Chapter Nine

Freshly dressed and made-up (and having finished the coffee which Lex had had sent to her room once he had left) Chloe made her way through the winding hallways of the Luthor mansion glad of her good memory and sense of direction. She headed towards the kitchen in search of sustenance; she had just over ten minutes before Lex told her to meet him in his office.

Outside the kitchen she paused, she wasn't sure if she should knock. Part of her felt that she should, but then she remembered how Lex had introduced her to the staff that they had seen the day before. She was his personal guest and he had made it quite clear that she was to be treated as if she were a Luthor and a Luthor would never knock.

She opened the door slightly and looked around.

"Miss Sullivan", one of the maids notices her and walked over to the door to hold it open for her, "Is there anything that we can do for you?"

"I just wanted to grab something to eat before starting work", she explained as she was ushered inside and a chair was pulled out of her at the breakfast bar.

Chloe looked around the enormous room, her father had been something of a cook when she was younger and would have salivated over most of those appliances – the bread maker was almost as large as their oven had been. There were several other maids in the room and someone who looked like a chef talking as he worked to … Lex.

He smiled over at her, "You know when I told you to be ready on time, that was for breakfast, not work. I wasn't going to suggest that you start at that time".

"Oh". Damn, now he was going to think that she was greedy, she thought. As if she had to eat in the morning rather than it being optional.

Lex smiled at her with amusement, "Care to join me? The chef here has been attempting to outdo himself today. I didn't know what you liked to eat, other than coffee and muffins. Although I know that you changed over to healthier options".

"That did used to be my favourite", Chloe admitted. Touched that he cared enough to have thought about what her favourite was, although the fact that he knew about her changed eating habits had not escaped her. Exactly how much did he know about her life? Why? And how much had he controlled?

"Well a range of healthy protein packed muffins and breakfast biscuits have been prepared, along with fruit and a collection of cereals and milks. You like unsweetened almond milk, right?" He checked.

"Yeah, I like unsweetened almond milk but you didn't have to go to all of this trouble just over my breakfast", she felt a little embarrassed.

"No trouble, I just order things, I don't make them", he smirked.

"I know, I was talking to the chef", she smirked in reply.

"You know I am more than capable of ordering them to only serve you liver, cabbage and brussell sprouts", he tried to look stern.

"No you are not, everyone knows that Lex Luthor is just a great big softy", she teased.

The staff had been trying to ignore the conversation, not thinking that it was meant for their ears but at that taunt there was a collective gasp and all eyes became fixed upon Lex.

He was not unaware of their audience, but was more interested in Chloe. If she thought that he would let her get away with that just because they were – semi – in public, she was very much mistaken. Lex remained where he was, leaning against the counter, enjoying the tension in the air. He noticed Chloe lick her lips over slightly and raised an eyebrow before straightening and fixing her with the look that made most people cower.

Chloe did not cower, if anything his reaction just caused her spine to straighten and added a glint to her eye.

"Miss Sullivan", he asked as he stalked over to her, "would you care to repeat that?"

"If I must", she said, trying to stop her heart rate increasing.

His smirk broadened.

"Everyone knows", she said as he wrapped his arm around her waist, "that you are a great", he gave her a tug, "big", he brushed an imaginary strand of hair out of her eyes, "softy", he pulled her into him so that they were pressed together.

Chloe knew that he was just messing around. She had half expected him to take her to task over calling him a softy in front of his staff – or anyone else come to think of it –, but that he didn't mean for her to be intimidated by his peacocking and it was probably just one of his ways of getting her used to contact again … the odd thing was that she wasn't afraid of being near him. Well, that wasn't really that odd. She had not really been afraid of physical contact before – especially not with him – just a little wary. It had not felt like something normal, but now it felt perfectly natural. Maybe it had something to do with her having being wrapped up in his arms all night long.

"Is that so?" his voice was low and sent a thrill down her spine.

"Yes", her hands were resting on his abs from where he had pulled her. She ran her hands up his torso, "see soft… almost wobbly in fact".

He growled.

"See now your tummy is getting all growly", she continued to tease.

Lex laughed, he couldn't help it but then he tried to get a hold of himself before giving her a light push backwards. "I'll show you growly".

They were sat around the table set out in the office.

"Always an over achiever Lex?" she wondered as she saw just how much he had had prepared.

"I try", he grinned back, not taking her teasing seriously.

Chloe was almost sad not to get a rise out of him, "You know what I really fancy?"

"What?"

"Egg white frittata".

