Nothing to Hide

SEVEN

SEVEN

Rather than answer, he held out a hand. “Zairn Lomond.”

What was he doing? Introducing himself, why would he be…? “Oh, I get it,” Roxie said, catching up to his motivation. “You’re trying to erase the last five minutes.”

“Trying a different approach. You don’t know me; that won’t change unless I do it right.”

“I am not easily charmed.” Or eager to trust his intentions. “Or intimidated.”

“I noticed that,” he said, raising his hand higher. “And you would be?”

“Roxie Kyst.”

Relenting because it was polite, she kept her suspicion locked onto him as his fingers curled around hers. They didn’t so much shake as just hold hands; the heat of his began to permeate hers, lighting something intimate in his gaze. Uh-uh. Nope. Dial it down, Cowboy. She took her hand back in a hurry.

“Nice to meet you, Roxie Kyst. Roxie’s short for Roxanne?”

“Roxanna,” she said. “But close enough.”

“It doesn’t upset you when people get it wrong?”

A slight smile curved her lips. “There are real, honest to God problems in the world that should upset all of us. A stranger making assumptions about my name isn’t on that list.”

“That’s a good attitude,” he said, retreating to the minibar. “Do you want a drink?”

“Do I want a drink?” she asked, her eyes widening. This guy had some set on him. “This is my room, shouldn’t I be the one offering the hospitality? I haven’t invited you to stay… I haven’t decided if I want to.”

“You have no choice. It’s your position, right?” he said, retrieving a shooter bottle of scotch and a couple of others in his opposite hand. “This isn’t good enough.” Roxie assumed he was talking to himself. He put the bottles down and retrieved a phone from his pocket. A second later, he was talking into it. “We need drinks.” Lowering the microphone, he looked at her. “What’s your drink?”

“Lime-drop martini.”

Back to the phone again. “Vodka, Grand Marnier, sugar, limes and iced martini glasses,” he said, then paused to listen. “Yeah… No, I’ll mix it.” He hung up and put the phone in his jacket before taking it off. “What do you do, Miss Kyst?”

“How did you know the ingredients like that?” she asked. “You know everything about every drink?”

“Everyone starts at the bottom, me included. Entertainment is what I do.” That was almost funny. l*****g her lips, Roxie tried and failed to hide her amusement. “That’s funny?”

“Imagining you behind a bar slinging drinks? Yeah, sorry, but it is.”

He didn’t seem offended as he walked by to hang his jacket over one of her dining chairs. “I have to be proficient in every position,” he said, removing his cufflinks.

When he angled his chin toward his shoulder to glance her way, there was no mistaking the playful glint of flirtation shining on her.

Raising a pointed forefinger, Roxie intended to be clear. “I am not one of those women. You won’t get me into bed just because you buy me a drink.”

“Or because I pay your living expenses, gift you an around the world trip, provide global exposure, and give you an allowance for anything you want?”

“Yes, even all that won’t do it,” she said. “I don’t care how much you spend. s*x wasn’t part of the deal.”

“No, because we couldn’t put that on national television… and there were men in the mix.”

“Were there?” she asked, watching him fold the cuffs of his shirt to reveal his forearms. Tanned and strong and tempting, she’d always had a thing about forearms for some peculiar reason. Don’t go there. Divert line of thinking. Roxie tightened the belt of her robe. “We thought Bree would be your pick.”

“Bree?”

“She was one of the other potential winners. In the final five.”

He bobbed his head. “I didn’t make the decision.”

Roxie strutted his way. “Bree was young,” she teased, sliding in a little innuendo of her own. “Nineteen, innocent, nubile.”

“Mm,” he said, his chin rising as he turned toward her.

“Corruptible… blonde… great rack.”

Observing his interest, Roxie stopped, assuming she’d whetted his appetite for Bree. Always the same. Men couldn’t resist hot and perky.

His brows flicked up. “Would you like me to arrange for you and her to have some time alone? Invite her to the hotel while we’re still in town. You’re allowed to have people in your room, I don’t set rules like that… Though I probably should, given you spent last night in jail. A few rules might be exactly what you need, Miss Kyst.” Confused, she didn’t realize she was frowning until he laughed. “Young and nubile aren’t high on my wish list. The phrase ‘been there, done that’ comes to mind.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, doubting his veracity.

“Yep,” he said and bowed to murmur in her hair above her ear. “Nineteen means she can’t drink at most of my bars.” He straightened to meet her eye. “Not much use to me…” He scanned her figure, sending a quivering chill up her spine. “Would you like to get changed? You didn’t finish your dinner, are you still hungry?”

Uneasy, Roxie couldn’t figure out his game. “No, I am not hungry,” she said, glaring. “I don’t like this.”

“Like what? Getting to know me?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

Because he wasn’t what she’d thought he’d be. Yes, he projected the expected confidence and ease, but those weren’t the source of her agitation. The playfulness was fun. He teased and rose to her challenge: he matched her. She hadn’t expected that.

“I am going to get changed.” Not because he said it, but because she chose to be in more than just a robe. She pointed at him again. “Do not come anywhere near my bedroom.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, smirking.

