Scandalize Me

Step one of which started tomorrow, and called for a lot more alone time with the man. The very last thing Zoe wanted.

But she would do it, she knew. Because she had no choice. Because her revenge was more important than anything else, including her own feelings, and she would make it work.

She didn’t have a choice.

* * *

Hunter drove into the depressing town some two hours from Manhattan that Zoe directed him to, mystified and annoyed. All around them were crumbling brick buildings, the oppressive air of deeply saturated despair, all the usual ruins of what had once been a mill town. Similar places dotted the East Coast, he knew, none of them particularly appealing all these years after the last gasp of the textile industry. This was the most time he’d spent in one, and he already wanted to leave.

“This looks like a lovely place to live,” he said, staring out the window at the small, desolate-looking row houses that lined the street, looking abandoned in the weak light of the winter afternoon, though he suspected they weren’t. “So welcoming.”

“Let’s stop at a Realtor’s on the way out,” Zoe retorted, and she let out a small noise that was too sharp to be a laugh. “You can buy a house or two with your pocket change.”

“What are we doing?” he asked, not as softly as he had the first time, right after he’d picked her up outside her office this afternoon. Or even the fifth time, when they’d picked up I-95 at the George Washington Bridge and headed north. “Why are we here?”

“You’re going to have to wait and see,” she said, her cool tone perfectly even, as it had been this whole time. Her attention was on her BlackBerry, her thumbs tapping at the keys. “You might even have to trust me.” She glanced at him and her lips curved slightly. Almost sharply. “Turn right at the light.”

Hunter didn’t trust her. He didn’t even trust himself. But he’d tasted her. He’d felt the sweet smooth heat of her skin beneath his hands. He’d smelled her heady scent, lavender and woman, hot and needy. He wanted more.

He wanted answers, too. But he wanted her more.

He turned right at the light, and followed her directions all the way to the parking lot of an old, unrenovated high school building on the far side of town. Edgarton High read the weathered sign on the nearest wall. He parked with what he could admit was a slightly showy screech of his tires, though it elicited zero reaction from Zoe. He beckoned her out of his car, but, naturally, she didn’t do as directed. She turned to look at him instead, to study him as if he was a painting on the wall of some second-rate art gallery and she didn’t quite see the point. He felt the punch of her gaze again, the electricity, and it pissed him off.

If this was about sex, the way he wanted it to be, they would have had sex by now. A lot of it. And he didn’t want to think about what else it could be about, because she didn’t seem inclined to answer and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know.

She sat there, elegant and aloof, her long legs crossed and her hands folded neatly in her lap. Only her eyes seemed warm—hot, really, and far too calculating as they moved over him. Judging him and dismissing him and making sure he was aware of it while she did it.

“Are you familiar with the concept of a hate fuck?” he asked.

She smirked. Of course she smirked, though he flattered himself that maybe, just maybe, there was the slightest flush over her lovely cheeks as she did. What did it say about him that he wanted to believe that? With an urgency that felt a little too close to desperation?

“How awkward,” Zoe said, though she didn’t sound anything like awkward. “I don’t hate you, Mr. Grant. This is called indifference.”

“Don’t worry,” he told her shortly, not bothering to hide his bad temper, if that was what it was. It felt like ground glass in his throat, his gut. And even lower, as if he was still a fifteen-year-old idiot. “I can hate you enough for the both of us.”

“You don’t hate me.” She was remarkably, unflappably confident, which he really shouldn’t find arousing. And yet. “You can’t understand why I’m not fluttering about in awe and wonder at the great gift of your attention, and the only way a man like you can interpret that is with your...” She eyed the area in question, which didn’t help improve matters, then raised her gaze to his. Hers was like the winter sea, and much too amused besides. “Well. I’ll just say no, thank you, and leave it at that.”

“Just as well,” he muttered. “I have the feeling you’d be a messy crier. And yes, they usually cry. Tears of joy and wonder. It’s my gift.”