His question about heights hadn’t been entirely irrelevant. He led her out to a little breakfast nook that overlooked the city. It was dizzying, being so high, knowing that all that separated her from a really long and upsetting fall with an abrupt end was a sheet of glass. Really strong glass, sure, but still. Glass.
The table was bistro style, putting them so close together that their knees knocked against each other. Sophia served them omelets, coffee, and hash browns, and bowls of fresh fruit on the side. “Is this all right?” he asked. “I tend to eat a heavy breakfast and aim lighter later in the day, but I’m sure we have oatmeal or yogurt, if that’s more your style?”
Zoey found herself caught entirely unawares yet again. Sophia stood there, waiting patiently, showing absolutely no irritation that she might have made this gorgeous omelet for no reason at all, and Alex staring at her—well, like he had when he’d fussed with the bra. Like he didn’t understand why she didn’t know how to answer him. “This is lovely,” she said, finally. “Honestly, not having to eat my own cooking is such a luxury that I don’t even know how to thank you.”
Sophia smiled like Zoey had just complemented her puppy, or her grandchild. “It’s a luxury to have someone to cook for who appreciates the food,” she said, with a glance at Alex that seemed mostly teasing. “Try the coffee. Not too much sugar?”
Zoey took a sip, and had to prevent herself from moaning in culinary ecstasy. “This is gorgeous,” she said. “What’s your brew method?”
Sophia shook her head then. “My own grandmother would roll in her grave if I told,” she said. “Enjoy. Don’t let Mr. Blankenship be rude. Please, ring if you need anything else.”
“Hear that?” Zoey said, turning back to Alex, who was watching her with an utterly amused expression. “You’re not allowed to be rude to me anymore. Your housekeeper said.”
“I’m not sure when I was rude to you in the first place,” he said.
“You didn’t like my outfit,” she said. “You destroyed it, and then you replaced it with one you liked better. Very rude.” She softened the comment with a smile.
“So I should have sent you out into the day nude?”
“You should have been nicer to my poor jeans.” She tried on a pout. It probably went with the sweater beautifully.
“I don’t seem to recall you being upset last night.” His eyes flared with a heat, and she had to laugh.
“You’re insatiable.”
“You’ve been right there with me, every time.”
“Am I really this desirable?” It was a dumb question, it was a question that begged for pity and pats on the back, it was the question that she had always refused to ask, even when she needed to hear the answer.
He didn’t seem upset or off put at all. He put down his fork, finished chewing, and gave her all of his attention as he answered her. “You are utterly desirable. I can’t easily recount a time when I’ve wanted someone more. It’s a lot of things, I think. It’s having met you in such an interesting way, it’s that you don’t just roll over when we disagree, it’s that you make the most amazing sounds when I kiss the spot just below your ear.”
How did he make her squirm in her chair like this so quickly? And how did he turn it off so fast? He saw the affect he had on her, she knew it from the way he looked her up and down and grinned before plucking a strawberry from his bowl and tossing it in his mouth. And then he was carefully slicing off another bite of omelet, and asking in an utterly unaffected tone, “Did you find out anything new last night?”
It took her a full minute of solid breaths and one long sip of coffee to recollect herself. “Nothing that’s going to shock us, at this point. I really think something’s up in the weapons division, though. I can’t put my finger on it, not firm enough to tell you for sure. I have a couple of contacts higher up the food chain that I’ll get in touch with today. They should be able to tell me something. I hope so, anyway.”
“Do you regret this?”
She blinked. “Do I regret what?”
“That night at the club. Do you think it would have been better for both of us if that hadn’t happened?”
Funny; he was asking the same question she had, just a few moments before. “I don’t think so. Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever regret it, no matter what this turns into, between you and I. I—god, this sounds so cheesy—I know things about myself that I didn’t know a week ago. My, um, urge towards kink isn’t just me being totally hip, it’s…well. It’s a real thing. It’s something that I…”
“Enjoy?”
