Just About Sex (22 page)

“I don’t mind, Simone. She’s a charming character.”

Startled, Simone looked up. In Greene’s face she saw no pity, but only kindness, sincerity and complete understanding—three things she’d never expected from him.

Something dangerous—some indefinable but powerful emotion—swelled in her heart and lingered there, as if it had no intentions of ever leaving. But before she could define it, a grating voice, more unwelcome than her mother’s, intruded.

“Well, well, well, look who it is. Simone Beaupre, as I live and breathe.”

Turning, Simone manufactured a smile for Julia Pilchard, the hack for the
National Inquisitor
who had, ever since that first phone call, made it her personal mission to hound Simone at every possible opportunity.

Brunette, young, bright-eyed and hungry, Julia was exactly the kind of person whose interest Simone never wanted to catch. She wore a strapless cobalt dress and a sharp, narrow-eyed gaze that flickered between Simone and Greene.

“Were you planning to avoid me forever, Doctor?” Julia asked.

“Yes, actually.”

Julia stared at Greene with undisguised interest. “Who’s your
date?
”

With a supreme effort, Simone kept her pleasant, professional grin from slipping; if Julia sensed blood she’d be all over Simone like a jackal. “This is my
cochair,
Julia. Alex Greene, this is Julia Pilchard from the
National Inquisitor.
Mr. Greene is a lawyer.”

Greene shook Julia’s hand warily and they murmured greetings.

“So, Alex,” Julia asked, mischief and glee in her voice, “what do you think of that Web site calling Dr. Simone a quack? You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”

Greene stilled. Though his face didn’t change by so much as a blink, a new aura settled over him. A subtle shift made him vaguely threatening, as if this whole topic bored him and Julia had best not irritate him by pursuing it.

“That trash?” he said. “I’m surprised a
journalist
like you would bother with something like that, Julia. Anyway, hasn’t it been pulled?”

Julia laughed, apparently impervious to the insult. Of course, as a reporter she probably had the hide of a rhino. “It’s gone, sure, but the real question is: who posted it?”

“A jerk,” Greene said.

“Well, obviously.” Julia waved a hand. “But
why
did he post it? And did he raise a point worth pursuing?” Her sly gaze slithered to Simone. “Does the sex doctor have problems with sex? And does she hate men?”

Beginning to sweat, Simone struggled to think of some witty comeback—something that would stop Julia dead in her tracks, but Greene was quicker on his feet than she was. Taking Simone’s elbow, he snorted as if he couldn’t quite believe Julia’s idiocy.

Julia’s smile faded.

Greene regarded her like she was a cockroach he needed to squish with his shoe. “Keep up the crack reporting, Lois Lane,” he said. “I’ll look for you next year when they announce the Pulitzer winners.” With that, he steered Simone away from Julia’s sputtering face and off toward the bar.

Simone smiled up at him, weak-kneed with relief. “Thanks.”

Dropping her arm, he shoved his hands in his pants pockets and looked away. “Don’t thank me,” he said irritably. “I’m the jerk who put you in that woman’s sights.”

“Well, cheer up. Tomorrow the mayor or some Bengals player will get a DUI or something, and my little story will be cut to the newsroom floor.”

He raised his troubled gaze. “I sure hope so.”

“Some jerk you make, Greene,” she said. “You’re way too soft.”

He laughed and she felt his dark mood drift away like a cloud of steam. Ridiculously happy, she laughed too. But then he sobered and stared at her with such stark longing she felt it as a gravitational pull low in her belly, binding her to him.

His gaze, pleading and vulnerable, locked with hers. “I’m crazy about you,” he whispered. “Absolutely crazy.”

Simone didn’t know what was worse: the prickling terror she felt running up her spine, the soaring hope in her chest or the pulsing, wet heat in her sex. Safe here in the ballroom, where the growing, chattering crowd protected her from his passion and, worse, her own, she found a new courage.

“I know,” she told him. “It scares me.”

A self-deprecating smile crinkled the outer corners of his eyes, softening his intensity. “How do you think I feel?”

“Aleex!”

