Of course Gina knew he wasn’t as bold as that, but the end result was the same: he didn’t want LaLa anymore. And that, Gina thought as she looked at her friend, was what hurt LaLa the most. The fact that he was so over her, so easily out of love after nearly a decade of love. Or at least what LaLa thought was love. Gina thought it was love too, until she moved the two of them to Washington and they both got a taste of life on the biggest stage of all. Women wanted to be close to that power and in Demps they saw a way to get there. Men saw it too, and tried to get next to LaLa. But LaLa wasn’t thinking about those brothers. Gina could see that Demps, however, loved the attention of those grand, supermodel-type women who, before his appointment as her deputy press secretary, wouldn’t have given a man like him the time of day, and he wasn’t so easily dismissive.
“You could have taken the day off, La,” she said to her friend.
“I told her,” Christian said.
“I know, but I prefer to work. Besides, we have a victory. It’s a rare thing nowadays. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Dutch squeezed Gina’s hand. He had been betting on Loretta and Dempsey, was certain they would go the distance. But they get to Washington and start falling apart. The cracks had to have already been there, he knew something like that didn’t just happen, but if they would have stayed in Newark perhaps those cracks would have had a chance to mend.
“He called me,” Gina said, and LaLa looked at her. And that hopefulness in LaLa’s eyes, as if she wanted his conversation to have been all about his love for her, broke Gina’s heart.
“What did he want?” LaLa asked her.
“Reassurance from me that his job as my deputy press secretary was safe.”
“That asshole!” Christian said, and then, when everybody looked at him in surprise, caught himself. “Excuse me, ma’am, and Mr. President, and excuse me, LaLa.” They all, even LaLa, laughed. “But the nerve of him. He didn’t ask about LaLa, or talk about their relationship, he just wanted to know about his job? He doesn’t deserve you, La. I’m sorry but he doesn’t.”
“No man does if we left it up to you, Chris,” Dutch said and Gina looked at him. Then back at Christian. She suspected that he might have some kind of innocent crush on LaLa, but dang. She had no idea he had discussed that crush with Dutch.
“But anyway,” Gina said, “that’s all he wanted to discuss, girl. Keeping his job and nothing else.” She wanted LaLa to bury any illusions she still had about Demps coming around. He may come around, but she didn’t want her friend banking on it.
“So what did you tell him?” LaLa asked.
“What you think? I told him he was fired.” LaLa smiled. “Nobody’s breaking my best friend’s heart and I welcome him back with open arms. I mean, come on. He was my deputy press-sec. He gets hired and keeps his job at the pleasure of the First Lady. I told him I no longer have pleasure in keeping him around. And he actually was surprised by that, got all hot with me. You should have heard him. I told him no need to be getting upset with me. He’s the one who messed up. He’s the one who decided to break your heart. What did he expect me to do? Working in the White House isn’t like working in any ordinary business. I have to have people around me I can trust. How can I trust him if even the woman he had purported to love can’t? I mean honestly?” Then Gina shook her head. “He has really changed.”
“He hadn’t changed all that much,” LaLa said and both Dutch and Gina looked at him.
“You mean you’ve had trouble like this before?”
LaLa nodded with a frown.
Gina could hardly believe it. “Why didn’t you tell me, La? I told you everything.” She glanced at Dutch. “Almost everything.”
“I know, but I didn’t want you or anybody else to get the wrong impression of Demps. I mean, yeah, I’ve had my suspicions in the past, but he would deny it all so I believed him. Or at least I wanted to believe him. But when he got to Washington and got a look at some of the most desirable women in the world, and these women were paying attention to him, he just took it to a whole different level. Great looking men were doing me the same way, so I can relate. But what Demps didn’t seem to understand was that those women and those men weren’t seeing us, they were seeing our proximity to power; they were seeing our positions. But he just knew it was him. When I found out he had taken one of those desirable women with him on his trip back home, I just flipped and had to see it for myself. And then, when I got there, and saw this woman in his apartment, saw this woman all hugged up with him, he treated me like I was the intruder. Not the other woman, but me.” Tears tried to well in LaLa’s eyes, but she forced them to stay at bay. “It just hurts, you know?”
Christian immediately slid closer to her, and put his arm around her. “You’ll weather this storm too, LaLa,” he said.
“And then he called me,” Dutch said and all three looked at him.
“What did he say?” LaLa asked, that hopeful look returning to her eyes.
