Now she was all alone and their daughter was nothing more than a bitch on two legs that Sam could barely stomach. It was as if Jade left their home in South Carolina and became a drug addict. Only her drug of choice was her own father. And Sam blamed Dutch Harber for this crazy turn their daughter had made. It certainly wasn’t her fault. She had Jade under complete control and on the right path, before he came along.
“Ma!” Jade said yet again, this time looking at her mother. Her mother was a black beauty to her, with that dark, velvety smooth skin, that perfect petite body, and brains out of this world. She was, if you asked Jade, the total package. But she wasn’t a flirt.
“Ma,” Jade said, “are you listening to me?”
“Yes, I’m listening,” Sam said. “But once again your air-head has rendered you clueless.”
This hurt Jade to her heart, as her mother’s sharp tongue always did. But she continued to smile anyway. “I know what I’m talking about,” she replied.
“It is a fact that you do not,” Sam said caustically. “Because if you did know what you were talking about, you wouldn’t be talking about Gina giving up Dutch. It’s not about Gina giving up Dutch, that’s what you don’t seem to grasp. It’s never been about that. It’s about Dutch giving up Gina. Will he give her up, that’s the real question. And based on all I’ve read about that couple, I don’t see it. He’ll do anything for that woman. You saw him when he went before Congress that time to defend her supposedly good name. Oh, my goodness, that man was so angry it was scary. He loves Gina.”
“No, he doesn’t!” Jade insisted. “That’s what people don’t understand. He tolerates Gina. Because she’s his wife, and she represents him, he stands by her. But if somebody like you were to get his attention, somebody with brains and who looks way better than Gina on your worse day, he’d dump that bitch like a bad habit. I declare he will, Ma. I know he will! He’ll realize why he loved you in the first place and come back to you.”
“There was no love in the first place,” Sam made clear. “How many times do I have to tell you that? There was no love involved. Just sex. We met in college, had one night of sex, I got pregnant with you and disappeared. End of story.”
Only it wasn’t the end for Jade. It was just the beginning. Because Dutch Harber belonged to her and her mother. Period. Nobody else. Gina and that question-asking, annoying-ass baby of hers be damned, as far as Jade was concerned.
“He’s yours for the taking,” Jade finally said. “You just don’t realize it.”
Sam sipped from her glass of wine and continued to watch Dutch work the room. He certainly would be the grand prize in any contest. That was for damn sure. From his tall, athletic body, to his rakish smile and boyish good looks, she was still kicking herself for not seeing what a prized catch he was all those years ago.
But she was such an oddball then. She didn’t want any man in her life, let alone some hunky rich white boy like Dutch Harber. But she was so much older now, and wiser, and, if truth be told, much lonelier. So much lonelier. When she was young, being alone was a badge of honor to her. She loved being all by herself. Now it just reminded her of all she didn’t have.
But what Jade was talking about, with all of the game-playing and seductive tricks, she wasn’t feeling, either. Because she knew what it took to get Dutch Harber, and it wasn’t going to involve playing games. He was too smart for that. Her best chance of having him again, not to mention his untold millions of dollars that she desperately needed, was to know his weakness. He was a softie when it came to Jade. All of those years where he wasn’t a part of Jade’s life, the guilt of it, necessitated that. Therefore, to get him back, all she felt she had to do was to keep Jade under her thumb. Which, even dumb Jade didn’t realize, was exactly what she planned to do. It was exactly why she came to Helsinki to begin with.
“I just don’t see it,” she said to her insistent daughter. “Why would he suddenly leave his wife and young son for me?”
“Because he loves you. I just feel it in my heart. And because Regina Harber doesn’t tolerate fools easily and she won’t allow any accusation to go unanswered. She’s a fighter, Ma. But she’s a street fighter. She doesn’t know how to finesse it. She always gets embroiled in some scandal or another, I mean all the time. The woman can’t help herself. But this will be different. It’ll go directly to her character. And Daddy will finally see her for what she really is and drop her so fast you’ll get whiplash just watching her fall.”
