To the Highest Bidder Read online

  Back then, fear had made her stress unnecessarily. For the fact she was at a party, and had a decent figure, seemed to be the only prerequisites for acceptance. After a few events, she’d got the hang of it. A few events after that and she’d actually started to have some fun. Somewhere after that, she’d become bored and cynical. Sometimes, very rarely, she got lucky and landed a nice client who it was actually pleasant to while away a few hours with. Those nights were sort of fun.

  She sighed. This was not going to be one of those nights.

  “Mind if I keep my father’s space warm?” Carter drawled, putting his arms around Jane’s waist before she had a chance to object.

  He pulled her close, his body rock hard. Her eyes flew to his and then dropped to the wall of his abs. “Um, your dad will be back any minute. Something about the Philadelphia office.”

  His smile was sinister. “Yes. I’m aware of what called him away. I’m pleased to tell you it will take him a fair while to sort through.”

  She furrowed her brow in consternation. It almost sounded like he’d had a hand in having Hank called from the party.

  “Are you serious about my father?”

  She bit down on her lip, and had the distinct impression she was wading into wholly unfamiliar waters. Hank was employing her for the night. She owed him discretion. She owed him the appearance of loyalty. “Why do you ask?” She hedged, hating the way her bones were made weak by his firm hold on her body.

  “What is your name?”

  “Jane.”

  “Jane what?”

  She narrowed her expressive dark eyes. “Just plain Jane, for you.”

  He laughed. “Not so plain Jane. I have been watching you. The way you move. Your body. I have never seen someone more… physically seductive… than you.”

  She stopped dancing, her skin tingling. This was definitely dangerous territory now. “I’m here with your dad. This is totally inappropriate.”

  He didn’t release her. In fact, he pulled her more tightly to his chest, so that she could feel the beginning of his arousal.

  “Carter,” she breathed, her huge saucer-round eyes flying to his face.

  His grin was loaded with displeasure. “Yes. I appreciate the inconvenience of this. All the women in the world and you seem to have the ability to drive me crazy with a single look. So? Are you serious with him?”

  She lowered her lashes. “I’m not interested in casual sex.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you interested in? Money?” He made a guttural sound of impatience. “He’s got to be twice your age. If not three times. So what else could it be? Have you screwed him?”

  Her fingertips itched to slap him. “That’s none of your damned business.”

  “Wrong.” He ran an insolent finger down the side of her dress. “You see, if you’ve done the deed, I can’t possibly think about doing to you what I want to. If you haven’t…” he lifted his finger higher, so that it was hooked just beside her breast, “then I have plans for you.”

  She sucked in a deep breath.

  “Have you slept with him?”

  Her whole body felt besieged by a tangle of sensation. She shook her head. “No.”

  Carter’s eyes flared in his handsome face. “Come with me.”

  “What? Why?”

  He shot her a look of annoyance. “Has anyone ever told you that you have an annoying habit of asking too many questions?” He put a hand in her lower back and propelled her towards the balcony. “Stop looking so goddamned worried. I’m not going to maul you.”

  She slid him a sidelong glance. “That’s not what worries me.” It was her reaction to him, and the very slippery, uncontrollable situation she found herself in. For she was not really just a guest, free to do as she pleased. She was there to work. For Hank Mann-Hughes. And now, she was heading to the balcony with his son. To do what?

  She took a step out into the balmy Manhattan evening and tried not to overthink it.

  “I should tell you, if it’s money you’re interested in, I’m worth five times what he is,” he said, closing the door behind them with a click and leading her to a corner spot.

  Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t care about that.”

  “Bullshit. Why else would you be with him?”

  She floundered. It was unprofessional, and beneath her. But Carter’s proximity was doing funny things to her body. She lifted her head and levelled him with a steady glare. “It is our first date. I’m still getting to know him.”

