Her So-Called Fiancé. Abby Gaines

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СКАЧАТЬ here before, but she’d heard all about it. The reality was even more impressive. She buzzed her window down, stuck her head out. “This place is fantastic.”

      “Built by Warrington Construction.”

      She knew from Tyler, whose brother Max ran Warrington Construction, that the basic design was Jake’s, handed over to an architect for refining.

      Jake walked around the car to open Sabrina’s door. He hadn’t opened a door for her in years. “What’s going on, Jake? I don’t trust you when you’re nice.”

      “Welcome to my world,” he muttered.

      She climbed out, pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear as she looked up at the house.

      Jake’s scanned her, head to toe. “Inside,” he ordered.

      The sooner she heard him out, the sooner she could go home and get on with her life. Sabrina stuck her chin in the air and marched up the front walk.

      Jake keyed in an entry code and the extra-high, double-wide front door swung silently, easily, on industrial-size hinges.

      Sabrina stepped into a slate-floored atrium, glanced at the elaborately framed mirror on the far wall, then up to the ceiling. “This is beautiful.”

      “Thanks.” He led the way to the open-plan living and dining area, dominated by a stone-and-timber fireplace. Recesses in the fire surround stored logs and pinecones. Rustic.

      “The kitchen’s through here.” Jake pointed to the doorway beyond.

      She followed him into the large, south-facing kitchen. Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the French doors, making patterns on the white marble floor and the warm wooden cabinets.

      “Have a seat.” Jake waved to the stools at the marble-topped island. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

      “You must love living here, in a place you’ve created for yourself,” Sabrina said as he retrieved mugs, coffee, sugar.

      He shrugged. “I wanted to build something distinctive, but with an architectural integrity that would stand the test of time.”

      Typical of Jake to reduce this incredible home to something as calculated as architectural integrity. They lapsed into a silence while they waited for the kettle.

      At last, Jake concentrated on adding boiling water to the French press. He added half-and-half and one sugar to Sabrina’s cup, nothing to his, then poured the dark, rich brew. He slid hers across the island.

      Sabrina blew on the hot coffee then took a sip. She gave him the thumbs-up and a mischievous smile. “Perfect.”

      Jake’s scowl told her he wished he hadn’t remembered how she took hers. He reached for the folder on the end of the island and handed her a sheet of paper. “Read this.”

      Curious enough to obey, she put her mug down on the island. She scanned the page, a summary of the latest opinion poll about the forthcoming gubernatorial primary. “Ouch.”

      “Exactly,” he said. “The public trust me about as much as they’d trust an arsonist with a match.”

      She gripped the paper more tightly. “You must have known that would be a problem.”

      “Know why they don’t trust me?” His tone was conversational, but she picked up the old resentment beneath the surface.

      Sabrina swallowed, though she hadn’t drunk any more coffee. “Because your father broke the law.”

      His mouth tightened. “If you could do it over again,” he said, “would you?”

      They both knew what “it” was. The back of her neck prickled; she dropped the damning opinion-poll results. “Jake, your father was a hero to me, the best governor a man could be. I thought he was so caring, so principled.” Needlessly, she stirred her coffee. “No one could have been more upset to discover he’d taken a bribe—apart from his family,” she added quickly. “But no matter how much I admired him, I couldn’t let him get away with it.”

      “I mean,” Jake said deliberately, “would you do it the same way?”

      He had her there. Because with the benefit of hindsight—and a whole lot more maturity—she wouldn’t have been so rash in her denunciation of Governor Ted Warrington. Wouldn’t have made those distraught calls summoning the media to a midnight press conference, thus guaranteeing the story would trounce every other headline off the front pages. She wouldn’t have forced Jake and his family to wake up to a posse of reporters on their doorstep, so that his dad appeared before the nation aging and vulnerable in his pajamas.

      She didn’t want to think about that night, or about what happened afterward—the public frenzy that had condemned Ted before he gave his side of the story. And the flaming, bitter end of her relationship with Jake.

      “The outcome would have been the same,” she said uneasily, not meeting his eyes. She caught her reflection in the oven door, saw how she’d hunched down in self-defense. She straightened on her stool. “Your father would still have had to quit.”

      “People might at least have given him credit for having selfless motives. If he’d been allowed to retain some dignity…” He let out a hiss. “My parents’ marriage might have survived.”

      She drew in a pained breath. If he dared suggest that had his parents not divorced, his mom would never have dated the man who’d taken her sailing on a day when no right-thinking person would have gone out, and drowned them both…

      Sabrina shuddered—and saw from Jake’s narrowed eyes that she was taking exactly the path he wanted her to. Fortunately, he brought out her fighting instincts like nobody else. “Whatever help you want from me,” she said coolly, “you obviously think you need to guilt-trip me first. Let’s consider that done, and you can tell me why I’m here.”

      He blinked. He must have expected her to cave at the first hint of conflict. She could practically see him rearranging his tactics.

      “I need your help to establish public confidence in me,” he said finally, matching her bluntness.

      “How could I—” That’s when realization dawned. “Ah. You mean, like—” she waggled her fingers, quote marks for an imaginary headline “—Fat-Thighed Beauty Queen Says, Vote Warrington?”

      “I mean—” he made quote marks of his own “—Whistle-blower Says Son Is Not Like Father.”

      She had to admit, it had a certain poetic beauty. If the woman who’d blown the whistle on crooked Governor Ted Warrington endorsed Ted’s son for office, voters would have to believe Jake was on the level. But the thought of getting involved with him again, even politically…

      “I don’t understand why you’re even running for office,” she hedged. “You knew this would be a problem.”

      “Susan did some polling before I decided to run. The results suggested that my grandfather’s and great-uncle’s years of public service to the state were enough to outweigh Dad’s mistakes.” Susan Warrington, Jake’s aunt and Tyler’s mom, was Jake’s campaign manager, as she’d been his father’s СКАЧАТЬ