“In the tampon closet?”

He winced. She enjoyed that.

“It was incredibly inappropriate. In fact, you are more than welcome to register a complaint.”

“Are you implying you were in control, Mr. Mayor, and that you abused your position when you abducted me in broad daylight on city property and took advantage of me?”

“I think it’s clear I was not in control.”

They both thought on that for a moment. Neither of them had been in control, not when his mouth claimed hers, not when her hands dug into his bull-like shoulders, and especially not when she had ground her aching core against his hammerhead of an erection.

If wasn’t your boss . . . I would be the one to tame you.

“I appreciate your trying to do the right thing,” Alex said, willing the hot blast ascending her chest to quell. “But while you might technically be my boss, what happened in that tampon closet had nothing to do with you abusing your position and everything to do with us letting off a little steam. Close quarters and the fact we don’t much like each other will do that. Sure, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been molested in a tampon closet—”

“Could you please stop calling it that?”

“I’d have a dollar.” She tried to smile away her discomfort. “That was the first, and it will most definitely be the last.”

He stared, perhaps wondering if she meant it would be the last time she allowed herself to be molested in a closet—tampon or otherwise—or if it was the last time she would allow him to do the molesting—closet or otherwise.

She wasn’t quite sure herself. What she did know was that she had enjoyed kissing Eli Cooper far too much, and that was not a good thing.

“You know why I’m here?”

“To make me aware of my rights to register a complaint.”

“Yes, but now that you’ve assured me you were in complete possession of your senses and that I didn’t abuse my position in any way, I’m here to make a proposition.”

“Another proposition, Mr. Mayor?”

“Have a seat, Alexandra,” he said, more softly than her jibe deserved.

Copping a squat allowed her a moment to collect her thoughts, and hell did they need collecting and parsing and assessing. On the desk sat a Starbucks cup with Mayor scrawled across it. Someone had Sharpie-amended the hot-contents warning so it read like a seduction attempt: Careful, the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot.

Poor Mr. Mayor, not even safe from predatory baristas.

“You want me to help you win the election,” she said to get the ball rolling.

“Straight to the heart of the matter, as always.”

“But you think I’ll say no. You could make threats and bully me and throw your weight around, but you’d rather I came willingly.”

Came willingly. She really needed to plan these sentences out better in her head.

“I would never force you to do something you were uncomfortable with, Alexandra.”

The sizzle of sensual awareness aggravated her. Needing to get this back to the good times they had enjoyed before, the ones that equaled “I hate you in spades,” she stood and leaned against Venti’s desk.

“Seeing as you’re my boss”—yep, preach it. He was her boss. Her insanely attractive, built-like-a-tank, man-in-charge, don’t-forget-he’s-a-jackass boss—“you can order me to do anything.”

“Order?” Sexy pause. “Yes, I suppose I can.”

Oh-em-effing-gee, this got worse and worse. Every word out of her mouth sounded like an invitation for him to issue decadent, dirty, delicious demands. Over the desk, Dempsey. Now. I’m the fucking mayor.

She called on her indignation, buried as deep as the hole she’d like to crawl into. “Why should I help you? You’ve demeaned me, my job, women. And that’s just in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Merely a difference of opinion.”

“I’m not going to be propped up as your puppet. You already did that with Luke and that Men on Fire calendar—”

He scoffed. “Hardly my idea.”

True, it had been all Kinsey, but it had gone over like gangbusters, so Cooper scooped up the glory. “And then you used that whole shitstorm with Cochrane to make it look like you were the one doing everyone a favor by saving my job.” She made her voice go all high and breathy. “Ooh, Eli Cooper listens to the voters. Eli Cooper sides with the underdog.”

He looked unmoved. “Let’s get a couple of things straight, Dempsey. I could have fired your brother when he went ballistic in your bar, punched out a CPD detective, and dragged CFD’s reputation through the mud. I could have fired you when you lost your head over some name-calling and yet again dragged the fire department’s reputation through the mud. Your family owes me. Besides, it’ll just be a couple of dates.”

She swallowed around the Sahara-dry lump in her throat. “Did you say dates?”

“Deaf as well as belligerent, are you?”

“I’m not dating you!”

“Correct, you’re not. It’s called a publicity stunt. God knows why, but people like us together. They like that sassy mouth of yours. They like the soap opera quality of our history. There’s even a poll going on the names of our children. Sophie will be the first woman president of the United States, while Joshua will fight brush fires in California.”

“That’s . . . that’s ridiculous. There’ll be a woman president long before that.”

He rolled his massive shoulders and rubbed at his neck like he was trying to work out a knot of stress. “You’ve entered my gray, gray world, Alexandra, or rather you’ve crashed into it like a Pamplona bull. We have a way of getting things done in Chicago. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. In fact, I think after I’ve told you a little bedtime story, you might have a different perspective.”

That checked her. “It’s mighty cold out there, Mr. Mayor, but hell has not yet frozen over.”

“Wait until you’ve heard the story. There once was a green-eyed woman—”

“Was she a princess?”

“She certainly thought so.”

She suppressed a smile, already highly entertained. “Go on.”

He walked to the window, a pensive look on his face. She wondered what he had been like in court when he was in the state’s attorney’s office before his mayoral run. She’d lay odds he was magnificent, a real jury-charmer.

“This woman was loyal to a fault, quick tempered, and impetuous. Anyone who threatened her family had better watch out”—he raised a knowing eyebrow—“because she would go to the ends of the earth to protect them.”

Alex studied her nails. “I like her already.”

“She came up against an ogre and she let her temper get the better of her.”

“I bet she felt better afterward.”

“For a while. But then the ogre made threats to destroy her. The prince wanted to help.”

Prince? Oh, Cooper, methinks you oversell. “My recollection is that the evil humpbacked prince and the ogre had a mutually beneficial relationship that prevented him from standing up for the princess.”

His eyes whipped to hers and held her gaze unnervingly.

“Do you remember what I said to you when you came over to my house four hours after you cut up Cochrane’s car, Alexandra?”

She jolted at the switch from fairy tale to reality. With startling clarity, she remembered the day Eli summoned her for an ass-chewing. There had been shouting and sniping, but once Wyatt and Kinsey had left, the atmosphere had turned dangerously intimate. She had tried to ignore that moment, place it in her brain’s attic and refuse to examine it. Because when they were alone together, while she chattered inanely about his dog to fill the silence, he had said something she would never forget.

I will do my best to protect you, Alexandra.

He had meant her job, but also from the risk of being sued to hell and back by Sam Cochrane for criminal property damage. Later, after Kinsey unleashed the video of the incident into the world and saved Alex’s job at the expense of her own, Cochrane had dropped his threat on the advice of his lawyers. But Alex had always believed there was more to it.