Campaign firm. Politician. Suddenly, Alex didn’t feel quite so bad about using Daniel for a free meal. Most people weren’t fans of the men and women who got involved with politics, but her opinion of them was even lower. To her, they were just the puppets of whoever needed an eager pawn to do their bidding, and she’d seen firsthand just how easily they could be bought. Her ex-boyfriend, Matt, had taken advantage of many a desperate campaigner in the past, offering to fund their tours or tamper with the votes to ensure their victories in whatever office they were vying for. They were almost as bad as the people she was hiding from, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from letting her disgust show on her face.

[i]Easy does it. He doesn’t know what you know, and he doesn’t know who you are.[/i] Maintaining her composure, she plastered on her usual coy smile and laughed lightly at Daniel’s joke. At least now she knew why he hadn’t jumped at the chance to tell her where he worked. It was probably a good thing that she’d asked too, because the knowledge knocked her interest in him down a few pegs. Now that she was aware that he belonged to the army of minions of every damn mob boss in New York City, it was much simpler to look at him as just a man that she would hang out with for the night and never see again in her life.

Still, his unappealing occupation didn’t take away from the fact that he was handsome as all hell, so she didn’t have to pretend to enjoy it when he sidled closer to her.

When he asked what she did for work, Alex replied almost reflexively, “Well, if you really must know, I’m a model with [i]Wilhelmina[/i].” She flashed him her most stunning grin to really sell it. The answer was a lie, of course, but it was closer to the truth than most other jobs she could have picked. [i]Wilhelmina[/i] was one of the two agencies that she had been approached by in the past. If she hadn’t been trying to keep her head down, she probably would have ended up working for them for real. Sometimes she regretted turning down their offer, since being a [i]Wilhelmina[/i] model would have granted her access to some of the most prestigious runways in the western world, but alas, she wouldn’t last two months without taking a bullet to the head if she tried.

“I mostly do magazines. Fashion, swimsuits… lingerie,” she winked at Daniel suggestively. A quick Google search would reveal that there wasn’t a single catalogue with her photo in it, but that didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be sticking around long enough for him to start asking questions anyway.

The temperature around them was steadily plunging, but luckily, the steakhouse was right up ahead, so they would be free from the cold soon. As they walked towards the door and the sweet relief of central heating, Alex picked another trivia question to ask her companion, “So, have you always lived in New York or did you move here from somewhere else?”