And although he was already nearing the time for his meeting to begin, he stepped out onto the terrace of the presidential suite anyway, hoping to get a glimpse of that woman of his.
And there she was. Out in the privacy-fenced off area of the White House lawn designated as Little Walt’s play area. She and Little Walt were raucously playing catch football, with their staff of nannies, led by the head nanny, looking on. But just seeing his wife and his child warmed his heart. He even forgot about his meeting and took a seat on the terrace. He crossed his legs and eagerly watched them at play.
Gina would throw a child-sized football to Little Walt and Little Walt would attempt to catch it. He, of course, would miss it every single time, but then he would pick it up and attempt to throw it back to his mother. The boy was smart for his age, but he wasn’t exactly athletic. His aim would miss the mark badly every time. But Gina, in her cute pink warm-up suit, her short hair in a gorgeous free-flow, would jump up and down and applaud his effort and make him feel like the most beloved child in the world.
And Dutch sat there staring at her. She was such a special person to him, a woman with a heart of gold. She was strong, and opinionated, and sometimes angered him in ways very few others ever could. A weak man couldn’t be her man. She’d run all over a weakling. And although many people were certain that Dutch had Gina well in hand and that there was no way she could ever run over him, he knew better. He knew, unlike anyone else knew, that Gina was his weakness. His strength, which was legendary to every world leader on the face of this planet, was mush when it came to Gina.
And then it happened. Little Walt actually caught one of Gina’s passes. Forget that she was practically standing toe to toe with him when he caught it, the fact that he caught it was definitely cause for celebration. And Gina was celebrating, jumping up and down again and giving Little Walt a high five that knocked him on his rump. Dutch laughed so loud that Gina somehow heard it and looked up. When she saw that Dutch was sitting there, she pointed to him.
“Look, Daddy’s here,” she said to Little Walt, who was asleep when Dutch arrived home early this morning. Little Walt saw his daddy waving at him on the terrace and he took off, with football in hand, running like a pint-sized sumo wrestler. Gina, laughing herself now, took off behind him. The nannies took off behind them.
Little Walt held the rail, but was able to waddle his way up the side stairs that led to the second-floor terrace. Gina was right behind him, in case he slipped, but allowed him to make the journey all by himself.
When he made it onto the terrace, he dropped that football and took off toward his father, his little arms outstretched. Gina took note how Dutch, thrilled to see him too, remained in his seat with his arms outstretched. Any other time and Dutch would have been out of that chair and would have run to hug his son. He didn’t this time, Gina suspected, because he didn’t have the energy to do it.
But he did lift Walt into his arms as soon as he made his way to his chair.
“Daddy!” Walt said as Dutch lifted him up. Dutch had his eyes closed as he felt the bones of his son, inhaled the sweet smell of his son.
“I missed you,” he said as he looked at Walt, at his thick brown hair, at his stunningly adorable green eyes.
“Me and Mommy miss you too.”
“Bet I miss you more.”
“We miss you a lot. Mommy says you were in hell.”
Gina laughed. “Hel-sin-ki, Walter. Not hell. Helsinki.”
“Which amounted to the same thing,” Dutch said, considering the zero results those three intense days of talks netted. He looked at Gina. Gina was leaned against the rail staring at him.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“I’m sure the papers this morning are ravaging the summit and my lack of influence there.”
“They are,” Gina admitted, “but who cares? Are you okay?”
Dutch smiled, the lines of age appearing on the side of his eyes. Only Gina bothered to ask. “I’m okay,” he said.
Then, coming up the side stairs, was Allison, Dutch’s former press secretary and new chief of staff. “Good morning, Mrs. Harber, Mr. President.”
“Good morning, Ally,” Gina said.
“Good morning,” Walt said.
Allison smiled, bent slightly down. “And good morning to you, too, Mr. Harber. How are you this morning?”
“Fine,” Walt said.
Then she looked again at the president. “Your cabinet has assembled in the Situation Room, sir,” she said.
