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“You bid on her, didn’t you?” Luc’s voice pulls me from my haze of thought.
I turn and find him standing at the door with a huge smirk on his face. I wasn’t expecting him, but I should have after the heads-up he gave me about the auction.
With the smirk morphing into a self-assured grin, he walks in and plants himself on the seat across from me.
“Well, did you?” he prods.
“Come to gloat?” I throw back, frowning. I can’t even be mad at him. I’d be more enraged if he’d kept the auction from me.
“A little. Don’t worry. I’m only here for a few minutes. I’m on my way to the airport, but I thought I’d check in with you because I heard back from the lovely Celeste.”
I smirk. “She called you?”
“Of course, she did. Women like that don’t get turned down. If they do, it’s a shocker.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“She’s concerned she fucked up. She said you looked freaked when she mentioned kids. She’s willing to forgo the kids if you accept her.”
I groan inwardly and wrinkle my nose. “No.”
“Go on, tell me why.”
“For one, she spoke too passionately about having kids to simply change her mind. I can’t trust a woman like that not to trick me into fathering her child in some demented way.”
“Demented?”
“Like Porter Coleman. Remember, his wife drugged him into getting her pregnant when he threatened to divorce her for cheating.” It was big news last summer.
“Oh, yes.” He nods and chuckles lightly, tapping the side of his head.
“Also, if Celeste really does mean what she says, that doesn’t paint her in a better light to me. Children are not assets you negotiate for money. They’re people.”
I will not become my father. Neither will I stand in someone’s way who wants children. It’s not like Celeste is poor. She’ll manage. She probably just wanted the endorsement of my name.
I’m sure she’ll find another rich bastard somewhere else. It just won’t be me.
“Well said, Grayson. I agree with you.”
“Good.”
“So, now that’s out of the way, what did you bid on River?” He leans in with a curious stare.
“Sixty thousand dollars.” I bite the inside of my lip.
Luc wolf-whistles and laughs. “Damn, man, she definitely got you pussy-whipped.”
“Fuck you. I’m not pussy-whipped.”
“Says the guy who just bought his ex in an auction for sixty thousand dollars. And I know you. You would have kept going, wouldn’t you?”
I roll my eyes at him, feeling annoyed that he knows me so well.
“The question is, what do you want for that sixty thousand dollars?” His expression becomes more devious. “I hear you get two nights with your chosen girl.”
“I don’t want anything.”
He shakes his head at me. “I don’t believe that for one minute. If you didn’t want anything, you would have booked another date with Celeste, despite her talk about kids.”
