Expose Me. Kate Hewitt

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       Chapter Two

      Alex watched Chelsea Maxwell walk away and shook his head slowly. The woman was incredible, and he wasn’t sure he meant that in a good way.

      Although maybe he did. A certain part of his anatomy certainly did, because when she’d brushed against him with her fingers he’d had to resist the urge to grab her by the arms and push her against the wall, kiss her until they both were senseless. And more.

      Which didn’t make him all that different from Bates, who was still bent over and wheezing from Chelsea’s smiling squeeze of his balls.

      The woman was no victim. No Sarah, used and abused by men with power, and the thought gave him a strange, savage satisfaction because that was the kind of woman he needed.

      But first he had to get her to agree.

      His gaze narrowed as he saw her heading for the elevator. Was she leaving the party already? For a moment he considered following her, but then decided against it. He’d laid the groundwork tonight; he needed to think about the best way to handle Chelsea Maxwell before he spoke with her again. And he also needed to get a handle on the obvious attraction he felt for her. He didn’t like feeling out of control, especially not when it came to sex. Men started making stupid decisions when they let themselves be led by their dicks.

      And Alex had no intention of letting that happen. If he slept with Chelsea, it would be on his terms, because it served a purpose.

      Even if he suspected it would be incredibly enjoyable.

      The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside, head held high, her chin tilted at an almost defiant angle. She looked haughty and magnificent, the ultimate ice queen—and then Alex noticed one hand clenched in the folds of her gown. That little, telling action surprised him, and he wondered just what it revealed. Was she angry with the drunken idiot who had come onto her? She’d seemed no more than coldly amused when Bates had stumbled up to her.

      From behind him Alex heard Paul Bates mutter a wheezy curse.

      “What a bitch,” he mumbled and Alex glanced at him in derision.

      “You’re just saying that because she got you in the balls.”

      “Like I said—”

      “And you deserved it.” Alex shook his head, taking in the man’s golden good looks that were now on the wrong side of forty, with broken veins and bloodshot eyes—not to mention a sizeable paunch—revealing a lifetime of reckless living.

      “You know she’s Agnello’s tart, don’t you?” Bates demanded, and Alex just shrugged.

      “She’s not yours, at any rate,” he said with deliberate mildness, and walked away with Bates still gasping behind him.

      * * *

      The next morning he headed to his office on Hudson Street, scanning the headlines on his smartphone as he took the elevator up to his penthouse office.

      He stepped into the soaring room of glass and steel, glanced again at his phone as he powered up his computer, and wondered whether to call Chelsea now. He needed to think carefully about his next move, and yet he couldn’t deny he was looking forward to sparring with her again, craving the little buzz conversation with her had given him. There weren’t many women like Chelsea, he mused: ruthless, ambitious, and sexually confident.

      Yes, she would definitely be a match for him in bed. And no matter what happened with Treffen, he decided, he was going to find a way to get her there.

      But first he needed to think about Treffen. That little curl of anticipation he’d felt low in his belly now soured into a churning mix of regret and resolve.

      Jason Treffen was lauded far and wide as an advocate for the downtrodden and oppressed, especially those who were women. He’d gained a reputation for mentoring smart, driven young women who’d gone to the Ivy League schools on scholarship—with no one knowing that he was actually coercing them into committing the most sordid of acts.

      His gut roiled as he remembered what Austin, Jason’s son and one of Alex’s best friends, had discovered from Sarah’s sister Katy just before Christmas. All those years ago after Sarah’s death they’d assumed it had been a sadly simple case of sexual harassment. Then they’d learned the truth in all of its incredible horror when Katy had approached Austin with the information that Treffen hadn’t just been coming onto his young female employees, he’d been roping them into a high-end prostitution ring.

      Sarah hadn’t just been harassed by Jason, she’d been forced into servicing his clients. The thought still had the power to bring bile to Alex’s throat. Since that night, the tenth anniversary of Sarah’s death, when Austin had lobbed that grenade into their usual desultory chat about work and women, they’d discovered more of the grim truth. Not only had Jason run a prostitution ring, he’d blackmailed the clients, men of power and position who got off on having a desperate and upwardly mobile young woman on her knees.

      Austin had revealed СКАЧАТЬ