Chapter 4

Genny leaned back in the luxury of The Beast. The Presidential Limousine might be a heavily armored rolling fortress, but it was also very, very comfortable. The leather bucket seat wrapped around her. Though if not for the wide, shared armrest, she’d be rubbing shoulders with the President.

“I thought your car would be wider. It feels very narrow.”

The President rapped his knuckles on the side panel of the car door as they zipped from the museum back to the White House with a full police escort. “Five inches of bullet-proof protection on all sides has to go somewhere.”

They turned in at the gates to the White House.

“I am not returning to my hotel?”

“I was hoping that you would join me for a late dinner. You don’t mind, do you?”

Genny began considering the various implications and then stopped. She didn’t want their evening to be over, and that was enough for her. At least for now.

“My family may still be too French, we rarely dine before this time. Can you cook?”

“Not even a little bit. I can barbeque, but not cook. You?”

“I do not even do that.” Genny had always loved food, just not enough to learn to prepare it for herself. And living so much on the road made any effort to maintain a kitchen utterly pointless. She didn’t even have a place to stay other than her family’s house on the plantation and her own a small apartment in Paris close by the World Heritage offices. Everything else was hotel rooms.

She noted that they pulled up to the South Portico, rather than the North. And that a canopy like a hotel’s shielded the path from the car door to the White House doors.

“You are afraid to be photographed with me?” The journey to the museum had included an elaborate shell game in which Agent Belfour had led her through the Hay-Adams basement to the church on the other side of the street, and she had been driven separately from the President.

“No,” Peter hesitated, then confirmed his initial response as if making it more true for himself. “No. I don’t mind. I had thought to shield you from too much media attention for your own sake.”

Usually Genny found men to be so easy to read, but with the President she had such difficulty that it was hard to be sure. Was he making it up on her behalf or did he not want the negative press? Like that movie, this President had absurdly high approval from the American people. But unlike the movie, he was not facing an election for two more years. Could he afford a girlfriend? Was that something she wanted to be? Too many questions.

“How is it that you know so little about me? Didn’t your Secret Service investigate me? Even more now that I am seeing you a second time?” She remained seated in the car, so he made no move to open the door. She could just see his bodyguard waiting beside the car door, partially hidden by the thick glass as well as by the shadows beneath the canopy.

“I’m sure they did.” The President turned on the light inside the passenger compartment.

Now she could see him more clearly, but she understood him no better.

“I asked for information about you after our first meeting in July,” he continued. “They told me three things about you: your name, your job title, and that you had avoided any chance at having a decent education by attending Cambridge. I have asked them to tell me nothing else about you.”

“You must have attended that second-rate place in the Midlands.”

They shared a smile over the centuries-old rivalry between their schools of Cambridge and Oxford.

“They told you nothing?” Genny had assumed that she was operating at an immense disadvantage in this relationship. That her life was an open book to a man who she only knew through his public image.

“Nothing. I ordered them not to.”

She’d have to think about that. Assuming he was telling the truth, it meant that he was being decent and fair far past any man she had ever met. And she could think of no reason for him to lie.

“So you asked me to come to the White House because I caught your eye?” If he said yes, he might become the third man she tried her martial arts on.

“While you are shockingly beautiful, no.”

Even if she didn’t tie her ego to her looks, the compliment washed over her and added to the warmth she was beginning to feel for the man. A warmth that was spreading far past her thoughts.

“It was that you, as a woman, talked three Southeast Asian U.N. Ambassadors to a standstill without even breaking a sweat.”

“Breaking a sweat?” She knew a great deal of American idiom, but not that piece.

“You made it look effortless.”

“Ah.”

“And I thought that this was a woman worth knowing. I see your beauty as a mere bonus.” His smile turned slightly wicked.

“And now you are baiting me. Well, I shall rise above it and you will now take me to dinner in your house.”

The President knocked twice on the window with the back of his knuckles. After he helped her out of the car, he did not release her hand while escorting her inside.

# # #

They sat together in the Second Floor Kitchen. The staff had tried to place them in the formal dining room, but Geneviève had asked if they could simply dine at the island in the kitchen.

Peter had liked the sound of that.

Once dinner had been delivered from the main kitchen in the basement, he’d dismissed both the staff and the Secret Service. He knew the latter had merely retired to wait on the floor below until relieved by the next shift or Geneviève was ready to go home. Which he hoped wasn’t anytime soon. Not only was he enjoying her company, but she was also a joy to watch. Not merely the sleek red dress with ornate golden needlework that wrapped so splendidly about her body.

When she spoke, her hands came to life. She would fold them quietly when being an attentive listener, and then, as she attempted to draw some mental image, her hands rose and sculpted the air about her until it vibrated with her energy. It was as if she pulled threads of Peter himself and made them glow in the air before her.