Going to her bedroom, Roxie took the time to reevaluate her position. At Sunset, seated a distance away from him, it was easy to make snap judgments. When he was right there in front of her, it was harder to see him as a thing. A “thing.” That’s what it was. Celebrities, politicians, businessmen, they didn’t feel like real people to the masses consuming them through the media’s lens.

She got dressed and combed her hair away from her face. Lomond was a person. Not one like any she’d met, but a person nonetheless. His world view would be skewed by his life experience, everyone’s was. That experience wouldn’t earn him any credit. She’d give him a chance but wouldn’t cut him a break. If someone, anyone, was rude or being unfair, she’d tell it straight. Regardless of his infamy, Zairn Lomond would get the same treatment.

See, all she’d needed was a little pep talk. Now she was prepped to get back out there and out-sass anything he threw her way.

Lomond was on the couch, facing the entertainment unit on the opposite wall. Her computer was closed and the dinner plate gone.

“I told the kitchen to expect feedback,” he called without turning around.

How did he know she was there?

“Feedback about what?” she asked, passing the dining table to go around the end of the couch. Their drinks were on the coffee table. Good, she could do with one, except…Why did he look so confused? “What?”

“Hmm?”

He was just looking at her. Not her face. No, her body. But it wasn’t a leer, it didn’t seem like he was checking her out. The longer she stood there, being scrutinized by him, the more Roxie felt like a science experiment gone wrong.

“Geez, take a picture why don’t you?” she said, opening her hands on her hips. “Stop looking at me like that. What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry, please, sit down.”

“Again, I remind you…” Roxie said, closing her eyes in a long blink. “This is my room.”

“A room I’m paying for.”

“I imagine it’s a business expense,” she said, putting a foot on the couch to climb onto it. Folding her legs against her torso, she rested back on the high arm. “Why were you looking at me funny?”

“I wasn’t looking at you funny,” he said, leaning forward to pick up their drinks.

Roxie took hers and drank, monitoring his every nuance as he settled in the opposite corner of the couch.

When he squinted at her pants, suddenly it made sense. “You were expecting lingerie.”

“No,” he said, maybe a little too quickly.

“Yes, you were,” she teased and sighed. “Women all over the world throw themselves at you every minute. You expected me to walk out here in something lacy or see-through. Plaid pajama sweats and a Lola Bunny racer-back just aren’t a part of your universe, are they?”

“I didn’t know the rabbit had a name,” he said, glancing down, though he wouldn’t see the cartoon character on her shirt with her legs in the way.

“Do you watch a lot of cartoons?”

“No, but if they look like that, I might start.”

“Are you lusting after Lola Bunny?”

Tilting his head, he raised a shoulder in a loose shrug. “I wouldn’t send her home early.”

“From what I know through the media, you wouldn’t send any prospective lay home early. What are your criteria exactly? Famous and flashing the fur?”

“In their defense, not many of my exes have had fur.”

That was funny and alarming. “Not many?” she asked. “So some of them did?”

“Do those yappy little dogs count?”

Roxie laughed. “I bet you’ve adopted many of those little fuzzies. Do you pay doggie support?”

“If they could take me to court for it…” he said, enjoying a mouthful of scotch.

“You can afford it, I guess,” she said. Something struck her. “I don’t even know if you have kids.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“I don’t either.”

“I know.” Her frown was question enough. “The questionnaire you filled out served a purpose. The questions weren’t random. We had strict criteria. You met them.”

“Me? I met the criteria. What were they?”

“Young, free, and single.”

“I wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend?”

“They get jealous.”

The arrogance! It was so unbelievable that she couldn’t keep the laugh from her voice. “Are you kidding me?” His superiority didn’t fade. “Your winner couldn’t have a boyfriend because they’d be jealous of you?”

The slow blink and unapologetic expression on his face reminded her of the man he’d been on Talk at Sunset.

She shook her head, completely mystified. “I’m surprised you got through the door with an ego that big. It must be a helluva weight to haul around all the time.”

“Look, single’s just easier,” he said like explaining was an inconvenience. “Our winner couldn’t be married or planning a wedding, couldn’t have kids or caring duties, those people have responsibilities.”

“How tiresome.”

“We’re spending months on the road. Most nights we’ll be in clubs. Places which aren’t conducive to calling and catching up with home. Drama is tiresome, to use your word.”

“So you think there would be drama if your winner had to call home?”

“How would you feel if your boyfriend won and you were left behind?”

Despite breaking up with her last boyfriend a couple of months ago, Roxie still cast him in the hypothetical. Imagining how Porter would respond to her going on the road without him was enough to prove Lomond’s point.

She waved it off. “Let’s stop talking about partners.”

“Raw nerve?” he asked, intrigued.

Coy wasn’t a color that suited her. “When I saw you on the show, I thought you were arrogant and smug.”

Another slow blink. “I am arrogant and smug. And proud of it.”

That he owned it granted him some credit. But she still let out a bold, “Ha-ha.”