From ten feet away Romero surged through the crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea and, startled, they turned to watch his approach. His dark attire, an odd hybrid from the gray world between a regular suit and a tuxedo, with a stiff, high-collared white shirt and long pink silk tie, somehow suited him perfectly. So did the huge diamond ear studs, heavy gold and diamond crucifix, and, of course, his flashy World Series ring. Striding to them, he clapped Greene on the back and offered his hand. “We mees ju. At meeting.”

Greene’s nostrils flared slightly, as if he’d caught a whiff of vomit, but he shook Juan’s hand. “Yeah, well, I had a meeting, so…”

But Juan, having apparently discharged his duty to be cordial to Greene, had already turned to Simone. Looking her up and down, he pressed a hand to his heart.

“Beautiful, beautiful,” he murmured. Bending down, he kissed her cheek and reeled her in for the inevitable hug. One huge hand went to her bare upper back, the other to her waist, flattening her against him so he could no doubt feel her breasts against his massive chest.

Flustered and irritated—a grope was a grope no matter how charmingly done—Simone pulled free and stepped back. She turned to Greene, thinking she’d give him a reassuring smile. To her surprise, he looked away from her, but his throbbing jaw and squared shoulders told her he was not happy.

“We start auction? After deenner?” Juan asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Juan’s smile, wide and enigmatic, only annoyed her more.
“Good?”
she asked, determined to be polite. “Are you bidding on Miss Ohio?”

“No,” Juan said, laughing. “Ju, Simone. I buy
ju.
”

Before the full horror of his words could register with her brain, Simone heard Greene make a choking, angry sound. His face was now contorted, as if Picasso had taken his features and rearranged them, emphasizing the blazing eyes and heavy brows.

“Over my dead body,” Greene told Romero in a low, threatening voice.

To Simone’s complete astonishment, Greene turned his back on them and strode off through the crowd, rudely thumping Juan’s shoulder with his own in the process.

“The next lot,” said the emcee, the smooth and slick host of a local morning radio show who gave smarmy a whole new meaning, at least as far as Alex was concerned, “is number eleven:
The Tunnel of Love
date! Scuba diving and dinner with Dr. Simone Beaupre at the Newport Aquarium!”

Alex, sitting between Mitch and Derek at his firm’s table, stirred for the first time in forty-five minutes, thrilled he’d managed not to fall asleep thus far. He’d suffered through the auctioning of every imaginable kind of date, including various rounds of golf, dancing lessons and even one poor, misguided woman who paid four thousand for rock climbing in Kentucky with a former member of the Mighty Ducks. Why pay for the privilege of falling down a crevasse and breaking your neck?

Up on the stage, the video screen flashed that smiling catalog photo of Simone. A spotlight simultaneously swept the audience and landed on Simone at faraway table two, three tables over from where he sat.

Sitting between her mother’s boyfriend and her office assistant, Simone stood, smiled at the applauding crowd and, laughing, waved off several enthusiastic catcalls.

At the retired sports legends table right behind her, Romero leaned in, whispered something to one of his boys, and laughed. Leering at Simone as if she was a side of beef, the asshole did everything but lick his chops and drool on her.

Alex’s gut churned around his tuna dinner, and when he felt his temples throb, he realized he was grinding his teeth. What a strutting peacock of a jerk Romero was, with all that bling glittering and flashing under the lights like one of Liberace’s sequined pianos. Alex could barely see him for the glare.

Kicking Romero’s butt right here in front of God and everybody would almost be worth the time he’d surely spend in jail for the pleasure, but Alex had a better idea.

He
would buy the date with Simone.

It had always been his plan, of course. He just hadn’t realized until tonight who his competition was. It didn’t matter. He was willing to do just about anything short of mortgaging his house to have that date with Simone.

Picking up his round white paddle—lucky number fifty-two—he tossed back the last of his scotch on the rocks and waited for the bidding to begin.

“We’ll start the bidding at a hundred,” said the emcee. “Do I have a hundred for the lovely lady?”

Romero—big surprise—jerked his arm in the air and flashed his paddle—number ten. Simone’s mother squealed and clapped while Simone smiled tightly. The crowd murmured, building tension and anticipation. Why did people always get so excited when a professional athlete did something? Alex had the feeling people would happily buy tickets to see Romero clip his toenails.

“Two hundred.” Another man, at a table farther back, raised his paddle, number eighty-nine.