She kicked him in the shin. He whimpered as if it hurt, which was nice, since she was barefoot, and barely touched him. He had a little sister. She was certain he’d faced much more vehement kicks in his life. “Yes, thank you.”
“You’re the wordsmith. I’m just being helpful.”
“The point is,” she said, with a firm glance that he apparently decided to respect, this time at least, “that I don’t regret learning new things about myself.”
“And professionally?”
Yes, he would notice the one place she’d hedged, wouldn’t he? Well, he probably hadn’t gotten the position of CEO just by being born and knowing the right people. Though certainly that had helped. “Professionally? I don’t know, Alex. Stories like this—if we’re right, if there’s something going on at AEGIS? This is a once in a lifetime piece.”
“And you can’t write it.”
“Nope.” She sighed. “Honestly, if it helps at all, it’s better this way. If I’d written the piece, not realizing it was you who I’d met at Chez Vous that night, and then someone found out about that? My career would have been even more over.”
“It just seems so backward. Surely a journalist having more information on their subject is good.”
“Yes, but anything the public can interpret as obvious bias is not. Look what happened to that gaming journalist who’d slept with a reviewer before he was even a reviewer.”
Alex nodded thoughtfully. “So, how can I help?”
She blinked for a moment, studying him again. “I—I don’t know, Alex. There’s not much you can do, I don’t think. The most I’ll ever be able to pull off is a co-byline, and really, I don’t think that’s an option.”
“Sure. But the point of getting this story is to open doors and put your name in front of people, right? I can make that happen.”
He said those five words so casually, as if it was something that every young journalist should just fall all over themselves for. And honestly, part of her did, hard and fast and immediate. But a lot more of her bristled at the statement. “I’m perfectly capable of pulling this off on my own,” she snapped.
“You just told me that I ruined a once in a lifetime opportunity by being sexy and good with my hands,” he said, and as mad as she was, the heat in his eyes still ran a shiver up her spine. “I’m offering to fix it. Why is that upsetting you?”
“Just like you fixed my jeans? Just like you’ll fix me, turn me into someone who fits perfectly next to you? I’m not some floozy you can buy.”
“You’re not a floozy,” he agreed. His tone wasn’t soothing; that was good. She was pretty sure she would have dumped the coffee over his head if he’d tried to soothe her. “But everyone can be bought. Only question in the world is their asking price.”
She was so utterly shocked that she couldn’t find a single word to say. “So people are just, what, commodities?”
“No, of course not.” She felt convinced that Alex should have been upset by this conversation. God knew she was. He should have been cranky and snappy and irritated, just like she was. “But people always say they can’t be bought, as if they are somehow above temptation. And it’s simply not true.”
“So what’s your asking price? If you think you know me so well.”
It was the first time Zoey had seen Alex’s face close up like that. It was as if a wall shifted, and suddenly his eyes were flat and blank, his mouth tight and neutral. It was similar to what had happened in the car last night, when he started asking about her research, but it was faster, happening in just one blink of her eyes. He stabbed at his omelet with more force than anyone could pretend was necessary. Her stomach tightened, and she found herself pushing away the heavy meal and reaching for her cup of coffee. “Was there anything you found that directly links Arturo to my father?”
She hated that tone. She’d barely known the man for 48 hours, and she hated the tone that reminded her of the CEO, the man who was nothing but the power he held. “Alex, I’m sorry—”
“Because without a direct link, there’s really nothing that can be done. I can sic the company lawyers on it, I suppose, but if someone within is involved, it’s difficult to know who they might already own, and who they might not.” His voice was quietly musing, but there was something other in his tone. Something dark and angry, something she hadn’t seen before.
“You could take it all to the police. Let them know your suspicions and have them take it from there.”
He gave her a filthy look. “Please.”