“He wanted to know if I would intervene on his behalf to get his job back.” LaLa deflated again. “I told him,” Dutch continued, “that whatever my wife had already relayed to him, he should go with that.”
LaLa smiled. “Oh, I’ll bet he loved that.”
“No more than he deserves,” Dutch said and they all laughed, although Gina could still see that hurt in her friend’s eyes.
Then the limo crawled to a stop, the doors were opened by the secret service, and Dutch and Gina stepped out to the roar of the crowd.
“It’s show time,” Dutch said, buttoning his suit coat. “Let’s smile like the circus acts they take us for, and lay it on thick.”
Gina smiled, but more at Dutch’s joke than the roaring crowds. She knew all about those roaring crowds. Because Dutch had it right. Today he was their conquering hero. Tomorrow their goat.
Dutch pressed his hand into the small of her back and ushered her to their, at least for right now, adoring public.
Christian pressed his hand into the small of LaLa’s back, which immediately released that lonely, depressing feeling, as they followed much further behind.
***
It was a calm morning and Victoria Harber decided to sit lakeside on her estate. The fact that Roman Wilkes, famed criminal defense attorney and the man Max had told her was an ex-lover of the First Lady’s, was her guest that morning had everything to do with her decision. She was no outdoors type. She rarely walked the grounds of her own estate. But she wanted him to understand that she was no nouveau riche who, like him, had to continue working to keep the money growing. It had already grown. She was already there.
Roman looked at the briefcase on his lap that was filled with half a million dollars. Then he looked at her, still astounded that he was actually making this kind of transaction with the mother of the President of the United States.
“No-one knows?” he asked this, staring as if studying her. She had the coldest eyes he’d ever seen.
“No-one,” she assured him. “You get that five hundred thousand now, and then another five hundred thousand when the photos appear.”
Roman looked at the money again. He would have to take on a lot of cases, over long stretches of time, to earn this much dough. “This is a lot of money,” he said.
“I’m aware of that,” Victoria said.
“A lot of money to throw away.”
“If you produce the kind of photos I am talking about, it won’t be thrown anywhere. It will, in fact, be the best investment I could have ever made.”
Roman studied her. “You really hate the First Lady that much?”
“I don’t hate her at all. I don’t know her to hate her. My son has seen to that. But you’re a smart man, Mr. Wilkes. That’s why my people gave you a call. It’s my understanding that you know how to handle jobs and keep it all very discreet. This isn’t about my love, or hate, or more likely, indifference towards the First La . . ., towards that woman. It is, however, about creating an image around that woman.”
“Yes, and my son,” Victoria admitted.
Roman exhaled. “So you want me to photograph myself hugging and kissing the First Lady?”
“Exactly,” Victoria said.
“And how do you propose I do such a thing?”
“She’s given you White House clearance as her personal attorney.”
“Now how would you know about such a confidential matter?”
“I know everything that goes on in that house of ill repute.”
Roman smiled. “House of Ill-repute? Is that what the White House is nowadays?”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
Roman stared at her. “Now I know you, Mrs. Harber. I’ve heard nothing but glowing testimonies about your charitable work on behalf of the poor and downtrodden. So I just know this characterization of yours has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a sister is currently occupying that White House. Nothing whatsoever.”
“Nothing whatsoever,” Victoria repeated, her eyes revealing nothing.
Roman smiled. “I’ll get your photographs,” he said.
“And then get them published, remember that.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t want you simply hugging her,” Victoria warned. “That won’t be enough for that second payment. I need you kissing her on those big lips of hers.” Roman looked at her. “I need her perhaps on your lap or something.”
“I can hug her. Can even get away with an innocent, chaste kiss that those photos, in the hands of some malicious journalist, just might interpret as anything but chaste and innocent. But the lap thing ain’t gonna happen. Not with Regina Lansing. She’s doesn’t roll like that.”
“Well,” Victoria said, finding the entire situation deplorable, “I don’t care how she rolls.” Roman laughed. “I just want those photos published. And when the public, a public, I might add, that generally detests her anyway, finds that she’s been less than this stellar woman my son is just so certain she is, your work will have been done. And you’ll get your second payment. But those photos had better be convincing.”
“No problem,” Roman said, relishing this infusion of cash. “I never turn down an opportunity to earn real money.”
“She’s not a bad looking woman,” Victoria said with a deceptive smile. “You’re a ladies man, it’s obvious. You’ll probably enjoy yourself.”
