Expose Me

“Not this kind.” He swept his gaze over her, leaving warmth in its wake. “But I am an admirer of the art of understatement.” His gaze lingered on her figure in its close-fitting cashmere dress. “Definitely that.”

She tingled. Everywhere he looked, she felt her body treacherously, wonderfully respond. Melt and ache and want.

She smiled coolly, forced all those feelings away—and almost succeeded. “So where are we going, if not Le Bernardin?”

He placed his hand on the small of her back as he guided her out of the building. “Le Cirque.”

Chelsea slid into the limo idling at the curb, every nerve ending tingling from his light touch. Alex followed her inside, stretching his arm out along the back of the seat so his fingers just barely brushed her shoulder, as they had the last time she’d been in his limo. He looked completely relaxed and barely aware of what he was doing, but Chelsea knew right down to her bones that the little touch had been intentional. And it had had, she suspected, Alex’s intended effect. She felt edgy and aching, restless and uncertain.

Not the way she wanted to start the evening.

“Le Cirque?” she repeated. “Now, that’s a bit predictable.”

He glanced at her, his expression inscrutable in the dim interior of the car. “How disappointing for you. I suppose I’ll have to try harder next time.”

“You don’t strike me as the type to try hard at all,” Chelsea answered flippantly. “I’m sure you expect women to fall at your feet.”

He arched an eyebrow, clearly amused. “They’re not much use to me there.”

“Oh?” She let her gaze sweep over him in lingering assessment, and felt a fierce stab of satisfaction at the sight of the heat flaring in his eyes. “Where are they of use to you, Alex?”

“Oh, in a variety of places. And positions.”

Chelsea arched an eyebrow. “How intriguing. Care to specify?”

His lips curved in a cool smile, his gaze locked on hers. “Not at the moment.”

“Perhaps later?”

“Perhaps.”

She smiled, even though inside she was seething. Whenever she tried to turn the tables on him, he turned them right back at her. Made her feel desperate, not just with desire but this need somehow to prove herself to him.

She wasn’t like that. Not anymore.

Except with this man, it seemed she was.

“It’s not polite to stare, you know,” he said softly, and she realized she had been openly, hungrily looking at him. Damn it. She’d stopped talking, stopped thinking, because her brain had snagged on the sight of him: long, lean legs stretched out, his hard jaw glinting with that sexy five o’clock shadow, those ink-black lashes feathering his cheeks. Long lashes and lush lips on the most masculine man she’d ever encountered.

How was that even possible?

She slowly lifted her gaze to his. “Just checking out what’s on offer,” she answered, and his mouth kicked up at one corner.

“I never actually said what was on offer.”

“Care to clarify, then?”

He didn’t answer, just waited, his eyes glinting in the darkness as the awareness stretched and tautened between them. Chelsea had to remind herself to breathe.

“I guess not,” she said softly, and made a show of sorrowfully shaking her head. Alex just smiled. Nothing fazed him. Nothing shocked him. Nothing made his precious control slip, and it infuriated her because hers was skidding all over the place.

Alex Diaz had been in the driver’s seat of this relationship from the moment he’d waited outside her apartment in his limo, no matter how many times she kept trying to take the wheel.

“So let’s talk business,” she said, recrossing her legs and making her voice brisk. “Do you really want me for Diaz News?”

Alex’s gaze didn’t falter for a second as he answered. “No.”

Chelsea blinked. She kept her face neutral, but only with a lot of effort. After several fraught seconds where she scrambled for something to say, she finally pursed her lips and stated coolly, “So you are just dicking me around.”

“No. Interesting choice of words, though.”

“Very amusing.” She narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms. She wanted to go on the attack, but she felt defensive. Raw. Exposed.

So he didn’t want her for his stupid network. It shouldn’t surprise her. It shouldn’t hurt.

“Why did you ask me out to dinner, Alex? Are you just trying to get laid?”

“If that were my sole purpose, there would be far simpler ways to accomplish it,” he answered calmly.

Annoyed and still smarting, she snapped, “I’m sure there would be. Just cruise down Forty-Second Street—”

“Don’t be childish, Chelsea.”

“Don’t patronize me—”

“I’m not. I’m just stating facts. I’m not interested in having you on my network, but I am interested in your prime-time interview.”

“Treffen.” She spat the word, and Alex remained calm, unruffled.

“Yes.”

She shook her head, feeling angry and vulnerable, needing to lash out but knowing it would just reveal her all the more. She took a breath, let it out slowly and forced herself to calm. “You don’t like him.”

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?”

“We’ll get to that.”

“All in good time?” she mocked. “I don’t like being used, Diaz. Or manipulated.”

“A few moments ago you called me Alex. And if anyone is planning to manipulate you, it’s Treffen.”

She thought of the meeting next week with Treffen and his lawyer. There might be some truth to what Alex was saying, but she still didn’t want to be his, or any man’s, pawn. “I won’t have my interview sabotaged.”

“That’s not my intent.”

Looking into those dark, fathomless eyes, she didn’t believe him. Didn’t believe for a moment that he wouldn’t sabotage her interview or even her whole career to get what he wanted.