Her anger boiled over. There were a lot of things that she was used to. Being treated like less because she was southern, or because she was a woman, or because someone else thought they were a better writer than she was—or because they knew she was a better writer than them. Because she didn’t have enough, because she had too much, because she wasn’t soft enough to be a girl or mean enough to be a bitch. She’d put up with all of it. But a man she’d made love to less than an hour ago, treating her like a stranger? No, thank you.
“Look,” she said, fighting to keep her tone level. There was no way she was going to get the anger out of it. “I don’t know what rule of yours I’ve violated. This is new territory for me, too. I don’t get the feeling you go slumming all that often, so neither one of us are perfect. Okay? Surprise! You can either accept my apology and tell me what I did wrong, or you can tell me to leave. I don’t much care which you choose right now, but I won’t just sit here and be treated like—”
“You’re right,” he said, his voice quiet and cautious. She cut herself off and watched him, waiting. “I’m sorry. You asked a very personal question, and you had no way to know how personal it was. I had no right to blow up at you.” He gave a soft, somewhat sad smile. “If I may be perfectly honest with you, I’m not used to this. I honestly cannot recall the last time I had breakfast with someone after we’d enjoyed an evening’s company. I’m not interested in being a trophy for anyone, and very few people aren’t intimidated by me, so there has been a lot less going on than the society pages would have you believe.”
She nodded. It was a decent apology, as these things went. “I apologize for overstepping.”
“You had no way to know.” He pushed his plate away as well. Poor Sophia. The omelets were amazing, light and fluffy and running with a perfect blend of delicious cheeses, but she’d managed to ruin both of their appetites. “What I was trying to suggest, Zoey, was that you and I might be able to help each other.”
“In what way?”
“You keep doing what you’re doing. Look into Arturo. Look into AEGIS. See if you can find me proof, something I can take to the board to make some changes.” He sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, if you can find something to conclusively tie my mother to the man’s murder, I want to know that. If nothing else, so that the information can be properly controlled, instead of being splashed all over the front page of the Post.”
“And in return?”
“In return, I will help you get what the article would have gotten you, if you’d written it and sold it. I will introduce you to people. I will talk about what an amazing writer you are. I will let it be known that you are up and coming, and that people should pay attention.”
“And what will I owe you, when I get this mythical, magical job that shall descend out of the clouds with rainbows and unicorns?”
His eyebrows rose a bit, and his lips bent into a ghost of a smile. It was nice to see. Very much. “You won’t owe me anything at all. You have my word on that, Zoey. I will never ask you to write a single piece about AEGIS, positive or negative. Nothing. Just—do what you’re doing. That’s all I ask.”
She thought it over for a moment. As a kid, she’d always imagined that she would be the first woman to make it on her own, to break through the glass ceiling without help from anyone. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that when you aren’t willing to obliterate the last vestiges of your drawl, or force yourself to stop dropping your favorite endearment in conversation now and then, you would be perceived a certain way.
If she accepted his help, everyone in the world of reporting would assume that she was sleeping with him, and that was why he was helping her get noticed. If their relationship developed, or became public, it would be treated as a fact. She’d never get herself out from under that cloud.
On the flip side of it, even if she somehow managed to rise like a meteor without anyone’s help, would anyone believe it anyway? Wasn’t that the way of the world, where all successful women were attached to men of power, in the minds of society if nowhere else? Was she just justifying the whole thing because it seemed irrationally stubborn to refuse him?
“Let’s focus on the research, for the moment,” she said, after a little bit. “And then, we’ll see what happens. It may be that I turn up something you really don’t want to know about.”
“Thank you,” he said. Maybe he knew that he wasn’t going to get anything more from her in that moment. “And what about us?”
“Us?”
He nodded. “You and me.”
“I—” Yet another question that she didn’t know how to answer. She hated feeling this out of her depth.
