But when he did finally answer, Gina, and the entire press pool, was astonished.
“We’ve shared a bed before, yes,” Dutch said.
And a gasp filled the room as if it were a balloon bursting.
Gina, whose emotions could always be detected in her big, brown eyes, was unable to hide them now. His words had staggered her, and the bloodthirsty press immediately picked up on it.
“Were you aware of that, Mrs. Harber?” one ingenious reporter quickly asked. “Did you know that your husband had slept with Liz Sinclair in the past?”
“He didn’t sleep with her as you are suggesting,” Gina said, attempting with all she had to maintain her cool. “He shared a bed with her.”
“It’s the same thing, ma’am.”
“I beg to differ.”
“But it is the same, ma’am. Your virile husband just admitted to being in bed somewhere with a beautiful, sensual woman like Liz Sinclair, and you weren’t there.”
“Of course I wasn’t,” she said. “He wasn’t married to me at the time.”
“But you were married to him when he slept with her the other night.”
Gina refused to be thrown. “You weren’t asking me about the other night. You were asking me about another time. And during that time, when my husband shared a bed with Liz Sinclair, he wasn’t married to me at that time.”
“Are you sure about that, ma’am?” a reporter asked.
Gina wasn’t sure about a damn thing at this point. “I’m certain about that,” she replied.
And her unwavering support of Dutch, and the firmness of her response, caused the reporters to move on. They mainly began discussing Liz’s parents and their decision to sue the president for wrongful death. Dutch wanted to announce his belief that Liz’s death wasn’t murder at all and the autopsy would bear him out, but he didn’t go there. They would insist that the autopsy was rigged, if he went there.
Besides, as he answered their questions about the parents and more questions about the death, Gina was on his mind. He could see the disappointment in her eyes, she was never able to hide her true emotions from him, and her pain was devastating him far more than any accusatory question some reporter was hurling.
And when he finally answered the last question, and they left the Brady Press Room, with Crader and Allison, Primrose and Peter following, he wanted to immediately address her.
“Gina,” he said as he reached out to take her hand in his.
But she pulled it away. “I’m okay,” she said, a frown on her face. “But I just need. . .” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “I just need some space,” she managed to say and then she hurried, began running, away from him.
Dutch’s heart dropped. He had hurt her. The last thing he ever wanted to do, he had done. He began to walk away, but he realized he had his senior staffers behind him. He turned slightly toward them.
“Please excuse me,” he said in that cool, polite way of his, and then hurried after his wife.
TEN
He found Gina where he expected her to be: in the nursery with their young son. She was seated in a rocking chair, holding tightly their sleeping child, her eyes tightly shut. Dutch stood there, staring at mother and child, his heart aching. But he couldn’t bring himself to disturb them. He was the cause of so much of their pain, of the derision Gina had to suffer ever since she agreed to become the wife of a sitting president. And it was paining him. Because he knew he should have waited until his political life was over before inviting her into that life. He should have given her more chances to change her mind.
And even right now, watching her, he wanted to go to her, to state his case, to make her never be disappointed in him again. But that would be the height of selfishness. Because she was right. Right now, she needed her space.
It wasn’t until later that night, after meeting with his legal team, and then his political team, and then his national security team, was Dutch able to make it to the White House Residence and into their bed.
Gina was wide awake, although her eyes were closed. She heard him when he came in. She heard him when he showered. She heard him when his weight pressed down and he got in bed behind her. And when he put his arm around her, and moved closer against her, she could tell that he wasn’t lying flat down, but his elbow was on the pillow and his head was in his hand. She also could tell, when he pressed against her, that he was completely naked.
“You asleep?” he asked her. He knew her well enough to know that the last thing she could do, when her heart was troubled, was sleep.
“No,” she said quietly.
“Did you eat your dinner?”
“No.”
“Why not, Gina?”
Gina didn’t respond. He knew why not. He knew that she couldn’t eat either when she was in turmoil.
He exhaled. “I don’t know where to begin,” he admitted, and Gina quickly turned around, to get him started. She certainly knew where to begin. But when she saw that anguished look in his stark green eyes, and she remembered that this was Dutch she was upset with, her resolve almost faltered. But it didn’t. She’d been waiting all evening to confront him.
“Our marriage is based on trust,” she began. “Because of the fishbowl life we live here in DC, we have to trust each other because we can’t completely trust anybody else. And when I was standing there, and hearing you say that you slept with Liz before that night, and you never even thought to mention it to me, shattered me, Dutch. It made me start to think. What else is he holding back from me?”
“But Gina, I hadn’t even thought about that. And don’t say that I slept with her. I didn’t sleep with her. I’ve never slept with her, at least not in the made love to her way that phrase implies. We shared a bed.”
“But why?”
“Because we were at some conference or summit, I can’t even remember which, and we had been working late into the night. I asked her to help me work on my speech, which she did.”
“Oh, so she was your speechwriter, too?”
