Baring It All. Sandra Chastain

the redhead seemed to be alone.

      As if she knew she was being stared at, the object of Lord Sin’s attention looked around once more, then glided toward the entrance with long fluid movements that verified his earlier speculations about what she wasn’t wearing beneath her dress. As she walked, he caught the flash of bare flesh, a warm peach color that said she liked the sun as much as he. He wondered if she looked like that all over.

      A dancer or perhaps an athlete, her grace was obvious in her walk. But who was she? Ryan Malone thought he knew every single society woman in Atlanta. The cost of the tickets tonight should mean that the attendees were all well-heeled. Only wealthy women had been invited to the Valentine Gala at the Palace this evening. She spoke briefly with a big burly man carrying a television camera who handed her a microphone. When she stepped up and began talking to a couple just entering the theater, he had his answer.

      She was a member of the press. One he hadn’t met. Must be new in town. He grimaced, a charged feeling rippling down his spine at the challenge. “Lottie,” he spoke into the mike attached to his jacket pocket. “Put the redhead in the green dress in the center seat.”

      On the floor below, the elegant older woman looked up at his spot in the shadows and frowned. “The redhead may look like a society girl, boss, but she’s a reporter. Lay off.”

      “I know. None of the reporters who tried to interview me ever looked like her. If they had, I might have been a lot more cooperative. Tonight, in honor of Lord Sin’s final performance, Lottie, I’m going to give myself a treat and give her the royal treatment.”

      “What’s got into you, you rascal? You’ve avoided the press for ten years and now you’re playing to a reporter?”

      “Playing. Yeah, I like that.”

      “Too big a risk, boss. Tonight Lord Sin retires. As Ryan Malone, you’re free, just like you planned. Why take a chance on her finding out that you’re really Jackson Lewis Ivy? Unless you’ve changed your mind and want the world to know what kind of scoundrel your late father was.”

      “I don’t care about Jack Ivy or his father. This is Lord Sin’s night. With the redhead for inspiration, my performance will be his crowning glory. Sin’s been good to me and he deserves to have a little personal fun.”

      “Hah! Don’t tell me that. Lord Sin always had fun. I don’t know why you ever quit performing. You were a master showman. You loved the stage.”

      “I loved the money, Lottie. I could make all those rich women feel good, take their money, and they never knew who I was.”

      “It was more than that. You loved to make women feel special. You loved making love with your body and with that low, sexy whisper.”

      “Still do, darling. I just do my lovemaking in private now.”

      “Take up with that redhead and your lovemaking won’t be private long. She’s with WTRU.”

      “Of course. The station known for its exposés.” He laughed. “I like it. That makes it even more of a challenge for Lord Sin. In spite of that dress, I don’t think she’s happy about covering Lord Sin’s farewell. I’m going to have to win her over.”

      “Sin, don’t get crazy now and take a chance on ruining what you’ve built. You know that if anyone found out you were really Jack Ivy it could put you at risk again. That’s why you gave yourself a new name. Now Sin and Jack will be gone and Ryan Malone, real estate tycoon, is above reproach.” Her voice turned serious. “I think it’s time for you to find a respectable woman and get married.”

      “Respectability,” he repeated. “Respectability was always the goal, Lottie, but it wasn’t mine I was concerned about.” His voice went suddenly tight. “I just wanted to give my mama what she never had. She may have been a nobody, but when I’m done, all those people who turned their backs on her, including my dear daddy’s family, will know and remember her name long after Lord Sin and Ryan Malone are distant memories.”

      “Your mother would have been just as proud of Lord Sin. She would have loved the man you became, no matter his profession or what name he used. Now, are you sure you want the reporter to have the seat of honor?”

      He nodded and watched as Lottie moved across the lobby and spoke to the redhead. Damn! He should have asked her name. No, that was part of her mystery. He’d know her soon enough. But more important, she’d know Lord Sin. At least, he planned to make her want to. For now, he’d just listen.

      SUNNY FELT AS IF she’d been swept away to the land of the Arabian Nights. The building, with its onion-shaped domes outside and Eastern decor inside, was a bit worn but it was still amazing. She stood in the reception area stalling while she looked around. If this was the big time, she was going to have to find a way to fit in. Covering a Valentine’s Day charity fund-raiser where the prime attraction was a male stripper known as Lord Sin was a far cry from the investigative reporting she’d expected to do on her new job with WTRU TV. What was she doing here? She ought to be back in South Georgia covering the February meeting of the Kiwanis Club for the Martinsville Times.

      “Well?” Walt, her cameraman, prodded. “Shall we go to work, or are we just a couple of groupies ogling the rich and famous?”

      “We…we go to work.” But she didn’t move.

      “Look, this isn’t exactly my cup of tea either. I videotape sporting events, not strippers.”

      “And I’m an investigative reporter, not a…a voyeur,” she snapped.

      “Not yet, Miss Clary. So far, you’re neither one and you won’t ever be unless we go inside.”

      Sunny swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “Sorry, Walt. Guess I’m just a little nervous.”

      He gave her an amused glance. “Hum. I would have said cold.”

      In his Falcons’ Starter jacket, Walt was as out of place in this gathering as Sunny was in the slinky dinner gown. The butterflies in her stomach reminded her that she was country casual, not a glamor girl. The joke about everyday reporters was that you could always spot them because they were the grungiest people at any function. She still didn’t understand why the station had been willing to spring for a dress for her, even if it was her first official appearance as a representative for WTRU.

      Her new boss, Ted Fields, had taken a chance on hiring her after she’d been…released was the polite term…from her job as a reporter for the Times. Calling herself a reporter was just an exaggeration. She’d covered local events and meetings, sold ad copy and written a column called Happenings in Martinsville, which didn’t even have her byline on it. If she’d described Candy Smithwick’s wedding dress wrong, she could have understood what happened, but she still couldn’t believe that her discovery of political wrongdoing had cost her job. Her editor, the man she’d thought was becoming more than just a friend, explained that the truth could hurt the county and her story would not be printed. When Sunny argued, wild rumors began to fly that her ambition had led her to speculation and exaggeration. Her credibility tumbled. In the end, she became the scapegoat and the politicians still had their jobs. Money spoke louder than words.

      A flood gave her a chance to do some remote coverage for WTRU which brought her to Ted Fields’s attention. The hardest thing about relocating was leaving her father behind.

      Lord Sin would be her first story for WTRU. Maybe it did make some kind of sense. A reporter whose credibility was zilch ought to be just about right for covering a scandalous event where a stripper was donating a million-dollar piece of real estate formally known as The Palace Of Sin to the Atlanta Arts Council for a community theater.

      For now she was trying to get past the tattered grandeur of that Moorish palace and get her bearings. Ted had given her a tiny tape recorder, now hidden in her purse, and a guest list for the gala affair, with a few lines of description beside each name. Even if she was new to Atlanta, she didn’t need the notes to recognize two of the beautiful people, Sam and Nikki, hosts of Atlanta’s top morning radio show—their