For the Love of Gina: The President's Girlfriend

by Mallory Monroe

  Dutch felt Gina’s pain. And he nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll have it changed to her name.”

  “With her being able to collect right away.”

  “With those terms, yes.”

  Gina nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  Dutch stared at her. Studied her. “What happened to DeAndre, Gina?” he asked her.

  Gina closed her eyes and then opened them up again. Her face looked as if she had seen too many ghosts. Now nothing seemed real. “He hung himself,” she said, rubbing her arm. “This morning, before I got there, he hung himself.”

  What more, Dutch wondered, did she have to bear? “I’m so sorry to hear that, Gina. I truly am. I didn’t expect---”

  “You never expect anything,” she shot back. “That’s the problem. You just lay down the law.”

  “I was protecting you!”

  “From what, Dutch, from what? An eighteen-year-old honor student? A good kid who never been in trouble a day in his life? Except for that one day?” Gina shook her head. “I feel so responsible.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Gina.”

  “I can’t help it. If I would have been there. If we would have phoned and let him know I was coming. If---”

  Dutch wanted desperately to hold her. “Gina, don’t do that. You are not responsible for what happened to that young man.”

  Gina looked at him. “You should have told me, Dutch. As soon as you found out, you should have told me.”

  Pain shot through Dutch. If only he could take that one decision back. “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.

  “I know what you thought. But you thought wrong. Didn’t you consider him, Dutch? When you were deciding to ignore his life, did you consider that life? When you found out that you had a daughter, that Jade was your child, the first thing you did was go and see about her. And I stood beside you.”

  “I know you did.”

  “I would have never dreamed hiding her from you.”

  “I wasn’t hiding him from you, Gina.”

  “Yes, you was. Don’t try to sugarcoat this. That’s exactly what you did. You hid my brother from me because you didn’t want me to love him the way I loved Marcus.”

  “And you see what your love for Marcus got you? That man tried to kill you.”

  “I know what he tried to do. But how could you pass judgment on DeAndre based on what Marcus did? They didn’t even know each other! DeAndre was nothing like Marcus.”

  She didn’t know what DeAndre was like, but Dutch wasn’t about to point that out. She was stricken with grief, and his decision not to tell her was the cause.

  Then Gina frowned. “You know how I hate secrets and lies. You know how much I hate it, Dutch. But you didn’t care, did you? All you saw was this poor, black kid who was nothing like what your Nantucket ass was used to.”

  “That’s not true, Gina, and you know it.”

  “But that’s how I feel and I can’t help how I feel! He wasn’t a blueblood on the main line. He was a hood rat in the poverty line. So he didn’t matter to you. How I felt didn’t matter.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t care if it’s fair or not! This hurts, Dutch.” She was crying now. Dutch reached out to hold her, but she recoiled again. But he grabbed her and held her anyway. She sobbed in his arms.

  “This hurts,” she said again, in his arms. “Now I have to bury my brother, a brother who needed my help. But my husband decided, without consulting me, that he wouldn’t get it. He’d throw money at him, but not any love and affection. Not any of his connections. Not any of his humanity!”

  “Gina, if I would have known---”

  Gina pulled away from him. “You sent Bill Bates there.”

  Dutch felt as if she was all over the place, which wasn’t like her at all. She was usually the most focused human being he knew. “I told you I did.”

  “Do you know what he told DeAndre when he got there?”

  Dutch had gotten the report back. “He reviewed the evidence and determined that the young man was in trouble. He was at the crime scene with those two brothers during the commission of the crime. A woman and her unborn child were murdered. It didn’t much matter whether he knew they were going to commit the crime or not. He was there. In the eyes of the law, he was guilty. He told him that.”

  “He told him his only hope was to plead guilty and prepare to spend the rest of his life in prison, without the possibility of parole.” Gina was getting angry just thinking about those words. “He told that to an eighteen-year-old kid who’d never seen the inside of a jail before. He told an emotional teenager that it was too bad because he would never see the light of day again.”

  “He was giving him his advice, Gina!”

  “He was stealing that boy’s hope, Dutch!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me! He stole that boy’s hope just as sure as if he was picking his pocket! Because hope was all he had left. And your man, at your direction, took it from him. Just like you took my choices from me! What else don’t I know, Dutch? How many secrets and lies are still out there that you haven’t told me about?”

  Dutch shook his head. She was losing her trust in him, and it scared him. “It’s nothing like that, Gina, and you know it. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “This morning, when I was lying in our bed and you were holding me, I would have believed you. I would have never dreamed that you would have even considered keeping my own brother away from me. But you did. You already did that to me, Dutch. You already did it.”

  And suddenly, Dutch didn’t know what to say. He just stood there. He wanted to hold her again, but he couldn’t. He wanted to beg her forgiveness, but he knew that would only ring hollow now. Her brother was dead. He would forever be memorialized in her mind as the perfect, harmless sibling he kept secret from her. She’d believe her brother’s version of events despite what the evidence showed, and Dutch would be the villain, the ruthless control freak who was out of control. It would be the beginning of their end.

  But not if Dutch could help it.

