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w is that you went to MIT.”
“There’s not much more about me to tell,” he said. It was a lie, but the one he preferred people to believe. “I had a very boring, uneventful life before I went to college and met Finn. Then we started a business, invented some stuff and got rich in the process. My life is still boring, I just have more money. Unlike you, there’s no secret dramas, no trust fund stipulations, no blackmail plots. You’re not missing out on much with me, I promise.”
Now it was Harper’s turn to make a thoughtful sound. Eventually she stilled and her breathing became soft and even against his chest. Of course, she had riled him up and fallen asleep, leaving him lying in bed with a brain no longer interested in sleep.
Part of him felt bad about lying to Harper mere minutes after giving her an orgasm. She had been brutally honest with him about her life, but that was out of necessity, not out of a willingness to share her past with him. He’d been sucked into her blackmail plot or he was certain she wouldn’t have told him, just like she hadn’t told anyone else. He was just there. And he was okay with that. She just shouldn’t expect him to reciprocate.
It wasn’t because he had huge skeletons in his own closet. His uncle Joe had gotten a DUI for driving his riding lawnmower to the gas station drunk to get more beer. That was the closest his family had come to brushes with the law. No scandals. No secrets. They were just the one thing that he couldn’t be once he’d found himself dropped into the world of Manhattan society against his will—poor.
Harper had been angry with him initially for not telling her that he was rich. It was her presumption that he wasn’t—he hadn’t said anything either way. He typically didn’t. Sebastian wasn’t the kind to present himself like the usual power-hungry Manhattan CEO, so most people wouldn’t think he was, much less believe him if he insisted otherwise. Finn was the suave one: well-dressed, well-spoken, well-traveled. He reeked of money and prestige. No one ever questioned that he was the president of BioTech.
Sebastian flew under the radar and he liked it that way. He didn’t like the way people changed around him when they found out he was rich. All of a sudden people acted like he was more important and things he said were more interesting. He’d go from being mostly ignored to receiving invitations to play racquetball at the club. He didn’t play racquetball and had no intention of starting. It was all perception. His wealth shaped how people saw him.
And the same would be true if his rich friends found out he’d come from a dirt-poor background.
At the moment he was sleeping under the same roof as some of the most powerful business owners and billionaires in Manhattan. When he’d been introduced as one of them, they’d welcomed him with open arms. He was good enough for Harper, he owned his own company...he must be good people. But would they respond differently if they knew he was fifteen years removed from what they considered to be poor white trash? That his parents would be living in the same trailer he’d grown up in if he hadn’t bought them a house with his first million?
Harper had money troubles of her own, but even at her poorest, she had more money than his family’d had growing up. He’d had to bust his ass to earn scholarships and get through college to build a career and wealth of his own. None of it had been given to him by his daddy or grandpa or anyone else.
While he’d been sympathetic to her plight when she’d told him about blowing her first two-million inheritance, a part of him had winced internally at the thought of it. Finn had some family money that helped them get started, but it was nowhere near enough. What could Sebastian have done if someone had handed him two million to get BioTech off the ground? They could’ve gotten a decent facility up and running instead of working out of a garage the first year. They could’ve gotten their first major product into production years earlier.
And she’d blown it on purses and shoes.
Harper had obviously grown up a lot in the years since she’d made those mistakes. She’d not only managed to support herself, but do a good enough job at it that no one questioned that she wasn’t still rich. But with that big balloon payment looming in her future, he had to wonder if she would be back to her old habits.
It would take longer to blow through twenty-eight million, but she could still do it. Then what? There would be no third payment to bail her out again unless some rich relative died.
Or she married well. To a rich CEO perhaps?
Sebastian sighed and looked down at Harper as she slept peacefully on his chest. He didn’t want to think that way about her. She hadn’t seemed at all like the typical Manhattan gold digger. But she certainly had seemed a lot more interested in him once she’d realized he was rich and not just some wheelchair salesman. Yes, he could easily revive the glamorous lifestyle she had once lived. Since things between them had accelerated so quickly, a part of him worried about her motivations.
She’d been completely in love with that creep Quentin only two years ago. A guy who might very well be blackmailing her right now. She herself had said she didn’t have the greatest taste in men, and choosing Quentin certainly seemed like a style over substance choice in his opinion.
That said, she genuinely seemed attracted to Sebastian. She hadn’t asked anything of him, even though they both knew he could pay off that blackmail and put an end to it all. If it would ever end. She’d barely agreed to let him cosign the loan. And yet part of him was still concerned about what Harper was after.
He didn’t mind getting physically closer to her. He was happy to. Holding her warm, soft body in his arms was one of the best things to happen to him in a long time. He actually wished he could’ve taken this afternoon further, but he knew putting the brakes on when he had was the right choice for now. He’d felt his heart racing uncomfortably in his chest as she’d come and had decided he needed to stop there. He’d promised to help her forget her problems and he’d done that.
The doctor had told him he would know if he was feeling well enough to indulge. It had been almost a week since his attack, so hopefully that would be soon. But that was about as far as he was willing to go with Harper. At least for now. There were too many unknowns, too many balls in the air for him to let this fake relationship develop past much more than a simple vacation fling.
Once they were back in New York, he would return to his lab, she would inherit her fortune and they’d likely go their separate ways. He didn’t have time for a relationship and she wouldn’t need his help any longer. Things would fall apart. So planning for the worst, Sebastian intended to keep his distance.
Seven
This was too easy, really.
Although she was hardly a criminal mastermind—she’d never committed a crime in her life before this trip—this wasn’t proving that difficult. All she’d had to do was tell the woman at the desk that she needed a new room key. The overly trusting employee had made a new one for her without question or identification and handed it over. After all, they were all friends and family here for a wedding. Certainly a trustworthy crowd...
Then all she had to do was wait. Today’s itinerary included a trip to a few tourist destinations of interest, including a local abbey and a ruin of another old castle. She’d feigned a migraine and stayed at the hotel while everyone else loaded into the buses to go.
Once she was certain they were good and truly gone, she made her way to Harper’s room. The door opened right up, revealing the relatively tidy space. She took her time looking around at the antique furniture and heavy velvet drapes. The room was much nicer than the one she was staying in, but she wasn’t one of the bride’s best friends like Harper was.
After the courier she’d hired picked up the package at the front desk and brought it to her in the castle’s east gardens, she’d been certain her plan was a success. Then she saw the note inside and counted only a quarter of what she’d been expecting. It was a lot of money to be sure, but not enough.
Harper seemed to think
that she was the one in control of this situation. That she could just not pay, for whatever reasons she could come up with, and everything would be okay. That was not the case. That meant taking her threat up a notch.
She’d only intended to leave a note in the room. She’d wanted to invade Harper’s space and unnerve her by showing what she could do if she wanted to. But once she was there, she realized she had an opportunity to make this a more lucrative visit and create a huge impact at the same time. She opened the largest piece of luggage and dug around inside. Most of the clothes were hanging in the closet, so all that was left in the bag were some intimates and a Louis Vuitton jewelry roll tied up with a leather cord. Bingo.
