The Upper Hand (R) 1/31/10

[autumngold]

I'm so disappointed in both Lex and Chloe!! Chloe has to know that Lex cares about her, but she leaves him alone without even checking on him!! She should realize he isn't going to wait for her!! How I really wish he would!! Silly Lex, I hate Gretchen (or whatever her name is)!! If only Chloe would come back and at least visit!! Of course, with her luck, she'll come back to find Lex in bed with another woman!! Nobody waits for Chloe, I guess she's never been worth it to anyone!! Please let Lex be the first!!

[Ultra]

Oh, Gretchen is a bitch! Well, maybe she's not but I think she is! How dare she seduce Chloe's man! Okay, maybe she doesn't know Lex belongs with Chloe but I do so it wants fixing! Whether she's playing him or she;s genuinely interested in him, I don't care, I just want her to get lost already, so there (hmm... childish, much? lol)

Anywho, I'm wondering if Gretchen might be part of the plan that Chloe, Lionel, and Oliver have. Or maybe its the mysterious plant manager guy... hmm, I don't know, but I do love this story, it has me all intrigued and a little angry (at Gretchen) so you're obviously writing it very well to get me this worked up!

[ChloeLovesLex]

Hex, Whammy, and a Voodoo Curse on Gretchen. The nerve of the vile woman. Tell me she has bad breath and Lex flinches away...or, or, or...crap factory. She smells like crap factory right? Tell me Lex visualizes her with a nasty case of a some random venereal disease to rid himself of any thoughts that this is a good idea. I'm not Ok right now Super. You better fix this.

Now Chloe, on the other hand, I think should be spanked. Hard. Preferably by Lex and very soon.

[Kit Merlot]

You see, this is what happens when the Chlex aren't together!

So Chloe is just pretending to be working for Oliver so that she can learn business strategies from Lionel--interesting. And Lex is going to have sex with that Gretchen woman--there is something off about her, and I have a feeling Lex is going to be hurt by it.

I'm almost afraid to see what happens next

[ThraceC]

I have a feeling Lex won't sleep with Gretchen. Maybe I'm just naive and hopefull but I think that game isn't nearly over yet. Not to mention, Lex is pretty damn shrewed, I don't think he'll let that bitch play him. He'd better not anyway!!!

Only a twisted mind could produce such a twisted plot .

good update SR, just gimme more! And SOON!

[purplemoon123]

I'm guessing that Lance Aronot is Lionel's new name.

What does Gretchen want?? Besides Lex's hot bod???

[superag]

A/N - It's been a couple of weeks, but here we go. And some of you guessed right! Thanks for all the reviews!!

Chapter 13 – Unexpected Twists

He could feel her tongue running along the line between his lips and suddenly his eyes flew open. He knew her longer than most of his wives but something didn’t feel right.

“No,” he plainly stated as he pushed her back to the other side of the couch. “This isn’t right.” Lex stood up and backed away from the couch as Gretchen continued to smile in his direction.

He covered his mouth and readjusted himself as he walked back behind the kitchen counter. Closing his eyes, he tried to will his overactive cock back into a normal state. He saw Gretchen come toward him in the kitchen and tried to put distance between them. He now knew how a woman felt when a man didn’t take no for an answer.

“You’re saving yourself for someone.” Surprised by her statement he smiled unconvincingly.

Lex looked up as Gretchen leaned against the counter next to him and ran her fingers over his hand. “It’s more complicated than I want to get into with you.”

Gretchen watched his face and felt his hand stiffen under her fingers. “She must be something special if you’re waiting to get out of here to be with her. I mean what makes you think the woman you’re waiting on is waiting on you. Maybe after the money and the fame is gone, I’ll be the best thing you’ve got.”

Lex swallowed and moved his hand away, now turning around since his pants had gone back to a normal state. “Look, I said I don’t want to get into this with you, but yes. I have someone that’s important to me that I frankly screwed all to hell and back once and doing something with you would basically make it irrepairable.”

“Does she know you’re waiting?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered to the air picturing her in front of him and letting a small smile slip across his face. “I hope, but I think I might have waited too long to apologize to her. Can we just maybe table the work for a week or so?”

Pulling his face to look at her, she felt him stiffen again at her touch, “She should be lucky. You’re not anything like the Lex Luthor I ever heard about, especially the last couple of years. Maybe all the rumored therapy is working. But if I promise to be a good little girl, we can meet next week?”

Pulling her hand down from his face, he grimaced slightly. “Come by some time next week, but during work hours. I’m thinking this one on one isn’t such a good idea anymore.”

