President's Girlfriend 07 - What He Did for Love (22 page)

But LaLa refused to break down.  She was tired of crying over Crader’s foolishness.  She was tired of the surprises and the skeletons jumping out of closets, she was damn tired of it.  That was why she didn’t buckle.  That was why she stared at him with a look that could melt steel.  She, in a very emotional way, had had it.

“How many more?” she asked him.

“How many more?  What do you mean by that?”

LaLa’s anger rose.  “How many more women have you fucked, Crader?  You know what I mean by that!”

Crader stared at her.  He deserved it.  He knew he did.  “No more.  There’s no-one else.”

“That you can remember today,” LaLa added.

“Okay.  I deserved that.  But I’m telling you, La, it was over long ago.  When I came clean and said I would never cheat on you again, I haven’t cheated on you again.  You have to believe me.”

But LaLa couldn’t get there yet.  She was shaking her head.  “You should have mentioned her, Crader.  You should have told me.  Now they’re going to put it in the newspaper?  Now I have to be subjected to more humiliation?”

Crader ran his hand through his hair.  “I’m so sorry, La.  I didn’t think about Shannon until I got that call from that reporter.”

“And to hire her as your new chief of staff.  Why did you put her on your staff?”

“I told you I forgot about our past.  At least the sleeping together part.  It never even crossed my mind.”

“I find that very hard to believe, Crader.  No, I take that back.  I don’t find that hard to believe at all.  I find it impossible to believe!”

“But it’s true,” Crader said earnestly.  He knew it bode badly for him, that he had slept with so many women in his life that he couldn’t even remember which one was which, but he felt it was better than the truth of the matter.  Because, in truth, he had hired her when he knew they had had a night together.  “I wouldn’t lie to you, La,” he decided to say.

LaLa wanted to laugh at that.  But it hurt too bad for laughter.

“Goodbye, Crader,” she said and was about to turn to leave.

“You need time to think, I respect that, La.  I’ll give you some time.  Maybe you can stay here at the White House tonight, if you need that kind of space.  I’m sure Dutch wouldn’t mind.” 

Crader thought about Dutch and how tired he must be with Crader’s bullshit, too.  And how displeased he was going to be.  He exhaled.  “I’ll take care of Nicole tonight.  I’ll take care of our daughter.  But, LaLa, please understand---”

“Don’t tell me what to understand,” LaLa said firmly.  “You don’t get to do that.  You don’t get to fuck up, over and over again, and then try to tell me what I need to understand about your latest fuck up.  Because I don’t understand any of it, Cray.  When I did the wrong thing and had sex with Christian, I told you I had faltered.”

You failed to mention who you faltered with,
Crader wanted to remind her.  But he didn’t.  He deserved her wrath and more.

He tried his lie again.  He was no Dutch Harber.  He was no saint.  “I would have told you about Shannon if I would have remembered it,” he said.  “It wasn’t like we met somewhere and went to bed together.  If I remember it correctly, we were in some office and did a quickie right there, or something like that.  It was nothing, La.”

LaLa stared at him.  “It was nothing?  You put your penis up some female’s ass while you were engaged to marry me, but it was nothing?  And then to hire that same woman to work in the White House, and you call that nothing?”

“I wouldn’t have hired her if I would have remembered that episode, La.  I wouldn’t have hired her!”

LaLa didn’t want to hear this.  Not another one of his lies or convenient amnesia.  She knew Crader was a mess, but damn, damn, damn.  Even his mess was messy!

“I’ll see you in the morning, Crader,” she said.  “I need to think.  I need to . . . Kiss Nicole for me.”

Crader nodded.  “Okay,” he said.  “You’re right.  And you think about it, La.  But please remember how much I love you.  Please remember that part.”  On this point, Crader was sincere.  He loved his wife dearly.  If he could stop messing up, he knew he could be the perfect  husband and father.  He thought he was on his way.  Then somebody leaked his past, once again, to the press, and now he was on the hot seat again.  He was on the verge of losing his beloved wife again.

He hated himself right now.

When LaLa didn’t respond, he got the full message.  She wasn’t buying what he was selling.  “I’ll wrap things up here and go on home,” he said.  “I’ll take care of our daughter, while you take care of yourself, La.  And I’ll see you in the morning.”

