THE PRESIDENT 2 (28 page)

These people crazy, he said inwardly, remembering a line Gina enjoyed using.

“Get out,” he said out loud.

“Get out?” his mother repeated, showing pure umbrage.
 
“How dare you throw her out?
 
You’re the one who attacked her!”

“I attacked her?” Dutch said.
 
“Is this my room, or hers?”

Victoria had no ready answer for that one, and Dutch repeated his command.
 
“Get out,” he said again.
 
“I want you and Caroline to get your things and get out of this house right now.”

The secret service immediately began to enforce the president’s order.
 
Victoria, however, continued to take umbrage.
 
“You’re throwing
me
out?” she kept asking, astounded.
 
“You can’t throw me out!”

“Watch me, Mother,” Dutch said.
 
Then said to the agents who may have been reticent about touching his mother: “Get her out of this house and get her out now.”

Caroline was still too embarrassed to fight his expulsion so she said nothing as she was grabbed by both arms and taken out of the room.
 
Victoria, however, fought tooth and nail.
 
It became so disturbing that she had to be manhandled, pulled out of the room as if she was a common intruder.
 
And the entire time, as she was literally being dragged out, her small but feisty body fighting against every pull, she couldn’t stop staring in disbelief at that good-for-nothing son of hers.

But she could save her shock.
 
Just as Dutch, when his own mother came out publically against his marriage to Gina, had to save his.
 

When they were all gone, the woman he used to love and the mother he never knew, he slammed his bedroom door, sat on his bed, and got Gina on the phone.

FIFTEEN

By the following morning, LaLa had decided to go to Newark and “reclaim her man,” as she put it, although Gina strongly advised against it, but LaLa had a one-track mind by that point.
 
So Gina and Christian left, and both were now back at the White House.
 
Although she had wanted to see Dutch before his day began, to eyeball him for herself and make sure he was really okay after that craziness he had to endure last night, he was already in a meeting in the Cabinet Room and therefore could not be disturbed.
 
But when she finally did arrive at her East Wing office, a man she hadn’t seen in over four years was waiting on her.

Roman stood to his feet when Gina entered the waiting area.
 
His heart leaped with joy when he saw her again, just as it had when he had gotten her call asking for his help.
 
She was the one that got away, that was for sure, but that was old news now.
 
Right now he only prayed that President Harber was good to her, and that she was finding some enjoyment in her new fishbowl life.

“Hello, Wilkie,” Gina said as they hugged.
 
Roman found himself moved by her old nickname.
 
Nobody called him that, but her.

“How are you, kid?” he asked as their hug ended and Gina stepped back.
 
She still had that fresh, wonderful scent, still had that buoyancy he used to love about her.
 
Still, he thought, as he glanced down, had that curvaceous, luscious bod.

“I’m good,” looking at his perfectly tailored Armani suit.
 
“What about you?”

“Fantastic.”

Gina smiled.
 
That was always his line.
 
He’d be near death and still claim he was fantastic.
 
“Come on back,” she said and escorted him into her office.
 
They took a seat on the office couch.

“So,” he said, rubbing his big hands together, “I see our breakup didn’t leave you too distraught.
 
You’ve managed to do a thing or two since we last met.
 
Got married, became First Lady of the United States of America.”

Gina laughed.
 
“Your career hasn’t exactly been stagnant either, now, let’s keep it real.
 
Especially not in the female department.”

Roman grinned, showing his perfect white teeth that was always so alluring to Gina against his dark-chocolaty black skin, and threw his hands up.
 
“I plead the Fifth,” he jokingly said.

“But seriously, Wilkie, I’m so glad you could make it.
 
As I told you over the phone, I’ve been an attorney long enough to know all about those
I’m innocent
stories inmates love to tell.
 
Hardly ever believe any of them, to tell you the truth.
 
But for some reason, and maybe it as simple as the fact that we’re flesh and blood, I believed Marcus Rance.”

Roman nodded, sat his briefcase on the table in front of them.
 
“You had good reason to believe him.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Roman said as he opened his briefcase.
 
“There are loads of problems with his case.
 
And I mean truckloads, Gina.
 
This brother was so railroaded that I’m amazed the judge himself didn’t criticize that jury verdict.
 
I couldn’t believe they could have come up with a guilty verdict on this case, I declare I couldn’t.”

“It’s that open and shut?”

“Well . . . yes and no.
 
