For the Love of Gina: The President's Girlfriend (4 page)

“Jade’s
getting out today,” she said to him, deciding, of all the things on his mind,
his daughter’s release from a mental health facility was probably paramount
among them.

Dutch
exhaled.
 
Another ghost in a closet
already filled with too many.
 
“Yes.
 
Jade gets out today.”

“I
had the housekeeping staff prepare the East Room for her.”

The
location of that room wasn’t lost on Dutch.
 
It was the room that was furthest from Little Walt’s.
 
He looked at Gina.
 
“How do you feel about that?
 
About her coming to spend a couple days with
us?”

Gina’s
eyes couldn’t conceal her distress.
 
“She
asked and we said yes, she could come.
 
I
agreed to it.”

“Everybody’s
entitled to change their minds, Gina.
 
How do you feel about it now?”

Gina
had to think about it.
 
Dutch loved her
thoughtfulness.
 
“I’m concerned, to be
honest with you,” she admitted.
 
“The
closer it gets, the scarier it gets for me.”

 
Dutch removed his hand from her hand and
placed his arm around her shoulder.
 

“I
still remember walking into her house in DC,” Gina continued.
 
“I still remember seeing her standing there,
and how she didn’t say a word.
 
She knew
I was walking into a deathtrap, but she didn’t say a word.
 
I can’t get that out of my mind.”

Dutch
squeezed her arm.
 
“I know sweetheart,”
he said.
 
“I know.”

“And
then later, when she told the press I got what I deserved, it was kind of
heartbreaking.
 
I was in the hospital
fighting for my life, and she said I got what I deserved.
 
So I’m gravely concerned.
 
I’m not going to pretend I’m not.
 
I am.
 
But she’s your daughter.
 
And I
want you to have a special relationship with her just like you have with
Walter.”

Then
she exhaled and looked at him.
 
“You
think she’s ready to be released?”

“They
say she’s ready.”

“But
you aren’t sure?”

“No,”
he admitted.
 
“I’ve visited her every
chance I could, and I’ve been impressed with her progress.
 
The psychiatric staff at Hammersmith
certainly are.
 
But . . .”

“But
what, darling?”

“I
want my family together, as one unit.
 
Lord knows I want that.
 
And Jade
is my oldest child.
 
But for you and
Little Walt’s sake, I have to be certain.
 
It may seem cruel to her and her mother, but I have to be certain.”

Gina
leaned against him.
 
She was glad of his
skepticism.
 
She was glad he was the kind
of man who put his wife and child’s welfare above all else.

But
that was also why, when the car stopped in front of BBR’s headquarters
building, Dutch began looking around, as he always did, at the rough
neighborhood.
 
He already had too much
security in place as it was.
 
Between
Mitchell, Gina’s assigned Secret Service agent, and Dutch’s own people, it was
too much.
 
But he allowed her to keep BBR
where it had always been since its inception.
 
The compromise was the security, and she gladly compromised.

She
stuffed her paperwork into her briefcase as Mitchell got out of the car to open
her door.
 
He was a tall white man who
looked like a Ken doll, only always serious as hell, but she knew Dutch had
handpicked him for the assignment.
 
She
didn’t complain about that either.

“I’ll
call you,” she said to her husband as she leaned over and kissed him on the
lips.

He
moved to get out too, to walk her in, but she stopped him.

“No
need, honey,” she said.
 
“You have a plane
to catch and you’re super-late already.
 
I’ll see you when you get back tonight.
 
All right?”

Dutch
pulled her into his arms and held her, closing his eyes tightly as he did.
 
“You take care of yourself,” he said.

“You
take care of yourself,” she said as she held him too.

They
kissed, long and lovingly, and then she got out of the SUV.
 

But
Dutch didn’t allow his drive to move, until she was clean out of his sight.

CHAPTER FOUR

Cindy,
the maid at Hammersmith, rolled her bucket toward the fifth floor elevators to
mop up a spill.
 
Jade, along with three
others, stood at the elevator doors waiting for them to open.
 

Cindy
smiled.
 
“Good morning everybody,” she
said.
 
Everybody spoke.
 
The spill was just pass the elevators.
 
She looked at Jade as she walked pass.
 
“Excited, Miss Jade?” she asked her.

“Very,”
Jade replied, pressing the already lit button again.

“This
is your second time on furlough, ain’t that right?”

Jade
wanted to roll her eyes.
 
“Like no.
 
This will be my first time away from this
place.”

Cindy
smiled.
 
“And you don’t wanna come back,
do you?”

But
Jade, who the entire staff at Hammersmith knew could be so moody and
unpredictable, looked at her.
 
“Of course
I want to come back.
 
Why wouldn’t I?
 
Why would you think otherwise?
 
