Disclaimer: Really, if I owned anything, Chloe wouldn't have accepted Clark's invitation to the Formal; she would have blown off the event to spend time with Lex in his office, finding interesting uses for his furniture.
Author's Note: Sorry this took so long! (Not that anyone missed it.) Other fics came first. If this ends up being really awful, I apologize; I rushed.
This is dedicated to my fellow Truth Seekers because they've corrupted my once-innocent (*snicker*) mind. Or vice versa.
******
Motive: Honesty
He'd asked her to dinner again, and she'd accepted. She didn't know *why* she'd said 'yes'; while she wanted to spend more time with Lex, Chloe wasn't sure she could handle being alone with him, after what happened in the Torch office.
"It's just dinner, Sullivan," she muttered while pulling off a black v-neck shirt and tugging on a maroon peasant top. Along with the black leather skirt she already wore (she grew up in Metropolis; she had a fairly bold wardrobe) the outfit accentuated her curves. "It's not like he asked you to become his personal, barely-legal love slave."
She gave herself a once over, then noticed a tear in her black panty hose; it was the only pair she owned so she tossed them in the garbage and opted to never wear anything but socks ever again. "Not that I should care, but thank God I shaved my legs," she continued, dropping onto the edge of her bed in order to slip on a pair of black leather boots. "There. Done." Taking one last deep breath, she bolted down the stairs (her father was working) and out of the house.
******
"I'm here to see Le--Mister Luthor," Chloe told the curious maid with as much courage as she could muster; she felt the older woman's eyes sweep over her ensemble, making her narrowed eyes glitter maniacally. 'Mister Luthor is entertaining young whores again; how fun for us!' Chloe could just hear the kitchen staff gossip, and she hadn't even stepped inside the imposing castle.
"Name and business with Mister Luthor, please?"
Pause, Chloe blinked, taken aback by the fact she wasn't already in Lex's office. *Security,* she rreminded herself quickly. "Chloe Sullivan; it's a social call." She winced inwardly at the implications of that statement. "I was invited for dinner."
A tight-lipped patronizing smile from the woman. "Of course. I'll go get him."
"Not necessary, Helen," Lex himself chimed in briskly, striding to the door as though he'd been on his way the whole time; Chloe supposed he could have been, but he also could have heard the...commotion and decided to investigate what teenage reporter was hassling his staff. "Come in, Miss Sullivan," he said quietly, holding out his hand.
Unsure of what to do, Chloe slipped out of her tan jacket and handed it to him. "Thank you, Mister Luthor." She stepped into the foyer, trying not to marvel at the size of the place; she'd been in it before, for the failed interview, but it still shocked her.
Lex, smirking at the garment he held, nodded once. "You're welcome. I'll go hang this up." He turned, opened a huge closet door, and placed her coat carefully on a tall oak rack.
That was when it occurred to her that he was probably offering his hand to lead her inside. "A coat rack *inside* a closet? How...pretentious," Chloe remarked with a smirk of her own.
He faced her again, eyes glittering, eyebrows raised. "So glad my humble abode pleases you."
Snorting in a matter that seemed strangely suited to her personality, Chloe rested her hands on her hips. "I thought we were having dinner, Mister Luthor."
"Oh, believe me, Miss Sullivan, I haven't forgotten." He winked and held out his arm.
Her own eyebrows in amusement. "Wow, chivalrous," she said sarcastically. However, she looped her arm through his anyway.
The dining room (with its long, rectangular wooden table over which a purple tablecloth was thrown) didn't impress her; neither did the crystal chandelier, or the two floor-length windows covered by gauzy purple curtains.
"Not impressed?" Lex teased, choosing a chair near the center of the table, as opposed to the one at the head; he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable.
After a second she sat across from him, silently enjoying the leather seat cushion. "It takes a lot more than a bunch of priceless, decorative junk to impress *me*, Lex," Chloe shot back. Her voice didn't lower from its usual volume, not even when a brunette maid (not the same one who answered the door) dimmed the lighting a placed a few gold candlesticks (purple tapers already lit) at various intervals.