The evidence is compelling, yes, but it’s not like there’s this DNA that we can point to and eliminate him as even a suspect, no.
 
I mean, the crime was a drive-by shooting and the shots were fired from his car which, on its face, sounds very incriminating.”

“Yes, it does,” Gina said with a frown.

“But everything he said to you, about the job, about the stolen car, everything is true.
 
But the witnesses his defense team called, and I mean every one of those suckers, were fatally flawed.
 
Just horrible people.
 
Crooks and criminals the lot of them.
 
But,” Roman continued, moving toward the edge of his seat, “they’re consistent.
 
Liars never are.
 
They never, during that entire trial and even after the trial, changed their stories.”

“But all the jury saw was the baggage.”

“Exactly.”

Gina stared at her friend.
 
“Can you help him, Wilkie?”

Roman stared back, his heart sinking with the pain of what could have been if only he had realized what a diamond he had; if only he hadn’t been so bent on playing the field, on bedding any woman he wanted.
 
Now he was ready to settle down himself, to find him a woman of his own, to give up the game forever.
 
But he was a long way from this point when he had Regina.
 
“I’ll help him,” he said, “but only because you’ve asked me to.
 
That brother has been an embarrassment to our race, hear what I’m saying?
 
A disgrace!
 
He turned it around, at least he claims he did, but that still doesn’t mean he wasn’t a terror before he turned it around.”

“I hear you, Wilkie.”

“But for you, I’ll help.
 
Because you know I’ll do anything for you.”
 

Gina nodded, because, back in the day, he would have.
 
He just couldn’t seem to be faithful to her, which kind of sealed their fate as a couple.
 
“Thanks,” she said.
 
“Now show me what you’ve got.”

Roman smiled as he pulled papers from his briefcase and laid them out on the table.
 
He used to show her what he had every night; used to show it to her repeatedly.
 
And he missed that.
 
He missed the way she made him feel.
 
He missed her honesty and integrity.
 
He missed her, yes, he’d admit it.
 
He missed her deeply.
 

But they didn’t call him a lawyer’s lawyer for nothing.
 
He got down to the business at hand.

***

Dutch and Max left the Cabinet Room after a contentious meeting with the principals about the hit on Gina’s convoy, and headed for Gina’s office on the East Wing.
 
But the topic of conversation wasn’t the convoy hit, or the hostages’ success, or Roman Wilkes and their Marcus Rance problem.
 
They were discussing that craziness the night before.

“What are the options?” Dutch asked his chief of staff.

“Your mother could go back to Nantucket and vow never to speak to you again, keeping quiet about what happened because of the embarrassment it could cause her. Or,” Max continued, praying that the former would be the case, “she could get loud.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know, Dutch.
 
You know her better than anybody on the face of this earth--”

“Which is saying absolutely nothing.
 
After I took Regina to see her and she showed me what she was really made of, I don’t think I know that woman at all.
 
And after last night, I don’t think I ever did.”

“She’s something else, Dutch, you’d better believe that.
 
She plays it from angles we wouldn’t even think about playing it from.
 
That’s why Harber Industries became the successful company it became.
 
Not because of your father.
 
He was a bit of a cad in the long run, a lovable, sweet man, but a cad.
 
It was your mother’s hard hand and determination that kept that company in the big leagues.
 
Don’t underestimate her, is all I can say.”

“And Caroline?” Dutch asked, his heart a little less settled regarding her.
 

“Our Caroline problem is a little trickier,” Max said as the two men got onto the elevator.
 
“If she sticks with Victoria, she could spell serious trouble.
 
You know, selling her story to the tabloids to make a little money, sitting around on couches on TV talk shows telling about all of the pressure you put her under before the wedding and that’s why she disappeared.
 
But if she decides the gig is up, her seduction scheme didn’t work, and she packs up and sails her ass back to France, I’ll sigh relief.”

“Amen,” Dutch said, as they stepped off of the elevator.

Max looked at him.
 
“You still love her, don’t you?”

Dutch shook his head.
 
“I do not.
 
Not after that kind of betrayal.
 
She knew how I felt about her, but she decided to pretend she was dead because she felt pressured?
 
I’m not buying that, Max.
 
She knew I would have called off that wedding in a heartbeat if she didn’t want it.
 
But she just takes off and stays off?
 
No.
 
I can’t love a woman like that.
 
You don’t treat somebody you love that way.”