I love this place.”

Cindy
laughed, knowing Jade had to be kidding, but Jade didn’t so much as crack a
smile.
 
She, instead, waited for the
doors to slide open, and stepped onto the elevator with the others who had been
waiting.
 
When the doors closed, and Jade
was gone, the maid stopped laughing and shook her head.

“Hateful
bitch,” she said in a whisper, as she continued to mop up the spill.

Samantha
Redding, Jade’s mother, stood at the window inside the private waiting room and
let out an exhaustive exhale.
 
The
grounds of Hammersmith were immaculate, with all genus of flowers and plants
and trees and magnificent waterfalls in the center, and the patients walked
around as if they were just taking their ease at some luxurious retreat.
 

But
Sam knew better.
 
No matter how much they
tried to dress this up, and pretend it was nothing more than a “resting place
for the wealthy and well-connected,” she knew it was nothing more than a mental
institution.
 
Her daughter was in a
psychiatric hospital.
 
The daughter she
raised alone and, apparently, raised wrong, was now institutionalized.
 
It had been a long time, but she was still
trying to come to terms with that kind of truth.

The
door was opened by one of the staff members, causing Sam to turn toward the
sound, and Dutch walked in.
 
Sam had
expected to see Dutch.
 
She had expected
to see his tall, gorgeous frame come walking through that door any second.
 
Jade had, after all, requested to spend her
two-day furlough with her father, so he would undoubtedly fly to California to
pick her up.
 
But what she hadn’t
expected was her reaction to seeing Dutch again.
 

When
Jade was carted across the country to this supposedly superior institution, she
and Dutch were on friendly terms.
 
She
had even made her peace with Gina.
 
But
when Dutch went to court to force Jade to remain hospitalized, and all those
months of Sam being alone, with Dutch nor Gina so much as picking up the phone
to see if she was okay, changed her.
 
Now
instead of feeling a sense of warmth toward him when he walked through that
door, she felt a sense of anger.
 
He and
Gina had it all.
 
She and Jade didn’t
have shit.
 
And Sam was beginning to
dislike such a reality intensely.
 

“Hello,
Samantha,” Dutch said with a grand smile as he entered the private waiting room
and headed toward her.

Sam
turned on the charm too, although with far less vigor than Dutch.
 
“Welcome to California,” she said.
 
She had moved there, to be close to her
daughter, and ended up accepting a teaching job at a local junior college.
 
Now, regardless of what Jade did next, she
planned to remain a Californian.

Dutch
kissed her on the cheek as they met and gave her a friendly hug.
 
Sam inwardly cringed when he touched her.

“So
how have you been?” Dutch asked her.
 
She
was a beautiful woman, Dutch thought, with her flawless black skin and still
one of the prettiest faces he’d ever seen.
 
It was that face of hers, in fact, that made him want her so badly when
they were in college all those years ago.
 
Then one night she finally gave in.
 
It was a coupling that led to the birth of Jade.
 
“You’re still looking refreshingly
beautiful,” he added.

He
was staring at her with that assessing way of his she hated, where his frosty
green eyes seemed to be looking right through her.
 
“I’m good,” she said with a smile.
 
“I’m enjoying the job at Barridge College,
which I’m sure you had a hand in helping me to get.
 
I couldn’t be better.”

Dutch
heard her words, but her eyes told a different story.

She
folded her arms, wishing he’d stop that darn staring.
 
“How’s Gina and Walter?” she asked him.

“They’re
doing well, thank-you.
 
Thank-you for
asking.”

“They’re
ready for Jade’s visit?”

“It
would appear,” Dutch said, which seemed like an odd response to Sam.
 
But then the waiting room door opened again
and Jade, along with Dr. Luther Forbes, the head of the hospital, hurried
in.
 
Dutch turned and saw his hazel-eyed
beauty of a daughter, and smiled.

“Daddy!”
Jade yelled and ran into his arms.
 
Dutch
held her tightly.

Sam
felt a rush of jealousy, as Jade did not even acknowledge her presence.
 
She looked at Forbes.
 
“Hello, doctor,” she said.

“Nice
to see you again, Mrs. Redding.
 
I didn’t
expect to see you here.”

“I’m
here to be with my daughter and see her and her father off.”

“Yes,
of course.
 
You have been most
supportive.
 
That’s always wonderful for
the patients.
 
You’ve gone above and
beyond.”

When
Jade and Dutch stopped embracing, Jade quickly kissed him on the lips and held
onto him again, which caused him to flinch.
 
Part of her sickness had been her unhealthy obsession with her father,
and on all of Dutch’s previous visits it appeared as if she was over such
feelings.
 
But now, the way she kissed
him, the way she held him, gave him pause again.
 
As if, to his alarm, she was regressing?
 

