“Oh, please, Crader,” LaLa said. “I’m sure Christian wants to move on with his life.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Crader said. “I didn’t know working in the White House was such a lowly career move.”
Christian laughed.
“But Dutch beat you to the punch anyway, Cray,” Gina said. “Chris is going to work for him.”
Crader looked at Dutch with that tell me it isn’t so look. “At Harber Industries?”
Dutch smiled. “That’s the idea, yes.”
“Set him free, Dutch,” Crader said playfully. “Set the boy free! Everywhere you go, he feels he has to be loyal and follow you. Enough of that, already. This young man is ready to sow his wild oats. He’s ready for his independence. You’re ready for your close up, Mr. DeMille. Aren’t you, Christian?”
Christian chuckled at the line Crader used from the old Sunset Boulevard movie, but it didn’t deter him at all. “I go where the president goes,” Christian said.
“See,” Gina said, pleased. “He doesn’t want to be free!”
“Ah!” Crader said and laughed.
“The truth is, though,” Christian said, “I was over in New York earlier today.”
Dutch hesitated. He knew who was in New York. “Were you?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, okay,” Crader said. “A little break for yourself. Good for you.”
“Actually,” Christian went on, “I went to see Jade.”
Crader looked at him. “Jade? Jade’s in New York? What’s she doing in New York?”
“She and her mother are staying in an apartment there,” Christian said.
“Since when?” Crader asked.
“I set up an executor for Jade’s trust,” Dutch said, prompting Gina to look at him.
“Jade still has that trust fund? You’re a better man than me.”
“The executor,” Dutch went on, “has the authority to make those decisions on her behalf. She wanted to live in New York, so he thought that was a reasonable proposition and made it happen.”
“He didn’t think there was anything wrong with Jade living a stone’s throw away from you and Gina after all the hell she put you through?”
“He’s looking out for the trustee, which is what I told him to do,” Dutch made clear.
Gina, however, wasn’t so easily sold. This was all news to her, and she was frankly taken aback by the fact that Dutch never mentioned any of it. But she wasn’t about to discuss that fact in front of their guests.
“What is it that they wanted you to talk to Dutch about?” Gina asked Christian instead.
“Truthfully?”
“No, Chris, lie to her. Of course truthfully,” Crader said with a smile.
“They wanted me to talk to you. They wanted me to do an end-runaround the president and ask you to get him to meet with them. With Jade and Miss Redding, that is.”
“They want to meet with Dutch?” Gina asked.
“Yes, sir,” Christian said.
“About what?”
“Jade says she’s changed and wants to reconcile with her father.”
“Has she changed?” Gina asked, and Dutch looked, too.
Christian knew he had to be honest but careful. He didn’t want to ruin Jade’s chance at a reconciliation, but he didn’t want to sugarcoat her recovery, either. “She’s certainly more upbeat than she was after . . . after what happened with Marcus Rance. But she’s still temperamental too.”
“Temperamental?” Crader asked. “What does that mean? She’s still crazy as hell?”
“She’s still Jade, too. You know how Jade can be. But I think she really misses her father.”
“Well tough,” Crader said. “She blew her chances when she stood there and didn’t warn Gina that she was walking into a deathtrap. She made her bed.”
But Dutch would have none of it. “That’s for me to decide,” he said pointedly to Crader. “Jade is my daughter. Not yours, mine. And if I want to reconcile with my daughter, there will be a reconciliation.”
“Even after what she allowed to happen to Gina?” Crader asked. “And how she was sleeping around with Marcus Rance right under Christian’s nose?”
LaLa and Christian exchanged a glance that Dutch caught. Even Gina didn’t know about their one-night affair, and the only reason Dutch knew about it was because he guessed it, and LaLa confirmed his guess. Dutch blamed them both, and was disappointed in them both, but it wasn’t his call to make. He hated keeping a secret from his best friend Crader, but LaLa was his dear friend, too. Perhaps even dearer to him.