“No, but I trusted her political instincts and wanted her to make sure I was hitting the right tone. It’s not unusual. And I ended up lying across the bed to take a nap. Before I could fall asleep, she came in the room all excited because she had come up with the right hook for the speech, and she laid across the bed explaining it to me. We talked about it and argued about it and we fell asleep. Period. The end. That’s the long and short of it, Gina.”
Gina was staring at him, studying him, her eyes narrowed into that look of sincerity that he knew meant she was in deep contemplation.
“It was long before you and I even began dating,” he said. “Liz was on my staff at that time. She was my right hand person. Nothing sexual happened.”
What Dutch didn’t realize was that Gina had already worked that part out. She knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t banging Liz Sinclair, at least not while he was married to her. And what he did with her before their marriage wasn’t something that she had a right to hold against him. But she was picking up on a consistent theme.
“Why are you so protective of her?” she asked him.
This question stumped Dutch. He looked at her. “What do you mean? She’s dead. I wasn’t going to let those vultures masquerading as journalists sully up her name.”
“Her name was already sullied, Dutch, give me a break. And I’m not talking about after her death. But long before. You’ve always been so protective of her. And I want to know why?”
Gina was looking from Dutch’s right eye to his left, as if somewhere between the two eyeballs was the truth. When Dutch wouldn’t answer, she answered for him.
“You loved her,” she said.
Dutch didn’t immediately respond. But then he exhaled. “Yes,” he said. “I was very fond of Liz. Don’t ask me why my heart always went out to that woman, but it did. I saw something in her, Gina. I loved her.”
Gina stared at him, and she stared for the longest time. And then she nodded. “G
ood,” she said. “At least somebody did.”
Dutch looked at his wife, stunned. It was essentially the same thing Liz had said to him the night she died. That he was the only one who ever cared about her.
Gina moved closer to him, kissed him on the lips. “Never hold anything back from me, Dutch,” she said. “It’s not what they say that bothers me. It’s what you don’t say.”
Dutch’s heart soared. “I promise you, Gina, I’ll never hold anything back.”
“I can trust you?” she asked him, kissing him again.
Dutch wrapped both arms around her, his heart pounding, his mind so relieved he wanted to cry. “Yes,” he said, “you can trust me with your life.”
She kissed him again.
“And after that Asian-Pacific summit,” he said, “we’re going to take another vacation.”
Gina smiled. “Another one? We just got back from the Virgin Islands. Our critics are going to declare all we do is go on vacation.”
“And we’re going to say what a terrible thing to say, as we enjoy our vacation.”
Gina laughed. Dutch began kissing her, nibbling on her ear. “You are so not right,” she joked as he kissed her. Then she realized this was the time. This was the first chance she’d had to tell him about Marcus.
“Speaking of vacations,” she began, “you remember when I told you that Robert came to see me after we got back from his estate in the Virgin Islands?”
“I remember,” he said as he kissed. “He wants you to keynote his foundation dinner in Montreal.”
“Right. But guess what? That dinner’s the same weekend as the summit.”
Dutch didn’t even skip a beat by her pronouncement. He just kept kissing on her. “Is it?” was all he could manage to say.
“Yes, it is,” she replied. “Which isn’t a big deal at all because I’ll just go there first and then meet you in Japan. While I’m there, however, I’m also going to meet with Governor Feingold. Robert said the good governor just might be open to granting Marcus a pardon. Isn’t that great news?”
Dutch heard it but he didn’t fully digest it. He was too caught up in loving her to fully digest anything but the sensual feel of her lips on his. “Yes,” he said. “Great news.” And his kissing intensified even more and effectively ended any talk of summits and keynote speeches, and even the possibility of Marcus being pardoned. Because, as always, he could never just kiss Gina. He had to fuck her too. Always. And the way he was kissing her, and rubbing down her body, made her lose her focus on anything else too and just enjoy with unbridled joy what she just knew he was about to do. She knew, before that trip took place, that they would have a more extended conversation on what it all meant. But not here. And certainly not now.
She loved the way he kept kissing her. He kissed her lower lip and moved in a circular motion up to her tongue. Their mouths moved in unison with their tongues, kissing long and hard and passionately. And he didn’t stop there. He moved down, along her chin and neck, and then back up to her mouth. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth, as he took his tongue and played with her tongue in an expert symphony of sensual pleasure. And then her tongue played with his tongue just as expertly, as she gave as good as she got.
Just as she loved the way he kissed, he loved her kissing style too. He loved the way her lips gave him a sensation that swept through his body like an electrical current, and that always made him have to have more of her. Always.
And as he continued to get more, he was lifting up her gown. As their tongues played together, he was massaging her butt. As she placed her hands on the sides of his face and took control of his mouth, he was sliding his penis between her legs. As he rubbed that penis against the outer reaches of her vagina, moisturizing her for his highly anticipated entry, his lips were on her breasts, on her nipples, kissing and sucking her. They were breathlessly making out like two teenagers at a prom, and the feelings became so intense that they knew it couldn’t go on much longer.
And it didn’t.
