Page 99 of Dangerous Temptation
He gave in and squeezed her hand. ‘Good luck, baby. Knock ’em dead.’
Alex felt the eyes upon him as he walked to the seating area. Cameras were clicking fast and video recorders were rolling. There was only one seat left. His jaw clenched. They’d left him a seat next to Caroline Woodward from WABC News. She smirked up at him.
The bastards.
He spotted Vasquez along the back wall. The university’s Department of Public Safety were lined up next to him, ready to handle any disruptions.
Alex smoothed his face and put a lockdown on the snake slithering inside his chest. Not-so-sweet Caroline was not going to rile him today. He sat down beside her in the hard wooden chair.
‘Mr Wolfe,’ she said gleefully.
‘Ms Woodward.’
The head of the committee raised her voice. ‘Silence, please. We’re ready to get started. Ms Bardot, if you would.’
Elena nodded politely and gestured to the screen where her presentation was showing. She began to talk and Alex eased back. The chair was rigid and uncomfortable. Trying to find a more relaxed position, he hooked an ankle over the opposite knee. He drummed his fingers against his thigh as she got started and felt Caroline’s gaze take in the nervous gesture.
He couldn’t help it. Elena was nervous. She was talking too fast and her voice sounded high and tight. Her blank stare was skittering along the audience and off the back wall. He finally caught her eye. Their gazes locked and he took a deep breath. She did the same. He nodded at her and her shoulders relaxed. She slowed down. Gathered herself.
Addressing her audience, she finally got into her flow.
She began going through slides, and his pride in her grew. The subject was dry, but she was doing what she could to spice it up. Some reporters took notes, but others just watched. The sexy suit was probably the reason for that. It was black, with a modern edge, yet so professional the edges looked like they could cut steel. The fit was tailored and the style didn’t require a blouse underneath. It emphasized the black diamonds that lay nestled between her curves.
Curves that were supported by some kind of sexy lingerie, he was sure. Was it the black lace? The innocent pink? He shifted on the hard seat. Whatever it was, he’d bought it for her. That thought alone was enough to make him rock hard.
From that point on, the crowd of reporters just disappeared. They didn’t matter now.
‘I began by looking at Case A, which followed market trends,’ she was saying.
So this was what she’d been doing all those hours she’d spent alone in the lake house. He ground his teeth together. Would they still be together if they hadn’t left the manor? Or would he have driven her away from there, too?
‘I tracked all the known market indicators,’ she continued.
She’d said she loved him.
The snake that always sat inside his chest hissed. It was impatient. It wanted him to make things right.
He wanted her back.
She loved him, but she’d left him. If he could just come to grips with the way things were, could he convince her to give him another chance? The world might just see the rotten image they’d created of him, but she’d dug beneath the surface once.
She pulled up another colourful chart. ‘I then turned to Case B, the Wolfe Financial scenario.’
Alex’s ears perked up and his attention focused like a laser. He read the chart more closely, and his long body unfolded. He planted both feet on the floor and gripped the arms of the chair.
Next to him, Caroline started taking notes furiously.
‘I tracked the very same indicators,’ Elena said, her enthusiasm mounting. She was addressing the evaluation committee directly now. It wasn’t a student trying to impress her teachers. She’d gone beyond that and was so immersed in her subject, she’d become the expert. ‘You’ll notice the trend is the same, however the variance is more pronounced. This made me question if the deviation was something that could be quantified.’
Alex’s heart began to beat a bit faster. She hadn’t just been reading textbooks down at her lake house office and thinking in hypotheticals, she’d dug into a real-life scenario.
Her life.
And his.
He looked at the chart on the screen. Unlike most of the reporters in the room, he understood exactly what it meant. She’d analysed the scandal that had put him in a cell and knocked her to the ground.
He homed in on the sound of her voice until the room felt hollow around him. Every muscle in his body was clenched until his bones ached. His brain raced as he listened to the theory behind her work. She was more advanced than he was in the area. Hell, the committee was looking at her with stunned expressions.
