Page 97 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Surgeon

“Yes, Jelly. My God. What is this all about?” He had the nerve to sound irritated, though I swear I could see the nerves on his face. He knew exactly what this was about.

I held up my phone with the picture of him and Gia looking very cozy at the bar. “It’s about that.”

His face fell and he went a little pale. I saw him swallow hard. “Well, I mean, yeah, I took Gia out for a drink or two. It seemed like it would’ve been rude not to.”

“Rude?”

“Yes, rude. I mean, she came all the way from Italy to see me. The least I could do was take her out for drinks.”

“Right.” I looked down, not knowing how to bring up the fact that I’d overheard what he said about me.

He lifted my chin up, forcing me to look in his eyes. “What’s this all about? Just that? I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken her out without you with us.”

“I heard you,” I whispered.

He frowned. “What?”

“That night. At the dinner party. When I was coming back from the restroom, I heard all of you talking about me.”

The remaining color drained from his face. “Oh, fuck. Fuck! I didn’t mean any of that shit. I was just saying whatever I needed to in order to keep the peace.”

“What you said was that I was beautiful and fun to pass the time with, you had no intention of everreallybeing with me, I was no comparison to Gia, and that you, of course, had no complaints about her in the bedroom.” I lifted an eyebrow when he seemed like he was going to try and contradict what I’d heard. “And then there were all the things your parents, Gia, and Gia’s mother said about me that you didn’t say anything at all about. You didn’t defend anything about me.Nothing. And they said some pretty horrible things.”

He stood there looking desperately like he wanted to defend himself, but he knew he was in the wrong. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I didn’t mean them. And I should’ve defended you.”

“Next you’ll say that you should have come home and checked on me or tried harder to text me or that you shouldn’t have taken a woman you’ve obviously slept with out for drinks after I went home by myself from your parents’ dinner partythat I didn’t even want to go to!”

“Shit.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It sounds horrible when you put it like that.”

“No, Paolo. It just sounds horrible because it was.”

It was then that I got another text. This one was from Carmen. I sucked in my breath when I saw the picture she’d sent to me. It was of him and Gia dancing at Salazar Nights. She’d written the word ‘tonight’ on it, and that was it.

“What’s going on?”

I turned my phone to face him again.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the back of my couch. He looked defeated.

“I don’t want to do the last two weeks of the contract with you. It’s less than that now, really. But after all of that? I’d… well, I’d rather not ever see you again.”

“Come on. Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? I told you, I didn’t even sleep with Gia.”

I gave him a look.

“I swear! I didn’t fuck her.”

“Wow. You deserve a medal.”

He rolled his lips inward. “I probably deserved that.”

“Oh, you definitely deserved that,” I said, hands on my hips. “I just need to know one thing. Are you going to make trouble for me with Carmen for not finishing the contract?”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, thinking about it. “You won’t reconsider?”

“Why would I?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said, opening them and looking down at me. “I just thought we had something. I thought we were going to try to date when the contract was over.”