“Ah, worried that turning me down a second time would be even harder than the first.” She watched him glance up and roll his eyes in her direction.

Lex walked over to the table and silently stacked up her files and slid them back into her satchel as well as he could. Meeting her halfway across the living room, he handed her bag to her and walked her to the door. Holding the door open, he smiled slightly as she descended the stairs and looked back up to him and smiled.

Closing the door, Lex breathed a sigh of relief and finished cleaning the kitchen. He sat down on the couch and stared at the laptop wondering if he should write tonight. He was afraid of writing anything at all. He seldom turned a woman down. Turning off the living room light, he crossed the living room and crawled up to the top of the bed and curled up with the pillows.

***********

“Chloe Sullivan,” she stated as she picked up the phone in her office. The sun was starting to set and she had a business dinner to attend with Oliver to keep up appearances.

“Miss Sullivan, this is Gretchen.” Chloe cleared her throat and could feel herself holding her breath. She had waited for a month to get this phone call, scared of what the woman she had only seen in a picture would say. She remembered the argument that she and Lionel had about his perverted idea to begin with.

“Yes?”

“He’s completely in love with you. I don’t know who you are or what he sees in you, but I was lip locked with the man known for his women for exactly 1.2 seconds before ending up on the other side of the couch while he practically ran into the kitchen to put distance between him and me. So what now?”

Chloe couldn’t stop breathing heavy on the other end of the line. Lionel had been right about his son. For all the awful, hateful things he had done in the past to his son, his latest test proved to be the only one that was important. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Just keep feeding him information on the Smallville plant to keep him thinking.”

“Done, he said he wanted some time in between, so I’ll see him some time next week. My payment?”

“It’ll be arranged as soon as I talk to my boss.”

“Good. He’s a hard man to resist; you’re a lucky woman if you ever want to go down that road.” Chloe heard before she heard the phone hang up. Putting her own phone down, she looked out on the city skyline that looked over the water slightly and couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. He wasn’t just playing her; he really had a heart and feelings for her. Now she only had another month before she could see him.

**********

Lex sat down on soft sofa and listened to the classical music that bellowed quietly from the speakers in ceiling. The office was tastefully decorated similar to what he would like his next office to look like if he ever got his own place again.

He wondered for a moment how that could possibly happen. With another year looking at him in the face, his best hope was that the judge would have mercy on him or his temporary insanity and shorten his sentence. Still, that wouldn’t answer the question of where he could go after getting out. It was a foreign feeling. It was a strange sensation of feeling lost.

“Good morning Lex. How was your week?” Dr. Schell spoke quietly as he closed the door to the apartment. Lex left the door open on his appointment days, knowing no one else would be visiting.

“It’s been better,” Lex stated sadly noting another week without Chloe calling, visitors of any kind except for Gretchen. And that was still on shaky ground. Lex looked up at the doctor who simply had his paper out and waited patiently in the chair next to the couch where Lex sat.

Sighing, Lex had been through this enough the doctor would simply wait on him. All in all, the therapy he had boldly tried to get out of in the earlier months was now decently soothing. For one, he realized that Chloe probably had something to do with the therapist scheduled and second, he was actually good at his job.

“The woman I told you about made advances last week and I refused,” Lex stated as blandly as possible.

“Do you know why?” the doctor questioned.

Lex knew the real reason; he wasn’t sure if the doctor who probably reported back to Chloe should know little details that would throttle her world. If he was looking to hurt her, get under her skin, letting the doctor tell her how he felt would do it. “Somewhat. She seemed too much like my old dates, and I use that term loosely. And I just didn’t feel the need to succumb to that again.”

The doctor silently shook his head and scrolled a little on his pad. Looking back at Lex, the doctor saw something he hadn’t noticed in a long while, possibly never, as he watched Lex. Sadness. The man had finally lost the façade that held his face in a virtually impenetrable place. “Your hearing is coming up. You have any thoughts on that,” he asked trying to change the subject.

Lex looked over at the doctor and his expression visibly changed. The doctor noticed as well that his concern and sadness moments earlier was lost now a rigid figure wanting out of his situation. “I think they should reduce my time. I have done nothing but what was asked of me and I think I have progress in these sessions as well.”

The doctor broke a small grin, which Lex was not quite sure meant he agreed or not. “You know I have to speak to the extent of mental stability. Some say when you came into this situation that you were manipulating everything and everyone around you. And what you couldn’t manipulate, you would simply eliminate. What do you say to that?”