  “How can I make this right, Gina?” he asked her. “I did it, I regret with all my heart doing it, but it’s done now. I can’t change that. But I want my family back. What do I need to do to get my family back?”

  But Gina shook her head. “You still don’t get it, do you? You still think it’s in your hands, under your control. You took it out of your hands when you decided not to tell me. Now it’s in my hands. Now it’s under my control. And I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. To me, right now, what you did was . . .”

  She was so crushed, that she couldn’t complete her sentence. Dutch, however, completed for her. “What I did was what, Gina? Unforgiveable? Is that what you wanted to say? That what I did to you is unforgiveable?”

  “Right now, the way I feel, yes.” She swiftly wiped away a tear as it escaped down her cheek. “So what I’m telling you is that I need time. You might not like it, but that’s too bad. I need time.”

  Dutch nodded. At least she wasn’t making any decisions yet. “Okay,” he said. “I accept that. But you’ve got to return home.”

  Gina started shaking her head before he could finish his sentence. But he kept talking. “You have to, Gina. It’s only fair that Little Walt sleep in his own bed every night, and you sleep in yours. My wrongdoing is not going to displace the two of you. I’ll move out.”

  Gina looked at him.

  “I’ll move here or in a hotel or, if you will permit it, in one of our guest houses in back of the estate.”

  “No, Dutch.”

  “Yes, Gina. Think about it. I’ll still be there every morning to have breakfast with our son and, hopefully, dinner with him every night. With both of you. I’ll give you your space. I won’t stay the night with you. But you’ve got to think about Walter in this too. He deserves as much normalcy as possible while we work out our issues. If I’m nearby and will be there if he needs me, that�
�s the best solution.”

  “I’d rather stay here. At a separate location. Walter will adjust.”

  “Okay, now that’s enough,” Dutch said bluntly. “I’m not debating this point with you, I don’t care how angry you are with me. My son will not be adjusting to staying anywhere but in his own home. You and Walter are staying at the estate. I’m not asking you this, I’m telling you this. If you don’t want me in any of the guest houses then fine, I’ll get a hotel room. But my son and my wife will sleep in their own beds every night. If anybody’s going to be displaced during this time in our lives, it’s going to be me.”

  Gina wanted to fight back, but Dutch was in that zone where any fight from her would only make it worse.

  “You stay here tonight since the baby’s already sleep,” Dutch continued, “but in the morning I want you to pack those bags right back up and take your ass and my son back home. Do I make myself clear, Regina?”

  Gina just stood there. The nerve of this man. But he was right about Walt. She’d never be so angry that she couldn’t look out for her son’s best interest. “It’s clear,” she finally said.

  “I’ll be in Vegas for a few days, I don’t know if you remember. I’m scheduled to meet with those foreign investors?”

  “I remember.”

  “But I can stay, if you think that’ll help us?”

  But Gina shook her head. “It won’t help. Take care of your business. Please. I need some time.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But go on home in the morning.”

  “I will.”

  Dutch nodded. He felt at least a little relieved about that. But as he said goodnight, with Gina refusing to even give him an option to kiss her, and he walked out of that door, he knew his relief would be short-lived. Because the ideal of living outside of his home, with his family now fractured and threatening a complete break, was almost too unbelievable for him to bear.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Dutch was stretched out naked on top of the covers, staring at the vaulted ceiling in his bedroom. Two hours ago he was in Gina’s old house all but begging her to come back home. Now he was alone in their home, showered, unable to sleep, eat, drink or do anything else but think about his wife, and how off the rails everything suddenly went.

  What he did to her did seem unforgivable to him now. Especially after what happened in Georgia. How in the world, he wondered, could he make that right? At the time, it seemed like the absolute right thing to do. His wife had just been shot by another half-brother of hers. She was fighting for her life. The ideal that she would have to face another out-of-the-woodwork relative wasn’t something he was willing to allow. Not after what Marcus had done to her. But he should have known her better. He should have thought more about the consequences.

  He closed his eyes and thought about Gina. She was an all-in kind of woman. She did nothing halfway. Now she was blaming herself for that boy’s death. All because she felt, the way she always felt, that if she’d only had a presence in that boy’s life, things might have turned out differently for him. And he’d still be alive. It was nonsense as far as Dutch was concerned. But not to Gina. She believed people affected other people that way. She believed people could actually change the trajectory of somebody else’s life. That optimism, in many ways, was one of the things Dutch so deeply loved about her.

  But now he had lost her trust. And she was so confused about him now that it showed all over her pretty face. It was going to take a lot of work, and time, before he’d ever be that man in her eyes that he used to be.

  But just as he was thinking about what he had to do, his bedside intercom buzzed. He turned sideways and pressed the button. “Yes, Ramsey?”

  “Excuse me for disturbing you sir, but I’ve just got word from the front gate that the First Lady is arriving.”

  Dutch’s heart soared. “Gina’s here?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Accept my apologies, please. I was referring to Mrs. McKenzie.”

  Dutch was confused. “Loretta?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is the president with her?”

  “No, sir.”