LaLa said nothing.  She just left.

LaLa’s heart felt as if it was on fire after she left.  When she first married him, she thought she was one of the luckiest women on the face of this earth.  She thought she was marrying a fantastic, loving, kind man.  The love of her life.  She thought she had finally found somebody who loved her deeply and unconditionally. 

Now, tonight, she wasn’t sure who she had married.  How could he have forgotten that he slept with a woman that he later hired as his chief of staff?  She was no random female he had slept with.  They knew each other for years! 

And then she thought about the good Crader, and how much care and devotion he gave to her and to their child.  And maybe, just maybe. . . But then she shook her head.  No!  She wasn’t sugarcoating it this time.  She wasn’t pretending it was something it was not.  Crader knew he had slept with Shannon Corcoran, but he wanted her around.  Yes, Shannon was a good choice to be his chief of staff, and LaLa was sure some of that was the reason he had hired her.  But another reason, LaLa was beginning to believe, was that she also happened to be very attractive to look at.  So he conveniently forgot to mention that small fact to LaLa when he was telling her about his new chief of staff.  That was the truth of it, LaLa felt.  She was never going to be so blinded by love that she made herself blind too.

That was why, as soon as the surge of self-pity and anguish and pain began to bubble up inside of her, she made up her mind.  She wasn’t going to allow it to fester.  She wasn’t going down that road of pain ever again!  She left the West Wing.  She had to talk to somebody.  Somebody she knew would understand.

She needed Dutch and Gina.

She took the elevator to the third floor and made her way to the Residence.  The usher at the door opened it for her.  The president had given her and Crader carte blanche inside the Residence.  They were the only people, outside of the First Family, with the privilege to come and go as they pleased.

LaLa knew Gina had already left town, but Dutch was still around.  “Is the president in?” she asked the young man.

“No ma’am.  And the First Lady has left for Newark.”

“Yes, I know.  I was hoping I could talk. . . Thank-you, John, that’ll be all,” she said and entered the Residence.  She needed time alone and this was as good a place as any.  She closed the door behind her.

It was almost midnight by the time Dutch made it home.  He looked in on Little Walt and his Nanny, both of whom were fast asleep, and then he made his way down the corridor to the presidential suite. 

But he heard the shower running in the guest room across the hall.  Since he knew he had no guest, he went up to the door and knocked.  When no one answered, he entered the room. Was Gina back already?  But then why would she be in the guest bathroom, he thought.

“Hello?” he asked as the shower continued to roar.

Then he heard the sounds.  At first the water was drowning it out, but then the crying was more apparent.

And all Dutch could think about was Gina, and the fact that she was in that guest room to hide her tears.

He hurried to the bathroom.  The crying was now uncontrollably loud.

“Gina?” he asked and hurried to the stall.  “Gina?”

Without hesitating, he pulled open the stall.  No one was standing there.  But LaLa, in the back corner of the stall, was seated on the floor naked, soaking wet, and crying her eyes out.

Dutch’s heart rammed against his chest.  He immediately turned off the water tap and hurried into the stall.  He lifted her into his arms, and she sobbed in his arms.  He desperately wanted to know what had happened, but she was too inconsolable for him to even ask.

He, instead, just held her.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In Newark, at the Harber estate, Gina stretched her tired body and yawned.  She and Roman had been at it all afternoon, going over every aspect of BBR’s success and areas in need of improvement, and both of them were well exhausted. 

They sat side by side at the conference table inside Gina’s home office, and documents covered the tabletop.  Roman looked at Gina.  She still remained his shining example of the woman of his dreams.

“You know what you need?” he said with that sly, but infinitely charming smile.  “You need a massage.”

Gina smiled too.  “Oh, really now?”

“I’m not kidding, G.”

“Oh yes you are if you think you’ll be giving me any massage.”

“I give great massages!  What’s wrong with me giving you one?”

“Let me see,” Gina said.  “Walter Harber, my husband, may just have a little problem with that.”

Roman laughed.  “You think?”

“I think, yes.”

Roman threw up his hands.  “Can’t fault a brother for trying.”

Gina pushed his arm playfully with her hand.  “Back to work, brother,” she said.

