For the Love of Gina: The President's Girlfriend (18 page)

Gina
closed her eyes, fighting back the tears.
 
“I’m not ready yet, Dutch.
 
I
can’t.
 
Not yet.”

Dutch
closed his eyes too.
 
He didn’t want to
add to her burden, not an ounce more.
 
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t adding to his own.

And
then they both opened their eyes, with Gina wiping away a tear, as they
returned their attention to The Wiz.
 
And
although Dutch kept his arm around her, and she didn’t pull away, they watched
the remainder of the movie in silence.

The
next morning, Gina could hear Walt running up the stairs as she applied her
makeup.
 
It was his usual routine before
Nanny carted him off to the ultra-private and ultra-expensive Kindergarten he
attended.
 
A Kindergarten, Gina was
thrilled to know, he loved attending.

“Hey
there, Little Man,” Gina said when he entered her bedroom.

“You’re
putting on face stuff.”

“That’s
right,” she said.
 
She was seated at her
dressing table, applying the last of her makeup, when he walked up to her.

“You
have everything you need?”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Walt said, leaning over the table.

“Including
the feathers the teacher told you to bring in today?”

“Yes,
ma’am.
 
They’re in my backpack
downstairs.”

“Good
boy.”
 
Gina started putting on liquid
eyeliner to enhance her naturally long lashes.
 
“Where’s your father?
 
Still
downstairs?”

Walt
shook his curly head.
 
“He didn’t come to
breakfast today.”

Gina
looked at him.
  
“He didn’t have
breakfast with you?”

Walt
shook his head.
 
Gina waited for him to
speak it.
 
“No ma’am,” he finally said.

“Did
he phone you?”

“No
ma’am.”

That
was strange, Gina thought.
 
Ever since
Dutch moved into the guesthouse, and if he was in town, he’d made it his
absolute business to at least have breakfast with his son.
 

Then
Nanny started calling Walter’s name.
 
“We’re going to be late,” she yelled from downstairs.

“Gotta
go,” Walt said, reached over and kissed his mother on the cheek, and then he
took off.

“Be
good!” Gina yelled after him, although he was already well on his way.

But
Dutch was on her mind.
 
Maybe he
overslept for a change, she thought with a smile, as she finished dressing and
made her way downstairs.
 
She grabbed her
briefcase and purse and headed out the front door.
 
Mitchell was waiting to open the backdoor of
her SUV.
 
But as she got to the door of
the car, she glanced across the estate toward the guesthouses, and thought
about Dutch.
 
Just to make certain he was
okay, she tossed her briefcase and purse into the vehicle and made her way to
the guesthouse Dutch was occupying.
 

When
there were no response to her knocks on the door, she used her master keycard
and entered the house.
 
Like all of their
guesthouses, it was luxuriously appointed with modern furniture and a sleek
design.

“Dutch?”
she yelled out as she entered.
 
When she
got no answer, she went into the bedroom.
 
The bed, to her surprise, had not been slept in.
 
Dutch never would have left his bed this neatly
made, and the maid would not have made it out here this early in the morning.

Now
she was worried.
 
Was he upset when she
refused his request to have sex with her last night?
 
Had he left the main house after the movie,
and went somewhere else?
 
Perhaps to some
female friend of his that wouldn’t turn him down?
 
Gina’s heart began to pound as she pulled out
her cell phone.
 
She knew, when he moved
out, that she was opening their marriage up to other issues.
 
But her philosophy was the same.
 
If he’d stray when they were having problems,
that might very well be the problem.

She
exhaled, and waited for him to answer.

Across
town, in his massive office, Dutch cell phone began to ring.
 
He was fast asleep on his office couch, still
wearing the suit of clothes he wore yesterday, when he realized his phone was
ringing.
 
He reached into his suit coat,
pulled it out, and looked at the caller ID.
 
When he saw that it was Gina, he immediately answered.

“Good
morning,” he said with a yawn.

“Well
good morning,” Gina said on the other end.
 
She waited for some explanation or apology for not having breakfast with
Walter, but nothing came.
 