He kept wishing he had looked at her Secret Service file, then he might not feel as if he was constantly in over his head. But that boat had long since sailed. She simply overwhelmed him every moment they were together. Like now, they didn’t even need to be speaking. They simply sat quietly and enjoyed their dessert of coconut ice cream with dark chocolate sauce.

They sat on barstools across the maple-wood island from each other in his private kitchen, a room he rarely used for more than a late-night scrambled eggs and toast. It was unfamiliar in many ways, but she made him feel as if he had sat here many times. With her. It was as if the room had been waiting only for her to place the final, proper accent upon it. She brought it too to life. The walnut cabinets picked up the highlights in her dark hair. Her eyes shone brighter than the brass fittings in the soft glow of the candles he had discovered in a corner cabinet.

He did his best not to compare her to his first wife, but it was inevitable. Katherine Matthews had been the center of attention in any room she entered. A red-headed whirlwind with a siren’s body who had bowled him off his feet before he knew what hit him. Yet by the time they arrived at the White House they were barely on speaking terms.

She had lived on the third floor of the Residence, he’d lived on the second. To this day, he couldn’t stand to go up there. Being a lone bachelor in the entire Residence had felt too foolish. When he made Daniel his Chief of Staff, he’d also given him the third floor to live in. Now he and his wife Alice resided there, and best of luck to them. It made the perfect excuse for him not to go up there. When the three of them dined together, which was several times a week when their schedule at the White House or Alice’s at the CIA didn’t interfere, they met on the second floor or over in the West Wing dining room.

Katherine had staked out her territory with her vivacity, her immense popularity, her slap-you-in-the-face sexual power, and a conniving streak a mile wide that had been her ultimate undoing.

Geneviève carried an air of quiet sophistication about her. Her temper was as placid as a mountain lake. Granted, one of unknown depths, but she was a center of calm. He felt better just for sitting with her. Even the first time Peter had met Katherine, she’d left him feeling drained.

He had to give his dead wife some credit, he wouldn’t be President without her. She’d pushed and driven, arranged and maneuvered until he’d met all of the right people and been in all of the right places. Her sense of politics had far exceeded his own. In that one way, they had been a good team. She navigated the political landscape as if she had her own personal, private, executive roadmap.

His interests had lain elsewhere. What drove him to the Presidency was the opportunity to make a difference. He’d been a key player in dozens of corporate rescues, eventually including the restructuring of NASA and recovering whole sections of the auto industry that had teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. It’s where he’d made his name and where he’d found his joy.

And it had nothing to do with Katherine. That part of his life, at least, was clean from the blemishes she had laid upon so much of his life.

But he didn’t want to think about her. He wanted to know more about the passions of the woman sharing his dinner table.

“Tell me more about your Heritage Sites, Geneviève.”

# # #

Over the long-finished meal, a very passable Thai curry on red rice and magnificent coconut ice cream, Genny told the President of a few of the dozens of wonders she’d toured, both in Southeast Asia and other places around the world. From the Phong Nha-Ke Bang Park of Vietnam, the largest karst limestone cave system on the planet, where the largest cave in the world had only been discovered in 2009, large enough to hold a New York City block, including its forty-story high skyscrapers. To the Buddhist Temple of Borobudur in Indonesia, lost for six hundred years in the jungle and second only to Angkor Wat. She’d also entered the Caves of Lascaux, not the replica that had been set up for tourists, but the original, now so carefully protected against further degradation due to moisture.

“I had to wear a rebreathing apparatus simply to keep the moisture from my breath from touching the paintings.”

“And I’ll bet you looked fetching in it.”

Genny was beginning to trust her perception of the President’s thoughts. By his smile, he clearly was thinking of how she must have looked in some sexy James Bond movie heroine fashion. It was hard to complain that he saw her in such a way. Though eventually reality would disappoint. But in the favor of his more practical side, his constant questions and interruptions proved he was also paying attention to her words.

Not only did he appear interested in her, he had made her interested in him. They had talked around a dozen topics and she could think of a hundred more that she would enjoy exploring with him. Never had she so appreciated a man’s company.

“Do you have a music player in this White House home of yours?”

“Uh, sort of. I have a speaker system in the other room that I can drop my iPod into. But it’s loaded with lectures on governance, international law, documents I don’t have time to read unless I’m exercising or something. That sort of thing.”

“Show me.” She stood and waited for him to gain his feet. He sounded as compulsive as she was. Her own playlist included the complete recordings of the latest World Heritage Conservation Conference with a special focus on overly-rapid urban development and its effect on the present sites. She’d only heard the sessions at which she’d spoken or been on a panel, now she was trying to catch up with all of the other tracks.

