THE PRESIDENT'S GIRLFRIEND by Mallory Monroe Page B

suite, ma’am.  He’s not in a different suite.  He’s gone.”
     Gina looked at Christian.  “Back to Washington?”
     Christian nodded.  “He has to tour the tornado damage in Oklahoma and then the flood damage in Tennessee.  So he won’t have a moment to spare, or be back in Washington until probably well after midnight tonight, ma’am.  He had to get an early start, so he didn’t want to wake you.”
     “That’s bullshit and you know it!”
     Christian corrected himself.  “He felt it best he didn’t wake you.”
     That’s more like it, Gina thought.  As if he was so afraid she might want something from him, like a thumbs down on that budget bill.  And he didn’t even want to discuss it.  She came to discuss it, and it never came up.  She felt like an abject failure.  And LaLa and Demps and all of their employees were depending on her. 
     Or was his motives more personal?  Had all of that talk about preparing her a ruse to get her into bed, and then he pulled his disappearing act again?   Was this supposed to make clear to her that he didn’t want her, just her body?  And only when that was convenient for him?  He was, after all, the president.  Who was she to complain?
     Well, to hell with him, she thought, and moved to get out of bed.  Until she realized she was still completely naked. 
     She looked at Christian, who looked thoroughly contrite.  “Will you excuse me so I can get dressed?”
     “Yes, ma’am.  But . . .”
     “But what?”  She didn’t see where it would be up for debate.
     “I know you’re upset with the president, ma’am, and you should be.  I thought it was a . . . bad move on his part leaving you like this.”
     “Did you share that opinion with him?”
     “Oh, no ma’am, I couldn’t.  I mean, I can’t just. . . He’s the president, ma’am.”
     “And that gives him a license to treat people any way he pleases?”
     “No, of course not,” Christian said, trying him best to be reasonable.  “But, he left me behind to make sure you were okay and that you got home safe.  That’s why he made me stay here in Newark.  He’d never done that before.”
     Gina frowned, stared at Christian.  “Never done what before?”
     “He’s never, after, I mean---”
     “What you mean to say is that after he’s fucked other women in the various hotels of the various towns where he’s appeared in the past, he’s never asked you to see them safely home.  Is that what you mean, Chris?”
     Christian swallowed hard, his hands clutched together in front of him.  She was so blunt,  he thought, and so right on.  “Yes,” was all he could manage to say.
     “And I’m supposed to feel privileged by the fact that he left an escort for me?”
     Christian wanted to be anywhere but here.  “Yes,” he said truthfully again.
     “Like hell,” Gina said.  Then she frowned disgustedly.  “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she said.
     “He’s not like that,” Christian blurted out, his blue eyes wide with apprehension.  Gina looked at him.  “I mean, yes, he’s dated a lot of women, if you can call it dating.  He’s a bachelor who’s been in the public eye for eight straight years, five as a United States Senator and three now as president, and he has to pick his moments.  I mean, with respect, Miss Lansing, who do you think you’re dealing with?  You had to know this wouldn’t be a regular kind of relationship, not with Dutch Harber, you had to have known that.  Didn’t you?”
       Gina stared at Christian.  She knew it would be a different kind of affair, she knew that going in.  But that still didn’t give Dutch license to treat her as if she was that one-night-stand he banged in Miami.  She’d never accept that. 
     “I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she