  “First date.” His smile was almost cruel. “In some ways, I would have preferred it if you were a little more serious…”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why the heck that would make a difference when he lowered his head and took possession of her mouth. It was a kiss borne of anger and frustration; so hot it seared her soul. His lips pressed against hers were hard and demanding, and his tongue warred with hers. One of his strong, broad hands was enough to trap her slender wrists high above her head, giving him easy access to her body. He let his other hand cup her breast, fondling her nipple through the flimsy material of her dress.

  Jane let out a whimper of pleasure as sensation made her weak. She arched her back instinctively, earning an approving grin from Carter. “I could fuck you right here,” he whispered in her ear, so that his warm breath fanned the sensitive skin of her neck. “I’d like that.” He took her earlobe into his mouth and wiggled it between his teeth. Her body was shaking with desire; her responsiveness alone was enough to drive him wild.

  “How can you be with an old bastard like that?” He demanded, slipping his hand insolently under the hem of her dress and running his fingers high up her thigh. They reached the sensible cotton of her underwear and traced the elastic.

  Jane shuddered. A small voice in her head was screaming at her that this needed to stop, but her body was assailed with pleasure and longing in a way it never had been before. “He doesn’t tell me he’d like to ‘fuck’ me,” she bit out, though the venom of her statement was swallowed a little by the sensual moan that accompanied it.

  “He wouldn’t know how to fuck you,” he laughed, slipping her underwear aside so that his hands could scoop her buttocks. “Not without pharmaceutical intervention, anyway.” His hands scooped her flesh, his fingers moving closer to the crease at the small of her back.

  She shuddered at the possessive touch. “This is… not… right…” she moaned, her hands fumbling at his waistband and separating his shirt from his pants. She allowed them to creep inside, to touch his bare flesh, and she grinned against his mouth as contact was made.

  “Oh, it’s right.”

  “May I ask what the hell is going on?”

  Hank’s voice, unmistakable, finally penetrated the fog of deep desire that had spun itself around Jane. She jumped, and pulled her hands away, her expression wracked with guilt and worry. “Shit,” she whispered, lifting a shaking hand to her head.

  “Don’t you mean ‘thank you’?” Carter asked his father, his voice cold, in stark contrast to the heated way he’d spoken to Jane a moment earlier.

  “Thank you?” Hank demanded, his dark eyes floating from one to the other.

  “I saved you from marrying this one,” Carter said with an indolent shrug. “Think of what you might have had due in alimony if you hadn’t witnessed for yourself what she’s really after.”

  Behind them, Jane wrapped her arms around her mid-section. She was besieged by the unmistakable feeling that she’d made a critical error. That her sexual attraction had been overwhelming and overpowering, but that his behaviour had been dictated by calculated decision making.

  “I had no intention of marrying her. She’s little more than a Goddamned prostitute,” Hank hissed, mopping his brow with a starched handkerchief.

  “A what?” Carter turned to face her with an expression of distaste.

  Hank’s eyes shone with fury. “Not for much longer though. Your agency will hear about this.”

  She didn’t s
tay to hear another word. With a hand over her mouth to muffle her sob, she ran from the party. Ashamed, hurt, and trembling with thwarted desire.

  CHAPTER TWO

  So far as birthdays went, hers had been spectacularly shitty.

  Jenna had left for work by the time Jane woke. Anita had left for school and wouldn’t be home for two nights owing to a school excursion (though at least a quick, hand scrawled note on the fridge had told her to have a good day). On top of that, the coffee tin was empty.

  The day had continued in a similar fashion. Three job interviews, at which she’d been frostily informed she didn’t have the requisite skills, followed by her favourite pair of heels snapping halfway down fifth avenue. So, by the time she reached the Four Seasons and entered the TY bar, a little after nine o’clock, she was ready to hand over a portion of her dwindling savings for a bottle of good champagne. It might have been irresponsible, but it was damned necessary.

  “Happy birthday, me,” she whispered, as the waiter presented it, and two glasses, with an appraising look.

  He bowed obsequiously, and disappeared, leaving Jane to brood in peace. Jenna was late.