Gina saw a look of drain appear in Dutch’s eyes. “Thank-you, Ally,” he said and then patted Walt on the hip. “Up, you,” he said. “Daddy has work to do.”
“Daddy working?” Walt asked as Gina lifted him off of Dutch and held him in her arms.
“Yes, babe,” Gina said. “Daddy’s working.”
“Daddy always working,” Walt said. And although it was cute and funny and Allison grinned, neither Dutch nor Gina cracked a smile. It was one of the worse aspects of their life in this DC fishbowl. It was hardly funny to them.
Dutch reached over, kissed Walt on the forehead, and kissed Gina on the lips. “You two stay out of trouble,” he said, and then proceeded to leave the terrace. Allison proceeded to follow him, but Gina stopped her. “Could I see you for a moment, Ally?” she asked as Dutch kept going.
“Of course,” Allison said. She knew she was chief of staff today because Gina had fought for her promotion. She, in truth, felt just as much loyalty to Gina as she did to Dutch.
Gina motioned to the head Nanny, who immediately began to come. “Go with Nanny, Walter,” she said to her son. “Mommy has to go to work, too.”
“Mommy working?” Walt said as the Nanny took him from Gina.
“That’s right,” Gina said.
“Mommy not always working,” Walt said and Gina and Allison laughed.
“That’s exactly right, too,” Gina said.
When the nannies and Walt left the terrace, Gina invited Allison to a sit down. After they both sat down, Gina didn’t waste any time.
“I want you to clear the president’s schedule for the remainder of the day,” she said.
This request threw Allison. The First Lady had never interfered this way before. “Clear his schedule?”
“Clear his schedule. I can’t just sit by and let this happen. He’s dead on his feet, Ally, couldn’t you tell that?”
She could. “I understand, ma’am, but he has ten more meetings today alone. And I’m talking meetings with a lot of foreign dignitaries.”
“I understand that. Every day when he’s in town he has tons of meetings with all kinds of people, I get it. But I saw that look of drain in his eyes, Ally. He can’t keep going like this, I don’t care who he has to meet.” Gina then stood up, which prompted Allison to stand, too. “Clear his schedule,” she said again. “Y’all aren’t killing my husband.”
Allison had never seen Gina so determined. And she suddenly realized if Dutch was her man she’d feel the same way. Ten meetings in one day practically every day of the week was ridiculous anyway. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Consider his schedule cleared.”
Gina smiled. She knew she could count on Ally. And then she left the terrace, determined to plan just the right getaway for Dutch.
CHAPTER FIVE
Marcus Rance sat on the sofa at the Osgood mansion and looked at the tall, straight back of his host. He looked over further, at a tall man in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the neck down. He had not been introduced to Marcus, but it was obvious that he was Dr. Henry Osgood, Jade’s ex-fiancé who supposedly attacked her, prompting Dutch to attack him. In fact, the guy’s father, Marcus’s host, was treating the one-time big shot surgeon as if he wasn’t his son, but nothing more than another piece of the furniture.
This was awkward as hell for Marcus, and if Dutch and Gina would have acted right he wouldn’t be here at all. But the way they treated him. The way they said he couldn’t stay at the White House. Oh, no, he
wasn’t good enough to stay there. Not around their precious little boy. Dutch even put it more bluntly than that: they really didn’t know him from Adam, Dutch had said. He wasn’t having a stranger around his wife and child, he had added.
A stranger. That was the way he had put it. He called Marcus a stranger. It was true, they really didn’t know the character of the man, just that he may have been wrongly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. But Gina was his half-sister. How the hell was he some stranger?
And Dutch kept going. He said he would be more than happy to bankroll him a little house in the city of his choosing, and to help him find employment. But even that sounded like an insult to Marcus. It sounded as if the big-shot Dutch Harber was telling him that he’d help him out, but only on a small scale. He’d help him find a little house and a little job. Like hell, Marcus thought at the time. His half-sister was the First Lady and his brother-in-law was the POTUS, and their talking little?
