Just About Sex Read Free

just get over it.”
    A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “‘Just get over it?’”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t think so. I want you to print an apology.”
    “For what? Not showing up at your house with a tape measure before I ran the column?”
    “No, no. You can keep it vague. Just say you’re sorry for recent inaccuracies and for not double-checking to make sure the names had been changed. That should do it.”
    Simone’s powerful defiant gene kicked into turbo drive, and she raised her chin to give him her haughtiest glare. “If you think I’m going to let some arrogant jerk storm into my office and dictate what I’m supposed to write in my own column, you’d better think again because you are obviously delusional.”
    Greene growled ominously, but she wasn’t finished.
    “Why don’t you suck it up and be a man about it? Stop your whining! You know what they say about sticks and stones! Get over it!”
    A dangerous silence stretched between them. Greene cracked his lips open and somehow spoke despite his rigid jaw. “Are you… taunting me?”
    “No.”
    More silence followed, reminding Simone of the audience’s hushed silence one time when she watched the tiger tamer at the circus; just as she had then, she knew the wild animal could strike at any second, but prayed that he wouldn’t.
    “Hmmm.” Greene tapped an index finger against his lips and tilted his head to the side, just as she had done.
    Was he mocking her?
    “You’re awfully glib. I wonder how you’d feel,” he said, leaning his hip against her desk, “if someone printed stories about your sexual exploits and ruined your reputation.”
    Unease replaced anger. She certainly didn’t want her private life trotted out for public inspection, especially now. Not now. Trying to appear nonchalant, she tossed her head. “What do you mean?”
    “Are you familiar with the term comeuppance? ”
    Unease gave way to a panicked feeling of dread. Frozen, she couldn’t look away from his dark, intense stare. Something told her both that she did not want this man as her enemy and that she must not—must never—show him any sign of weakness. But as her ears burned and a cool drop of sweat trickled between her now clammy breasts, she couldn’t help it. She blinked.
    His gaze sharpened.
    Abruptly she looked down, brushing lint off her slacks. “I have no idea what you think you’re talking about.”
    “Will you issue the apology?”
    “No,” she said, her stubborn streak refusing to allow her to back down.
    Risking a glance at him, she saw, to her horror, a slow, wicked smile widen across his face—exactly the way a conniving smile had dawned across the Grinch’s face in that old cartoon where he decided to steal Christmas. She swallowed, hard.
    “You’re going to regret that, Dr. Simone,” Greene said. “You’ll see.”

Chapter 2
    A fter Greene stalked off, Simone’s quivery knees finally gave out and she collapsed into her desk chair. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and tried to take several deep breaths to calm her racing pulse, but her lungs seemed to be suffering from amnesia and wouldn’t cooperate. Her brain, likewise, went haywire and focused on only one frenzied thought: what did he mean? What did he mean?
    Worrying solved nothing, but her roiling gut wouldn’t let her do anything else. Greene wanted a pound of her flesh, preferably bleeding and tattered, and wouldn’t stop till he got it. As tempted as she was to hope he was the idle threat type, she knew better. Greene was the Captain Ahab, scorched earth type—the type who’d follow her to the ends of the earth until he got vengeance, no matter what kind of destruction he left in his twisted path. She knew it.
    But what could she do? She couldn’t—
    Hurried footsteps in the hallway startled her out of her thoughts and she jumped to her feet. Freddie rushed in, followed by her lawyer/agent, Pat White.
    “Pat’s here, honey,” Freddie told her.
    Pat stepped around Freddie,