Expose Me

“We had to take swimming at Walkerton. The first day one of the kids in my class pushed me into the deep end of the pool, when the coach was in his office.” Alex swallowed; he could still remember the feel of the water closing over his head, filling his mouth and nose as he choked and flailed and a dozen preppy boys watched him dispassionately.

“Did he know you couldn’t swim?”

“Oh, yeah.” He’d had the naïve idiocy to share that little nugget of information before he’d been pushed. He shook his head, managed a wry smile even as surprise rippled through him that he was telling this to Chelsea Maxwell. He didn’t talk about his years at Walkerton Prep to anyone. He didn’t like to remember the lonely boy he’d been, desperate to fit in, to matter. He would have sold his soul then, just to belong. Thank God Jaiven had snapped him out of it with a right hook to his eye. Thank God he’d learned to be harder, tougher, and to stamp all over spoiled, entitled kids like that. “Fortunately the coach returned before I deep-sixed it. But I think those kids would have let me drown.”

“That’s awful.” Chelsea was quiet for a moment, her expression serious and yet somehow closed. “But I believe it,” she added, and there was too much understanding in that statement, too much experience. He almost asked her about it, and then decided not to.

If he thought sex might complicate things, some kind of emotional connection would screw it up completely. He didn’t go there. Ever.

“Well, like I said, it motivated me. I learned how to swim and I ended up on the varsity diving team. I ended up being captain my senior year, which infuriated the guys who tried to drown me. Sweet revenge.”

“I bet.”

“In college I learned how to scuba dive, and now I spend a lot of time in the water.”

“Do you like it?” she asked, and he saw a gleam of shrewdness in her eyes that jolted him. No one had asked him that before.

“Do you think I’d do it if I didn’t?” he asked back, and she tilted her head as her gaze swept over him.

“You’re a control freak, right? Absolutely. Anything to feel in control.”

He laughed and held up his hands in mock defeat, even though her insight made him feel a little more exposed than he’d have preferred. “Well, you’re right, Miss Maxwell. I still hate the water. But I do it.”

She nodded slowly. “I understand that.”

Her tone was heartfelt, and again he wondered. Wanted to know what she hated and still did. Her show? He knew she was hungry to prove herself professionally but did she actually dislike going on the pink sofa with those washed-up stars?

Something else he wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t actually want to know this woman. He just wanted to use her.

In more ways than one.

“Shall we order?” he asked and she nodded again. After the waiter had come and gone he decided to steer the conversation onto safer ground. Keep it innocuous, at least for the moment.

“So you’re from Alabama, right?” And just like that she tensed right up, her expression closing like a fan. Interesting. Strange, but interesting.

She took a sip of water and then slowly, carefully put the glass back on the table. “Yes,” she said, and even that seemed like more information than she was comfortable imparting.

“You’ve lost your accent.”

Her face was utterly blank as she gazed at him. “Yes.”

Alex leaned back in his chair. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t like to talk about your past?”

“It’s not very interesting.”

“And if I’m interested?”

“Somehow I doubt you actually are. But you can read my bio online.”

“I have.” He’d read the question-and-answer interview with her on her show’s website. He’d started out as a journalist; he did his homework, just like Chelsea. According to her bio, she’d an idyllic childhood in Alabama, all homemade cookies and trips to the state fair, and then she’d joined AMI as an intern when she was twenty-two. There was the inevitable list of awards and charities she supported, and that was it.

Pretty bland, really, and she obviously liked it that way, for she shrugged now, the movement invariably drawing his gaze to her breasts, their round shape outlined in cream cashmere. He wanted to slowly peel that dress off her, and soon. “Then you know all there is to know.”

He raised his eyebrows as well as his gaze. “Which is nothing.”

She just shrugged again, and he felt a sharp spike of curiosity again. Who was this woman?

Better not to wonder. Not to know.

Their appetizers came then and they didn’t talk about anything more alarming than industry gossip and news for the rest of the meal, which suited Alex fine. He was at a good restaurant with a beautiful woman, and he intended to enjoy it for a little while.

And then he intended to enjoy a whole lot more.

* * *

What was it about this man, Chelsea wondered, that made her say things? Feel things? She’d told more about herself to Alex than she had to any other person, except for Michael and her sister Louise. And she barely knew the man. Admittedly, what she’d told wasn’t that much, but she still felt exposed. He could dig into her history now, search Alabama records, and knowing him, he’d find something. He’d find too much.

Her insides iced and she told herself she wouldn’t say another word. She’d keep it professional or physical, one or the other, but no more of this talking.

Damn it, she was not that kind of woman. She didn’t let men get close. She didn’t tell them things. She used them for business or sex and that was it. That was how it had to be.

And she intended on using Alex in one way or another. Hell, maybe both ways. After their charged, innuendo-laced conversation she knew he wanted her. She wanted him.

That, at least, could be simple.

As for business? He’d deliberately not mentioned Treffen for the entire meal, and that suited Chelsea fine. She wasn’t ready for that conversation, didn’t want to be wrong-footed.

But no matter what happened between them, she’d keep it from being intimate. Emotional.

Except it already felt emotional. Already she felt a hard tug of sympathy for that boy perched on the edge of the pool, flailing in the water. God knew she understood how that felt. Everyone enjoying watching you fail. Smiling as you were humiliated, laughing when you were hurt.

No, she had to stop thinking like that. Wanting to know more about this man, cracking open the window of her soul to let him in just a little.

Sex would cure her, she thought. Sex made things simple. A bodily function, a basic transaction, and when it was over she invariably moved on to someone else. She’d never slept with the same man twice, not in ten years.

Sex would get him out of her system.

She smiled at him, pushed away her coffee cup and barely-touched dessert plate. She’d chosen fruit sorbet, the lowest calorie item on the menu, but she’d only eaten a mouthful. Television was unforgiving on a figure. Now she smiled, arched her eyebrows in obvious expectation. No innuendo in her voice, just simple fact. “Ready to go?”

Alex gazed back at her, gold flaring in the depths of his brown eyes. He slid a black credit card that she recognized as an exclusive, invitation-only card from his wallet and dropped it carelessly onto the table. “Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”

They left the restaurant, Alex’s hand low and sure on her back. He had already texted the driver and the limo was waiting by the curb.

He guided her inside, his thigh nudging hers as he slid next to her on the spacious leather seat. She suppressed the urge to lay her hand on that hard muscle, slide her palm upward...

Her hand jerked of its own accord and she pulled it back into her lap. Would his skin be hot or cool? Smooth or rough? Her hand jerked again.

Belatedly she realized they were heading downtown. She turned to Alex. “Where are we going?”