Foreboding shot to new heights in Susan. She watched the remaining girls disappear to meet with Nolan then it was her turn for questions.
“Why do I feel as if I’m about to appear before the firing squad?” she asked Nolan before she remembered that blasted cameraman. She shot a quick glance at the camera and sure enough, she saw a smirking mouth beneath the camera housing.
She sank onto the picnic blanket, relieved when she didn’t suffer any clothing malfunctions.
“Are you nervous?” Nolan’s eyes laughed at her.
“Should I be?” she countered.
His mouth twitched. “Since there was only one envelope left, I opened it before you arrived.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Bring it.”
The cameraman sniggered.
Nolan flashed a grin before his gaze went to a single sheet of white paper. From where she sat, she couldn’t read the questions.Blast. “Question number one: do you prefer your men to wear boxers or briefs?”
Okay, that wasn’t so bad. “Neither,” she said.
There was a moment of startled silence. The cameraman made a choking sound behind his camera.
“You prefer commando?” Nolan asked.
“Well, I can live with commando some of the time because, I mean, it’ssoconvenient when you’re in a hurry.” Where on earth was this coming from? She was channeling her inner bimbo—that was clear. “But mostly a man should wear boxer-briefs. You get great support plus you look good,” she said, her sugar-sweet tone daring him to take umbrage at her reply.
Nolan’s lips quivered again, and he cleared his throat. “Great answer. Uh, the next question—this one is mine because I’m curious. I’ve done some research on your burlesque. I know your dancers do the fan dance at the club. How many garments are you left wearing at the end of the fan dance?”
“Are you trying to get me to admit I’m a stripper?”
“Answer the question, please.”
“The object of the fan dance is to titillate and make those in the audience wonder if they’ll catch a glimpse of the dancer’s body. Part of the dance is removing the top without revealing extra skin to the audience.”
“Do you do the fan dance?”
Susan sucked in a quick breath. Curse the man. “Yes, I am one of dancers atMaxwell’swho do the fan dance.”
“Which means you’re technically a person who takes off their clothes to entertain,” he said in a silky voice.
Why bother arguing? “That is correct.”
“How do you get off the stage without anyone seeing your scantily clad body?”
“I’ve answered more than three questions, but for your information—I leave the stage when the curtain comes down. The only people who are backstage are the other dancers and my friends. I do not flaunt my nudity.Maxwell’sis a decent club with a good reputation, and we have so many applicants to join our dance team we don’t have to advertise.”
“Hmm,” Nolan said. “I still don’t understand why you’d want to live in the country when it’s obvious your job skills require an urban setting.”
Susan bit back the tumble of words that battered her brain in a demand for freedom. She took a deep breath. “Smug, arrogant men are not a turn on.”
The cameraman let loose one of his chuckles and kept right on filming.
“Is that all?” Susan demanded. “I want to take more photos before we have to leave to catch the ferry.”
“One last question,” Nolan said. “What is your biggest sexual fantasy?”
She cringed a little inside. Her mother would watch this. She’d probably laugh, but that wasn’t the point.
“Cat got ya tongue?” The daredevil gleam in Nolan’s eyes told her he expected her to balk.