“Your son
missed you at breakfast this morning.”

“Yeah,
I meant to call him,” Dutch said, running his hand through his thick wad of
hair.
 
“Let him know I’ll be there
tonight for dinner.”

“He’s
already left for school, but I’ll tell him.”
 
Gina waited again for some kind of an explanation.
 
But again, nothing.

“Was
there anything else?” Dutch asked.

“No,
no,” Gina said.
 
Maybe he didn’t feel
that she deserved an explanation.
 
“That
was it.
 
I just wanted you to know that
Walt was looking for you to be there this morning.
 
But I’ll tell him to expect you tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Well,
have a good day, Dutch.”

“You
too,” Dutch said, and then the phone went dead.
 
He hung up too.

“Knock
knock,” a voice was heard, and Dutch looked up.
 
“May I come in, or would you prefer I return later?”
 
It was Lenora Perry, Dutch’s old friend (and
former flame) and his Chief Financial Officer.
 
She was peering through his office door.

“Come
in,” he said still groggily, as he sat on the edge of the couch and began
putting on his shoes.

Lenora
walked on in.
 
She was an attractive,
voluptuous black woman, with plenty of hips, ass and thighs, and was looking at
him intensely as she walked further in.
 
“Everything okay?” she asked him.

Dutch,
however, wasn’t about to discuss his personal life with her.
 
“What did Marville have to say?” he asked
her.

Lenora
knew Dutch well enough to know when he was, in essence, telling her to get on
with the business at hand.
 
It looked
damn crazy for the CEO of Harber Industries to be sleeping in his office, and
there was a time he would confide in her about it.
 
But those days were gone.
 
“He said the truckers strike shouldn’t affect
inventory, although he couldn’t guarantee it.”
 

And
they continued with business as usual.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

On a
cool Saturday morning, Gina was sitting patiently on Dutch’s private
plane.
 
She wore a little black dress,
that touched just above her knees, fashionable black shoes with heels that were
high but not stilettos, and a polka dot scarf tied gently around her neck.
 
She was just shutting off her cell phone,
after a long conversation with Roman Wilkes about one of the more difficult
court cases they had to deal with at BBR, when she noticed they were still
waiting.
 
She pressed her intercom button
on the arm of her chair and asked one of her assistants to go to the cockpit
and get the pilot.
 
When the pilot
returned to her private cabin, he smiled.

“Good
morning, ma’am, I understand you asked to see me?”

“Yes,
John, I did.
 
And good morning.
 
My question is why are we still on the
tarmac?
 
I expected us to lift off
fifteen minutes ago.”

“Right,
ma’am, but President Harber hasn’t arrived yet.”

Gina
frowned.
 
“My husband isn’t coming on
this trip.”

That
surprised the pilot.
 
“That was not my
information, ma’am.
 
I was told to hold
the plane until the president arrives.”

 
Gina hated when she wasn’t informed.
 
But it wasn’t the pilot’s fault.
 
“Thank-you, John,” she said.
 
“That’ll be all.”

The
pilot tipped his hat and then made his way back to the cockpit.
 
Gina started to phone Dutch and see what was
really going on, but she decided to wait.
 
He’d ordered the pilot to wait on him, probably just to tell her goodbye
and to contact him if she had any problems, the way he did before.
 
But he could have told her that before she
boarded, it seemed to her.

But
she waited.
 
It wasn’t as if John was
going to disobey the command of the former commander-in-chief.
 
So she waited.
 
Then, approximately five minutes later,
Dutch’s Cadillac Escalade SUV did eventually drive up within the airstrip
apron.
 
Dutch hurried out, without
waiting for Addison to open his door, and he buttoned his suit coat as he made
his way across the tarmac.
 

Gina
looked at him as he came toward the plane.
 
Her heart always squeezed whenever she saw Dutch enter her life space,
and this morning was no exception.
 
His
hair was wind-blown, his face looked as if it could use fifty hours of sleep,
even his suit didn’t look as pristine as it usually looked, but he still felt
he had to come and see her off.
 