The one thing that he hadn't thought up, "I will call the chef".

"No Lex, I was kidding", she said, worried that she might actually have hurt his feelings, "It was just the only thing that I didn't see on the table so I thought that I would opt for that, didn't want you getting too cocky after you had done something so nice. I am not doing a good job of reinforcing the whole 'it's nice to be nice' philosophy, am I?"

"If being nice means that I get to share your company then I think that you are doing a very good job", he answered.

She blushed and wanted to kick herself. She had to learn to get used to his flirting with her.

"Yeah, well unfortunately I go for bad boys", she said with a mock serious face as she studied the produce.

Lex wondered what kind of boys she had experience of, he did not know of any … unless Davis Bloom had tried something. He would have to make a call later and make sure that he did indeed know all. Focus, he rebuked himself, he couldn't let a perfectly good opportunity to flirt with her.

"Well I am a Luthor after all. That isn't bad enough for you?"

"Well Luthors are bad, I suppose …" she ignored what Lionel had done to her, "but I like a man who gets his hands dirty, not one who pays someone else to do his dirty work".

Lex licked his lips, as he reached out and took an apple to start his breakfast. "I told you that I still do my own love making so I can only assume that you are trying to provoke me into a demonstration".

She watched as he rolled the fruit around in his finger, strong, pianist fingers.

Chloe swallowed. She wanted to shake her head and tell him that that wasn't what she had been trying to do at all, but then she decided that she was enjoying this game far too much to end it. "So what if I am?"

There it was; that damned smirk.

"Anytime, anywhere sweetheart, just say the word", he took a bite out of his apple.

God, he should work for Granny Smith, Chloe thought to herself as he appeared to have to lick some of the juice off one of his fingers. He could have made millions in advertising, not that he needed any more millions of course.

"Ummm …"

Chloe heard the noise but it took her a few seconds to realise from whose throat it had originated; she was shocked to discover that it had been her own.

"Was that a yes?"

"No, it was a yummy noise", Chloe covered as she grabbed a muffin and bit into it, "delicious" she commented and it was Lex's turn to have an undesired reaction.

Their breakfast concluded, they made their way over to Lex's desk and as they sat on opposite sides Chloe was reminded that she was in fact there to work and worried that her earlier conduct had been inappropriate – not just the waking up with her boss, which she couldn't help, but the teasing and the soft comment. She squared her shoulders as Lex opened his laptop and hoped that she looked professional enough. She had opted for her best suit and limited jewellery.

She wanted to show Lex that she could help him. She knew that the other day he had said that she would be of tremendous help but she also knew that a large part of this was about helping her. She wanted to make sure that he came out of this deal better off than she did.

"What I am about to tell you Chloe is in the strictest of confidence, I will not only expect you to keep everything I tell you to yourself, I will expect you to only research it from this office and from that computer", with that he pointed over to the other desk which had magically appeared since the night before. It was very large, well light, with a good sturdy chair and what looked like the newest laptop available. Chloe tried not to drool as she tore her focus from it and back to Lex.

"Of course", she said with a short nod. It did not escape her that it was strange to think that Lex was willing to trust her to keep a secret.

"Good", he smiled.

"Whilst I have decided that I do not wish to run for President at the moment as I see little advantage to it, I want to know how I would go about doing it and which of the current candidates are best suited to the job", he stared at her, she did not look horrified by the idea.

"You want to see if there is one of them that you can manage so that you have the limited advantages of being in the White House without actually having to be in the White House", Chloe finished for him.

"Anyone else working that out and I would be impressed, from you I expect nothing less".

Chloe wished that she did not feel warm and tingly at his sort of compliment.

"I don't want you to tell me what you think that I want to hear. I want the facts – the ones that are common knowledge and the ones that no one else knows -, even if that spells bad news for me. I want to know everything about each of the candidates, as well as what popular opinion is. On top of that I want to know what you believe is going to happen with them, how you think that they will be manipulated and how you think that we can get the upper hand", he watched her as she almost salivated.

"I want you to look into absolutely everything, you start to sniff out a scandal then you are to uncover it … but only from within this office where I can be sure that you won't get in trouble. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Crystal", Chloe replied, "but I will need to leave the office to go through town records and things", she pointed out.

"I can get you all of those things untraceably online", Lex assured her. "Any problems with anything that I am asking you to do?"

"How do you feel about me hacking into the Pentagon?" She wondered.

"You can do that?"

"Of course", she shrugged, "my record is 4 minutes 43 seconds".