He’d
been assured by the Hammersmith staff countless times that she was fine, and no
longer had such an obsession.
 
And he
knew it could be the excitement of getting out for a couple of days that was
driving her affection.
 
But he took no
chances.
 
He gently removed her arms from
around his waist.
 
“Your mother’s here
too,” he said.
 
“I’m sure she wants some
of that love herself.”

“But
I see Mom all the time,” Jade rebelled.
 
Dutch could see the disappointment in her eyes after he released
her.
 
“She’s always here.
 
All the time.”

Sam
smiled, although she was aching inside.
 
“You make me sound like a worn out old shoe.
 
Hello, daughter.”

Jade
realized her error and immediately put on an unnaturally grand smile and ran
into her mother’s arms.
 
“Oh, mom, you
know I love seeing you each and every time!”

Sam
returned her embrace.
 
Dutch was staring
at both of them.

Luther
Forbes went over to Dutch and extended his hand.
 
“Mr. President,” he asked, “how are you?”

“I’m very
well, doctor, thank-you,” Dutch said, shaking his hand.
 
“I see you’ve been taking very good care of
my daughter.”

Before
Forbes could speak, Jade stopped hugging her mother as if she was casting her
aside.
 
“Wonderful care,” she said,
chiming in.
 
She understood the
importance of getting this right.
 
“I am
so grateful to you, Daddy, for putting me in a facility like this.
 
The staff have been, what can I say?
 
The best.
 
Nothing but the best.”

Dutch
considered her.
 
“You feel ready then?”

“Totally.
 
I couldn’t be more ready.
 
And to be going home with you?
 
That makes it all the more great for me.”

Dutch
looked at Forbes.
 
“Is it arranged?”

“Yes,
sir.
 
He’s on his way as we speak.”

Jade
looked at her father.
 
This had to go off
without a hitch.
 
She had to be so
perfect that he wouldn’t see a need for her to even come back to this awful
place.
 
“Who’s on his way?” she asked
him.

“Dr.
Golan,” Forbes answered her.
 
“Your
father has requested a meeting with the psychiatrist in charge of your care.”

Jade’s
heart pounded against her chest.
 
“But
why?”

Dutch
didn’t answer her.
 
Realizing her error
again, she quickly changed the subject.
 
“I’m just so anxious to be with my father and his family that I don’t
want anything to delay us,” she said to Forbes.
 
“But I’ve waited this long to get out.
 
I’m sure I can wait a little longer.”

Forbes
smiled.
 
“That’s the spirit.”
 
Then he offered seats.
 
Have a seat everyone, please,” he said.
 
And they all settled down on the sofa and
chairs in the room.

Dutch
sat beside Sam, and Jade sat beside Dutch.

Reyza
Golan’s heart was pounding when he finally walked into the waiting room.
 
To see the former President of the United
States sitting there, along with the woman who pleasured him almost every day
over the last month, made him terrified of what this meeting was about.
 
Had she told on him?
 
Did she claim he initiated the behavior all
those times?
 
Or was she claiming that he
manipulated her?
 
Or, even worse,
forced
her?
 
His heart could not stop hammering.

“You
wanted to see me, Dr. Forbes?”

“Yes,
Reyza,” Forbes said, rising to his feet, “come on in, please.”

Dutch
stood up also as Reyza walked over.

“You
know the president?” Forbes asked rhetorically.

“Yes,
of course,” Reyza said, extending his hand.
 
“So nice to see you again, sir.”

Jade
knew they met every time Dutch visited her, but it was still jarring to hear
them acknowledge it.

“Have
a seat, Reyza.”
 
Forbes offered his own
chair as Reyza sat down and Dutch followed suit.

“The
president would like to get a final report on his daughter’s progress,” Forbes
said, as he continued to stand, “before they leave for New Jersey.”

“A
report?
 
Yes, of course,” Reyza said,
inwardly relieved.
 
“Well, sir, I can
only give an excellent report actually.”

“Excellent?”
Dutch asked.

“Excellent,”
Reyza said to Jade’s delight.
 
“She has
met all of her challenges head-on and, I dare say, she’s conquered them all.”

Reyza
continued talking and did as he knew he must and painted a superior picture of
Jade Redding-Harber.
 
He went on and on.
 
Dutch sat back and listened.
 
Jade was “cured,” let the doctor tell it, as
he had not a false word to say about her.
 
His presentation was flawless.
 
Jade was described as the perfect young lady.
 

Too
perfect for Dutch.

Dutch
stood up.
 
“Thank-you, Doctor, that’ll be
all,” he said abruptly.

Reyza,
shocked by the fact that the president had just cut him off, stood up too.
 
“Sir?”

“That’ll
be all.
 
Thank-you.”