Expose Me. Kate Hewitt

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      “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?”

      “My apartment.”

      “What?” She shut her mouth with a snap. “Aren’t you Mr. Manners. I don’t recall you asking me to go home with you, Alex.”

      “I didn’t.”

      She stared at him; he looked so unruffled she would have thought he was bored, save for the magnetic gleam in his eyes. She felt a tangle of emotions: fascination, frustration, even a little fear.

      And she was more excited, more aroused, than she’d been in a long, long time.

      Which showed how screwed up she really was.

      She folded her arms across her chest. “Do you think the caveman tactic is attractive?”

      “No, I simply prefer to cut to the chase. You knew we’d be sleeping together from the moment you agreed to dinner, Chelsea.”

      “A foregone conclusion, was it?” Her voice, thankfully, came out dry.

      “We’re attracted to each other. We both view sex as—what did you call it? A basic need?”

      “So?”

      “So of course we’d sleep together.” He shrugged, as if the matter were of no consequence. “It is a foregone conclusion.”

      “You’re very romantic,” she said, and her voice had taken on an edge. “Lay on the violins and roses, why don’t you?”

      “I thought you’d appreciate my plain speaking.”

      And normally she would, because that was how she always approached sex. She just didn’t like him approaching it that way. She was the one who told men how it was going to play out, and then she kicked them out the door when she was done.

      She never went home with them. She never let them call the shots. She was always in control, always on top. Literally. And she usually didn’t even take off all of her clothes.

      At least not her shirt.

      The limo slowed and she saw they were already downtown, somewhere in Tribeca, near the Hudson River. And as amazed and aroused as she was by his sheer arrogance, she knew she wasn’t going to go into his apartment.

      She wasn’t that stupid.

      “Sorry, Diaz,” she said, “but I have my rules. I’m not going home with you.”

      His gaze locked with hers, and his expression didn’t change. “Fine,” he answered. “Who said we needed СКАЧАТЬ