Rules of Re-engagement. Лорет Энн Уайт
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her to stop.
“Would you like a drink, Jack? How about sitting on my sofa over there and telling me where you’ve been for sixteen long years, and why you’ve really come back to mess with me.”
“A drink would be nice, thank you,” he said, shrugging out of his coat. He walked right past her, into her apartment. He draped his massive black coat over her white chair and moved straight to the window. He lifted her curtain slightly with the back of his hand and peered down into the rain-drenched street.
She stared, dumbfounded. What on earth was he doing? She took in the expensive cut of his elegantly tailored black pants, his white silk shirt. He looked as if he’d walked straight off one of Europe’s fashion runways. But while his clothes gave him an air of global sophistication, they did little to tame the wild ruggedness that literally pulsed from him. Who was this man? Who had Jack become?
She glanced at the phone on the wall.
“You’re free to call whoever you like,” he said without looking at her. “But I wouldn’t advise it, not until you’ve heard me out.”
She stared at him blankly. She should run. Now. Get out while she had access to the door. She should alert the police. Yet a desperate curiosity rooted her to the spot. He was once her lover, the man she’d was going to marry. And he was here, back in Manhattan, in her apartment. She needed to know why, where he’d been. She pushed her hair back from her face.
She could do this.
She could handle Jack Sauer. She’d handled way worse in international courts. And once she had her answers, she’d call whoever she needed.
She cleared her throat. “You still drink scotch?”
“Yes.”
She retrieved the purse she’d dropped at the door, and moved over to the drinks cabinet, her heart thumping. She positioned her back to him as she slid her slim cell phone out of her purse and slipped it into her pocket. She wanted to be ready to call 911.
She removed the stopper from a decanter and began to pour whiskey into a crystal glass. That’s when she realized how badly her hands were trembling. She closed her eyes for a moment, steadied her nerves. Then she poured a drink for him and one for herself. She needed it.
She picked up a glass in each hand, sucked in her breath and turned to face him. And her resolve crumpled instantly.
He was watching her so intently she almost forgot how to walk. She tried to force her legs to move smoothly across the wooden floor, tried not to trip over the white rug. She held a glass out to him. He took it, his fingers brushing slowly over hers as he did, his eyes never leaving hers. He lifted the rim to his lips, slowly sipped, eyes still locked with hers.
Something hot and foreign and dangerous slipped down into her stomach again. She put her own glass to her lips, took a gulp.
“Who’s tailing you, Olivia?”
She choked on her sip. “What?” Her eyes watered as whiskey burned down the wrong way.
“Who’s following you?”
“No one’s following me.”
“Take a look,” he said, lifting the edge of the curtain for her. “See that silver sedan there, across the road?”
She edged forward, wary of touching him again, afraid of what would happen to her body again. She peered down into the street, conscious of his expensive scent, the quiet powerful energy vibrating from him. “Where?”
“Under that oak, right across from the park.”
She saw it. “Don’t be ridiculous. That car’s not tailing me. No one’s tailing me.”
He remained silent, watching her, trying to read something. It made her nervous.
“It…it’s probably someone looking for you. The FBI maybe.”
He ignored the gibe. “That sedan came in right behind the Secret Service vehicle that dropped you off tonight, Olivia. After your dinner with Forbes.” His eyes searched hers for reaction.
She looked sharply away. She didn’t want to show him how her evening with Grayson had affected her.
“There was another vehicle waiting under that tree there, watching your apartment, before your SUV approached. It left as you arrived, and that silver sedan pulled in behind it, replaced the watch.”
Something about his voice made her think he might be telling the truth. “It must be the Secret Service, then,” she said, unsure now. “Grayson wanted to get security detail for me, but I told him I didn’t want it. Maybe he got it anyway. He…he’s not an easy man to turn down.”
“I know.”
The sudden dark edge in his voice shot a shiver down her spine.
“But that’s no Secret Service detail out there, Olivia. That’s a private outfit—same bunch that was waiting for you outside the UN building.”
“You were at the UN?”
“Saw you being whisked off for your private dinner with Forbes.” His eyes drifted down to her ring.
How long had he been following her? Why?
“Jack, you’re making me nervous. Please…tell me what in hell is going on? Otherwise, I…I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Did you get that tonight?” he said darkly, his eyes still fixed on her ring.
It was not his business. She didn’t have to answer. “Yes,” she said.
He lifted his eyes, met hers. “So he proposed, and you accepted.”
No, I didn’t. She wanted to say the words, scream them. But she couldn’t.
“Do you love him, Olivia?” he whispered. “Do you really know this man? Do you love him like you used to love me?”
Emotion welled up so sharp and hot it hurt, filling her eyes, choking the words in her throat. She began to shake inside. “Damn you, Jack Sauer,” she said quietly. “You left me, sixteen years ago, and you come back and ask me this, tonight?” Her voice caught. “It’s not your business who I love. Not anymore.”
The corner of his mouth, where it met the scar, twitched. “It’s become my business, Olivia.”
“It can never be your business. You have no right to ask who I love or choose to marry or when. You threw that right away, Jack, forever, when you killed Elizabeth.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that what you really think?”
“What else was I supposed to think?”
His jaw steeled. The muscles along his neck went hard.
Olivia took a step back. “Look, Jack, if you don’t tell me what you want from me and why you’re here, I’m going to call 911.” She reached for the cell phone in her pocket as she spoke.
“I’ve come for your father, Olivia.”
She froze. “I beg your pardon?”
No emotion showed in his face now. It was hard as steel, and his eyes had turned sharp and cold. “Those men outside, I think they’re his. I’ll have my guys check into it.”
“Your guys? What guys? What are you talking about!”
He said nothing, just watched her eyes.
“Okay, you’re making me really nervous. Leave now, or I’ll call the cops.”
He took a step toward her, and she lifted her cell phone. “I mean it, Jack—” She flipped it open, began to press.
Jack grasped her wrist and removed the phone from her hand. “Your father is involved in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government. But then, you might know that already, Olivia. I’m here