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It took a second to sink in, then he let out a loud bark of laughter. “Starting young.”
She sighed heavily. “Males. It’s a wonder we made it out of the Dark Ages.”
Their waitress brought their drinks, and Joe watched Meg sip carefully at her hot espresso. “Better?”
She nodded. “Much. I don’t know whether I was colder from the wind or from the shock.”
“So you were really shocked seeing yourself?”
She raised a brow. “Uh, yeah. Wouldn’t you be? How would you feel if you found out women all over Chicago were ogling your half-naked body? Coming on to you? Whispering about you and catcalling as you walked by?”
He grinned. “You really want me to answer that?”
She rolled her eyes and took another sip from her cup. “Spoken like a true guy.”
“Well, I am a guy,” he explained in self-defense. “But you’re not, and obviously you didn’t have a man’s reaction.”
“Being flattered?” she asked.
More like horny.“I guess.”
“No,” she said quietly, her eyes growing suspiciously glassy again. “I don’t think I’d say I’m feeling flattered. I’m humiliated. Shocked.” She took a deep breath. “And very angry.”
“If you didn’t give permission, I’d say that’s grounds for a lawsuit against the store,” Joe said. “One of my brothers is an attorney. If you want, I can pass you his card.”
“Thanks, I’ll think about it. Right now I’m just trying to make sense of it. I don’t understand how they could have gotten hold of my picture to begin with.”
“You’ve never posed? Never been approached to model for Sheer Delights?”
From across the table, he watched the color drain out of Meg’s face. She went pale suddenly, and her mouth opened once, then closed, then opened again in shock.
“What did you say?”
“I asked if you were ever approached to model for them.”
She shook her head, still appearing dazed. “No, the other part. The name. Did you say Sheer Delights? I thought the place was called The Red Doors.”
“The complex is. But the three shops upstairs all have different names. There’s a scent and lotion one, a jewelry one, and the lingerie shop, which is called Sheer Delights.”
She sat back heavily in her seat, staring at him in complete disbelief. He saw her gaze shift quickly around the room, as if her thoughts were darting in all different directions. Finally, she smacked her hand flat on the table and growled, “That rotten, miserable, pissant little toad.”
His fantasy woman had a temper. He suddenly liked her even better.
“I’ll kill him.”
Okay. He got the picture. She had posed for some photos. Probably in private. Probably for a boyfriend—an ex-boyfriend—who’d then sold them for a quick buck.
He hated to think of it. Of Meg, dressed in provocative lingerie for some guy who hadn’t valued her enough to respect her privacy. Whoever the toad was, he’d not only been tacky enough to sell the pictures, he had to be pretty stupid to have let her slip through his fingers in the first place.
He had to hide a smirk, though, as he wondered what the jerk would think about being publicly called “little” by his ex. Every man’s worst nightmare after a breakup.
Finally, seeing the way her fingers clenched convulsively on the table, he reached over and touched her hand. “It’s okay, Meg. He’s a total loser, but at least you’re rid of him.”
“Rid of him? I’ll never be rid of him. The louse is probably sitting at my mother’s kitchen table right now, eating banana bread and telling her how much he loves the family.”
Uh-oh. Maybe not such a definite breakup, after all. “He stayed friendly with your parents?”
Bad sign. The one time one of his ex-girlfriends had remained friendly with his family, he’d almost caved under pressure and gone back to her. Luckily, the Santori clan eventually got wise to her. When she heard Joe had gone to a Cubs game with someone else, she put sugar in his gas tank. That was why he now had a locking gas cap on his truck, but, thankfully, no ex-girlfriend hovering around the restaurant, making nice with his outraged mother, who held on to a grudge the way a toddler held on to his blankie.
