“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, then grabbed his coat. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He strolled to the door, casually pulling his coat on, and without looking back, walked out. She ran to the door and locked it behind him. That was when the reality of what had just happened hit her full force, and she started to shake from the inside out. What could ever possess Dax to treat her that way? To bully and threaten her.
She felt betrayed and used and so stupid for not seeing sooner what he was really like.
And why were her copies of the files so critical? They were no different from his. At least, they shouldn’t be.
Something was up, and she had the feeling that it had nothing to do with his innocence. If people were out to get him there must be a damned good reason. And she wanted to know why.
She collapsed onto the couch and sat there for several minutes, trying to calm down, stuck somewhere between grief and fear and hurt. The sharp rap on the door several minutes later nearly had her jumping out of her skin. Was that Dax’s colleague already? Was he there to rough her up?
It took all her courage, but she got up and with shaky knees walked to the door, checking the peephole this time.
It was Roman. She went limp with relief. She threw the door open, hurled herself into his arms, knocking the bag of food he’d brought right out of his hand, and started to cry.
“Gracie, what’s wrong?” Roman asked, holding her tight, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
She buried her face against his chest and sobbed, clinging to him like he was her lifeline, trembling all over.
He walked her backward into the apartment and shut the door behind them. When he’d pulled onto her street he had seen a man, one who’d looked an awful lot like Dax Caufield, leave her building and climb into a limo, but he’d been too far away to tell for sure.
Now he knew.
He wanted to know what had happened, if Dax had hurt her, but she was in no shape to explain. So he held her tight until the sobs subsided and she stopped trembling.
“Are you okay?” he asked, holding her away from him and cradling her face in his hands so he could see her eyes, which were all red and puffy.
“I am now,” she said, sniffing and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Dax came by.”
His heart skipped a beat. He should have gotten there sooner. He should have gone straight to her when he left the FBI. To protect her. But there had been no way to know Dax would be so bold as to show up at her apartment. “Tell me what happened.”
She told him how Dax had arrived unannounced and harassed her, even threatened her, for the flash drive from his campaign. That he would flat out threaten someone of Grace’s social standing disturbed Roman more than anything. Dax was either running scared and desperate and making mistakes, or so arrogant he thought he was invincible.
“Did you give him the flash drive?” he asked her.
“I told him I didn’t have them.”
“Do you?”
She nodded. “In my file cabinet. Something isn’t right, Roman. He has the same copies of everything that I do. Why is this so important