“No doubt,” Roman said, now looking at her. “And you’re right, she is a good looking woman. But even so,” he added, “she’s got nothing on you.”
Victoria found herself blushing. Why the ideal of it! Him flirting with her? Absurd! She looked at the peaceful lake, opting to ignore his flirtation.
Roman smiled and looked back down at that money. Half a mil on his lap.
As he looked at his ill-gotten gain, however, Victoria took another look at him. And at his big, black, rock solid she was certain, muscular body.
SEVENTEEN
The weeks came and went and the State Dinner in honor of the president of Russia was going right along without a hitch. Gina was already being praised in the press for her gown choice, Dutch was still riding high in the polls because of the hostage rescue, and the White House State Room was abuzz with energy and that relaxed happiness Dutch and Gina had rarely enjoyed. All, it seemed to Gina, was right with the world.
Which probably meant, she also knew, that something was up.
It wasn’t a reality, however, until later that night. Dutch was laughing with the Russian president about something the German Chancellor had said, when Max walked across the room and whispered something in the president’s ear. Gina was seated further away, listening to the First Lady of France go on and on about her former modeling career, when Dutch excused himself, stood and left the room. For some reason, Gina’s heart began to pound. She searched out LaLa and Christian. When Christian saw her, he leaned over to LaLa.
“It’s the beauty of the thing,” he said, which was the code to be used when the First Lady needed an exit strategy.
LaLa immediately rose, whispered the same line in Gina’s ear, and Gina excused herself and also left the room.
“Where is he?” she asked Allison, who was standing in the Cross Hall. “The Oval?”
“Max’s office,” Allison said, and Gina headed in that direction.
When she entered the room, she saw Max on one side of the president and the White House Counsel on the other side of him. The two men flanking Dutch had such a defensive stance that it almost looked to Gina as if Dutch was under some sort of attack and they were his bodyguards. Also in the room were the Attorney General and the president’s National Security Advisor. They were all staring at the television. Gina looked too.
It was, as it usually was when bad news was about to break, a press conference. Victoria Harber was at the podium, surrounded by Jennifer Caswell, Caroline Parker, and Kate Marris. Kate Marris, Gina thought. They dragged her out too? She was one of the president’s ex’s who had accused him of impregnating her, only to suffer a miscarriage. Now she was standing on the stage too. And the only thing she seemed to have in common with the other three females behind Victoria was that she, too, was once Dutch’s woman.
But that wasn’t the real surprise. The real surprise wasn’t their joint appearance, but what was said during their appearance.
Dutch, all three ladies were now claiming, raped them.
The reporters, and rightly so, at first seemed skeptical. Especially since one of the women, Jennifer Caswell, had recently withdrawn her accusation of rape. But she had a ready answer for their skepticism.
“The White House pressured me into recanting,” she said, “with threats of exposing my husband’s business problems. As some of you may know, it’s no secret that a few of Ralph’s competitors used to accuse him of being involved in unsavory practices. Some have accused him of earning his billions because of those practices. I know it’s not true, but the White House had guaranteed that the Feds would find that it was true and that his good name would be forever sullied. And every dime of his money could be seized.”
“What nonsense!” the Attorney General bellowed.
“I felt such pressure,” Jennifer continued. “I didn’t want his name sullied.”
“Nor his billions seized,” Max pointed out.
“But what was a girl to do?” Jennifer asked as if she was some blonde air-head rather than the tough, smart, force of nature she truly was.
And the reporters pointed out the nonsensicalness of her allegations. And then Kate stepped up, declaring that Dutch used to force himself on her “on numerous occasions.” When a reporter, rightly, pointed out that she never mentioned it before, even when she was accusing him, during her pregnancy, of being a deadbeat dad, she, too, had her answer ready.
“I loved him so much,” she declared, “that I couldn’t hurt him that way. I thought that he would come to his senses and come back to me. Then after he married that woman, who I still believe is out to destroy and divide this country, I was so distraught I couldn’t even think straight. But when I saw Jennifer on television telling her story, and then being forced to recant it, I knew I had to eventually come forward too.”
“What a load of bullocks!” the White House Counsel said. “You raped her on numerous occasions, yet she wanted you back? If you don’t sue the pants off of these bimbos, Mr. President, I will,” he declared.
Then it was Caroline’s time to stand at the podium. Dutch’s heart began to hammer when she stood there. Gina looked at him. Of all the women on that stage, she knew that he once really loved Caroline.
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