
 
Come on in, have a seat.”

Dutch
escorted her over to the sofa and assisted her as she sat down.

“Would
you care for something to drink?”

“No,
no, Dutch, thank-you, but I’m fine.”

Dutch
looked at Ramsey.
 
“That’ll be all,” he
said, and Ramsey bowed and left the room.

“So
where’s Gina?” LaLa asked as Dutch sat beside her.
 
“Don’t tell me she’s asleep,” she added after
realizing just how quiet the home seemed.
 
“She’s usually the late-night owl.
 
That’s why I took the chance and drove on over.”

“She’s
not here actually.”

LaLa
frowned.
 
“Are you serious?
 
I know I should have phoned!
 
But my original intent was just to drive
around DC.
 
Then one thing led to another
thing and I told my driver to keep on driving until I was here.
 
Three and half hours later, I’m here.
 
With you guys.
 
Or at least I assumed both of you would be in
town.”

“She’s
not out of town, Loretta.
 
She’s staying
at her old house tonight.”

LaLa
frowned.
 
“Her old house?
 
But why would she do that?”

Dutch
exhaled.
 
“She’s upset with me, to put it
mildly.”

“You?
 
Oh, come on, Dutch.
 
What in the world could you have done that
would have drove Gina away from her own home?”

Dutch
sat back in a slouched position.
 
LaLa,
who was seated on the edge of the sofa, looked back at him.
 
He looked so handsome, but unusually
vulnerable too.
 
“What’s wrong, Dutch?”
she asked him.

“I’m
surprised she hasn’t phoned you.”

“Unfortunately
we don’t talk like we used to.
 
She’s
busy running BBR, and I’m busy being First Lady, which is no walk in the park
let me tell you.”

Dutch
knew the rigors of that office.
 
He saw
Gina handle it masterfully once upon a time.
 
Back then, he thought all of their troubles would be over once they left
DC.
 
He was wrong.
 
“A while ago, just before Gina went through
that ordeal with Marcus Rance, my chief of staff was contacted by this woman
who claimed she had a son with Gina’s father.”

“With
Gina’s father?
 
But Gina’s Dad is
deceased.”

“The
boy was seventeen at the time.”

“Oh.
 
Really?
 
Damn.
 
Mr. Ridgeway got around,
didn’t he?
 
First Marcus Rance, and now
some other boy?”

“But
I had a DNA test performed by making up some security excuse to Gina so that
the doctors could get a sample from her.
 
I told her to do it, she did it without question.
 
That was the kind of trust she had in
me.”
 

LaLa
smiled.
 
“You sound as if her trust in
you is all in the past.”

“When
the DNA test confirmed that Gina and the boy were indeed related,” Dutch said,
“I made the decision not to notify Gina.”

Dutch
looked at LaLa.
 
“That’s why her trust in
me is in the past,” he said.

LaLa
was still processing it.
 
“But I don’t
understand what you’re saying.
 
You’re
saying that Gina has another half-brother, which is amazing to me, and that you
decided not to notify her?
 
But not to
notify her of what?”

“Of
the fact that she had another half-brother out there.”

LaLa
couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t tell her?”

Dutch
exhaled. “No, I didn’t.
 
But the boy’s
sister did, this morning, after the boy got into some major league trouble.”

“Oh,
no, not another one, Dutch.
 
He’s a
criminal too?”

“His
sister didn’t think so.
 
Neither did
Gina, although I think she was just giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

“So
she’s upset with you because you didn’t tell her yourself?
 
That she had to find out from a stranger?”

“That’s
part of it, yes.
 
I think if that was the
only part of it, we might have been able to work things out a little less . . .
dramatically.”

LaLa
looked at him.
 
“But there’s another
part?”

Dutch
nodded.
 
“When Gina flew to Georgia
today, to meet her incarcerated brother and see if she could help him in
whatever way she could, the same way she did for Marcus Rance . . .”

“What,
Dutch?” LaLa asked, anxious to know.
 
“What happened when she went to Georgia?”

Tears
welled up in his eyes.
 
“She found out
that the young man hung himself this morning.”

“Oh,
my Lord!” LaLa said with great anguish as she turned almost completely around
to face Dutch.
 
“Are you serious?
 
He died?”

“This
morning, yes.
 
Before Gina could even
meet him.”

LaLa
felt for Gina.
 
She felt for Dutch too,
but she felt for Gina!
 
“But. . . I don’t
understand.
 
Why didn’t you tell her that
she had a brother?
 
I don’t get it.”

“It
was the way they came to me.
 
Give us
money, they said, in return for their silence.
 
It was right around the time of the Marcus Rance fiasco and they knew
the last thing the public wanted to hear was that their First Lady had yet
another brother in her closet.
 
I didn’t
give a damn about what the public didn’t want to hear, but they thought I did.
My concern was Gina only.
 
So I paid them
off, and set up a trust fund for the young man, who was seventeen at the time,
and they agreed to remain silent.
 
And
they did, until the kid got accused of murdering a pregnant store clerk.”

LaLa
shook her head.
 
“My my my, Dutch.
 
This is some tough news.”

“I
know.”

 
“But why would you do it, Dutch?
 
Even though his family went about it wrong,
why would you think it was okay to keep a secret like that from Gina?
 
How could you think that would be okay?”

“It
was a mistake.
 
I know it now.”

“You
know how Gina is.
 
Even with that lowlife
Marcus Rance she did all she could for that man.”

“Yeah,
she looked out for him all right, even though he didn’t deserve it.”

“But
that’s her.
 
That was her brother and she
was helping her brother.”

“And
that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to allow another brother into her life.
 
When those results came back, she was
fighting for her life.”

“I
remember.”

“It
was crazy then.
 
I didn’t know who to
trust then.
 
I wasn’t about to let
somebody else come into her life, I just wasn’t going to let that happen.
 
Especially the way this family had presented
themselves to me.
 
They came, not asking
to meet Gina, but promising not to expose their connection to Gina if I paid
them off.
 
And that sister, the one who
came to Gina this morning, was right there in the thick of it.
 
She might have been pushing it more so than
her mother was.”

“What
about the boy?
 
Was he in on it too?”

“No.
 
At least there was no indication that he
was.”

“But
you wasn’t risking it.”

“I
wasn’t.
 
That’s right.
 
I wasn’t taking any chances.”

LaLa
nodded.
 
“I kind of don’t blame you,” she
admitted.

Dutch
looked at her, at this woman he loved.
 
She was a friend indeed.
 
He
pulled her back against him, and put his arm around her.
 
She leaned against him.
 
“Thanks,” he said.
 
“I needed to hear that.”

“But
I understand Gina’s point too,” LaLa said, never afraid to speak the truth with
Dutch.
 
“She’s not the kind of person who
can know she has a brother out there and do nothing about it.
 
She’s not built that way.”

Dutch
nodded.
 
He knew that was the truth too.

“So
we’ll never know if he killed that clerk or not, then, hun?”

“According
to the sister he was innocent as the driven snow.
 
But I did send one of my attorneys down there
to check it out.”