At Any Price(51)

If he didn’t approve, why had he even bid?

Though I wasn’t about to question him now. In truth, I was glad he did bid. But I was getting this weird tight feeling at the pit of my stomach. It felt like a cold rock sitting there and never moving. It had something to do with the fact that I was allowing feelings to get involved. As much as I wanted the money, yes. As much as I wanted him, yes. I found myself not wanting this to be over yet.

There was too much to find out before that. I wanted to know what drove him. What his fears were. What his goals were. Had he already arrived at the ripe age of twenty-six or was he striving for more and if so, how much higher could he go? And what about a personal life? Why was he driven, after being so successful, to still spend ninety hours a week in his office and half his life on airplanes and in hotels?

Then there were the personal details. Had he ever been in love? Who was Sabrina? Why did he have her name permanently inscribed on his heart?

These were things that I would never know, ever, if we slept together tonight.

But there was another voice inside my head, along with the one dying of curiosity to get to know him better. The logical one. The one that said that a man like Adam would only hurt me in the end if I opened up to him. Just like the Biological Sperm Donor had done to my mom. He’d crushed her and she’d never been able to move on. And if I let just one weakness in my fortress show, Adam would do the same to me.

With new resolve, I swore to carry out the original terms of our agreement, no matter what I was feeling inside.

***

The boat was gorgeous, of course, like all of the other things he surrounded himself with. A one-hundred-foot yacht appointed with the most glamorous details, all chrome and marble countertops, wood paneling and recessed lighting. It looked nicer than the nicest home I’d ever been in—besides Adam’s. There was a large kitchen, called a “galley” from which Adam’s chef/housekeeper worked. She had come along with the captain and they were the only other two aboard besides us, which left us a great deal of room to move about.

Adam told me he often had team parties on the yacht for his employees and used it for other business, about which he was vague. As we talked, I got the impression that his business interests were diversified—he had investments in the hospitality industry and technology hardware beyond just his own company. Draco Multimedia, particularly Dragon Epoch, was his main source of income, but he was beginning to branch out.

We ate a gourmet lunch straight away—poached salmon over a crisp bed of greens. Then Adam showed me the rest of the boat. And I don’t know if was by design or by happenstance, but the last room he showed me was his. A room almost as big as my studio, with a lush king-sized bed.

We stared at each other awkwardly in the doorway and he looked almost embarrassed. “I really didn’t mean for us to end up here. Not yet, anyway.”

I laughed. “I bet you say that to all the girls you bring on your yacht.”

“Actually you’d be the first one.”

I shot him a teasing look. “New yacht?”

He shrugged, sheepish. “It’s not old.”

“So you never brought Lindsay here?”

He looked at me sharply, “Lindsay? No…no. No.”

I laughed at his vehement protest. “It’s okay. I realize you two have a history that I know nothing about.”

He shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “Lindsay and I go way back.”

I couldn’t resist. Not with it dangling out there in front of me like that. “How far back? And was there a bedroom involved?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and affected nonchalance, putting his hand in his pocket. “We had a history as sexual partners.”

“Interesting.” I folded my arms, leaning back against the doorjamb. “You don’t use the term ‘lovers.’”

He snorted. “Love had nothing to do with it.”

“Was she married then?”

And Adam’s expression grew so horrified that I almost laughed. “God, no. It was like ten years ago.” That meant he’d been just a teen.

I wrinkled my nose. I was a like a dog with a bone with this, unwilling to give it up. “Dare I ask if she was your first?”

He actually blushed and that’s all I needed to answer my question. He gave another one of those fake shrugs. “You can always ask.”

I ignored the evasion because I already had the answer to my question. Lindsay had popped Adam’s cherry. “So, does she always act like that with you?”

He frowned. “Like what?”

“Like you two are still a couple?”

He looked at me like I was an alien. “First of all, we were never a couple. We got together and we fucked and that was about it. We didn’t date. She was too busy with her career and I didn’t really care about relationships. I was too young for that. We’re friends now. She’s a partner in my uncle’s firm.”