Page 13 of Billionaire Bad Boy Auction

DEAN

I didn’t like the way Portia looked when she left. She walked out of my shop with her shoulders too stiff and a blank expression on her face. She was trying too hard to look like she didn’t care. It didn’t sit right with me.

Seth’s friends were jackasses—always had been—but I hadn’t put together that some of them were the same ones who’d left her stranded on that island years ago. I should’ve shut them down harder. I should’ve kicked them out the second they walked in.

But I didn’t, and now Portia was gone, and the memory of her walking out with that tight, forced smile was stuck in my head like a splinter I couldn’t dig out. We had actually been getting along before Seth and his dickhead friends showed up.

“What was she doing here?” Seth asked.

“Take a wild guess,” I growled, not wanting to deal with his shit.

He laughed. “Don’t tell me the date was hanging out in your shop.”

“The auction people didn’t specify what we had to do with our time together. And it wasn’t a date.”

“She looked like she thought it was a date.” He grinned. “You’re going to tell me you didn’t want to hit that?”

“I’m itching to hit something. Don’t talk about her like that.”

Seth looked surprised, but the smirk on his face didn’t fade. “Come on, Dean. You’re not going soft on me, are you? Portia Watson? Really? She’s just another girl who couldn’t hack it in the real world and came crawling back. She’s not your type. You need a bleached blonde with giant fake titties hanging off the back of your bike.”

“I don’t like fake tits.”

Seth shrugged. “Real ones just get saggy. Unless you find a new girl every time the last one gets too old.”

I took a step toward him, my jaw clenched. “We were raised in the same house with the same parents. How did you turn out to be so gross, man? Seriously, you don’t know a damn thing about my type. And you don’t know a damn thing about her. So quit running your mouth before you really start pissing me off.”

Seth chuckled, but there was a flicker of hesitation in his eyes. He knew I wasn’t bluffing. “Alright, alright. I’ll drop it. But don’t act like you’re not interested. I saw the way you were looking at her.”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Because he was right—and that pissed me off more than anything. I had been looking at her. I’d been watching her the whole damn night, trying to figure her out. She was different from what I remembered. Stronger, sharper, but there was something fragile underneath all that fire. Something that made me want to step in when those idiots started in on her.

“Why don’t you take your little party somewhere else?” I told him. “I’ve got work to do, and quite frankly, your friends are about as fun as a torque wrench to the testicles.”

Seth chuckled. “That woman already has you wrapped around her pinky.”

“You think you’re funny? You’re not. You’re just fucking annoying me. So take your jokes, take your friends, and get the hell out of my shop. I don’t have the patience for your crap tonight.”

He blinked, caught off guard. “Jesus, Dean. It was just a joke⁠—”

“I don’t care what it was,” I cut him off, my voice sharp enough to slice through steel. “Out. Now.”

For a second, he looked like he might argue, but then he must’ve seen something in my eyes—something that told him I wasn’t bluffing. He raised his hands in surrender, that cocky grin finally fading. “Alright, alright. I’m going. Chill out, man.”

He turned to his friends, jerking his head toward the door. “Let’s bounce. Big brother’s in one of his moods.”

The group shuffled out, still ribbing each other and tossing jokes around, but I barely registered them. I grabbed a rag off the counter and started wiping down my tools, more to keep my hands busy than anything else.

My mind kept circling back to Portia. She hadn’t backed down from any of it, but I could tell it had gotten to her. I knew what it was like to have everyone judging you. Poking fun at you. Talking shit because they thought it was hilarious.

But it was none of my business.

My hands kept moving as I put tools back in the right spots, but my mind wasn’t on the work. It was stuck on her—Portia. The way she’d looked at me when I’d stepped in, the way she’d held her ground even when Seth and his idiots started running their mouths. She probably didn’t need me to defend her but I’d done it anyway. That was the right thing to do. I didn’t understand how my brother and I had turned out so differently. I swear my mother must have dropped him on his head or something.

This was exactly why I didn’t get involved. People were complicated. Emotions were messy. And Portia Watson? She was a damn hurricane wrapped in a hot body. She was the kind of woman the blew in and decimated everything in her wake. She’d get under my skin if I let her. I couldn’t afford that. Not again.

Not after last time. Women were poison. They were tolerable in tiny doses and served a purpose, but no way in hell was I ever letting someone into my life again.

Fuck that.