“Now, Dutch,” Gina demanded and then took his penis and slid it into the vagina he was teasing around.
Dutch’s heart soared when she took control that way. Because every time she took that kind of control, they both knew this wasn’t going to be their slow, methodical fuck. This was going to be a pounding. She wanted it and he wanted to give it.
As soon as his penis entered her vagina, and her vagina constricted against his stiff erection, the thrashing began.
He moved her onto her back, got on top of her, and began a rhythm that started in an intermediate pace that only accelerated from there.
Gina could feel the sensation deep within her vaginal walls as he began an increasingly fast-paced pounding that left her holding onto his entire body for dear life. But they were enjoying the ride.
Earlier today, when she refused his hand and fled from his sight, he thought he was going to die where he stood. He knew it was the simple things, the errors of omission, which often brought down the best marriages. And his fear was that his relationship with Liz Sinclair, a relationship that was actually among the most pure he’d ever had with a female friend, would be his undoing. And to go from that fear, to this night of passionate love, was making him so heady, so emotional, that he began to worry that his heightened sense of love might actually harm Gina.
He had to slow his pace. His pounding was getting too frenetic. The sensations were becoming too intense. But every time he thought to slow his roll, to ease up on her, she was bucking for more.
“Don’t stop!” she was crying. “Why are you stopping?”
And Dutch would increase again. Because he should have known better. Gina could stand toe to toe with him in any arena. Including the bedroom. The idea that he had to go easy on her was ludicrous. Gina was no weakling. She was no inexperienced wallflower. She was all woman. The way she was screaming his name, enjoying every second of the thrashing he was putting on her, made him realize just how ludicrous going easy on her really was. She was enjoying the ride just as intensely as he was.
They both were committed to their love. They both were riding high on their love. From the deafening sounds of his pounding, to the meshing sounds of their saturation, she was riding with the same sensual delight that he was riding with.
Dutch was overcome with that ride, with knowing how incredibly she rose to every occasion for him. But that was his Gina. There was no way he could ever put a price on what it meant to have the woman of his dreams underneath him right here and right now, a woman who loved him despite all of his faults; who catered to his every whim despite all of her own needs. He found her lips again as he fucked her. Tears appeared in his eyes as he fucked her. Because to have this kind of ferocious love with this kind of partner, a woman who was a full-throttled, all-in, forget any damn daintiness in the bedroom partner like his beloved Gina, was priceless to him.
Crader and LaLa sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial hand in hand. They had been walking around the National Mall and had decided to take a quick break. It was a beautiful night in Washington where the movers and shakers, and the young love birds alike, were out in force. Even though it was pushing eleven p.m.
Crader looked at LaLa as she sat there and people watched. Her face was turned in such an angle that she looked as if there was an aura around her. He knew it wasn’t. He knew she was just LaLa. But something was changing within him toward her. Something so strong that he often wondered if it could be sustainable. And when she turned and looked at him, because it was obvious he was staring, he smiled.
“It’s just that I love you,” he said.
LaLa’s heart soared. But she tried to maintain her cool. It was essential to her that she did not lose her cool and believe that this relationship would somehow be the panacea of her life. It wouldn’t. The fact that he was talking about love certainly was an encouraging sign, but she had to keep her cool.
“I’m beginning to believe that you do love me,” she said truthfully.
Crader grinned. “Only just beginning, hun? After all of my declarations of love?”
“I hear what you’re saying, but I just don’t want to get it wrong again.”
Crader nodded. “I fully understand, La, don’t think I don’t.”
And then he placed his arm around her shoulders. “And I intend to never forget,” he promised, as he held her. Then he smiled. “And who knows,” he said, pulling her closer, “we may one day find ourselves sitting on these very steps, in this very Mall, celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary. And you’re still be saying, as only you can, ‘yes, Cray, I’m beginning to believe you actually love me.’”
LaLa smiled, and then burst into that unrestraint, past-feeling laughter that made Crader a believer. That laughter, this woman, was what he had been searching for all of his womanizing life. And although she was doing all she could to maintain her cool, he was determined to maintain the heat in their relationship. To give her his best. To keep the flame alive.
And to never forget what that quick, foolish, cheap decision to be unfaithful to her almost cost him.
ELEVEN
It was two weeks later and Dutch was seated behind the historic Resolute Desk inside the Oval Office reading on intelligence assessments. There was a quick knock and Crader, who had carte blanche to enter without being announced, walked in. He had a report in his hand that he tossed onto the president’s desk.
“I hope all the haters read it and weep,” he said.
“What is it?” Dutch asked as he picked it up.
“The San Francisco coroner’s office has ruled the death of former White House aide Elizabeth Sinclair an accident,” Crader said triumphantly.
Dutch, who was wearing half-moon reading glasses, looked closely at the report. “So it was an accident?”
“That’s right,” Crader said. “The official report should be ready within the next couple weeks, but they were willing to give us a peep at the prelim.”
“An accident,” Dutch said again, shaking his head.
Dutch and Gina: The Power of Love Page 12