“I don’t pussyfoot, Lola Bunny. We are who we are, right? Isn’t that why you came out dressed like that?”

“I came out in my pajamas because it’s nighttime, we’re chilling, and I couldn’t care less about tempting you.” Roxie laid it out. “We don’t know each other, I get that, and you don’t pussyfoot. Love it. But me, I don’t do tact or timid. There’s a reason I don’t do lingerie too.”

“I’m looking forward to finding out what that is.”

“No, no,” she said, wagging a forefinger his way. “Don’t flirt with me.” He tried innocence, but his eyes were far too guilty in their innuendo. “Do you even know how to connect with a woman who has no interest in your money or your c**k?”

“Give it time, sweetheart, you’ll want both.”

“Oh,” she muttered, drawing out the sound. “You are cocky.”

“I’ve got the goods, sweetheart.”

“Be careful, a guy called me that last night and it caused a riot.”

“Outside my club, I heard… as did the rest of the world,” he said. “What’s the story?”

Time to take a shot at innocence. “I didn’t start it… A bunch of people from the show connected and we went out to eat. Somehow, we ended up at Crimson. I didn’t even know we were going there.”

“You been to any Crimson before?”

“No,” she said. “My roommates, Jane and Toria, are big fans. They spent a small fortune on a special weekend thing in Boston about a year ago. They wanted New York but…”

“Bring them to the opening. Ask Tibbs for whatever you need.”

“Which one’s Tibbs?”

“Right, you haven’t been introduced to anyone.”

“I know Astrid,” Roxie said. “She said you all get caught up in each other and forget there’s a big world beyond your circle… Personally, I think you forget there’s a world beyond your ego.”

“You’re judgmental, aren’t you, Lola?”

He shifted to the edge of the couch to pour himself another drink. After his glass was refreshed, he raised the chilled cocktail shaker toward her.

She shook her head. “I’m still working on mine.”

“If you want to tail me on the club circuit, you’ll have to learn to keep up.”

“I have nothing to prove,” she said, finishing her drink. “You’re so filthy rich that I bet you’re used to everyone always trying to impress you.”

Just as he settled back and raised his glass to his lips, she held her empty one out. Though he semi-glared, he did sit up to take it from her.

Rather than refill the same glass, he took a clean one to rim the edge with sugar. “Rich does give you license to get away with a lot of bullshit.”

She leaned forward a little. “Filthy,” Roxie whispered. “Don’t forget the filthy.” The next look he landed on her was pure swagger. “That won’t work either. You’re not that smooth, Casanova.”

“You’re so sure, why don’t you kick me out?”

“Because, Casanova, you mix a good martini.”

“Imagine what else I might be good at,” he murmured, the bass of his voice rumbling through both of them.

“Stop being sleazy,” she sang, accepting the fresh drink. “It’s never going to happen for you here. My p***y is Casanova non grata.”

Everything just bounced right off him. No concern. No doubt. “You wouldn’t know how to resist if I turned it on.”

“Oh, I think I would. Cocky doesn’t do it for me. I’ll be the one woman who’ll never have a problem resisting you.”

“Just proving how little you know me. Don’t lay down a challenge unless you want me to pick it up.”

“You better stop flirting with me,” she said, dropping her knees to cross her legs in front of her. “Talk about something non-sexy, maybe we’ll get your mind out of the gutter. Tell me about your mom.”

“Dead,” he said, just like that.

Her lips puckered, then she exhaled. “That was a short conversation. What about your dad?”

“Not a feature… Nothing you can’t find out on Wikipedia. Do better research, Lola.”

“Is it some chore to talk about yourself?” she asked. “What about siblings?”

“None of them either.”

“So you have no one to spend all your cents on except yourself?”

“And the business.”

It seemed his work was his life.

“Where did the cents come from?” she asked. “I mean, how did you get your start?”

“My mom died when I was a child. Her father took responsibility for me after that. He paid my tuition at boarding school. When I was a teenager, he received a terminal diagnosis and sold his business. No one knew about the diagnosis until after he passed. I was the only surviving relative. Started out with just under six mil in the bank.”

She could tell he’d given that answer before. “Bet you have more than that today.”

He snickered. “Just slightly.”

“One of my friends corrected the other when she called you a millionaire.”

He inhaled, much more relaxed than he had been upon entering her room. “For someone who’s not interested in money, you talk about it a lot.”

“We can’t talk about s*x. All I know about you is s*x and money. What do you want to talk about instead? The weather?”

Resting his glass on his thigh, his attention zeroed in. “You. Talk to me about you.”

So she did. For hours. They talked about her roommates and how the three of them ended up at the show. Her parents, who were still together, her brother and her sister too. They discussed her work, copyediting and proofreading. Roxie did some copywriting once in a while too and picked up related work here and there as requested or required.

Whether or not he was taking any of the information in, she didn’t know. But he nodded along and asked questions, so he seemed to be engaged. The conversation revolved around her. Why wouldn’t it? A guy like Zairn Lomond wouldn’t trust a stranger. Probably wouldn’t trust many people given the media’s interest. Good thing Roxie was a talker, she could keep going all night.