Scandalize Me

She concentrated on that last part—the offensive part—because she didn’t want to know what he meant. She didn’t want to feel anything but vague pity and rather more pointed disgust when she looked at him.

But she hadn’t felt either of those things in a while. And it took exactly one phone call that afternoon to find out that Hunter hadn’t been partying well into the morning the day she’d tracked him to that strip club. His very famously married ex-teammate had been the one out for an all-night party. Hunter had been called in by the wife when the man was still going strong the next morning, according to the club manager. He’d gathered up his friend, poured him into a car and then had paid for everything—including the strippers’ time. With a very generous tip.

Almost as if he wasn’t who she thought he was.

Daniel, of course, vehemently disagreed.

The rest of the team found their meetings with Hunter—which Zoe stopped attending after that last coffee, because she couldn’t allow herself to lose sight of her goals, and all of that time with him seemed to lead straight to blindness—no more or less outrageous than the ones they had with the rest of their wealthy, entitled client base.

But not Daniel.

“He’s a pig,” Daniel snarled. He stood in front of her desk in a fury, so angry Zoe didn’t dare voice her confusing little thought—that she’d thought he was a pig when she’d met him, but hadn’t in some time.

And didn’t really like hearing him called that now, if she was honest.

“He’s a client,” she said instead. Daniel didn’t need to know that Hunter hadn’t sought her out and therefore wouldn’t be paying for their services. No one needed to know that. “A very rich client. What does it matter if he’s a pig?”

“You can tell your client that if he calls me weak and breakable again in that he-man way of his, I’ll quit.”

It was important that she not laugh, Zoe understood. That she keep her face absolutely clear of any amusement.

“Why did Hunter call you weak and breakable?” she asked, very carefully. “Was he threatening you?”

“He’s a bully,” Daniel snapped. “That’s what bullies do. And the fact he’s managed to snow you doesn’t mean it works on anyone else, Zoe. He’s a disaster waiting to happen. Why can’t you see that?”

“I know what I’m doing, Daniel,” she retorted, with a little more heat than she should have. Daniel looked as if she’d slapped him, and Zoe didn’t feel as guilty about that as she should have, either. “Listen,” she said in a much calmer tone. “You have to trust me. You always have before.”

“I trust you,” he muttered, though she could see he was still angry.

But the trouble was, she wasn’t sure she trusted herself.

Because when she was with Hunter, she sometimes forgot that the purpose of all of this was revenge.

* * *

Hunter rang the bell of the latter-day speakeasy in Chelsea that night, at precisely nine-thirty as ordered, and let the staff member lead him through the lush interior. It was a plush and sexy expanse of velvet and wood, debonair comfort accented by ambitious cocktails and mood lighting. He was delivered to a private seating area surrounded by gauzy, romantic curtains, through which he could glimpse only the faintest suggestion of the person he assumed was Zoe.

“When you demanded I meet you here I didn’t realize it was a bordello,” he said as he pushed his way through the shimmering barrier like the bull in a china shop he was. “I would have dressed more appropriately. In my belly dancing costume, for example. You may not know this about me, Zoe, but I do a mean dance of the seven veils.”

And then Hunter stopped in his tracks, taking his first really good look at the rest of her without those filmy curtains in the way. It was like getting decisively and comprehensively sacked by an entire, and very large, defensive line.

“Don’t get too excited,” Zoe said coolly, her chin rising.

He couldn’t help himself. It was that slick parody of a dress in one of the dark gray shades she favored, clinging to every curve and hollow, plane and stretch of her perfectly toned figure. It made his mouth go dry and his head swim around in loopy circles, all the blood in his body surging toward the most irreverent and unmanageable part of him.

“I don’t get excited,” he drawled, in an approximation of his usual careless self, the guy who was bored by everything. He remembered that guy. He’d been him all of five seconds ago. “Did you forget? I’m rich, handsome and notorious. People are generally excited to see me.”