President's Girlfriend 06 - The Sins of the Fathers (21 page)

“What if she
doesn’t come back to me?”
 
He looked at
Dutch with pure fright in his big blue eyes.

Dutch hated
that Crader had put himself in this position, but that was the problem: he put
himself
in this position.
 
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Dutch
replied.
 
“When you made the decision to
sleep with Elvelyn you put that possibility on the table.”
 
Dutch frowned, staring at his friend.
 
“You had to know that.”

And of
course Crader now knew it.
 
Sadly, he
knew.
 
And although he didn’t want to do
it, he shook Dutch’s hand, and left.

By the time
Dutch made it back upstairs, LaLa was in the Nursery with her baby and Gina was
standing at the lunette window in the back of the sitting room.
 
When she turned and looked at Dutch, she faltered.
 
He could see it as soon as she looked his
way.
 

He opened
his arms.
 

She ran into
those arms and began to sob.
 

She cried
for her closest, dearest friend.
 

CHAPTER TEN

The next day
was a busy one as Dutch had three national security meetings in a row.
 
By early afternoon he was seated in the Oval
Office, a pile of files on his desk for his final approval, hoping for a break
from the action.
 
But Allison Shearer, his
chief of staff, was standing in front of his desk requesting a presidential
statement.

Dutch wasn’t
interested.
 
“No statement,” he said.

“But, sir,”
Allison pleaded, “the press is having a field day with this.
 
The Vice President’s office hasn’t said
anything constructive, except that they will not discuss the vice president’s private
life with the press.
 
That’s all their
saying.
 
What kind of statement is that?”

“A brilliant
one in my view,” Dutch said.

“But it puts
the pressure back on you, sir.
 
If the
vice president doesn’t come out and say I’m the one who had sex with that woman;
I’m the one who may be the father of her child, then you’re still the prime
suspect.
 
Shouldn’t you at least release
a statement saying that the child is not yours and you haven’t cheated on the
First Lady with this Elvelyn Rosenthal, or anybody else?”

“I’m not
releasing any statements on that matter, Ally.”

“Then
they’ll believe you may very well have been involved with Elvelyn Rosenthal.”

“I don’t
care what they believe,” Dutch said bluntly, glancing at Allison to make sure
she
 
understood
: he
was done with that conversation.
 
Allison
understood it.

“Yes, sir,”
she said.
 
“Is there anything else you
need me to do?”

“Matter of
fact, do me a favor and hand deliver those files, those right there, to the
DCI.”

Allison
didn’t like it, mainly because she knew the press better than anyone.
 
If you left this kind of scandal unanswered
it always came back to bite you.
 
But it
wasn’t as if she could argue with the president.
 
She grabbed the stack of files.
 
“I’ll get these to him right away, sir,” she
said, and left his office.

When the
door closed, and Dutch was once again alone in the Oval, he stood up and walked
over to the elongated window.
 
He
stretched his back and looked across the White House grounds.
 
The Secretary of State was sponsoring
a press
availability with the British Foreign Secretary in
the Rose Garden, and everybody, including the Foreign Secretary, looked
bored.
 

But Dutch
had Crader on his mind.
 
Why would he put
Loretta through this kind of agony, was what he couldn’t work out.
 
It broke his heart last night when she sat in
the Residence blaming herself, as if Crader’s shit was all her doing.

When nothing could be further from the truth.

Dutch used
to be unfaithful to girlfriends in the past, too, but he always made it clear
up front that they were not in a monogamous relationship.
 
And, more importantly, he didn’t give a damn
about those women and they didn’t give a damn about him.
 
They were just as Elvelyn in his past: a
nice, warm body to fuck.
 
Period.
 
But the idea
of him having that kind of attitude about Gina was unfathomable to him.
 
He’d rather slit his own throat than have his
wife and son fleeing his home because of pain he caused them the way Crader
caused Loretta.

And then he
started thinking about Gina.
 
Although what
he did with Elvelyn was twelve years ago, he had yet to tell her the full story
of that shameful Vegas weekend.
 
Mainly because he was embarrassed about it now.
 
Gina was his number one fan.
 
He wondered if what he did with Crader would
be too much even for her.
 
But he knew he
still had to tell her.
 
Max was still the
wild card out there.
 
He could still stir
up trouble with some video or pictures of that Vegas weekend.
 
No way could he allow his wife to find out
about his sordid past through some breaking news report, or some headline in a
tabloid magazine.

He left his
office, headed down the West Wing of the White House, made his way into the
East Wing, and then into the office of the First Lady.

“Is she in,
Gwen?” he asked Gina’s assistant as he headed for the office entrance.

“Yes, sir,
she’s in,” the assistant replied.

Dutch leaned
against the doorjamb and then opened the door.
 
Gina, LaLa and Christian were seated around the conference table.
 
She and Christian were working on the First
Lady’s speech at that upcoming awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center, and LaLa,
from what he could make out, was keeping them company.

“Hello all,”
he said to them.