Lex sat up from his couch and clasped his hands together. He had changed some of his demeanor when he got nervous the doctor noticed. He used to pace with his hands in his pockets when the two first started almost six months ago. Then it went to sitting at the table, leaning back in the chair and rubbing his chin, to now his hands. Submission, not exactly, but the doctor could see the more calm and trusting action where Lex didn’t merely walk away from the questions anymore.

“It’s true, maybe still true in some circumstances,” Lex offered quietly. “But those that could never be manipulated…those were the ones that finally put me in my place.”

“Meaning?”

“My father. I can’t exactly manipulate what he did to me to drive the company in the ground when he’s dead. And Chloe, I don’t think she ever realized the power she had even though she thought for the longest time she was everyone’s doormat. And she’s just gotten stronger.”
Lex stopped and thought about the statement he had made about Chloe. She had never shown her strength as much as he had seen in the last six months. She had finally learned to move past Clark and the others to develop her own self. She was finally the force to be reckoned with that he had hoped to find in other women.

Even those from the early years, Victoria and Helen, had been too easy, too scared when it finally came to matching wits. On the other hand, he wondered if he had continued just playing Chloe if he would have made her falter as well.

“What are you thinking?” The doctor asked without expression.

Lex glanced over at the doctor and wondered what he would say to Chloe. “It’s funny,” Lex started as he leaned back with his hands behind his head. The doctor tilted his head, noticing the strange calm and almost sinister look in pose. “I could sit here and talk about how I’ve rehabbed and how thankful I am for understanding where I went wrong in my life, but I won’t. I don’t feel like there was an exact point that things changed. I’m not pointing blame because I have done that so much internally that I’ve wasted years on it.”

The doctor noticed the strange but extensive diatribe that Lex was in the middle of and started making more notes as to the sudden direction of wanting to talk about the past, sort of. “Continue.”

“Instead, I feel like the manipulation that you say I have described in the past almost caused me to lose myself again. I started off my incarceration by doing the same thing as always to Chloe and to those at the restaurant. And the same result occurred. I ended up alone and pissed while others were either hurt or alienated.”

“And your feelings?”

“I still tried to pretend I didn’t have any. It was easy because I’ve been doing it since I was told by my father that emotion was for the weak.”

The doctor nodded and looked at Lex confused. “I thought you had gotten beyond blaming your father?”

“Partially, but there will always be some things that can’t be fixed. Instead, it seems that this was set up for the reason of helping me find some kind of resolute.”

“And have you found it?”

“Since I actually decided to manipulate Chloe into hoping to fall for me again, I think I made a minor miscalculation.”

The doctor said nothing but Lex could see him again lean back in his chair and simply wait for the man to continue. Lex stopped short opening his mouth and then closing it again, thinking that he had given away the plan. He hoped as his eyes closed that his slip wouldn’t get back to her.

“Do you report this to anyone?”

The doctor nodded at the small question that was obviously loaded for Lex’s benefit. “I use our discussions to simply assess your well being for the court.” The doctor smiled and moved to another position, more authoritative. “The details however don’t leave this office.”

Lex looked at the man sit up and lay the pad on his lap. Looking over at the pad, he noticed small scrawls that obviously didn’t include any of his actual conversations. Still, the room could be bugged. Lex shook his head visibly as he stared at the pad and then around the room.

The doctor watched his sudden movements. “Problem?”

Lex shook it off; it was his old sense of paranoia that his father had instilled in him. He hated the feeling and hadn’t felt it until that moment for almost four months. It had been a nice break form the paranoia. What seemed like a normal feeling once was now an annoyance that he wanted to go away. “Nothing.” He stopped and gathered where his thoughts were earlier. “My miscalculation was that I fell in love with her, but I doubt just telling her is going to smooth things over. There’s a history to get past.”

“And how do you expect to get past it?”

Lex glanced up at the doctor who dipped his chin to one side, concentrating on the answer. “Prove I’ve changed and that I’m not a manipulating bastard anymore. That I have other talents besides pissing people off.” The doctor said nothing. “And I know what I need to do.”

*********

The sun was almost set as Lex loked at the window waiting for the dessert he had made for himself to finish. He knew that Mark was still downstairs working on the books for the evening and thought the gesture might make him smooth things over with him further. Lex rubbed his hand along his chin and rolled his eyes. The number of times that Clark had repeated that he could change and he just blew him off. Maybe he was right.

Lex stirred from his thoughts when he heard a knock at the door. He had mentioned to Mark he was welcome to come visit when he was done if he chose. It was a strange feeling reaching out to someone without sending them cars or writing them checks. It was much more challenging just being sincere and interested in making friends without buying his way into their interests.