Twisting in his seat for a clearer look, Alex recognized him as a brand manager for P&G. His mood soured even further. Great. Now a soap jockey wanted her too.

“Do I hear three?” called the emcee, practically jumping up and down with his excitement. “Three? Three?”

A
third
guy raised his paddle. Oh, come on! Was there any heterosexual male here tonight who
wasn’t
planning to bid on Simone? Alex felt his blood pressure skyrocket and the beginnings of a tension headache crept up the back of his neck and over his head. Wouldn’t that be cool if he dropped dead of a stroke before he ever made a bid?

Romero shot a mocking, raised-eyebrow glance at Alex as if daring him to do something. Alex ignored him. With a small, perplexed shrug, Romero waved his paddle again. Four hundred.

Alex white-knuckled it while four or five—or was it six?—core bidders ran the price up to thirty-five hundred, the second highest price thus far tonight. The crowd, nicely liquored by now, had long ago lost all decorum, hooting, cackling and clapping like frat boys at a wet T-shirt contest.

Shirley whooped the loudest, hugging Simone and rubbing her shoulders, happy to be near the center of attention again, even if it was only the reflected glory of her daughter’s moment in the sun. But poor Simone had a pale-faced, shell-shocked, deer in the headlights kind of look that broadcast to Alex, if no one else, how uncomfortable she was with this kind of hoopla. The one time he caught her gaze, he thought he saw a silent plea in her expression.

Finally the bidders’ enthusiasm began to wane a little, as if it’d dawned on them that paying for a couple hours of a woman’s time—even a beautiful woman, and even for charity—was, basically, a dumb idea. One by one they dropped off, until only Juan and the P&G exec remained.

“Thirty-six hundred.” The auctioneer dabbed at his now sweaty face with an enormous white handkerchief. Swollen with pride, as if his superior skills at the microphone, and not Simone’s charms, were responsible for the large sums of money bandied about, he lowered his voice, adding to the drama. “Thirty-six hundred. The bid is against you, number eighty-nine. Thirty-six hundred.”

The crowd held its collective breath.

The P&G guy dropped his paddle on the table and held up his hands, surrendering.

Everyone at the sports table went wild, leaping out of their chairs, high-fiving and clapping Romero on the back as if the man had just hit a grand slam and cinched the pennant. Luckily there wasn’t an iced tub of Gatorade sitting nearby, or Romero would be wearing it.

Simone kept her game face on. The only outward sign that she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of spending an evening with Romero was her drooping shoulders.

The emcee raised his hands high, signaling for calm. After several seconds, the crowd quieted down to a dull roar. “Thirty-six hundred going once—”

Romero leaned back past one of his teammates, caught Alex’s eye and flashed a triumphant smile.

“Thirty-six hundred going twice—”

Alex raised his paddle.

Chapter 19

A
moment of stunned silence followed, and hot on its heels came pandemonium. The audience’s cheering and squawking got so loud Alex wondered if this wasn’t the kind of crowd that spawned a riot.

Romero’s jaw hit the floor, giving him an openmouthed grimace as if someone had shoved a baseball bat right up his rear. That image alone made the whole night worthwhile. Simone’s hand flew to her throat and she gaped at Alex.

Derek and Mitch went nuts. “What’re you doing?” they cried on either side of him, their faces split in identical fascinated, but horrified, grins—as if they’d just seen a zebra lay an egg.

Alex ignored everyone.

“I have thirty-seven hundred!” the emcee screamed, sounding much like Edison probably sounded when his light bulb worked for the first time. “Thirty-seven hundred to number fifty-two! Do I have thirty-eight?”

Romero’s arm jerked up, wielding the plastic paddle as if he intended to bludgeon someone to death with it. “Four,” he said flatly, his voice unamplified but determined.

The emcee clutched the podium in a white-knuckled grip as he leaned over the microphone. “Do I hear forty—”

“Five.” Alex flapped his paddle.

“Seex.” Romero’s face tightened into the grim, determined lines Alex had seen before, when Romero stepped up to the plate to bat.

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

The emcee emitted an orgasmic cry of delight. Apparently determined to interject himself back into the proceedings, he held up a hand. “Eight. We have
eight.
” He turned to Alex. “Would you like to go to
nine
thousand?”