At Any Price(38)

I hardly knew what to say to him. We’d talked about everything else under the sun, but never discussed the fact that our deal remained unconsummated. What did this mean? I wouldn’t get the money until we’d done the deed. Did he still want to? Or had the near-disaster with the game cooled his ardor?

Adam was on the phone for almost the entire trip to the airport and I pulled out my MCAT test guide but couldn’t concentrate. My mind kept drifting to his conversation. He was making plans to visit some investment property the following month in some place called St. Lucia, which I’d never even heard of before.

I shot him a sideways glance, wondering about him. He’d grown up without a father, raised by an alcoholic mother who, it would be presumed, was such an unfit parent that he’d been placed with his uncle two states away as a teenager.

How did that formula add up to an extremely successful and uniquely brilliant man in his field? What drive did he have to pull himself from such a low starting point in life? And what tireless energy kept him going, day after day?

Not long before reaching the airport, I turned to him and he put down his tablet when he noticed me watching him.

“So, what now?” I asked.

His jaw visibly tensed and he turned to face me. “What do you mean?”

His manner was so cold it threw me off and I pursed my lips, irritated. As if he had the right to be brusque with me! It wasn’t my fault that we hadn’t gone through with the deal. I glanced toward the driver and Adam, following my thought, pressed the button to raise the partition before I spoke again.

I began. “Well, we had our night together. That’s what the contract called for. I suppose we call it fulfilled and go our separate ways?” I knew what he’d say before the words were even out of my mouth.

He looked askance at me. “And that means, what? We separate in accordance with the points on the contract? No contact? Act as if there’s a restraining order between us?”

I shrugged. Wasn’t that what we’d both agreed to?

“And then what? You’re still a virgin. Does that mean another auction?”

I tilted my head to the side. Hell no, that did not mean another auction. I wasn’t going to put myself through that again. And I was one hundred percent sure that Heath would refuse to participate again. Nevertheless, I frowned as if in deep thought. “That’s a wonderful idea! I could cash in twice.”

But the look in Adam’s eyes, when they hardened like black ice, sent a cold streak of premonition down my spine. He stuffed the tablet into the back pocket of the seat in front of him.

“I don’t think so.”

I crinkled my brow at him. “Wait…what?”

He turned to me as matter-of-factly as if he were discussing the daily weather forecast. “I purchased a product that has not been delivered to me.”

I folded my arms. “I am not a product. I am a person. You purchased one night with me and that was it. We had our night together. It was through no fault of mine that I…remain intact.”

“I disagree. I purchased your virginity. Therefore it belongs to me. It can’t be re-sold.”

Now I felt some heat rise to my cheeks. Not from embarrassment, but anger. “This was not a flesh trade transaction, Mr. Drake.”

A fist closed over his knee. “What is prostitution besides a flesh trade? I own your virginity and I can remove it whenever I wish. Whether it be now or ten years from now, that honor is mine.”

I blinked and shook my head, unable to credit my own ears. “Are you saying that I’m beholden to you until you decide to swoop in and collect? I think not.”

“Really. So you’ll stick with that position. You honestly think our agreement supports your position over mine?”

My mind raced, trying to remember the precise wording of our agreement. My blood began to pump and I cursed that I had relied too heavily on Heath and his buddy to put the wording together to even remember. “It’s hardly a legally valid document in the first place.”

“Then why draw it up?”

I gritted my teeth. My face heated and muscles tensed. “For protection, to make it clear what the agreement entailed.”

“For whose protection? Yours or mine?”

“For both of us.”

He folded his arms over his chest, sitting back. “Well then, I stand with my position. The auction was for the right to remove your virginity. That didn’t happen. I still have that right.”

“Not for life. There’s the six months limitation that was outlined in the contract.”

He nodded. “Right. Then I’ll call you in five and a half months?”

I blinked. Mom’s mortgage foreclosure came due in two months. “Are you willing to pay me now?”