Opening the door, he glanced straight forward expecting meeting Mark eye to eye before seeing the blond hair and met her eyes. He swore he felt his heart stop.

“Chloe,” he rasped almost unable to get the name out of his mouth before clearing his throat and trying again. “Chloe, come in. I wasn’t expecting you tonight.”

Chloe smiled up at him and saw the almost shocked blue eyes stare back at her and suddenly felt a sense of warmth hit her that she had missed in two months. After talking herself into and out of seeing him, her heart had given into her head to see him before the hearing. “Hi, expecting someone else?”

Lex turned around and left the door standing open as the buzzer on the oven went off. Opening the oven, he pulled the cobbler out of the oven an laid it on the counter. “Sort of, I actually asked Mark if he wanted to come by for dessert after work. That whole making friends thing that I seem to be forcing badly.”

“Mark just left; we were doing the books while I was in town. So, I guess he wasn’t interested. You have to remember that Mark is still a lot more wary of you than me. It’s going to take a lot to get him or any one else from your facility to suddenly do a 180 and be your buddy.” Chloe stated standing stiffly in the middle of the living room.

“True, but then that would beg the question, why do you keep coming around?”

Chloe corssed her arms in defense before she saw Lex turn around and genuinely smile at her. Not able to hold it in, the corners of her mouth lifted into a small smile as she shook her head. “For a minute there it sounded like we were back to square one.”

Lex didn’t answer but knew how he had worded the question could have been misconstrued. Letting the statement pass, he walked around the edge of the counter and pulled gently on Chloe’s bag and lowered it into the chair she stood next to. “I guess you’re here for the hearing day after tomorrow.”

Lex pointed at the couch as Chloe nodded silently and sat down. Lex sat on the other end of the couch and leaned back. He had acquired a few throw pillows with the small bit of tips he had acquired and begged Gretchen to buy them. “Yeah,” Chloe commented quickly and then looked around the apartment. “Redecroating a little?”

“A little. The pillows were more a necessity. The rug was something Bates found and he said reminded him of me. I’m not sure what squares inside squares symbolize but it’s an interesting pattern.”

“Nice,” Chloe commented before a knock at the door and Lex jumped up off the couch. Opening the door, Chloe’s heart dropped as a thin brunette woman wrapped one arm around Lex’s neck and practically shoved herself into the door before casting a glance on Chloe.

“Entertaining tonight I see,” she commented almost snidely.

Lex dropped the files in one arm and stared startled in Chloe’s direction. There were two things wrong with this situation. First, he wondered if Chloe would be upset about the strange woman, that is if Gretchen hadn’t been a test all along. And second, how much trouble he would be in right before his hearing for doing work outside of the restaurant.

Chloe stood up and took two steps forward, glanced down at the folders that were marked with a new logo but she knew were from the plant in Smallville. Then, looking in Gretchen’s direction, she halfway smiled and shook hands with the woman that was the epitome of Lex Luthor’s women. “Nice to meet you,” she said as she shook the woman’s hand and waited.

Lex stepped in between and could see the green eyed monster in at least one set of eyes, if not two. Gretchen actually had no right to feel anything; two weeks had gone by and they had been the furthest from intimacy as two people could get. The simple fact she tried, got turned down, and it never came up again was enough for him to speculate that Gretchen already knew Chloe. “Gretchen, this is Chloe Sullivan, the owner and a good friend.”

Gretchen dropped her hand and looked at Lex. The name now sank in and she covered her personal embarrassment. The blonde was the one signing her checks per se. Chloe was the one. Glancing up at Lex again, she kept her composure and smiled. “Good to meet you but obviously you are busy, so I’ll leave these here and pick them up a little later.”

Gretchen wisped herself out the door faster than Chloe had seen a woman retreat from a situation before. Smiling to herself, she appreciated the ‘work’ the woman had been doing, both for Lex’s brain and hopefully for his heart. Now, time would tell. “Interesting woman. I saw her name a lot on the log. Girlfriend?”

Lex spun on his heel and met Chloe’s hands on her hips and a crushed look on her face. “No, I’m just helping her with a couple of things at the old plant.” He saw Chloe’s weight simply shift as her eyes looked deeper with tears hanging in the lids. He watched her swallow and suddenly thought he had completely evaluated the Gretchen plant as completely wrong.

“Lex,” Chloe said through her biting her lip. Her breathing was panting. “She’s gorgeous. Look, I know that you meet people here and I totally understand whatever is going on here.”

