The Bachelor Auction(97)

“That was fun, Sarah,” he called after her. “We should do it again sometime.”

She screamed in fury, and two minutes later the door slammed.

Frowning, he sat up on his elbows. Now, that was a bit of an overreaction. Whatever. Whenever one left, there were at least a hundred waiting in line, willing for a glimpse or even just one small taste of what he had to offer.

His sexual appetitive was huge—and legendary. But basically Bentley had a problem with boredom. He hated marriage, commitment, dating…really, anything that sounded like long-term.

Because long-term meant exactly like it sounded.

Long.

Term.

Like a contract he couldn’t get out of. And the last thing he needed was to allow someone in—someone who would want to share all of his demons, or worse—free him from them.

The door opened again and clicked shut.

“Back for more?” He chuckled and pulled the covers over his naked body, waiting for whatever her name was to come back in and finish the job she’d started. Damn it, he could have sworn her name really was Sarah.

He snapped his fingers. No, no, Sarah had been the night before. Amazing mouth. Jet black hair.

He hardened again just thinking about how she’d used her long silky hair to—

A shadowy figure stomped toward his bedside with clenched teeth and a furious look in his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be on your way?”

“On my way?” Bentley repeated, fisting the sheets with his hands. His grandfather was a giant pain in the ass. “To hell?” Another nonchalant shrug, because that was what his grandfather was used to. He was the younger twin by a few seconds, the one who would never amount to anything—though not for lack of trying.

A dull pain flared in his chest, as if his grandfather was standing on his ribs rather than towering over him from the side of the bed.

“Don’t be a jackass.” His grandfather’s mouth twisted into a disappointed frown.

“Prudence McCleery spent ten thousand dollars for your services. You’re due to arrive at their country estate today and make good on your promise.”

“Right.” Bentley hadn’t forgotten. How could he, when he’d been nearly scarred for life two weeks ago as every rich woman in the greater Phoenix area had tried to win him at auction? The charity event had been his grandfather’s grand plan to get his brother Brock married off, but Bentley and Brant had stepped in to help save Brock for the woman he was truly meant to marry.

He’d assumed some bored, rich, trophy wife would take him home, have her way with him, then slap him on the ass and send him on his way.

Instead, a woman with bright green eyes and equally bright white hair had lifted her paddle—and basically purchased him for a weekend getaway.

Bentley liked older women, just not that old.

Thankfully he’d found out later that he wasn’t being bid on for the silver-haired woman at all—but for her granddaughter. And suddenly the past, his past, became the present as images of a girl with bright red hair burned his vision.

“I tried.” Grandfather’s shoulders slumped. “I tried to do right by you boys. Maybe I was just too focused on grooming Brock to lead Wellington, Inc. to realize how horrible you and your brother have turned out.”

“Thanks?” Bentley offered with a grimace. It wasn’t like Bentley didn’t work for what he had, he just didn’t work very hard—a fifty-million-dollar trust fund had a way of doing that to a man.

After all, people worked to make money.

They worked for success.

And he already had those things.

A nagging voice shattered his confidence, the same voice that reminded him how he used to be a man who’d had dreams—an actual purpose—direction.

And that same voice reminded him that his life had become a boring useless cycle of using women and hiding who he really was from the world.

Because the last time he had tried to be himself, he’d been shattered.

His world had been shattered.

It wasn’t worth it. It was easier to be the rich, good-looking, bored playboy who listed fucking as an actual hobby on his résumé.

He’d been called black-hearted.

A manwhore.

A woman-shaming, prostitute-loving gambler.

Hell, he’d been called it all.

And he always shrugged it off. Nothing touched him, at least not typically, but today his grandfather’s comment snaked its way around his throat and took hold.

“The VP of marketing stepped down this morning,” his grandfather said thoughtfully. “I want to hire within.”

Bentley froze; his heart hammered against his chest. On the outside, he was calm, rational, thoughtful, but on the inside, he was freaking the hell out. “Oh?”