And LaLa stood up. “I’m going to take a peep at Little Walt,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
Gina knew something was wrong. Ever since Christian arrived, her best friend’s mood had changed. Something was up. Gina’s first inclination was to figure Crader had cheated again, but she decided not to prejudge it.
But she had to know.
“I’ll go with her,” she said as she stood.
Christian, however, wanted to be around LaLa every chance he could. He stood, too. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Little Man myself.”
“No,” Gina said firmly. “You stay here, Chris. We’ll be right back.”
“Which is code,” Crader said with a smile, “for get lost, Chris. La and I want to have some girlie girl time together.”
Gina smiled at Crader’s perceptiveness as she headed for the stairs.
Christian sat back down, although it was obvious to Dutch he didn’t like it.
“Well, Dutch?” Crader asked. “Are you going to forgive all of Jade’s transgressions and reconcile with her?”
Dutch didn’t respond to that, which, for Crader, was a firm response. You handle you and yours, Dutch’s silence seemed to say, and I’ll handle me and mine.
And then Franklin reappeared. This time to announce that Ms. Perry had arrived.
“Bring her in, Frank,” Dutch said, standing to this feet and buttoning his suit coat.
“Ms. Perry?” Crader asked as he and Christian stood, too. “Who’s Ms. Perry?”
“My CFO.”
“Over at H.I.?”
“Yep.”
Crader smiled. “You aren’t wasting any time, are you? First you steal Christian from under my nose, and now you’re already meeting with your company’s senior staff. You rascal you.”
“Don’t be hatin’,” Dutch said in his best imitation of street slang and Crader, knowing Dutch’s very privileged background, reared back and laughed heartily.
But when Lenora walked around the corridor and entered their space, his smile quickly dissolved.
“Lee,” Dutch said as he moved to meet and greet her. “Glad you could make it.”
“Thanks for inviting me,” she said as they hugged. She handed him a bottle of wine whose label they began discussing.
Crader was expecting an attractive woman. Dutch would never admit it, but he still liked to have the pretty ladies around almost as much as Crader did. But this lady was a mesmerizing sight to behold. She was voluptuous, to say the least. Maybe even on the pleasingly plump side. But that face, he thought as she approached him, was remarkable. High cheekbones, smooth, dark brown skin, a perfect nose and lips, and eyes that were alluringly large, but also cat-like. And all with makeup so minimal Crader wondered if she had on any makeup at all. And perhaps her biggest draw, he thought as he looked down further, were her ginormous breasts. Crader saw those before he saw her extended hand.
“I’m sure you know the Vice President,” Dutch said as he was introducing her.
“Soon-to-be president, yes,” Lenora said with a grand smile as she and Crader shook hands.
“This is Lee Perry, Cray. My chief financial officer.”
“Very glad to meet you, Miss Perry. Or is it Mrs.?”
Lenora knew all about the vice president’s notorious reputation with the ladies, and would have found his question a little flirtatious for a married man. But Dutch had had that same reputatio
n and he was always the gentleman. So she smiled. “I’m widowed, so I just go by Ms.”
Dutch continued with the introductions. “And this handsome young man right here is Christian Bale.” Lenora looked at him. “Not that Christian Bale,” Dutch said with a smile. “This Christian Bale has been with me since I first started running for president.”
“Well nice to meet you, Christian.”
“Nice to meet you,” Christian replied and then they all sat back down. Lenora found herself sitting between Chris and Crader.
Dutch crossed his legs and watched as Crader asked Lenora question after question and seemed so taken with her. It seemed as if she was a new toy for him to play with and he forgot that the toy didn’t belong to him. Or that he already had his own toy. He just saw a plaything, and he wanted to play.
And it was because of that very ability of Crader’s to compartmentalize his morality that had Dutch worried about LaLa. He knew Crader loved her and could be a good husband to her and father to their baby girl, but why he kept hurting her with his flirtatious ways confounded him. At some point, at some age, a man had to move on from his old ways. But Crader, to Dutch’s huge dismay, seemed to move on, but then move back again. Over and over. All it took was a pretty face, a desirable body, and he was gone.