But Sophia burst into the room, barely two steps ahead of a woman. The woman was tall, and had the kind of tan that had to come out of either a bed or a bottle. It was just a little too even to have been gained naturally. Her hair was light brown, and scooped into a no nonsense twist that gave Zoey the feeling that the woman was attempting to appear older and more mature than she was. The smoothness of her skin made Zoey put the woman right around her own age, mid 20s. Her hands were fluttery, betraying the nervousness that her eyes were doing a good job of hiding.
“Mr. Blankenship,” Sophia said, loud enough to overpower the woman, if she chose to speak. “She just burst in, I’ve no idea how she got up the elevator, I tried to turn her back, but she wouldn’t listen. I’ve paged security, they’ll be up shortly—”
The woman, when she spoke, kept her voice calmer, quiet enough that Alex would have to focus on her to listen. It was a good trick, one Zoey hadn’t ever mastered herself, but she’d admired in women who could pull it off. “Good afternoon.” She had a smooth, cultured voice, that went along with the jewelry and the fabric of her suit. “My name is Cindy Walden.” She waited a moment, and when that got no attention, she continued. “I’m here to speak to you about what we are going to do.”
Security came pounding down the hallway next. They moved for the woman, but Alex held up a hand, and they paused. It was an impressive moment, actually. He didn’t say a word, just held up that hand. Zoey tried to make herself as small as physically possible.
Alex kept his eyes on Cindy Walden, and gave her a small nod. “What we’re going to do about what?”
Her eyes didn’t waver. There was something about her that looked familiar. Zoey couldn’t place it for a moment, and then, as she glanced back at Alex, it jumped out at her. The cheekbones. The brow line. The similarities. So she understood, just a moment before the woman spoke again. “I’m here to speak to you about our brother. And the others.”
Alex didn’t so much as blink. “We’re fine here, gentlemen, Sophia. Thank you for your prompt response. Sophia, would you please show Ms. Walden into the living room? Zoey and I will follow shortly.”
Sophia looked ever so slightly irritated, but within a moment, her face had reverted to the smooth mask of professional help. “Of course, Mr. Blankenship.”
The room cleared after a moment, and it was just Zoey and Alex sitting at the small bistro table. Zoey watched as Alex sat still for a long moment, watching the place where Cindy Walden had been standing, and then turned back to his food. He took two more precise bites of omelet, threw back his coffee in one long slug, and then turned cool brown eyes on Zoey. “Your tablet, or your phone, I assume one of them records, for when you do interviews?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I want you to bring that in with us, please. Go and get it set up.”
“Alex—it’s illegal to record someone without their knowledge.”
He scoffed at her, and gave her a look she wasn’t sure he’d waste on the lowliest personal assistant. “Obviously I’ll tell her that she’s being recorded. Quite frankly, if she’s not willing to agree to that, then she can turn around and walk back out however the hell she came in.”
If she’d thought he’d been closed off and cold before, it was nothing compared to now. “Alex—”
“She’s here to talk to Arturo. She called him our brother. And there were others. Zoey, she may have information we need.”
“Alex, have you ever even heard of this woman?”
“I know her mother. Elizabeth Walden is chair of three charities that Olivia and Philip regularly gave to.” The bitterness was intense. “She is yet another of the people my age who are connected to my father, and the wrong side of his sheets.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Stop it,” he snapped, and she sat back in her chair. “I need to talk to her.” His voice had taken on an almost plaintive tone. “If this is who my father was—Zoey, I have to know.”
“Okay,” she said, even though she was agreeing to the worst idea she’d heard all week, and that was saying something. She never ever should have let Helen take her to the fucking club. Her life would have been less interesting, and right now, she would be okay with that. “Okay. Let me get my phone, and we’ll do this.”
He nodded, brushed a napkin lightly over his lips, and stood. Zoey picked up her coffee, but Alex touched her hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll have Sophia bring another through.”
She stared at him, just trying to understand, and then nodded, heading back towards the bedrooms to retrieve her phone.