Gina looked
up, a pair of prescription eyes glasses on her face.
 
“Hi.”

Dutch’s
heart squeezed with love when she looked up at him.
 
“Got a few minutes for the old man?”

Gina
smiled.
 
Began standing
up.
 
“I think I can manage that.”

Dutch
glanced down, at her nice lavender pantsuit and how snugly it fit her, and then
he looked at LaLa.
 
She was smiling, but
he could see the drain all over her.
 

“How are
you, my darling?”

Her arms
were folded.
 
Her body was in what Dutch
considered a closed position.
 
Afraid, undoubtedly, to open up to anyone ever again.
 
“I’m making it work,” she said.

“That’s the
spirit.
 
Keep that attitude and you’ll be
fine.”

“Yes, sir,”
LaLa said as Gina arrived at Dutch’s side.
 
They were within an inch of each other.
 
Dutch leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

“What’s up?”
she asked him.

“Walk with
me?”

Gina smiled
and then they left the office.

Christian
closed the office door behind them, and headed back to the conference table.

“He must
have something juicy to tell her,” he said as he sat back down.

“Why would
you say that?” LaLa asked.
 

“I’ve been
working for the First Lady long enough to know that the only time the president
bothers her in the middle of the day like this is for one of two reasons.
 
Either he wants to take her upstairs to bed,
or he wants to talk to her about something he believes is too crucial to
wait.”
 

LaLa
smiled.
 

“I’m
serious,
La
.
 
Those are the only two reasons. Since he asked her to walk with him this
time, I figure he must have something to tell her.
 
But usually when he comes to get her, he
takes her to bed.”

“Well, I’ll
be,” LaLa said, shaking her head.
 
“You
learn something new about people every day.”

Christian
laughed.
 
“The president is so blessed,”
he said.
 
“If I had a woman like the
First Lady, I’d be one happy man.”

LaLa looked
at Christian.
 
There was a time when he
wanted to date her but she turned him down cold, mainly because of their
ten-year age difference.
 
She was no
cougar, she announced.
 
She, instead, got
blinded by the light of Crader McKenzie.
 
A man who even young Christian had warned was a bad risk as a boyfriend,
not to mention as a husband.
 
Now he’d
cheated on her twice already that she knew of, and this idea that he may be the
father of that baby was just too much.
 

But she
couldn’t think about that now.
 
She’d
fall to pieces again if she thought about that now.
  
“You’ve got to cut Jade some slack, Chris,”
she said to her friend.
 
“She’s young.”

“I
know.
 
But I’m young too.”
 
Young and in need of sex like he never
dreamed he’d be in need of it.
 
“I just
don’t understand her,” he went on.
 
“I just
don’t know where she’s coming from.
 
Like
the way you and I talk and laugh and play around, I can’t do that with
Jade.
 
I irritate her when I touch her.”

“Irritate
her?”

“Yes!
 
We haven’t had . . .
”
 
Christian
began to redden.

But LaLa
didn’t get it.
 
“You haven’t what?”

Christian
swallowed hard.
 
LaLa really was his
closest friend.
 
Other than the
president, she was the only other person he felt he could talk to.
 
“We haven’t had sex in I don’t know how long,
and it’s beginning to bother me.”
 
Christian said this and looked at LaLa.

LaLa was
floored.
 
“You haven’t had sex?
 
Why not?
 
Is there something wrong?”

“No,
nothing, La, I declare there’s nothing like that.”
 
LaLa would have laughed at his defensiveness,
but he looked too distressed.
 
And given her
own situation, she knew what that felt like.

“Have you
spoken with Jade about this, Chris?”

“Like every
night, yeah,” he said.
 
“But it does no
good.
 
She throws the miscarriage in my
face, as if it happened just yesterday.
 
She even starts crying about it.
 
I know it’s tough for her, losing the baby, but it’s tough for me,
too.
 
But I just feel like it’s kind of
fake
the way she only brings up that baby when I bring up
our sex life.”
 
He sighed.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I told the president about it.”

LaLa could
only imagine the burdens Dutch bore.
 
Every one of them
were
always running to him or
Gina with their problems, when he probably had more than enough of his
own.
 
“What did he say?” she asked him.

“You know
how he is.
 
He listens mainly.
 
But he did say he expects me to control my
household.
 
And he had a bunch of
questions about Marcus.”

“How’s that
working out for you?
 
Having Gina’s
brother and your mother-in-law there?
  
I’ll bet that adds to the tension.”

“Not
really.
 
They’re both okay in my book.
 
Sam is a little different, but I like
her.
 
Besides, her stay is only
temporary.
 
The president is helping her
with some financial problems so she’ll be going back to South Carolina
soon.
 
She’ll be reopening her book
store, I think.
 
And Marcus is cool.
 
We get along real well.
 
Other than the president, he’s the only one
Jade will listen to.”

“Well, I’m
glad she listens to somebody,” LaLa said in a voice that sounded doubtful.