THE PRESIDENT'S GIRLFRIEND (7 page)

     “You may not know it, but I do.”

     “You?” Gina asked, wondering if he remembered Miami after all.

     “Yes, me.”

     “But you don’t know jack about me.”

     Dutch smiled.  “I know that any female willing to stand before the President of the United States and call him everything but a child of God, has got to be strong.”   

     Gina laughed.  He loved the way her narrow shoulders shook when she did.  “I like that about you,” he added, unable to share in her laughter.

     Gina felt the heat of his stare all over her body.  He seemed determined to make it clear to her that he was interested.  Which would be remarkable in and of itself.  This man was the president, for crying out loud!  But she was no fool, either.  He was the very eligible bachelor President, a man who had lost his fiancée a decade ago in a plane crash and had, after mourning her death, decided to play the field liberally. 

     According to press reports she remembered reading during the campaign, he was known in some circles as
Wham Bam Harber
, the hit and run specialist.  The man who often played the field. 

     And now this same man was showing interest in her?   But why?  Did he remember her and, more importantly, did he see her as an easy lay?  Did he figure he could have some quickie, some booty call session with a powerless female like her, then dump her quietly because nobody but her powerless self would care?  She decided to test the waters, to see if she was right.

     “Is this why you asked to see me?  Because you think I’m tough?”

     “I didn’t say you were tough,” Dutch corrected her.  “You aren’t tough.  But you’re strong.  And yes, that’s part of it.”

     “What’s the other part?” Gina asked, unsure what he meant.  “The fact that you agree with me and will veto that budge bill?”

     “I can’t commit to that at this point.”

     “But why, sir?  I don’t think you understand how all of these rounds and rounds of budget cuts are affecting programs like mine.  In this bad economy, all of our private donations have completely dried up.  Not that they were outstanding to begin with.  I mean, who wants to give money to an organization that helps gang bangers and prostitutes get their acts together?  Who wants justice for those former criminals, right?”

     It was the word justice that stopped Dutch cold.  And he remembered.  He remembered the MC at the awards ceremony mentioning that she used to be a public defender.  And her passion for the poor and misbegotten.  And her nickname is Gina.  And she has those striking eyes and curvaceous figure and . . . But It
couldn’t be
, he thought.

     Unaware that his look had changed dramatically toward her, Gina kept talking.  “So private donations have never been our driving force,” she continued.  “It was government grants that kept our doors open.  But if Congress keeps cutting that funding, our revenue stream will dry up so completely that we won’t have any choice but to shut down.  And Block by Block Raiders is a very successful organization, we don’t have to pad our numbers the way a lot of these other non-profits do.  We’re for real, sir.”

     Dutch was certain now.  It was her.  It was that wonderful young lady in Miami Beach all those years ago.  The one that had rocked his world for that one night.  The night of his father’s death.  He had been so traumatized by succeeding events, so swept up by the enormous burden he immediately had to bear as the heir to his father’s fortune, that he tried his level best not to entertain memories of that wonderful night.  He became so successful at compartmentalizing his life before and after his father’s death, so spot-on with his singular focus, that, over time, his memories of that night began to fade to such an extent that they became no memories at all. 

     Until now.

     When Gina realized she was getting no response from the president, she looked at him.  And that lustful look she had seen earlier was now replaced with a look of alarm.  “What is it?” she asked him.  “What’s the matter?”

     Dutch didn’t know how to play this.  Had she forgotten about Miami?  About that night?

     “You’re the founder of Block by Block Raiders?” he asked her.

     Gina was spooked now.  He recognized her, she could tell it by that unsettled, stormy look in his eyes.  “Yes, sir,” she said cautiously.   What, she wondered, would he do with his knowledge?

     “You call it BBR?”

     “That’s right.”

     “It helps former gang members and, and prostitutes, with their legal issues, among other things, right?”

     “Right.”

     “Because you’re an attorney.  The MC mentioned you were a former public defender.”

     Ah, there it was, she thought.  It was out there now.  “That’s right,” she said.

     Dutch nodded, sipped from his wine.  Found himself looking down at her breasts, remembering how he once sucked them.  He began to rub his forehead.  “From Newark?”

     Gina smiled.  “Yes.”  He definitely remembered.