Lex rested his elbows (clad in white silk) against the table and pressed his chin into his fists. "That's right," he began in a whisper, his eyes glowing in the flames, "you aren't easily impressed."
She knitted her fingers together and placed them in front of her. After a beat, she picked up the black cloth napkin that she just noticed, and dropped it into her lap. "No, I'm really not. So you can tell your fifty trillion chefs to cancel the lobster souffle with the side of roasted clams; unless you eat that same menu every night --in which case you really are pretentious."
There was a pause. Lex was, to his discomfort, at a loss for words. "Souffle was last night," he managed weakly. "You're lucky because tonight is pesto and chicken pizza."
"That was the worst comeback I've ever witnessed."
He grinned. Her breath caught; in the candlelight he was startingly handsome. "I'm serious about the pizza."
Chloe rolled her eyes and leaned across the table, closer to him. "I wasn't talking just about the bloody pi-- oh, never mind."
As if on cue an older man with a salt-and-pepper mustache (and a bona fide chef's hat) dramatically set a steaming pan on top of a wire cooling rack. The pizza --which was dotted with green and light brown specks-- was already cut into eight even slices, but it came with a metal spatula.
"Uh, what about--" she began, noticing the lack of dishes. The same maid who'd lit the candles placed a pair of purple plates in front of the patrons, then returned with champagne flutes filled with fizzy water.
"You're not having wine?" Chloe spoke up once they'd each had a slice.
Glancing up from his dinner, Lex shook his head. "Nope," was all he said.
Dessert consisted of freshly baked dark chocolate cake topped with a thick, rich chocolate frosting, homemade whipped cream, and chocolate shavings. It was the most fabulous thing Chloe had ever eaten, but she didn't bother to say more than, "can't go wrong with chocolate cake."
He nodded in acquiescence, his eyes not leaving her face. When his gaze became more serious, and he didn't blink for an extended period of time, Chloe smirked. "If I've got frosting on my face, just *tell* me; you don't have to be all gentlemanly and hope that your staring will give me a hint."
"Your face is fine," Lex assured her, forcing a slight smiling and averting his eyes to his dessert.
"I won't ask," she continued casually, "why you were staring, then. If I do, you'll use some line that I'll either fall for, or debunk as the BS it is. I don't feel like doing the latter, and I definitely would hate doing the former. And so, I will shut my mouth, pretend that your staring hasn't unnerved me, and finish my cake." If she'd been paying attention to her rambling, Chloe would have blushed.
"Are you always this nervous when you have dinner with Clark?" her companion asked flipply.
She recovered quickly and shot back, "Clark doesn't stare at me whenever I eat dinner at his house. Why are you comparing dinner at the Kents to dinner at the Manor, anyway, Lex?" Okay, so she hadn't fully recovered from her earlier trepidation.
Pushing his now empty plate to the side, Lex leaned closer to her again. "Because you're a friend of Clark's, and a friend of mine. Thus, dinner with his family should be as uneventful as dinner with me. Make sense?" His voice had lowered, and he was staring at her eyes again. It wasn't as uncomfortable that time.
******
They had coffee (freshly made with the espresso maker in the giant kitchen, of course) in his office, shortly after cake. "I don't suppose you play pool," Lex said absently once they'd finished their beverages, picking up a stick and breaking the neatly formed balls that stood in the middle of the red velvet table.
Chloe, who had been checking out the dusty, leather-bound books on the shelves in the corner, whirled around, startled. "I play a little," she said honestly, recalling the summer her cousin Brent (who had been a high school sophomore when Chloe was ten) tried to teach her to play when she visited her aunt's family for a week. She had retained enough to be fairly decent at the game, unless her cousin had just been letting her win. (She presumed that was the case, but she was eager to see if she could hold her own against Smallville's bald billionaire.)