He squirmed around on the sofa just thinking about that shit. A little house? A little job? Were they fucking kidding? This was his chance to make it big, to capitalize on their monumental success, and he wasn’t going out like some chump idling away the rest of his days in some little row house on some little job somewhere. He wanted big and bigger. To hell with little! If it wasn’t for Jade coming to his rescue and asking him to come stay with her and Christian until he could decide what he wanted to do, he would have went off on that Dutch motherfucker right then and right there. He didn’t like his ass anyway!
He and Jade would talk about it for hours on end, especially while Christian was gone to work. But Marcus had to play it cool with her too. She loved that daddy of hers. Loved him to death. But she hated Gina. So Marcus played up that distaste for Gina angle whenever he was talking with Jade. She wanted Gina out of her father’s life, and her own mother in his life, from what Jade was telling him. So that was what he focused on. He didn’t have any great love for Gina anyway, or anybody else if truth be told, but it was Dutch he couldn’t stand. It was Dutch’s ass he wanted to kick.
One night, before they left for Helsinki and while Christian was still at work, Jade told him that she had a plan.
“A plan to do what?”
“To get rid of Gina.”
“A plan to get rid of her?” Marcus had said with a chuckle. “What would you know about a thing like that?” He was seated on the sofa in Jade’s small living room. He had a bottle of beer in his hand, his shirt wide open, revealing his brown-skinned, lean physique. She was seated in a chair, had a glass of wine in her hand, and wore a very sheer short set.
“I know more than you think,” Jade said mischievously.
“Okay,” Marcus said, checking out that fine body of hers, that gorgeous brown skin, that pretty face. “So what’s your plan to get rid of the president’s wife?”
“You,” Jade replied.
“Me?”
“Yes, Marcus, you. You can get rid of her for both of us. You have access. And you have skills. Let’s be honest here. You used to be quite the criminal.”
“I used to sell drugs, don’t get it twisted. I never did any of this plotting and scheming you’re talking about. So I ask you again: what’s your plan?”
Jade reached into the pocket of her shorts, pulled out a piece of paper, and tossed it over to Marcus. It fell on the floor. Marcus just sat there.
“Aren’t you going to pick it up?” he asked her.
Jade smiled. Time to play one of their games again, she thought. Games, she also thought, that she loved playing with Marcus.
She therefore stood up, went over by him, turned her ass to his face and picked up the paper. Before she could stand up, Marcus grabbed her and sat her on his lap. On the dead center of his lap. She felt his hard-on as soon as she plopped down.
“You like?” he asked her, and drained down more beer.
“I like,” she said with a smile. “But about my plan?”
“Yeah,” he said as he sat his bottle on the side table and lifted her slightly. He slung her shorts and panties completely off. He spread her legs and began rubbing her furiously.
Then he began unzipping his pants.
Jade almost sighed out loud when she felt his cock fling out of his pants and jut against her bottom. “Don’t you want to know about my plan?” she asked him, her voice already changing.
“Yeah, yeah, in a minute,” he said as he shoved his dick inside of her as if he’d been preparing her for hours, when he’d hardly prepared her at all.
She winced at the pain, she wasn’t wet enough yet, but Marcus didn’t care. It wasn’t about her, anyway.
He began to stroke her slowly for only a few seconds. They never spent any appreciable time on gyrations. They got in and they got out. And Marcus had no intentions of changing the routine now.
That was why he started pounding her. He was going one speed and one speed only. There was no finesse in his game. He pounded her so hard, and the idea of it felt so good to Jade, that she became wet instantly.
It became so good to Marcus that he tossed her down onto the sofa, her ass up, and laid on top of that ass. He started pumping her so hard that his balls were ramming against her. He started pumping her so hard that his dick started releasing within minutes. He knew it wouldn’t take long. Because with Jade it was all about the cum. He just wanted to come. He didn’t give a damn about foreplay or making her feel loved or making her cum. He just wanted to come.
And he came. Deep inside of her. He straightened his body like an arrow to let it all come out. He began to push in harder, to get every drip out. And it kept dripping and dripping and dripping. Marcus learned early how to experience every drip out.