But he was wasting his time, Dutch thought, with Lee.
“Arthur started that foundation, didn’t he?” Dutch asked her when she mentioned the Children’s Light foundation in answer to one of Crader’s numerous questions.
“He did,” Lenora said with a grand smile, seemingly relieved to be rescued by Dutch. “And it’s still going strong I’m happy to report. The donations continue to rack up and the services they provide continue to grow.”
“Has Harber Industries contributed its share?”
“No,” Lenora said firmly. “They offered. Alan McNamara, the CEO, offered personally, in fact. But I decided it would be a conflict of interest and refused to allow any such donation.”
“Wise move,” Dutch said with a smile. That was why he had wanted her at H.I. while he would be indisposed. Her judgment and integrity was always sound and never situational. He learned to respect that judgment, in fact, when she first dumped him.
“So is this the totality of the dinner guests?” she asked.
“No, no,” Crader jumped back in. “The First Lady is here and . . . ” Crader hesitated and then sat up straight, as if remembering himself. “And my wife is here.”
“Oh, good,” Lenora said, milking it, Dutch thought. “I would love to meet her.”
Crader knew a smack-back when he heard one. You’re a married man, this woman was reminding him. Act like it.
“I’ll go get her,” he said, stood up, and made his way up the stairs.
Dutch and Lenora glanced at each other, and Dutch raised his eyebrows with a smile.
“You what?” Gina asked in shock as she and LaLa stood at the back window inside Little Walt’s room. Little Walt was asleep in his bed.
“It was just a bad time, Gina,” LaLa said in a fretful voice. “I had just found out that Crader had slept with another woman even while I was planning our wedding, and that he had fathered her child. It was just too much for me.”
“So you ran into the arms of another man? That makes no sense, La. What are you talking about?”
“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t go to any bar and pick up some stranger.”
“So who did you pick up?” Gina wanted to know. She was already dumbstruck. She was already flabbergasted. The only thing that could possibly make her even more astounded was if LaLa were to tell her that her pickup was Dutch.
Crader arrived at the room’s open door just as Gina asked her question. He hadn’t heard the question, but he heard the answer.
“Christian,” LaLa said.
Gina’s big eyes stretched even larger. “Christian?” she said in an exaggerated whisper. “Are you saying, are you telling me that Christian and you, that you and Christian slept together?”
LaLa felt his presence before she saw him. Then she turned toward the bedroom door. When she saw Crader standing there, his face even more shocked that Gina’s, her heart dropped through her shoe.
“Crader,” she said breathlessly. But Crader took off.
“Oh, no!” LaLa said and hurried toward the exit. But Gina ran even faster. She ran down the corridor and was at the top of the stairs by the time Crader was at the bottom of the stairs.
“Dutch! Dutch!” Gina cried from upstairs as Dutch jumped to his feet downstairs. He saw Crader approaching them on a dead run, but he looked at Gina. All he could think about was her and Little Walt. Was she and Little Walt okay? His heart began to pound.
“Dutch, stop him!” Gina screamed just as Crader was lunging at Christian, who had also stood up. He cold-cocked Christian so hard that the young man’s body flew onto the coffee table, collapsing it, his blond hair flying wildly as he sailed down.
Crader then jumped on top of Christian but Dutch immediately grabbed onto Crader, pulling him back up. The Secret Service agents suddenly appeared from outside, running toward the scene.
“What’s wrong with you?” Dutch asked angrily as he slung Crader to his feet. Gina and LaLa were running down the stairs. Lenora had moved over, toward Dutch.
“Did you fuck my wife?” Crader screamed at Christian. “Did you fuck my wife, motherfucker?”
“Everything alright in here, sir?” the agent in charge asked Dutch as he surveyed the scene.
“Everything’s fine,” Dutch responded. “You and your boys can go back out. Everything’s fine.”
The agent looked over the scene again. He could overrule the president if he perceived a serious enough threat. He decided, given Crader’s question to Christian, that it was domestic and that the president had it well in hand. He wouldn’t intercede, and he did order his men to go back outside. But because the president was involved, he, as agent-in-charge, refused to leave.