"I'm impressed", Lex admitted. "Hack away as far as I am concerned as long as you do it from in here so that you cannot be tracked, although I would of course protect you were you found out using another computer, but I would rather keep you off the radar as much as possible".

"Works for me", Chloe happily complied.

"Any other questions?" Lex asked, not sure why he was surprised that she was taking all of this so calmly. Everyone else looked aghast when he even mentioned going into politics in any capacity.

"Why did you choose me for this? I am sure that there are hundreds of companies that could find out all of this information for you".

"Indeed there are, in fact I have employed a good deal of them and they turn up good information not to mention dirt but they don't have your eye for detail nor your understanding of the situation", he explained.

She looked at him in some confusion.

"I know what some of your research projects were on while you were away", he explained.

Chloe paled a little.

Chloe screamed, leapt out of her seat and attempted to hit her attacker.

"Woo", Lex put up his hands as he took a large step back, "it's okay Chloe, it's just me".

She looked dazedly at him for a moment before seeming to remember who he was and where she was. With a mumbled apology she dropped out of her fighting stance and he noticed her put her hand to her heart to see how fast it was beating.

"I'm sorry about that; I didn't mean to scare you", he apologised.

"That's alright", Chloe said turning from him to hit the save button.

"I did call your name several times before tapping you on the shoulder", Lex informed her. Although he was sorry to have scared her, he was secretly a little delighted that she had clearly felt safe enough with him in the room to let her guard down so far that she had got caught up in her research. He had watched her when she had been in her room in other places, and had noticed that she had never truly relaxed.

"Oh sorry, you know how I get when I go into research mode", Chloe said, wanting to kick herself for saying something so stupid. How on earth would Lex know what she was like when she was in research mode? He had been Clark's friend before she had left, not hers.

"I was just coming to tell you that it's three o'clock Chloe", Lex explained.

"Oh, thank-you", Chloe said sitting back down at her computer, clearly not realising the significance of him telling her what the time was.

He smiled. "The implication being that as you have been sitting there working without a break since 9 am so it is probably time for you to have a break … if not stop completely for the day. You appear to have done a week's work there", he motioned to the computer screen as he read over her shoulder.

Chloe had indeed not realised that it was three o'clock although now that she was not actively engrossed in her research and the effect of the shock was starting to wear off, she did start to notice that she was a little tired – her eyes and shoulders particularly. She rolled her shoulder a little as she backed up her work.

"I'm not sure that it is a week's worth but it is certainly very interesting. Quite frankly Lex, I think that Lionel could run against some of these people - if even half of what they have done were known - and win looking positively holy", she gave a shudder but stopped to roll her shoulder again.

"Impressive, my people came up with very little", Lex said placing his hands on her shoulders, noting that she tensed but only for a moment.

"Yes, well going through adoption records is something of a speciality for me", Chloe said as she clicked on one of the files. "This man here sold his children on the black market and then brought a new one a few years later when it looked like having a child could enhance his political career".

"The bastard".

"Indeed, but it gets worse. An average child would not really pass muster so he funding some very dangerous experimental projects which involved taking children who showed promise, making their parents think that they had just been the victims of accidents, then putting them in a ruthless training program. Most of them didn't survive", she broke off.

He squeezed her shoulders, trying to offer what comfort he could and noticed the knots hidden by her jacket.

She took a deep breath and continued, "But some did. He took the cutest one and adopted it, really photogenic".

Lex rubbed her shoulders almost absentmindedly, trying to offer her comfort. As he felt her relax against her will he continued, he didn't have the words to make any of that better.

"He won't get into power", Lex assured her.

"I know that I gave you a hard time about some of you and your father's projects in the past, the truth serum, the lab … but if you have anything underhand like that still lying around …"

"He will find himself in one", Lex promised, "and any children we find will be returned to their families where possible with all the help that we can provide for them".

Chloe closed her hand over Lex's.

"For what it's worth, I think that you would make a great President".

He looked down at her. For a minute their gazes locked, until Chloe turned away.

"Wow, that was really unprofessional. As if waking up with you weren't enough …"

"Chloe, don't", he said. "Don't worry about it. I know that I am your boss for the next two months, but I always intend on being your friend … even if you don't accept it. So don't worry about it".

She smiled at him.

"Well then friend, care to join me on my coffee break? We can whinge about our bosses", she gave him a wink.

"I would love to, although I did have something planned for a little later if you are willing to trust me. I think that it is something that you need, even if you are afraid at first".

"Sounds interesting".