At Any Price(41)

“He had you on the couch stripped to the waist and playing with your girl parts and he answered the phone? He’s gotta be gay.”

I laughed. “Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. It was very obvious that he was turned on and very reluctant to answer the phone. Apparently the guy was warned not to call unless it was an emergency.”

“Shit. So what’s the upshot? He gonna pay you? He had his night.”

I cleared my throat, fidgeting from one foot to the other.

“Hello? You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“So…?”

“So I think he might have been cool with doing that except I had a big mouth and joked about doubling my money by running another auction.”

“There’s no fucking way I’m doing another one, doll. Your favor debt to me is epic as it is.”

“It was a joke. I was trying to be funny—ha ha. It was awkward, he was acting all cold and distant, not like the night before.”

“Okay. So you joked around…and then what?”

“Well, then he gets all weird and starts saying I don’t have the right to sleep with anyone else but him until the contract is fulfilled.”

“Uhh.”

“Is that true? Is he right?”

“Doll, you can do whatever you want…it’s not like he can sue you for breach. The money has yet to be transferred into your account.”

“What if he’s planning to never pay me?”

“Oh, I made sure the agreement states that the NDA goes bye-bye if he doesn’t pay you. If he goes through with it and doesn’t pay, you sell your story to the press and he’s fucked.”

I took a deep breath. “But what about the other? That I can’t be with someone else until…”

“Were you planning on it?”

“No.”

“Does he intend to drag this out for six months and not pay you?”

“That’s what I asked him. He made arrangements to get together Friday night and…do the deed in international waters on his yacht.”

“Hmm. Okay. That works. Can’t help but wonder why he didn’t just get ‘er done the morning before you left.”

I shrugged. Maybe he wanted it to be more romantic? But I couldn’t help but wonder at that. The day we were touring around Amsterdam and Adam had asked me about my dating habits, he’d admitted to me that he didn’t do romance. That he’d never been in a relationship before and had little interest. Yet another thing in which we coincided.

“Well,” said Heath. “As long as he has a backup plan…but you gotta call me before you leave and when you get back. I don’t like the thought of him strangling you out there and dumping you overboard.”

I huffed. “Gee, now that’s reassuring.”

“Mia, I don’t think he’s a bad person, but he had a pretty shitty childhood.”

Now I sat up, interested. “What do you know?”

“I did a background check on him. Mostly public record stuff, really. His mom was an alcoholic and he was placed in the child protective system as a young teen.”

“Yeah, that I know. He told me as much.”

“Yeah, well, when he got here and started at the new high school he apparently was the victim of one of the most notorious bullying cases in the county.”

I tried to picture any suicidal idiot trying to take down six-foot, exquisitely ripped Adam. I’d touched him—he was solid, athletic, strong. My heart bounced at the memory of his body under my shaking hands. Then I remembered what he’d told me when I’d been teasing him about those muscles…that he’d chosen to bulk up as a deterrent to being bullied.

“What happened?”

“Track team. I guess he was a runner—” He was a runner! “One of the better members of the team, but he was the new guy and some of the older kids singled him out. I found several old newspaper clippings at the library from the OC Register. A whole group of them beat the crap out of him and then duct-taped his hands, legs and mouth and shoved him in a locker overnight. He was in the hospital in critical condition for over a week. There was a lawsuit filed against the district, the perps were arrested and thrown in juvey. “

The air hissed out of my lungs. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah.”

“But that doesn’t mean he’s going to strangle me and throw me into the ocean.”

“I know. But I’m just saying. It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful a person is, they’ve all got their demons.”

“Do you know who Sabrina is?”

“Huh?”

“He has a tattoo, just above his heart. It says ‘Sabrina.’ Was that his girlfriend?”