That was
Dutch.
 
She loved him.
 
She would never pretend otherwise.
 
She loved him deeply.
 
But she loved herself too, and she had to
decide what kind of marriage she was willing to have with him, and what kind
she was not willing to have.
 

When
Dutch finally boarded the plane, and entered their private cabin, she waited
for him to give her his spiel and then head out.
 
But he sat down across from her instead.

“Good
morning,” he said, looking down at the length of her.
 
“You look beautiful.
 
As usual.”

“Good
morning.
 
What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t
John tell you?
 
I’m going with you.”

Gina
thought she had misheard him.
 
“You’re
going with me?
 
To the funeral?”

“That’s
right.”

“But.
. .”
 
She had a million questions.
 
She didn’t know where to start.
 
“But what about Walter?” she decided to ask
first.
 
“I don’t like him being without
one of us on the weekend.”

“He
won’t be alone.
 
He’s going to spend the
weekend, and part of next week, at Ruth Island with Loretta and Nikki.”

Nobody
was telling Gina anything.
 
“Since when?”

“Since
I decided to come to Georgia with you this morning, and I phoned to see if she
could keep Walt for the day.
 
She said
she’d love to, and by the way she and the baby were planning to spend several
days at their estate in Florida.
 
Since
school’s out for Spring Break next week, I thought it would be perfect for
Little Walt to go too.
 
To keep Nikki
company.”

“Yes,
that would be a good idea.
 
What about
Crader?
 
He’s not going with them?”

“Apparently
not,” Dutch said.
 
“It wouldn’t look
right for the president to be at his vacation home during so much turmoil in
the world.
 
Which is exactly why I thank
God I’m not there anymore.”

Gina
could amen that.
 
But then she thought
about exactly where they were going.
 
To
her brother’s funeral.
  
She looked at
Dutch.
 
“Are you sure you want to do
this?” she asked him.

“No,”
he said honestly, his green eyes suddenly weary. “I definitely do not want to
do this.
 
But I wasn’t about to let you
go alone.”

“Brandy
may make a scene, Dutch.
 
She probably
doesn’t want me there, so you know she’s not going to want you there.
 
She hates you, you know that.”

“I
understand that,” he said, with a resigned look on his face.
 
He knew it was going to be hell.
 
“But it’s not about her, is it?” he asked.

Gina
exhaled, dreading the entire situation herself.
 
“No,” she said.
 
“It’s not.”

But
somebody forgot to tell Brandy.
 
Gina
realized this within minutes of their arrival.
 
There was no preannouncements whatsoever about their attendance, so they
were able to walk in while the service was already in progress and sit in the
last pew with little disruption.
 
Until
one of the ushers realized whom it was that she was sitting, and let out a
scream.
 
The entire church turned toward
the back.
 
As soon as the funeral-goers
realized it was Dutch and Gina in their midst, they stood to their feet, to get
a better look, and broke out in raucous applause.
 
It was embarrassing to say the least, but
Dutch and Gina were old pros with crowds.
 
They nodded their heads with a smile, waved their hands slightly, and
even had to stand up when the applause would not let up.
 
But when they sat back down, and the crowd
eventually sat back down, Dutch and Gina both saw Brandy, up front, still
standing, and still looking back at them.
 
Then she eventually sat down too.

The
choir in the small Baptist church was singing
The Last Mile of the Way
as a few parishioners were still upfront
viewing the body.
 
Gina could only see an
outline of her brother’s head from where she sit, and she knew she had to go up
there too, and look at him.
 
This would be
the first time she saw him, not on some picture, but in the flesh, and she wasn’t
sure if she could bear it.
 
But she knew
she had no choice.
 

Dutch
was paying close attention to her.
 
He
saw that body upfront too.
 
And it pained
him to think that because of his actions, this would be the first time she laid
eyes on her baby brother and he would be in a casket, dead.
 
But when she suddenly stood up and, without
warning, began walking toward that casket, Dutch quickly stood up too and
walked behind her, as if he, not Mitchell, was her bodyguard.
 
