Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance (10 page)

Their food arrived, and Alicia finally broke the silence. "We're really getting a lot accomplished here, aren't we?" she remarked, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

For a moment before answering, Tanner examined this sentence for verbal snares or traps, but his search came up empty. "Yeah, this perhaps won't be as productive as I imagined," he admitted, matching her wry tone.

Alicia sighed. "Look, I get it. You see me as the enemy, and I don't trust you as far as I could throw you." She flexed her bare arms, revealing trim and fit muscles. "Which is still further than you'd suspect," she added with a little smirk.

"So what are you suggesting that we do? It seems like we're stuck at an impasse."

She considered this for a moment while delicately eating a mouthful of dirty rice. "What about a truce?" she finally suggested.

Tanner frowned. This seemed too straightforward. "A truce?"

"Sure - I'll stop taunting you, and you'll stop actively plotting to undermine me." Alicia laughed. "Of course, we both know what will happen when the end date of the truce comes along, but we can work together until then. Our end goals might be opposed, but we can still help each other in the short term and both come out ahead."

Tanner took a bite of his étouffée as he considered the advantages and possible downsides. It was true that, if they kept on keeping their shields up and firing exchanges back and forth, neither of them would make much progress. Instead of killing Alicia's education bill, he'd instead be leaving it up to chance - a coin flip.

Those odds weren't enough for Tanner to risk his reputation on it.

"Very well," he finally said, shaking his head a little, surprised that he was agreeing with this unexpected direction. "A truce. And what are the details?"

Alicia pursed her lips, tapping her fork idly against her bowl as she considered. With her lips pouting like that, Tanner couldn't help but feel another little rush of hunger for her, one that had nothing to do with the delicious food in front of him. He quickly ate another bite of crawfish to cover up any sign of his arousal.

"Two weeks," she said finally. "That's enough time for us to get the bill in place, but you can still have a few days to try and bring it down. I will, of course, be trying to stop you, but you can try."

"Two weeks," Tanner repeated.

Alicia nodded. "And during that time, we're on the same side. You're on my side, and you're being helpful. No false personas, no trying to lead me down the wrong avenue, no giving me the wrong information, nothing like that."

"And what do I get?" Tanner asked.

"You?" Alicia blinked. "You get me being honest with you."

Tanner sat back and considered his options, covering by taking another sip of his scotch. It wasn't an ideal situation, but this whole thing with Alicia had been on the wrong foot since the beginning. He'd spent the whole time off balance, with her somehow, inexplicably, managing to keep one step ahead of him. He hated to admit it, but he needed this truce, perhaps even more than she did.

"Honesty," he said, drawing out the word, tasting it as if he'd never encountered it before. "This might be new for me."

Alicia actually snorted, a short little laugh that she couldn't fully contain. "Maybe it will help you grow, make you a little less of an ass," she countered.

"Low blow," Tanner protested. But after another second, he set his drink down and held his hand across the table, careful not to let his sleeve dip into his entree. "But I don't see any other options. Deal."

"Deal," Alicia agreed, shaking his offered hand.

"So, care to tell me everything?" Tanner cracked, after taking his hand back.

Alicia, however, didn't laugh. "Where would you like me to start?"

Tanner searched his mind. What sort of question would give him a hint at her weaknesses, would offer a crack in her armor that he could exploit later? He tried to find the most strategic question possible to ask - but instead, his mouth chose an entirely different question, one that he hadn't even considered asking.

"Why didn't you get that spot as high school valedictorian?"

Across from him, Alicia blinked; clearly, that wasn't the question she'd been expecting. "That's what you want to know?" she exclaimed.

Tanner hadn't intended to ask that question, but he realized that he truly did feel curious. "Yes, it is."

She blinked at him, rearranging her thoughts. "It was my own fault," she said at length. "I had a class with a teacher who really liked me, because I was the model student."

"Somehow, I can see that," Tanner commented, making her smile.

"Well, I thought that, since the teacher really liked me, I could breeze past the final in the class. I didn't study, didn't put in the time - and I totally bombed it." Even now, Tanner saw a wince pass across Alicia's face at the memory. "I went to the teacher, begged him to let me retake the exam, but he stayed firm. He told me that I'd be fine, still have the future I wanted - but I needed this as a lesson to show me that I needed to work at being perfect."

"It seemed to have worked," Tanner said, trying to keep her from getting depressed. Her face had fallen as she remembered that particular moment in her past.

She sighed, but then brightened again. "It did, I suppose. I didn't agree with him at the time, but I suppose that I do now - not that I'd want him to do it again, if I had the chance!"

That first question seemed to break the dam. "Now, your turn," Alicia told Tanner. "What did you want to be as a kid, before you sold your soul to the Republican party?"

"First off, they paid a very nice premium for that soul, and it's proved to be a far better investment than any other that I've made," Tanner countered. He thought back, seeking a truthful answer. "But when I was younger, I really did want to go into politics. I still believed that it was pure, that I could do real good, that it wasn't all just another system to be manipulated."

"So cynical," Alicia murmured, shaking her head at him. "I hope I never get like that."

She likely didn't mean for the words to sting, but they did. Tanner didn't let it show, but he winced inside. "Trust me, you'll either get kicked out of Washington, or you'll come around to my way of thinking real soon. It's just how things work around here. No way around it."

But Alicia remained resolute. "Maybe," she admitted. "But it doesn't have to keep on being that way forever."

After a second of quiet, however, she shook off her pensiveness. "Okay, your turn for a question," she said, taking the opportunity to grab another bite of food.