  Dutch didn’t understand it. LaLa rarely came unannounced. Or without Crader. “Thank-you, Ramsey, I’m getting up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And by the time Dutch did get up, put a robe on his naked body, and made his way downstairs, LaLa was walking through his front door. Ramsey, who had let her in, quickly stood aside and waited for further instructions. And Dutch smiled. He was genuinely glad to see her.

  “Hello, Loretta,” he said as he hugged her and kissed her on the lips.

  “Sorry to come so late,” LaLa said, “but that’s the only way I can travel undetected these days.”

  “Think nothing of it. Come on in, have a seat.”

  Dutch escorted her over to the sofa and assisted her as she sat down.

  “Would you care for something to drink?”

  “No, no, Dutch, thank-you, but I’m fine.”

  Dutch looked at Ramsey. “That’ll be all,” he said, and Ramsey bowed and left the room.

  “So where’s Gina?” LaLa asked as Dutch sat beside her. “Don’t tell me she’s asleep,” she added after realizing just how quiet the home seemed. “She’s usually the late-night owl. That’s why I took the chance and drove on over.”

  “She’s not here actually.”

  LaLa frowned. “Are you serious? I know I should have phoned! But my original intent was just to drive around DC. Then one thing led to another thing and I told my driver to keep on driving until I was here. Three and half hours later, I’m here. With you guys. Or at least I assumed both of you would be in town.”

  “She’s not out of town, Loretta. She’s staying at her old house tonight.”

  LaLa frowned. “Her old house? But why would she do that?”

  Dutch exhaled. “She’s upset with me, to put it mildly.”

  “You? Oh, come on, Dutch. What in the world could you have done that would have drove Gina away from her own home?”

  Dutch sat back in a slouched position. LaLa, who was seated on the edge of the sofa, looked back at him. He looked so handsome, but unusually vulnerable too. “What’s wrong, Dutch?” she asked him.

  “I’m surprised she hasn’t phoned you.”

  “Unfortunately we don’t talk like we used to. She’s busy running BBR, and I’m busy being First Lady, which is no walk in the park let me tell you.”

  Dutch knew the rigors of that office. He saw Gina handle it masterfully once upon a time. Back then, he thought all of their troubles would be over once they left DC. He was wrong. “A while ago, just before Gina went through that ordeal with Marcus Rance, my chief of staff was contacted by this woman who claimed she had a son with Gina’s father.”

  “With Gina’s father? But Gina’s Dad is deceased.”

  “The boy was seventeen at the time.”

  “Oh. Really? Damn. Mr. Ridgeway got around, didn’t he? First Marcus Rance, and now some other boy?”

  “But I had a DNA test performed by making up some security excuse to Gina so that the doctors could get a sample from her. I told her to do it, she did it without question. That was the kind of trust she had in me.”

  LaLa smiled. “You sound as if her trust in you is all in the past.”

  “When the DNA test confirmed that Gina and the boy were indeed related,” Dutch said, “I made the decision not to notify Gina.”

  Dutch looked at LaLa. “That’s why her trust in me is in the past,” he said.

  LaLa was still processing it. “But I don’t understand what you’re saying. You’re saying that Gina has another half-brother, which is amazing to me, and that you decided not to notify her? But not to notify her of what?”

  “Of the fact that she had another half-brother out there.”

  LaLa couldn’t believe it. “You didn’t tell her?”

  Dutch exhaled. “No, I didn’t. But the boy’s sister did, this morning, after the boy got into some maj
or league trouble.”

  “Oh, no, not another one, Dutch. He’s a criminal too?”

  “His sister didn’t think so. Neither did Gina, although I think she was just giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “So she’s upset with you because you didn’t tell her yourself? That she had to find out from a stranger?”

  “That’s part of it, yes. I think if that was the only part of it, we might have been able to work things out a little less . . . dramatically.”

  LaLa looked at him. “But there’s another part?”

  Dutch nodded. “When Gina flew to Georgia today, to meet her incarcerated brother and see if she could help him in whatever way she could, the same way she did for Marcus Rance . . .”

  “What, Dutch?” LaLa asked, anxious to know. “What happened when she went to Georgia?”

  Tears welled up in his eyes. “She found out that the young man hung himself this morning.”

  “Oh, my Lord!” LaLa said with great anguish as she turned almost completely around to face Dutch. “Are you serious? He died?”

  “This morning, yes. Before Gina could even meet him.”

  LaLa felt for Gina. She felt for Dutch too, but she felt for Gina! “But. . . I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell her that she had a brother? I don’t get it.”

  “It was the way they came to me. Give us money, they said, in return for their silence. It was right around the time of the Marcus Rance fiasco and they knew the last thing the public wanted to hear was that their First Lady had yet another brother in her closet. I didn’t give a damn about what the public didn’t want to hear, but they thought I did. My concern was Gina only. So I paid them off, and set up a trust fund for the young man, who was seventeen at the time, and they agreed to remain silent. And they did, until the kid got accused of murdering a pregnant store clerk.”

  LaLa shook her head. “My my my, Dutch. This is some tough news.”

  “I know.”

  “But why would you do it, Dutch? Even though his family went about it wrong, why would you think it was okay to keep a secret like that from Gina? How could you think that would be okay?”