Chloe was going for her purse; he could see the body language. Stepping in between her and the chair, he placed both hands on her shoulders and held her in place. “I am not lying to you. Gretchen is a business acquaintance, nothing more. Regardless of how she may have looked to you.” He could feel her continue to stiffen up in his hands and waited for her to ask him to let her go, let her leave.

“Then the hug?”

“She’s friendly. I don’t know. Chloe,” he stopped and felt like he was eating the air between them it was so thick. Gripping her harder, he took a breath and looked back at her eyes that hadn’t broken from his face. The tears broke him. “Chloe, I’m sorry. For her, for endangering you, for your family…for the hell I put you through.”

And there it was…her objective of the whole plan. Chloe’s mouth stood stock still open. She had pictured the moment of heated battle where they yelled at each other until he apologized or him writing something in a journal on the computer she would read that said he was sorry. She had never imagined that the simple misunderstanding of Gretchen would lead them there. Looking up at his face, she could see he was as somber and straightforward as when he was affected by the truth serum. “I need to go,” came out of her mouth before she processed why she said it as she tried to pull from his hands.

Lex gripped her slightly harder but not enough to hurt. “No, not this time.” Feeling her struggle, he didn’t want her to leave. His heart pounded harder as his breath hung onto the air.

Chloe stared up at him as he gripped her harder. Pulling from him more only resulted on slightly harder fingers pressed into her skin. Gritting her teeth, she knew he had finally gotten to where she wanted him. Phase one took longer than she had hoped, now for him to finish it. “Later.”

Lex felt her pull in the opposite direction and let her loose. Stepping back, he picked up her purse and gripped it. “No.”

“Lex, quite acting like a little kid.” Now, he was getting annoying; she missed some of his old banter. “I have to go. You apologized. Thank you and I forgive you. Now give me my purse.” Chloe put her hands back on her hips.

“One thing then,” Lex calmly stated as he walked toward Chloe while he held her purse in one hand.

Chloe rolled her eyes as she rubbed one. Tears were hard to fake. Gretchen, although a plant, had obviously become much closer to Lex than she had thought. She had done her job a little too well and it still hurt the woman was that close to him, especially when she was being paid by her. “Lex, come on. There’s nothing wrong with having a relationship.”

“There is when it’s one sided, right Chloe?” Lex whispered low as he ran his free hand along her cheek and leaned into her, pushing her purse into her arms. “I think we’re both tired of that.”

He held her there where only the purse was between them. Chloe’s face melted as her eyes closed. His words were on spot, his voice made her insides jump, but she still played her part, not saying anything.

Running the back of his hand along her jaw, he could feel her jaw tighten. “I am sorry. And I may be apologizing some more after this.” Chloe looked up in confusion as Lex’s hand snaked around her head and gathered in her hair, pressing his lips to her open mouth.

Stunned, Chloe stood still and dropped her hands at her sides, letting hr purse fall to the floor before feeling Lex’s tongue enter her mouth. Moaning uncontrollably, she felt his other hand pull her into him and lean her back. Her legs were going to give.

Lex pulled out of the kiss first, finally feeling the long fluid motion go too far for his body when her tongue grazed his and the roof of his mouth. He would be in enough trouble just starting it.

Stepping back, he watched Chloe stand up a little straighter and cover her chest with her hand, panting, before reaching down for her purse. Chloe nearly lost her balance as she turned to walk to the door just to see Lex grab the knob first. Meeting his eyes, she was going to have to bite the inside of her lip until it bled to get out of the apartment before she kissed him back.

Opening the door, she looked back over her shoulder at Lex’s somber look. He said nothing but slipped the strap of her bag all the way up her shoulder. She couldn’t even form words yet without them coming out as ‘I forgive you or I still love you.’ Smiling she started out the door.

Lex watched as her foot hit the first step down the stairs. He could feel pressure building everywhere in his body as he felt what could only be nerves for the first time in forever. Swallowing, he saw her halfway down the stairs. “Stay tonight,” left his lips before he could bite them back.

[lexie]

At last someone´s updated a fic!!!

I had a hunch Gretchen was planted and I´m so pleased Lex turned her down. It seems Chloe learnt a lot about being manipulative in her previous dealings with Lex.

This was a lovely update. I wonder what Chloe´s answer will be now that he´s issued such an invitation.

I´m looking forward to your next chapter.

[hfce]

Wow that was intense. I knew gretchen was up to no good. It is good that Lex passed the test. More please I want her answer.

[purplemoon123]

Eeeekkkkkkkk

What does she say?? What does she say???

Mean cliffhanger!!!