Mitchell and Addison both were in the church,
but they were on either side of the building, watching, ready to fire if it
came to that.

But
it wasn’t going to come to that.
 
This
crowd loved Dutch and Gina.
 
Except,
perhaps, for one member of the crowd.

Gina
knew she had to acknowledge Brandy first, although her entire focus was on that
casket, but she did stop at the front pew and place
 
her hand on Brandy’s shoulder.
 
Dutch got closer to his wife, in case Brandy
tried anything.

“I
know this is difficult for you, Brandy,” Gina whispered to her.
 
“I’m sorry.”

Brandy
wasn’t interested in making nice with Gina Harber right now.
 
But Gina did arrange it so that her brother’s
five thousand dollars per month trust fund from Dutch could be transferred to
her, which was huge.
 
But she still could
only manage to nod at Gina when she spoke those words, as the tears wouldn’t
stop streaming down her devastated face.

Dutch
wanted to acknowledge Brandy as well, and offer his condolences, but he knew it
would only set the woman off.
 
They did
not respect each other and that was all there was to it.
 
There was enough pain in the building.
 
Dutch wasn’t about to add any more.

He
therefore stayed with Gina as she made her way up to the casket and gazed upon
her brother for the first time.

Brandy
watched them as they stood at her brother’s casket.
 
She had suspected that Gina might come.
 
She was as devastated as Brandy was when she
heard the news.
 
But to have Dutch Harber
show up and desecrate her brother’s memory with his sorry presence, was too
much.
 

But she
held her peace.
 
Even as they stood
beside his casket looking so superior, with Gina in front and Dutch, his hand
on the small of her back as if he was her protector, beside her, she kept it
together.
 
It took all she had, but she
held her peace.

Tears
began to stream down Gina’s face as she looked at the young man she’d never met
before.
 
If he had still been alive she
would have said hi to him, and told him that she was his sister, and that she
would see to it that his hope was not misplaced.
 
But there would be no such conversation.
 
Because his hope was misplaced.
 
Because the life of this handsome young man
never got a chance to blossom.
 
And Gina
couldn’t help it.
 
She began to sob.
 
Dutch handed her his handkerchief, and she
sobbed into it.

He
also placed his arm around her waist as he, too, felt the sting of her
loss.
 
Of her pain.
 
Of his part in her pain.

For
several minutes Gina communed with her brother.
 
Even Brandy was touched by her grief.
 
But Dutch was another story for her.
 
After what he did, after the way he withheld DeAndre from her, Brandy
didn’t understand how Gina could let him so much as touch her.
 
And Brandy was staring daggers at Dutch.
 
Mitchell and Addison both felt her hate.
 
Dutch felt it too, as he knew she was
determined to make certain he registered every decimal of her hate.
 
And the longer he stood in her presence, the
more hate, he knew, she was registering.
 
But Gina was his wife.
 
He didn’t
care how Brandy felt about it, he was staying beside his wife.

But
Gina eventually gave her brother a kiss and then made her way back to their
seats, with Dutch right behind her.
 
The
crowd was applauding them again as they walked to their seats, which made it
worse, not better, for her.
 
She didn’t
deserve any applause.
 
She did nothing
for that young man but dash his hopes.
 
What were they applauding?

Once
they sat down, and the choir stopped singing, the heart of the service
began.
 
Numerous people stood up and
spoke on behalf of DeAndre, giving great homage to his life, and the preacher
preached one of the most uplifting and hopeful sermons Dutch had ever
heard.
 
All about moving on, and living
right, and doing everything in our power to be the examples the good Lord
wanted us to be.

But
something happened between the sermon and the benediction.
 
Suddenly, Brandy, who had been crying
quietly, jumped up from her seat and rushed down the aisle toward Dutch.
 
But just as suddenly, five different men and
women, members of the Secret Service nobody knew was even there, jumped up too
and blocked her progression toward the former president.
 
They restrained her from going any
further.
 
But they couldn’t restrain her
mouth.