Her words seemed to upset him, for he looked away. A muscle tightened in his jaw. He turned back to her with a look that could have sliced steel.
Somehow, she pressed on, “But I was—”
“What are you doing here?” he interrupted.
She glanced at the doorhangers he held. “Trying to make things up to Gordon.”
“You don’t need to make anything up. In fact, it would be better if you didn’t try to do anything at all where Uncle Gordon is concerned.”
She drew in a painful breath. She deserved that. “A little precinct walking won’t hurt.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure I can believe you.”
That hurt even more, but again, she deserved it. Her heart twisted in misery. Words couldn’t express how bad she felt, but even if they could, she doubted she could find them. Her pulse was going at the speed of a NASCAR race because she realized he had drawn within inches of her, like he intended to pin her to the car. She remembered being caught between him and a car once.
Suddenly, she found it hard to breath, his presence drowning her. Part of her wanted his body to press her into the car. She wanted to drown. In him.
No, you don’t.
Alarm bells went off in her head. He was trying to intimidate her, standing so close. She had tolerated his domination when she was playing the part of his submissive, but they weren’t roleplaying anymore.
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,” she replied, sounding harsher than she’d intended because of her panic. She could feel his heat and energy in every molecule of air between them.
“I don’t expect that you’ll forgive me,” she continued, “but I’m going to pass out these doorhangers. It’s the least I can do.”
His gaze seemed to search the depths of her eyes.
“And these precincts aren’t getting done,” she added.
He straightened to open one of the folders, providing an inch or two of space, enough for her to take a decent breath. He glanced at the map inside the folder with a neighborhood in East Oakland highlighted. Havenscourt.
“You’re not walking here,” he pronounced.
Now she was starting to get irritated. Why wouldn’t he just leave her be?
“Why not?”
“Get a different precinct from that college kid.”
Did that mean Ben was going to let her volunteer?
“East Oakland is not as bad as people think,” she said. “And it’s a Saturday morning.”
He snapped the folder shut. “There are other precincts that haven’t been walked.”
“I don’t think your uncle would want East Oakland ignored.”
“The other precincts have more voters.”
She lifted her chin. “All the more reason to walk East Oakland. There are plenty of potential voters there, but a lot of them feel disenfranchised, left out. They don’t feel empowered enough to believe their vote will make a difference.”
“Elections are a numbers game. With limited time and limited resources, you want to aim for the highest, fastest returns. You can do voter registration outside of election season.”
Although she usually enjoyed policy discussions, she didn’t want to have one with Ben. She would have thought that Ben, having gone to Howard, would understand where she was coming from. But maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought. Being a billionaire from China still put him worlds apart from where she had grown up.
She reached for the doorhangers and folders. “I’m walking East Oakland.”
How she thought she could wrestle the materials from him, she wasn’t sure, but she wanted to find a way to end their conversation. She wanted to be on her way.