“Answer me!” Crader yelled at a now bleeding Christian. “Did you fuck my wife?”
“Yes!” Christian screamed, his rarely displayed anger causing him to turn beet-red. “Are you satisfied? Yes!”
And that admittance seemed to take the life out of Crader. He just stood there as if he couldn’t quite understand what Christian’s response meant.
And then LaLa and Gina arrived, with LaLa rushing to Christian’s aid, helping him to his feet.
“You’re going to run to him?” Crader asked his wife, astounded yet again. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Let’s walk,” Dutch said to his friend before his anger forced him to do something he may not be able to undo. Beating on Christian was one thing. Mixing it up with LaLa would be something altogether different. And if Dutch had to take sides, he would. He would be on LaLa’s.
But Crader just stood there. Staring at his wife assisting another man. The man she just admitted she slept with. And it was all a blur to Crader.
Dutch tapped him on his chest. “Now, Cray,” he said and began heading toward the exit. Crader stood there a second longer, still staring at LaLa. Then he backed up and followed Dutch. The agent, too, left the house.
“Take him to the bathroom, La,” Gina said when she saw that most of Christian’s problem stemmed from a bloody nose.
“I’m alright,” Christian said as he winced at LaLa’s touch.
“You’re not alright,” LaLa said. “Come on.” She held his head back as she walked him to the bathroom.
Gina looked at Lenora, the only person left in the room, and smiled. “I am so sorry about this,” she said. “This is not normally how we spend our evenings.”
Lenora smiled. “I sure hope not.”
Gina laughed. And extended her hand. “I’m Regina Harber.”
“Mrs. Harber,” Lenora said, shaking Gina’s hand. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
“And you’re---”
“I’m sorry. I’m Lenora Perry. Lee Perry.”
/> “Oh. Dutch’s financial guru.”
Lenora smiled. “Something like that, yes, ma’am.” It was obvious that Dutch hadn’t mentioned that he had invited her to dinner, which was slightly disconcerting to her. Usually when a man didn’t mention you, it bode well for you, but awful for his marriage. “The president invited me earlier today,” she felt a need to explain. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it’s okay,” Gina replied, although she would have preferred if he had mentioned it. And mentioned the fact that this Miss Perry, whom she knew came to see him today, was this drop-dead gorgeous.
“You can have a seat.”
Lenora sat down and for a few minutes all they did was watch Franklin remove the pieces of the broken table.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said to the First Lady as he hoisted the mainframe over his head and walked it away, too.
“He’s fast,” Lenora said.
“And efficient, yes. So, tell me, Ms. Perry---”
“Lenora, please. Or just plain Lee.”
“Lee, it is. So tell me: how are things over at Harber Industries?”
“Good. Productive. Everything is going well.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“I was honored when Dutch asked me to keep an eye on things for him, but I never dreamed how challenging and also gratifying it all would be.”
“Will you stay on when Dutch returns to the helm?”
“That’s entirely up to him.”
Gina nodded. She spoke with such familiarity. “So how long have you known the president?”
“Oh, years. We used to. . . be friends when I was just out of college.”
“So you’re from the Boston area too?”
“I am. Born and raised.”
“And since H.I. is Boston-based, I take it you flew down for the meeting with Dutch today?”
“I did.”
“And will be returning tomorrow, or later tonight?”
“That’s entirely up to him,” Lenora said again and Gina nodded again. Although she found that comment especially odd.
CHAPTER SIX
They walked across the grounds in a purposeful lumber. Dutch and Crader both had their suit coats unbuttoned and both hands in their pants pockets. With secret service personnel on either end of the huge estate reminding both men of the rarified air in which they traveled, the real night wind was like a breeze of fresh air across their faces. For Dutch, it was a needed change. For Crader, who couldn’t for the life of him understand what he had overheard, it was just another breeze.
DUTCH AND GINA: WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE Page 6