But she did have one other thing stored there.

He led her across the Central Hall. Their Scrabble set had been cleaned up, though the board still remained on the low table from the prior night, as if awaiting another game. Another time perhaps. Directly opposite the kitchen was a small living room. Well, small in comparison to the vast expanse of the hall. Two sofas, several armchairs, a pair of low tables scattered with magazines and file folders. A space shoved clear where he was obviously used to dining when eating alone. It had been decorated in dark greens with a tasteful eye.

“The previous First Lady,” he remarked, noticing her attention. “Not my wife. Not my former wife, er, deceased wife. She decorated this room for her husband. I liked it and made Katherine leave it alone when she was doing the rest of the Residence.”

“It looks comfortable, and very masculine.”

“If that’s an ego stroke, I’ll take it. If patronizing, I’ll ignore it. There’s the player, but it doesn’t even have radio.”

She’d retrieved her purse as they passed through the hall and she fished out her iPod. Plugging it in, she found what she was looking for and pressed Play.

Genny set aside her purse and moved to stand before the President. “It is not the best music for a first dance together, but perhaps it is good nonetheless.”

A Christmas carol came out of the speakers.

# # #

Geneviève moved into his arms. Peter didn’t know what to do with the surge of energy that coursed through his body. Other than when he’d taken her hand to help her out of The Beast and the briefest of kisses last night, they had barely touched. He didn’t count her hand tucked in the crook of his elbow.

Well, okay, he had counted it, until he suddenly had his arms full of luscious woman.

Her idea of dancing was not some stand-offish American form of dance. It wasn’t even a waltz distance. She simply filled his arms.

She placed a hand around his back and her cheek on his shoulder. With no other choice, he tentatively slid his hands around her waist. Never had he felt such a thing. “Thing,” there was a good word. Mr. Scrabble King had just lost all his words.

Geneviève began a slow shuffle to some song he couldn’t make heads or tails of. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because he didn’t have sufficient attention span to identify what he was hearing.

The scent of her filled him as much as her warmth. She wasn’t that much shorter than he was, so her head on his shoulder nestled up against his neck.

“Hmm, you are smelling very good.”

He couldn’t have said it better. “I took a shower.”

Her laugh was soft and welcoming.

Then he lay his cheek on her hair. It was even softer and thicker than it looked. It was impossible to tell when he first came in contact with it. He brushed a hand over its length, and down onto her back. He stroked it again, pulling some of it aside so that her face would not be lost in it.

“I know, I need to cut it off. I just never get around to it.”

“If you ever do that, I will immediately cancel your visa to our country.”

“Hmm,” it was practically a purr of satisfaction.

He could feel the sound ripple from her chest to his.

“You certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome.”

All he could think about was his need to kiss this woman. And then it struck him that if she weren’t willing, anticipating just that, she’d not be in his arms.

Sometimes he was a little stupid, but that didn’t mean he was slow once he figured out what was going on.

# # #

Genny sighed with pleasure as he kissed her. She’d wanted it to be his choice. She’d wanted it to be his choice during dinner, and before that in the museum. Truth be told, she’d wanted it to be his choice since that very first chance meeting at the U.N. in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library six months before. Though she’d have laughed at anyone who had told her so at the time.

She didn’t need a man. Her life was too full. Her last lover had been Klaus. He had been a good lover, right until she was named Chief of Unit for Southeast Asia World Heritage and he was passed over as Assistant Chief of Northern Africa. Then he had been not so good.

Perhaps the President would be her next lover. The way he kissed her made that a definite possibility. He might be a world leader, but he also smelled and felt wonderful. He held her with a gentleness of wonder. Did he also possess an animal side hiding down behind all of those defenses that were ever so polite and ever so careful?

For she could see his defenses as clearly as she could feel his lips searing against hers. That had been clear to her from the first moment of their meeting. He hid behind layers of hurt, of Scrabble games and ex-wives, of his past and most definitely of his job. Well, she might as well start there before his kiss melted her into an absolute puddle.

She broke the kiss and snuggled back against him as they moved softly to a slow rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

“So, Mr. President, do you have a bedroom nearby as well?”

He laughed, a delightful sound that rumbled against her ear. “How can you ask that question and still not call me by my Christian name?”

Genny pulled back as if in surprise and looked up at him from the circle of his arms. “Oh, Mr. President, this isn’t about you. This is about the most powerful leader in the world.”

“So, if I lose my next election in two years, it will be over between us?”

“Absolument!” With a sly smile, she crossed her fingers and spit over them, a child’s promise. “It is only the President I want to be making love to.”

He scooped her up in his arms and moved toward a side door. “I’d better win the next goddamn election, that’s all I have to say.”

In the darkened bedroom, he began to undress her to Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.