A stick was being tossed at her, and she fumbled for it. "Take a shot, then," Lex said quietly, as more of a suggestion than a challenge.
Chloe took it as the latter, however. Stepping up to the table, she bent down and lined up the cue ball with a striped one. "Corner pocket," she told him hopefully.
The balls connected with a loud 'crack', and the one she'd been aiming for ricocheted back toward her. "Or not," she amended with a shrug.
She heard him chuckle behind her, then his arms were surrounding her. "Relax your left arm a little." As he spoke, Lex adjusted her hold on the stick with his warm, nimble fingers. "Now, place your right hand here. Now, pull back..." He guided her through a practice shot, sending a ball whizzing into a pocket. "Think you can do it now?"
Biting her lip, she nodded. When she glanced to her right to check out the ball layout, her eyes paused on something shiny. "Nice watch."
Lex, apparently forgetting which of his hundred-some timepieces he'd worn that day, averted his gaze to his wrist. He swallowed before replying. "Thank you."
Chloe couldn't let it go; she noticed that all his gadgets were high-tech to the extreme, and the Napoleon watch looked like something she herself could afford. "If you don't mind my asking, where'd you get it?"
With an audible groan, Lex moved away from her and clenched his fists together. "I'd rather not--" He met her curious eyes with his own and visibly sagged. "My mother gave it to me right before she died." His voice was flat, but he was looking at her seriously.
Not the response she'd been expecting. "Oh, Lex, I'm sorry."
"Thanks, but it was a long time ago." He forced his mouth into a tight-lipped smile, before he strolled to the wet bar in the corner. Shot glass in hand, he grimaced at the liquid, and set it back down. He didn't really want to drink; not in front of Chloe.
To her credit, Chloe just walked over to him and touched his arm lightly. "My mother died when I was twelve," was all she whispered.
Lex, taken aback, could only nod. Her eyes had turned toward the carpeted floor, so he lifted her chin with his index finger. She looked, and acted, so much like his mother (though Lillian Luthor had been a redhead) that it was almost scary. "I'm sorry," he said finally, meaning it.
"Thanks, but it was a long time ago." With a nearly invisible smirk, Chloe removed his hand from her face, entwining her fingers with his. "You two would have liked each other; Mom always said she had a secret desire to meet a bold, risk-taking man who still had a good head on his shoulders. I don't suppose you have any secret piercings or tattoos?" Lex shook his head. "That was the part I wasn't allowed to tell my father; she didn't want him getting any ideas."
The billionaire cracked an appropriate smile; once he was certain she was finished with that line of thought, he whispered sincerely, "if your mother was anything like you, I'm positive she and I would have gotten along famously. You would have liked my mother as well; she was spunky and levelheaded, but she also loved deeply."
"Well," Chloe retorted, bringing her mouth to his, "if she was anything like you, I'm positive she and I..." His eyes darted to hers, checking to see if she was okay, but hers were already closed. Their lips met lightly, and Chloe sighed. That was all the encouragement Lex needed; he held her face in his hands (her own hands wrapped around his wrists) and kissed her. It didn't reach epic, passionate proportions (in fact, it was mostly chaste) but it was long and sincere enough that both were smiling when they reluctantly backed off.
"Thanks for dinner, Lex. I'm going to go now," she said in her normal tone. The only indicator that she was feeling differently than usual was the slight smile on her face. That, he noticed, and the way her left foot kept tapping against the floor.
He himself was inwardly shaking (he hadn't been kissed like that in as long as he could remember) but he didn't let it show. "You're welcome, Chloe. I'll show you out."
"No, you don't need to," Chloe replied quickly. "Coat's in the front closet?"
A nod. "Yes. On the coat rack."
She winked. "Right. On the pretentious coat rack."
He watched her glide to the closed door before calling out, "can I see you again?"
Choe turned, eyebrows raised, smirk still visible. "Friends never have to ask."