to all of it,” Sabrina said. No, I’m not dumb enough to get sucked into helping a guy who knows exactly how to reel me in. She cringed at the thought of how he’d led her to this moment today. Sabrina Merritt is a beautiful person, inside and out. Jake knew her looks were the source of her confidence, and he’d pandered to that. It felt just like the old days, when he’d played on her vulnerability to dissuade her from reporting his father the moment she’d learned of the bribe. What next? Would he try to use the attraction that still shimmered in the air between them, the heat that rose above their enmity?
“Dammit, Sabrina,” he said. “I’m not letting you out of here until you agree to help.”
She pressed her right hand palm down onto the island, slid it toward him. “Is this where you chop off my fingers for the ransom note?”
His gaze dropped to her manicured, Crushed Raspberry nails. “Just tell me why,” he said tightly.
“I have plans for my future, and they don’t involve revisiting the past.”
For long seconds he processed that. “When you say plans, do you mean like your plan to climb Everest?”
That stung. “When I said that, I was back on my feet for the first time after the accident.” She hated thinking about the car crash that had killed her mom and left Sabrina, then still a teenager, unable to walk for eighteen months. She glared at Jake. “Cut me some slack, will you?”
“Like you cut my father some slack?” he retorted.
The animosity between them was a tangible beast, provoked in an instant, snuffling at territory they hadn’t explored in years. Sabrina found herself shaking. Jake touched her hand and said, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned the Everest thing.”
It was safest to assume his remorse was prompted by concern for his campaign. She pulled her hand back, rubbing the spot he’d left tingling. “You always were a know-it-all jerk,” she grumbled.
His shoulders eased. “You always were a spoiled brat,” he returned. He sat back down on his stool. “What’s your plan, Sabrina?”
“I don’t have to tell you. I haven’t even told Dad yet.”
“So it’s something he won’t like,” he speculated. He knew how close she was to her father. “Does it involve liposuction?”
“Of course not.” Her hands went involuntarily to her thighs. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs.”
“A point I made on your behalf today,” he reminded her.
She knew he was manipulating her again, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell him. “I’ve lined up a job with the Injured Kids Education Trust.”
He drained his cup. “Never heard of it.”
“The trust aims to establish a dedicated school for kids who’ve suffered serious injuries. It’ll combine physical rehabilitation with a regular high school education in a social environment. I met one of the directors through Tyler—the foundation funds their operating costs.” Tyler was the president of the charitable Warrington Foundation.
“I approached the trust a couple of months ago to ask if I could get involved. They want me to be their front person, to promote the need for the school and help lobby for funding. I had to get the Miss U.S.A. Pageant out of the way,” she said, “but the trust plans to announce my appointment this week.”
“Why haven’t you told your dad?” Jake cleared their cups away.
“Dad still wants me to work at Merritt, Merritt & Finch with him. Every time I suggest another job, he comes up with ten reasons why I should be somewhere he can look out for me, even though I’m not qualified to do anything in a law firm beyond opening the mail. He’s driving me crazy.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You love being pampered and protected by your father.”
Jake Warrington, The Man Who Knew Too Much. He knew she’d been born with an extra dependency gene that was the perfect match for her father’s extra protectiveness gene.
Jake had neither defect. Sabrina looked at him, at the broad shoulders that could bear the problems of a dozen chunky-thighed beauty queens, then at the uncompromising jaw that warned against leaning on him.
She wished she’d heeded that warning five years ago.
“I don’t love it anymore,” she said.
“You’ve never held down a job longer than six months. How is this different from any of your other one-minute-wonder careers?” Jake leaned back precariously on his stool. “From, say, cordon bleu catering, or your burning ambition to join the police?”
“Neither of those was right for me, but I know this is.”
“Then there was, let me see…” He rubbed his chin. “Dog-grooming school?”
Did he plan to catalog all the career choices she’d embraced and abandoned with equal speed? “That was over summer vacation, and I was trying to make a point to my father.”
The point being that, unlike her sisters, she didn’t want to pursue a law degree. Her father had finally conceded the point, but his latest idea was that she should work at the family firm while she trained to be a paralegal.
“What about your job in Congressman Smith’s office, working for world peace?” A sneer in the words. “At least that used your political science degree.”
“My degree is in international relations.” Didn’t he remember even that much about her?
“You mean, that Swiss guy you dated in your final year?”
She scowled. “Funny.” But since she’d chosen international relations specifically because the course wasn’t as tough as political science, then just scraped by while her social life took off exponentially, she wasn’t on firm ground. “Congressman Smith gave me the job as a favor to Dad, so I’d have something to talk about at the Miss U.S.A. Pageant. It was only ever a part-time, short-term project, not something I wanted to make a career out of. World peace is overrated.” It had been mentioned countless times at the Miss U.S.A. Pageant, the most warlike environment she’d ever encountered.
“And you think you can metamorphose into someone who’s serious about her work?” Jake’s stool scraped on the floor as he stood. “I can see why you’re attracted to this injury-trust idea, but admit it, Sabrina, the chances you’ll stick with it are low to zero.”
He wouldn’t be the last person to say that. Sabrina stood, too, robbing him of the height advantage.
“Your opinion is irrelevant,” she said. “I’m twenty-six years old, and I’ve finally found an opportunity that will let me be more than Jonah Merritt’s pampered youngest daughter, the one who had the accident.” There was a time when she’d thought Jake saw past that label, but she’d been proven wrong. “This is a fresh start for me.”
It might have been a moment’s sympathy that softened Jake’s blue eyes, but more likely it was a trick of the light, because when he spoke, his voice was harsh. “I want a fresh start, too. Warringtons have served this state as governor for generations, until my father screwed up. I can’t wipe the slate clean unless I win this primary. If I can just do that, I’ll be a shoo-in for governor—the party will swing its full support behind me, and it hasn’t lost an election in Georgia in fifty years.”
His hands curled into fists, as if he had to squeeze out his next words. “Please, Sabrina, help me.”
Like her, he wanted to put the past behind him. Despite their mutual dislike, Sabrina sympathized. Don’t let him get to you. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “The days when I fell over my feet in my rush to do whatever you wanted are long gone, Jake.”
What the hell did that mean? Jake paced to the French doors, then turned to face her. “If you fell over your feet,