Tanner pursed his lips at her as he watched her chew, and then blot her lips with a napkin. "First high school boyfriend," he said.

Alicia coughed, quickly grabbing for her glass of water. "What??"

"You heard me," he said, grinning despite himself, glad to have unseated her composure. "Name, what he did to land you, and how far you went with him."

"You can't be serious."

Tanner leaned forward, fighting to keep his face blank. "You did say that you wanted this truce, and you'd be open and honest. If you can't answer a simple question like this, I might have to think about revoking my services-"

"Oh, knock it off, you ass," Alicia cut him off, but she was smiling as she did so. "Fine. My first boyfriend was probably Harvey Dylan, way back in sixth grade, and he got me by finding a frog on the playground and trying to shove it..."

Chapter Eleven

*

"I suppose that I probably ought to be getting home," Alicia said, several hours later, finally glancing down at her watch. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, held the watch face up a little closer. "Wow, is it really that late already?"

"Time flies," Tanner commented across the table, stifling a comfortable little burp. After a rocky start, he'd actually had quite a fun night, he had to admit! He kept on needling Alicia with personal questions, hoping to embarrass her, but to his surprise, she kept on answering! He felt his grudging respect for her continuing to grow. She might already be regretting the deal that she'd struck with him, but she was sticking to her word.

"What, are you having fun?" Alicia asked, gasping and holding one hand to her mouth in mock surprise. "Impossible!"

"Oh, come on. You've been having fun, too," Tanner replied, stretching his hands above his head. "I saw you grinning at some of those questions that you asked me. How in the world could knowing what kind of underwear I wear help you better understand me?"

"Just trying to get in your head, that's all," Alicia said merrily.

"My head? That wasn't the part that I thought you were trying to get into."

Laughing, Alicia smacked him lightly in the arm. "Here, let's get going. I need to get to bed at some point, you know, or I'm going to be absolutely useless tomorrow."

"Is that an invitation?" The words slipped out of Tanner's mouth, helped by the three scotches he'd ended up consuming, before he could consider the implication.

Alicia just laughed, but looking across the table at her, Tanner swore that he saw that flush creep momentarily back up into her cheeks. Maybe there really was something there, after all.

Tanner paid for dinner, over Alicia's brief objections, and then they headed out of the restaurant. The chill of DC's night air made Alicia shiver, and she leaned in against Tanner.

"Here," he said, pulling off his suit coat and draping it around her shoulders.

"You really don't need to-"

"Oh, just take it," he interrupted, smiling. "I dislike seeing a woman shiver, even if that woman happens to be my mortal enemy."

"Mortal enemy? I'm so honored," Alicia cracked, but she kept the jacket.

Outside, she looked around, and then gestured with her thumb over her shoulder. "I actually walked here - my apartment's not too far away. So I'll see you tomorrow-"

"Nonsense," Tanner cut in. "You walked here? And you're going to walk back? Alone, in DC, at night?"

Alicia smiled at him, slipping one hand into her purse. "Trust me, I can handle myself."

"Still not happening," Tanner insisted. Not waiting to see what she pulled out of her purse, he turned and stepped up alongside her. "I'm walking you home. And besides," he added before she could protest, "I'm doing it mainly because I want to get my jacket back. You wouldn't believe what I paid for that, and I can see you deciding to put it through a shredder or something, just to get back at me."

"Ass," Alicia muttered, but she didn't turn him down. Instead, as they started off down the sidewalk together, she slipped her arm through Tanner's.

He nearly jumped at the little electric shock that transferred from the bare skin of her fingers over to his own. He'd been fighting against errant thoughts of touching her, running his hands over her, all night. Now, to have her leaning in comfortably against him... all of those fantasies came roaring back to full life, unable to be silenced inside his head.

Get it together, he snapped at himself, but those voices, those fantasies, only fell silent for a moment before creeping back up. So instead, he just kept his lips pressed tightly together, trying to not let on that he was having distractingly sexy fantasies about this senator, still his enemy - truce or not.

Alicia didn't say anything as they walked along, either. Tanner wondered what she was thinking about, considered asking. But what did he want her to say? What he wanted, he knew that she wouldn't tell him. So he just kept his mouth shut.

They walked down the streets, finally stopping in front of a bank of converted brownstones, rising up three stories, crumbling a little but still elegant and well maintained. "Well, this is home," Alicia commented, fiddling in her purse for her keys.

"Nice place," Tanner remarked, looking up at it. He meant it - this was actually a nice neighborhood, on the up and up, the kind of place where young professionals spent their bonuses, still shocked by how much they made out of college.

"Thanks - moving here was a hassle, but I've finally got most of it unpacked." Alicia paused for a moment. "Sorry to make you walk."

"No problem," Tanner returned. "Like I said, I'm just here for my jacket."

"Right." Alicia had her keys looped around her finger, but she stepped forward, shrugging her arms out of the jacket.

Tanner also stepped forward, reaching out to lift the jacket off of her shoulders. His hands, however, ended up around Alicia, brushing against the bare skin of her back, exposed as she shrugged out of the jacket.

Both of them froze, another shock of electricity passing between them from the contact with bare skin. This time, looking down into Alicia's eyes, Tanner saw a flare of heat in those cool blue-green irises, and knew immediately that she felt the tingle as well. They both stood there for a moment, looking into each other's eyes, frozen.

Inside Tanner's head, he heard a cacophony of different thoughts, all shouting back and forth - but they all seemed curiously muted, the warm radiance from Alicia's eyes seeming to damp down all of the intrusive thoughts. He couldn't break away, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything at all. He felt like a captive in his own mind.