“Oh, please,” Sam said, unconvinced. “They tried all that shit before. Dutch isn’t going to fall for any of that bash Gina nonsense. He’s not going to believe that his wife is some drug addicted sex pervert who sneak men into the White House and---”
“And that’s not what I’m talking about, thank-you very much,” Jade pointed out. “I know he won’t go for that. She won’t be sneaking anybody anywhere. This will be done in broad daylight. That’s the beauty of it. No sneaking at all. In fact,” Jade said with a wry smile, “she won’t even realize she’s destroying herself until she’s destroyed. That’s the beauty of it, Ma. I did my homework on that sister. I know exactly how to push her buttons.”
“Oh, yeah, Miss Brilliant with the average IQ. How do you push her buttons, please tell me that?”
Jade hesitated. She despised her mother’s constant put-down of her intellect. No, she didn’t have the kind of pliable, brilliant mind her mother had. But she was no idiot either.
“Well?” Sam asked. “How do you push these buttons of Gina’s?”
Jade smiled, remembering to not take any of her mother’s constant putdowns personally. Sam was Sam and would always be odd that way. She learned to live with that sad fact a long time ago. “I’ll push her buttons one brother at a time,” she said.
Sam, who was known for her keen intellect, stared at her daughter. “Marcus Rance?” she asked. “This scheme of yours involves her brother Marcus Rance?”
Jade was impressed. “You’re quick,” she said. “Yes, Ma. He’ll be working with us.”
“But why would he want to do anything that could hurt his own half-sister? What are you talking about? Gina was the one who busted her butt to get him out of prison.”
“Daddy got him out of prison, not her!” Jade said this angrily. She hated when Gina got credit for anything. “Daddy got him out! He was the one who got that governor to pardon him or whatever they did for him. It wasn’t Gina!”
“All right,” Sam said. “It wasn’t Gina, I get it. Damn. You just need to calm yourself back down before you make yourself look more foolish than you already look.”
Jade did manage to calm down. She even smiled her beautiful, bright white smile. “Marcus has been staying with me and Christian. Gina wouldn’t let him stay at the White House, you know.”
“That’s not what I heard. I heard Dutch kicked him out.”
“Because Gina made him,” Jade insisted.
Sam looked at her daughter with amazement in her eyes. If Jade believed for a second that anybody made Dutch Harber do anything he didn’t want to do, she was more ignorant than Sam had given her credit for.
“Marcus has been great,” Jade went on. “He was really there for me after my. . . after what happened with my baby.”
“After your miscarriage, Jade,” Sam said pointblank. “Not after what happened to the baby. After your miscarriage. Call it what it is.”
“Ma, okay,” Jade said irritably. And then calmed down again. Tried to shield her true emotions again. “All I’m saying is that I can talk to Marcus. He gets what I’m about better than anybody else ever could. And guess what, Ma? Marcus agrees with me. He can’t stand Gina, either. He feels she visited him in prison, not to help him, but because it wouldn’t look right for the First Lady to ignore her own brother. She doesn’t care anything about him. She doesn’t even have time for him and just tossed him off on me and Christian. But he’ll do anything for me, Ma. And I mean anything,” Jade added with a cunning grin and sipped her
wine.
Sam stared at her daughter. Was about to go there with her daughter. But Christian Bale, Jade’s husband, came over.
“The President’s almost wrapping it up, ladies,” he informed them with that usual cheerful lilt in his voice. “He’s going to be so happy to see you, Miss Redding.”
Jade rolled her eyes. “Do call her Sam or mother-in-law or something less formal, Christian, my goodness. Don’t call her Miss Redding. She’s not that old yet.”
Christian blushed red. Sometimes Jade took him on such wild rides when he didn’t even know they were going anywhere. “I didn’t mean to imply that she was old. I was just---”
“It’s okay, Christian,” Sam said. “Don’t pay Jade and her foolishness any attention.”
