The By Request Collection. Kate HardyЧитать онлайн книгу.
sister was trying to say. “Meaning what?”
“Is it possible that maybe you never stopped loving him?”
Leave it to Nora to speak her mind and tell it like it was. And of course Gracie had considered that. “At this point, I’m not really sure. I just know that I feel good when I’m with him. We just...fit. The thought of letting him back in then losing him again terrifies me. Maybe it’s not so much that I don’t trust him. Maybe I don’t trust myself.”
“I know all about loss, honey, believe me. When I lost Sean I thought I would never recover.”
Nora’s husband and childhood sweetheart, Sean O’Malley, had died fighting in the war in Iraq. He’d given his life saving other soldiers. Gracie hadn’t forgotten how devastated Nora had been to lose the love of her life. The only thing that had kept her going was her son, Declan. And she’d sworn that she would never give her heart to a man again. But here she was, now happily engaged, deeply in love and about to get married. People did get second chances.
Maybe it was now meant to be, and seven years ago just hadn’t been their time.
“Your only other option is to not try,” Nora said. “Is that what you want?”
No, not trying wasn’t an option at all. They had something good. Something special. “I can barely imagine my life without him in it. I’ve never been able to talk to anyone the way I can talk to him. He accepts me for who I am. He sees past the Winchester name and appreciates me for me. He always has. In a couple of weeks he’s gone from being my mortal enemy to my best friend. How do you give up on something like that?”
“Simple. You don’t. You give it your all, and you fight for what you want. And you don’t stop until you have no fight left in you.”
Nora was right. Gracie needed to fight for them. And the truth was that so far, she hadn’t even had to fight all that hard. Everything just seemed to be falling into place. It was almost too easy. But easy was good, and she planned to enjoy it.
“Yes,” she told her sister. “I’m bringing Roman to the wedding.”
Nora sounded genuinely pleased when she said, “Wonderful! I’m so happy for you, Grace.”
Her doorbell rang. “Speak of the devil. Roman is here. I have to go.”
“If I don’t talk to you before then, I’ll see you next Thursday. Love you!”
“Love you, too!” Gracie hung up, slipped a robe on and scurried to the door. Roman was early. He wasn’t supposed to be there for another half an hour, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t wait to see him.
She pulled the door open, ready to throw herself into his arms, and was surprised to find not Roman standing there, but Dax Caufield.
Before Gracie could say a word, Dax walked right in without invitation, and for a second she was too stunned to say or do anything. He’d been blowing up her phone and nagging her assistant since Friday, after Gracie had seen him at the restaurant. But to show up uninvited at her home?
“Dax, what are you doing here? And how did you get in?”
He avoided her question entirely. With a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, he shrugged out of his coat and said, “You’ve been avoiding me, Grace.”
She instinctively pulled her robe tighter around herself. She’d always felt comfortable with Dax. He’d been to her place a dozen times before when they’d worked on the campaign and she’d never thought twice about it. But something about this surprise visit, and the vibe she was getting from him, felt very wrong. She made a mental note to have a serious talk with her doorman. She didn’t care if it was the president there to see her, he should have called up. “As I told you the other night, I’ve been very busy.”
He took a seat on the couch, making himself comfortable. “You don’t look busy now. Let’s talk.”
Who the hell was he to tell her if she was or wasn’t busy? Why was he acting like this? “This is not a good night for me.”
“I won’t take too much of your time,” he said. “I promise.”
He already had taken too much time. And he was making her uncomfortable. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, and the fact that all she had on was a thin silk robe.
“You could offer me a drink,” he said, crossing one leg over the other, settling back as if he was planning to stay a while.
He was trying to intimidate her, she realized. He was bullying her. She’d seen him do it before, never to her but to his political enemies during the campaign. She hadn’t cared for it then, and she really didn’t like it now.
“Dax, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
With a sigh he leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “Grace, I can’t do that.”
She went from uncomfortable to downright uneasy. He was actually refusing to leave her home?
“Grace, I have a problem and I need your help.”
“What kind of problem?”
“There are people out to get me. They’re trying to ruin me, Grace.”
Well, of course there were. He was a politician and it was a cutthroat business. And what did he think she could do about it? “Who is trying to ruin you?”
“People who don’t like my politics. Who think there’s no place for a straight shooter in the senate. They tried to buy my vote, and when I refused they set out to ruin me.”
Unless he had something to hide, it shouldn’t have mattered who was after him. “How can they do that if you’ve done nothing wrong?”
“That’s why I need all the files you have from the campaign. It’s the only way to prove my innocence.”
That made no sense. “You have copies of everything.”
“You’re going to have to trust me on this, Grace. I need you to hand over everything you have.”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? She didn’t trust him. Not anymore. He wasn’t acting like himself, and it was scaring her a little. “Dax, I’m sorry, but I don’t have backups of anything.”
“Grace,” he said, rising from the couch. “We both know that’s not true.”
She took a step back, not just intimidated, but actually scared. “Dax, you have to leave right now.”
He took a step toward her. Casually, but there was a darkness in his eyes that made her heart beat faster and her breath hitch.
“I really need your cooperation. It’s a simple request.”
She held her ground, but her knees had started to knock. “I can’t give you something I don’t have.”
“We can do this now. You can hand over the flash drive and we can be done with it, or I can send someone to get it for me. And my colleagues are not as patient as I am. It’s up to you, Grace.”
Colleagues? He was threatening to send someone to do what? Rough her up?
Who the hell was this man?
“If you don’t leave now I’m going to call the police,” she told him, squaring her shoulders, struggling to hide the tremble in her voice, wishing she had her cell phone. If she could record his threats...
“That’s not advisable, Grace. You would be wise to cooperate.”
Screw that, and screw him. With a surge of courage that came from somewhere deep inside of her, she walked past Dax and grabbed the cordless phone off the coffee table. She punched in 911, and with her finger hovering over the button to connect the call, said firmly, “Get. Out.”
Dax shrugged and shook his head, as if he were disappointed in her,