     Dutch was stunned he hadn’t put it together sooner.   Although the days following their encounter were pretty much a blur as funeral arrangements and business meetings took a front seat to any one-night-stand, her image would still cross his mind.  He couldn’t count how many times, early on, he considered tracking her down, to find her, to keep her as his. 

     But life kept getting in the way and the responsibilities kept compounding, making it impossible for him to track anybody anywhere.  And by the time he was urged to go into politics, a lifelong dream of his father’s, remembering one night stands in beach hotels was about as productive for the reality of his life as a hole in the head. 

     “You remember that night, don’t you, Gina?” he asked her pointblank.

     Gina nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

     He let out a grim sigh.  Began rubbing his forehead again.  “And you’ve shared that information with?”

     Gina frowned.  “Nobody.  Why would I share something like that?”

     “Not exactly my finest hour.  Sleeping with a young lady and not following up.”

     “I didn’t ask you to follow up.  I didn’t follow up, either.  I would be the fool of fools telling somebody about that.”

     “About the fact that you once spent a night with a future president, I don’t know. It could be a lucrative story for some tabloid.”

     Gina shook her head.  He truly didn’t know her.  “I’d rather eat nails,” she said, “than to sell any piece of my life to them!”

     Dutch smiled. Relieved.  
That’s my girl
, he wanted to brag. 

     “So, you gave it up,” he said.  “Being a public defender, I mean.”

     “It gave me up,” she said. 

     Dutch frowned.  “They fired you?”

     Gina nodded.  “Yep.  As soon as I got back from Miami.”

     “But you were so devoted, so looking forward to helping the less fortunate.  What happened?”

     “You remember the guy I drenched in the hotel lounge?”

     Dutch nodded.  He remembered all of it now.  “Yes, of course.”

     “He filed a complaint.  Said I assaulted him for no apparent reason when I threw my drink on him.  He didn’t press charges, but my superiors said I showed very poor judgment and fired me, anyway.  It helped that this attorney I drenched happened to be the grandson of a former superior court judge.  So since I was still on probation and they could fire me at will, they did.  Summarily.”

     “You didn’t fight it?”

     “Did I,” Gina said, remembering that wretched time.  “I fought it with all I had.  I even tried to get in contact with you, since you were the only witness that I felt would tell the truth.  I Googled your name.”

     “But you didn’t know my name.”

     “I knew Walter, I knew your nickname was Dutch, and I knew Boston.  So I Googled all three and came up with industrialist Walter Dutch Harber.  I called repeatedly but they would never put me through to you.  I even went to Boston, to Harber Industries, but they wouldn’t even give me an audience with you.”

     Dutch rolled his cold glass across his suddenly hot forehead.  He could feel her pain, could feel it as if it was as much his as hers.  But she went on.

     “So that’s why I founded Block by Block Raiders.  I was determined to give voice to the voiceless, because during that time I felt so out of control.  I felt like I had no voice.”

     “Were you angry with me?” Dutch asked her.

     “No, sir,” she said.

     “Bullshit,” he said.

     She stared in his eyes.  “Yes,” she admitted.  “Very.”

     “Felt you had given me what I wanted,” he said this as he continued to rub the glass against his forehead, as his eyes trailed down the length of her, remembering her in his arms, “then when it was time for you to be helped, I wasn’t available.”

     “It wasn’t about that night.  That night was on both of us.  But when they wouldn’t even let me speak to you because I wasn’t high enough on some ladder of influence, that was a bitter pill to swallow.”   
     And just like that, after listening to her, after watching her, that powerful connection he felt to her that night in Miami Beach, came flooding back like a tidal wave, and sucked him in.  Without thinking about the consequences, without calculating the cost, he reached out and pulled her so firmly into his arms, so protectively, that he sat  his glass down and pulled her onto his lap.

     The tears that she had been fighting not to shed, came freely for Gina when he pulled  her into his arms.  And she sobbed openly.  She felt so embarrassed that she kept apologizing.

     “Don’t,” Dutch urged her, holding her, handing her his handkerchief.  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

     She wiped her eyes and looked into his.  He smiled, those lines of age showing on the side of his beautiful, kind eyes.  “After the awards ceremony, when your assistant told me you wanted to see me, I thought I was being called into the principal’s office for punishment,” she said with a smile of her own.  “Certainly not to tell my life story like  this.”

     Dutch put his hand on the side of her adorable face.  “No, that wasn’t the reason I called you back here.  But I had considered giving you a good spanking.”