There was a crackle of something then, a kind of sharp, hot pang of awareness, and Zoe reminded herself that she wasn’t here to banter with this man. She had a very specific agenda. A plan, and he was nothing more than the perfect tool to execute it. There was no room for anything else. It didn’t matter that he was significantly more clever and far less drunk than she’d anticipated.
And besides, she knew exactly what he was. She knew what he’d done. Why was that so difficult to keep in mind now that she was this close to him?
“Do you imagine that I’ll be so easily seduced?” she asked, trying to keep her voice more arch than accusatory. “Is that how it normally works for you? You roll out a halfhearted sexual innuendo and they fling themselves at your feet?”
“I hadn’t imagined anything of the kind,” he said, and he was laughing at her, if only with those unnervingly clear eyes. “But I am now.”
“You’re not my type,” she said, sharp and smooth. “I prefer brains over brawn, for a start.”
“I beg your pardon.” But he wasn’t even remotely offended, she saw. If anything, he looked genuinely amused. It made his gorgeous face lighten, made those eyes of his very nearly shine. “I went to Harvard.”
“As did almost every single relative and ancestor you have, stretching back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s.” She kept her voice dry. “It’s somewhat less impressive to be a legacy times twenty. It would only be noteworthy if you didn’t go to Harvard.”
“I didn’t merely get into Harvard,” he pointed out, that gleam in his gaze never fading. If anything, it intensified, as if he really was imagining her at his feet, spread out before him like—she stopped herself right there. “I also graduated. That’s harder, even for someone with so much Crimson in his bloodstream.” He grinned. “Brains and brawn.”
Zoe shrugged. “I also don’t like sports. Especially football. Pointless and brutal little war games dressed up in silly costumes and pretending to be important.” She smiled. Sweetly. “No offense, of course. Just my opinion.”
“I pride myself on never taking offense at the unsolicited opinions of strangers,” Hunter said.
He shifted in his seat again, moving his strong legs beneath the table, making Zoe aware of how close they were sitting. How intimate it really was to be practically cuddled up in a private booth with this man. This terrible man. It took everything she had not to jerk back to a safe distance—but then, this was the game. This was what she had to do to win it. And she would win it.
“I was fired from the war games,” he confided after a moment. “If that helps.”
“And I don’t really like WASP-y Sons of the Revolution, either,” she said almost sadly. “With blood so blue it practically weeps, who still think the world is their own, personal fiefdom. It’s a strange character flaw of mine, I’m sure.”
That made him grin. “Given the research you’ve clearly done, you must know that I’m the black sheep of my WASP-y, Sons and Daughters of the Revolution family. They sigh heavily whenever they see me, which isn’t very often. I’m terribly scandalous.”
“Or maybe it’s just you, Mr. Grant. I can’t say I particularly like you.”
“And yet here you are,” Hunter said, something about that tone making it clear she’d be a fool to underestimate him, though he still grinned with every appearance of pretty-boy ease. “Giving me your sales pitch in a strip club at ten-thirty on a Tuesday morning. Do you know who does things like that, Ms. Brook?” There was something about her name in his mouth, that famously dissipated mouth, that worked inside her, making her feel looser than she should, as if he could melt all the ice and iron within her that easily. She told herself she was horrified at the thought. “Fans and stalkers.”
“I promise you, I’m neither.”
“Then why on earth would you take on the Herculean task of attempting to restore my good name?” He laughed. “It can’t be done.”
“I have my reasons. All you have to do is benefit from them.”
“Let me guess. The goodness of your heart?”
“I don’t have a heart, Mr. Grant. I have a plan. You figure prominently in it, that’s all.”
That intensity that spiked the air around him tightened then, like an implacable fist. And then he smiled, sending a shot of something silken and ominous down the length of her spine. It occurred to her that she didn’t understand this man at all. That her research hadn’t prepared her for this, whatever this was. For him.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said in a velvet whisper, the way another man might talk of sex and desire, and it shivered inside Zoe like a touch, “but I’m committed to my downward spiral, and that leaves no room for anything else. Certainly not a mysterious woman and her ‘plan.’”
He rose to his feet then, in a kind of powerfully sinuous way that reminded her that he’d made his living for most of his life with that steel-hewn body of his. She didn’t know why that made her throat go dry, but it did. It bordered on painful.
What was happening to her?
“Feel free to stay and enjoy the show,” he said, smirking down at her. “The dancers here are very talented. Don’t forget to tip.”
Then he started to move past her, headed for the door, dismissing her that easily.
“Wait.”
Zoe rose and reached out for him as she spoke, but he saw her and shifted, throwing out one of his remarkable hands—widely held to be miracles in their own right, or so she’d read—to clasp hers in midair. As if they’d choreographed it.
And sensation poured into her, a white, wild heat, turning her to stone where she stood. Turning her body against her. She felt that simple touch like a hammer. It coursed through her, and before she could think better of it, before she could think, she jerked her startled gaze from their hands to his face—
And everything sizzled. Bright. Hot. Painful.
Impossible.
Hunter’s gaze narrowed. Turned dark.
Hungry.
It took every single bit of hard-won pride and determination Zoe had not to rip her hand out from his much bigger one, to reclaim it, to shut off this insane thing that lit her up in the worst possible places, from the hollow of her belly to the secret places below. Behind her knees. The curve of her neck. The suddenly taut and aching crests of her breasts, thankfully hidden behind the thick wool of her dress.
But she didn’t kid herself. He knew.
And she hated that she could react like this to a man like him. That her body didn’t seem to care what she knew about him. That she’d learned nothing from all these long, hard years. That she simply burned.
“I prefer not to be manhandled, thank you,” she said, her voice even and precise, as cold as the winter winds in the concrete canyons of the city outside this club, and he would never know what that cost her. “Particularly by strange men renowned for their long years of compulsive promiscuity and generally loutish behavior.”
He dropped his hand, but there was still that new light in his eyes, intense and certain, focused on her as if he saw all the things she’d hidden, her secrets and her scars. As if he knew she wore a mask. As if he could see it—and therefore, her—when no one else ever had.
That shook her, hard, but she fought to keep it from her face. Her eyes. Her rigid body that wanted things she’d never wanted, that she didn’t know how to want.
“I’m renowned for other things, too,” he pointed out, almost gently.
And she’d read about that, of course. His