Roman nodded.  He was actually pleased she wasn’t so easily lead.  When that right time came, and Dutch Harber no longer had his hooks in her, he wanted to be able to trust her.  He had to be able to know that she could be alone with a good looking man and not end up in bed with him.  And she proved his trust once again tonight.  That was why, he thought with great pride, she remained his very definition of perfection. 

“Back to work,” he agreed.

And they got back to work.

But it wasn’t thirty minutes later before Roman was finding Gina far too attractive not to give it yet another whirl.

They had taken a ten minute break.  During the tail end of the break, he walked over to the stereo system, pulled out a CD, and smiled.

“What’s that?” Gina asked as she sat back down at the conference table.  She had returned with a bottled water.

“You’ll see,” he said.  And just as he said it, Marvin Gaye singing
Distant Lover
blared on the stereo system, and even Gina had to smile.

“I know that would do it!” Roman said with a clap and a laugh.  “Remember that, Gina?  Remember that?”

Gina nodded her head.  She remembered.

“That’s our song,” he said, slow dragging with an imaginary partner.  “We used to dance all night to that song.”

Gina leaned back, her arms folded.  “It does take you back, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” Roman said, and then decided to go in for the kill.  “Come on, girl,” he said, hurrying up to her and pulling her up by the hands.

“Roman!” Gina shouted as he grabbed her.  “We still have work to do!”

“We can take a break!”

“We just took a break.”

“No, now, G, don’t play the prude on me.  I want you to show me what you’ve got.  You used to dance any female under any table.  Show me what you’ve got!”

Then he pulled her into his muscular arms.  And that song, and his closeness, and the memories of a time they would never have again, made her feel heady.  And she found herself in a dance with Roman Wilkes.  She allowed him to lead her around the room in a sweet slow drag. 

But it didn’t feel soothing.  It didn’t feel comforting.  It felt strange.  No man touched her like this, or held her this close, but Dutch.  Roman was a good man, and her friend, but he was not Dutch.  She pulled away from him.

“Gina, please,” Roman said, feeling a lustfulness toward her deep within his loins.

“No, Roman.”

“Gina!  It’s just a dance.”

Gina looked him in the eye.  “I know what it is,” she said.  “And I said no.  Now turn it off and let’s get back to work.”

Roman was truly offended this time.  He wanted to be able to trust her, but he also needed to be with her tonight.  And he was almost there.  He felt that he had been so close!  He felt that he could have had her in bed this very night if she would not have thought too hard.  She should have just went with it. 

But he knew he had to be patient.  He loved Gina for years now and had been able to keep his feelings in check.  Time was still his ally.  He couldn’t strike out forever.  He therefore turned off the music, and got back to work. 

LaLa was lying under the covers in the guest bedroom, and Dutch was sitting in a chair beside the bed.  He was leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, as he calmly listened to her tell him exactly what happened.  She was in an awful state when Dutch first found her in the shower stall, but now she was clear-eyed.

“He thinks I’m overreacting,” she said.

“Why would he think that?”

“Because it happened before we got married, and I knew he had a problem with being faithful back then.  But what hurt me most was that he didn’t mention her.”

“And he lied about it when he did.”

LaLa looked at him.  “You believe he lied?”

“Of course he lied, Loretta.  I know Shannon Corcoran.  If you fucked her before, you’ll remember it.  I’m sorry, but you would.”

He spoke as if he had experience with Miss Corcoran himself.  But LaLa didn’t go there.  “That’s why it hurts,” she said.  “I don’t see how I can ever trust him again.”

LaLa waited for Dutch to defend Crader.  He always defended Crader.  But not this time.

She looked at Dutch.  “Did you know he slept with Shannon before?”

“I did not,” Dutch said.

“What would you do?  If it was you, and you slept with some woman while you were engaged to Gina, would you have hired her on your staff?”

Dutch didn’t have to think about that.  “No.”

“Then why did Crader do it?”  LaLa sounded frustrated.  “I know there are other females on the White House staff that he might have been intimate with before.  But he had been with them before he ever knew me, and they were working here before he hooked up with me.  I understand that situation.  I knew when I married a man like Crader that there would be situations where I would be around some of his previous hook ups.  But Shannon’s different.  He slept with her while he was engaged to me and he hired her after he was married to me.  Am I being unreasonable, Dutch?  Is it wrong for me to feel like Crader still doesn’t get it?”