Christian, however, couldn’t help but pay her attention. She was his wife. And he loved her. “She’s okay,” he said to his mother-in-law.
Sam stared at him. He was in his mid-twenties, but looked even younger. His blond hair was stacked high on his round head, and his blue eyes were big and milky. And this kid was supposed to tame Jade? Sam wanted to laugh at such a ludicrous proposition.
“You really ought to sit down,” Christian suggested to his wife. “The doctor said you shouldn’t overexert yourself.”
Jade, however, would have none of it. “How is standing up an overexertion, Christian, will you tell me that, please?”
“The doctor said you shouldn’t overdo it.”
“He said that two weeks ago. I had a bad cold, Christian, that’s all. That’s over and done with. I can do backflips now as far as that doctor is concerned. Geez.”
Christian didn’t argue with her. The president had already told him that loving a woman like Jade wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. Christian understood that. But that didn’t make it any easier.
A tall young man with a buzz cut approached the threesome. “Excuse me, Miss Redding, but the president will see you now.”
“Thanks, Rick,” Christian said to the young man, and the young man nodded at Christian.
“Right this way, ma’am,” the young man said, and Sam began to follow him. Jade, however, began to follow them. But Christian pulled her back.
“Maybe your mom should speak to the president alone,” he suggested.
Jade, however, looked at him as if he was crazy. Because she just knew he was out of his natural mind if he though she wasn’t going to include herself in this meeting. She broke away from his grasp, and followed her mother.
They walked into a private room, off from the reception area, where Dutch was standing alone. He was looking out of the window, his hands in his pants pockets, his back to the entrance.
“Miss Redding is here, Mr. President,” young Rick said, bowed, and left.
Sam and Jade stood before Dutch. When he turned around, and saw Sam in her form-fitting, sequined dress, a kind of aqua-blue that highlighted her beautiful eyes and dark, velvety-smooth skin, his throat caught. She’d always been a looker, he thought. But right now she was simply stunning.
She smiled when he turned around. “Hello, Rookie,” she said in that deadpan way of hers that made Dutch snort. Rookie was her nickname for him when they were both students at Harvard.
He went to her.
There was a momentary awkwardness, where neither knew quite what to do, but then Dutch reached over and gave her a hug. Sam closed her eyes when he touched her, but fought hard not to show her feelings.
Dutch wasn’t quite so successful in shielding his. She not only looked great, he thought has he hugged her, she smelled great, too. And as they began to part he gave her a peck on the cheek.
“You look fabulous,” he said to her, admiring her fine physique. Jade smiled at the way Dutch perused her mother’s body.
“Thank-you,” Sam said. She was unaccustomed to compliments, and still didn’t quite know how to accept them.
“Would you care for something to drink?”
“You too,” Sam said.
There was a slight hesitation, as Dutch wasn’t sure if he missed something. “Pardon me?” he asked her.
“No, I was, I was going to say that you look wonderful too. Or fabulous as the actual term was. You too, that’s what I was saying in reference to what you had said about me. That I looked fabulous. I was . . . .”
Jade rolled her eyes. Her mother really was a band of one.
“Well, thank-you, Sam,” Dutch said, not at all taken aback by her differentness. “Would you care for something to drink?”
“No, no, I’m good. I’m fine.”
Dutch offered her a seat, and he sat down in the flanking chair. Jade sat on the arm of the chair, beside her father. Dutch crossed his legs, staring at Sam. Sam crossed her legs, staring at him.
“So,” Dutch said, unbuttoning his suit coat, “our daughter here says you wanted to see me.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” He seemed to become more attractive with age, Sam thought, as she sat there. And the way it felt to be in his arms. She felt so safe there. The idea that she let a guy like this get away from her when he was obviously infatuated with her all those years ago made her angry with herself. But she was such a different person then.
Dutch waited for her to tell him why she wanted to see him. When she didn’t say anything, Jade did.
“Go on and tell him,” she said.