Jade came too. It didn’t take but a few strokes with Marcus. Christian was good. He knew how to do her too. But Marcus knew how to do her better. The fact that he didn’t wait for any build up, the fact that it hurt and then felt so good, the fact that his dick was much bigger than Christian’s, although Christian had a big one too, was a complete turn-on to her.
When she came, and when Marcus strained out his final drip, he collapsed on top of her. And laid there, attempting to regulate his breathing again.
“Goodness girl,” he said between breathes. “You know how to do old Uncle Marcus.” They both knew that they weren’t blood kin at all, but they played on it just the same.
And then, within seconds, he pulled out and was off of her.
She put back on her panties and shorts, and he zipped back up his pants. That was their routine. A quick in and a quick out, most every night that Christian was working late at the White House. Jade, Marcus was beginning to realize, was the easiest lay he’d ever had. He didn’t even have to ask anymore.
“Now can we get back to business?” Jade asked as she handed him the paper. She was now seated beside him.
Marcus grabbed his beer off of the side table and looked at the paper. “Thurston Osgood,” he said. “Who the hell is that?”
“Henry Osgood, a surgeon, was my ex- fiancé. Thurston is his father.”
Marcus chuckled. “They sound like a couple of assholes already.”
“They are. Daddy found out Henry had violated me and he nearly killed him.”
Marcus looked at her. “Really?”
“Really. Daddy can be something else if you cross him.”
Marcus glanced back at that paper. He saw that in Dutch Harber too. He saw that edginess in him. It concerned him, but it didn’t worry him. Hell, he was edgy too. He wasn’t scared of no Dutch Harber. Bring it on, motherfucker, he inwardly said.
“So what about this Thurston Osgood?”
“He’s willing to pay.”
Marcus looked at her. Money was the name of the game now, as far as he was concerned. “Pay for what?”
“For Gina’s head on a platter, as he puts it.”
Marcus frowned. “Girl, what are you talking about?”
“If you get rid of Gina, he will pay you, Marcus. He will pay
you millions.”
Marcus’s heart began to pound. “Millions?”
Jade smiled. “I have your attention now I see. But yes, he will pay you three million dollars if you take Gina out. And I know y’all have the same father, and that, to say the least, could be awkward.”
“Like hell. She don’t mean shit to me.” That wasn’t entirely true, as Gina actually meant more to him than anybody else. But that wasn’t Jade’s business. “Not when you’re talking about three mil.”
Jade laughed.
Marcus decided to play it up. He wanted Dutch’s head, not Gina’s, on a platter, but he would go along with Jade’s hatred for now. And then turn it around.
“When Dutch said I wasn’t good enough to stay in the White House,” he said, “Gina didn’t come to my defense. She just sat there and let Dutch kick me out. Talking about I was still a stranger to them. And then they didn’t even want me to come here.”
“Gina was the one,” Jade said, although Marcus knew it was more Dutch than Gina. “She was the one talking about getting you a place of your own. As if they still think you might have killed those people in that drive-by.”
“But back to this three-million-dollar deal,” Marcus said. “What does he want me to do?”
“He’ll have to tell you that,” Jade said. “I’m just relaying the message. He heard you aren’t all that tight with your sister so he figures you can be bought.”
Marcus smiled. The only person who could have told him that lie was Jade. But it played on her hatred all the same. “Hell, yeah, I can be bought,” he said.
For the right price, he also thought, any man could.
And that was why he was now sitting in the Osgood mansion. Thurston Osgood was standing at the window with his back to Marcus. And his son remained a non-entity in the room.
Thurston turned around and looked at Marcus. He was a tall, wiry, gray-haired man with small, blue eyes and liver spots all over his face. He was elderly, in his seventies easily, but he was as agile as a panther.
He walked over to Marcus and sat down in the chair oddly placed directly in front of the sofa. They were within inches of each other.
DUTCH AND GINA: THE SINS OF THE FATHERS Page 6
