Free The Senator's Daughter by Sophia Sasson

before dawn to avoid the horrendous rush-hour traffic in DC. It
was a long trip for one day. But she would get to spend it with Alex, away from
campaign headquarters. Maybe she could grill him about his endgame, find out
what he was up to with her.
    She thought about how easily she’d melted under his intense
gaze. Was it a smart idea to spend more time with Alex? She punched out a
message.
    Chill. My BlackBerry was in my purse.
    His response came seconds later. The man must have
lightning-fast fingers.
    Keep it on you at all times. That’s an order.
    Really?
    I don’t take orders from you.
    She waited.
    You do if you want to work on the campaign. DC tomorrow. Be
here by 9.
    She stuck her tongue out at the device.
    I’ll be there at 8. Be available to sign me in.
    She was not, in fact, going to take orders from him, and
tomorrow was a good opportunity to tell him face-to-face.
    The tablet chimed and her father’s face lit up the screen. With
trembling fingers, she touched the answer button.

CHAPTER FIVE
    K AT ARRIVED AT the Hart Senate Office Building well before eight in the morning. After a sleepless night following the brief conversation with her father, she gave up on sleep to get an early start on her drive.
    Why was she so upset about the conversation? What had she expected from a man who didn’t know she existed and didn’t know anything about her? Still, the whole exchange left a bad taste in her mouth. But she couldn’t think about that now; it was going to be a long day and she needed to focus her energy on the meetings ahead.
    She used a home health service for her mother for times she needed to be away. It was horribly expensive, but with her class schedules she couldn’t always be around to make sure Emilia took her pills. Kat had scheduled a nurse to come check in on her mother twice a day for the summer months. She didn’t want the campaign staff gossiping about her needing to leave to take care of her mother. The expense would drain her savings account, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Hopefully, her work on the campaign would pay off with a promotion.
    Washington, DC, was alive at this early hour, with staffers rushing into buildings holding steaming cups of coffee. It was a pleasant morning; the heat of the day hadn’t hit, and the famous August humidity was still a couple of months away. The dome of the Capitol rose above all the rooftops. A law limiting the height of buildings effectively eliminated buildings taller than thirteen stories. It gave the city a light, airy feeling. She loved coming here and wished she didn’t have to rush home after the briefings. The Smithsonian museums were free for visitors and contained some of the world’s greatest collections.
    Maybe while she was working on the campaign, she could ask Aunt Luce to come look after her mother for a night or two so she could stay a few days in a row.
    She checked her phone. Alex had emailed her an agenda for the day, and it showed back-to-back meetings all morning. He’d left a visitor pass for her so she wouldn’t need him to sign in. Most of the congressional members had offices in buildings around the Capitol to accommodate their vast staffs and allow the general public to visit them without the hassle of the Capitol building’s security measures. A subway system connected the office buildings to the Capitol.
    Kat stopped outside the building to marvel at the marble facade. Despite lecturing on what happened between its walls, she’d never actually been inside. She followed a rush of staffers into the building and stopped. The ninety-foot atrium rose before her, drawing her eyes upward to Alexander Calder’s famous Mountains and Clouds sculpture featuring black aluminum clouds over black mountains. As people moved around her, Kat stood and stared. It was awe inspiring to experience something she’d only seen in pictures.
    â€œIt’s quite