Sam exhaled. “I wanted to let you know that I was thinking about staying, that is, Jade and Christian have offered to let me stay with them in Washington for a little while. Until I can work some things out.” Sam said this and stared at Dutch, to gauge his reaction. Dutch didn’t immediately respond.
Jade, surprised by this, looked at him.
“I wanted to know how you felt about that,” Sam said.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Dutch said honestly.
Jade was surprised by his reaction. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea, Daddy?”
“I think you and Christian have issues you’re trying to work out and I don’t think a third party living in your home is a good idea right now. I feel the same way about Marcus being there. But it’s not my decision to make.”
“But it matters what you think, Dutch,” Sam said. “Very much.”
“But we want her to stay with us,” Jade said in that sometimes bratty way of hers Dutch didn’t like. “It’s just until she work some things out.”
“As I said,” Dutch reiterated, “it’s not my decision.”
“But she’s my mother. She’s having hard times. Why wouldn’t you want my mother to spend a little time with me?”
Dutch looked at Sam. “What hard times?” he asked her.
Sam looked away from him. He had already concluded that she didn’t come all this way to Finland just to ask if he approved of her staying with Jade for a while. There was more to this tale. A lot more, he determined. He also determined that Sam was the kind of prideful person who wouldn’t want to discuss any “hard times” in front of her daughter.
He looked at their daughter. “Why don’t you go see what Chris is up to,” he said to her. “I want to speak privately with your mother.”
Jade, however, was still perturbed with Dutch. “Why can’t Ma stay with me? What’s wrong with that?”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“But I want her with me. She’s my mother. She wouldn’t be any burden on me.”
Dutch gave his daughter a look that could chill the sun. A look Jade knew all too well. She didn’t like doing so, she hated it, in fact. But that look told her not to push it. She therefore got up, and left the room.
Sam shook her head. “She’s a grown woman,” she said with a smile, “but in age only.”
Dutch, however, didn’t return the smile. His issues with Jade weren’t funny to him. “Why did you want to see me, Samantha?” he asked her. “You didn’t come all this way about any living arrangements.”
Sam exhaled, uncrossed her legs, leaned back, and crossed them again. Dutch looked down at those
shapely legs. He realized, to his own surprise, that he was getting aroused as he looked at her.
“You’re correct,” Sam finally said. “I most definitely didn’t come here about living arrangements.”
Dutch waited for her to continue. She didn’t. “Why did you come?” he asked her.
She let out a frustrated exhale. “It’s been a tough few years. I can’t lie.” She looked at him. “A really tough few years.”
“For the bookstore?”
“The bookstore, me, everything. The truth of the matter is, I’m broke, Dutch. I’m nearing bankruptcy. It’s been tough.”
Dutch stared at her. He had not expected this. “How much?” he asked.
Sam paused. “The bookstore is the worst of it. It’s swimming in a sea of red. I mortgaged the house twice to staunch some of the bleeding. Now I’m about to lose both of them.”
“House and bookstore?”
“Right.”
How much debt are we talking, Sam?”
“A couple hundred thousand,” she said. “For starters.” Then tears began to appear in her pretty eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping them away.
“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s a rough economy for everybody. I know that.”
“I thought I could make that bookstore work. I tried everything. Buy one, get one free, reading labs, book signings, but nothing worked. Some days a handful of people come through, other days nobody walks through that door.” She wiped more tears away.
“It’s okay, Sam,” Dutch said as he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
“I never learned how to do it, Dutch,” she admitted, her almond eyes looking at him with a questioning glare. “I thought I had it figured out, but I never learned how to do it. I did what my parents had wanted and earned my medical degree. That was a big deal. I was as proud as they were. But then I tossed that aside to go into the bookstore business. Something I thought I would love. Now I can’t even do that right.” She covered her mouth as the tears returned. Dutch quickly left his seat and moved over to her. He sat beside her and pulled her into his arms.
“It’s okay,” he said, holding her.
DUTCH AND GINA: THE SINS OF THE FATHERS Page 3