  Could it get any worse?

  She lifted her champagne and sipped it, coughing as the bubbles got trapped in her nose.

  “Got another sucker on the hook for tonight?”

  She froze, midway to placing her glass back on the table. She’d know that voice anywhere. Their acquaintance might have been short, but his voice had haunted her ever since.

  Slowly, she angled her head towards Carter Mann-Hughes. “What do you want?”

  His expression was carefully guarded, all emotion wiped from his face. He slid into the seat opposite as though he had every intention of staying.

  “If I said that I wanted to finish what we started at my father’s party, would you hold it against me?” He leaned forward and lifted the bottle of champagne, pouring a measure into Jenna’s empty glass and drinking it contemplatively. His blue eyes seemed to glitter in his face, like a rare gemstone. “Would you charge me for it?”

  She scowled at him angrily. His judgement hurt. Far more than it should, coming from a man she hardly knew. “Your father misinformed you. I’m not, and never have been, a prostitute.”

  He laughed. A scornful sound, mixed with derision and disbelief. “I don’t much care who you’ve slept with, and what they gave you in return. We are all, in some way, prostituting ourselves. I almost applaud you for your honesty. Asking for money upfront makes you a hell of a lot better than the women who marry for money and claim it as love.”

  Her jaw dropped to the table but she quickly composed herself. “That’s really cynical.”

  “Isn’t it just?” He finished the champagne and poured another glass.

  Her brown eyes regarded him bitterly. “Your father got me fired.”

  “I’m not surprised. He was embarrassed and angry.”

  She flushed. “I’m sorry I embarrassed him.” She shook her head. “It was incredibly unprofessional. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  He dipped his head in a nod of assent, though his opinion was obviously unchanged. “I don’t much care, as I said.”

  Why did she care? The idea that he thought she might sell her body to the highest bidder filled her with a sense of deep, drowning panic.

  “I mean it. The agency I worked for provides escorts. Most of my clients were either businessmen who needed a professional date to keep things social. Or a few lonely men, who liked to go out and have a chat, without feeling like there was more to it.” Her dark eyes shone with her honesty. “I have never worked as a prostitute.”

  He furrowed his handsome face and leaned forward conspiratorially. “What would you prefer to be called?”

  “I just told you. I dated guys for money. No sex. Not even any kissing. It was purely professional.”

  His laughed goaded her temper. “You were dressed like a woman begging to be taken to bed.”

  She narrowed her eyes. The dress had been a little suggestive, but Hank had requested as much when he’d booked her. Evidently, making people stare at his date had been sort of the point. “You are a horrible, horrible person, do you know that?”

  He shrugged her insult off his back easily. “Your opinion doesn’t matter much to me right now.”

  “Then why are you here?” She drained her champagne glass and watched, distractedly, as he refilled it.

  “I told you already. Are you always so slow on the uptake?”

  Irrational tears sprung to her eyes and she blinked fiercely to hide them. Jane had no illusions with regards to her intelligence. She knew she was no great shakes in the mental department. She’d never be as smart as Anita. Heck. She’d never be as smart as most of the women she knew. But she didn’t need some jackass she hardly knew pointing that out to her.

  The pithy response she’d been formulating died on her lips. It had been a very long day. And it was her birthday. She looked down at her legs, dejectedly. Where the hell was Jenna? “I just want to be left alone.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. Something he’d said had knocked her seriously off balance, and his curiosity was prodded into life. They had been swapping terse comments in what he saw as a kind of verbal foreplay. She evidently didn’t agree. “You have two champagne glasses here. I thought it would only be kind to warn the next unsuspecting man you’ve got booked.”

  She shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was just a husky whisper. “I have had a truly horrendous day. I don’t even think there are words to describe how crap it’s been. This is the last thing I need. Please, if you’re even partly a decent human being, leave me alone.”

  “I can’t do that.” Beneath the table, his foot brushed her calve, running higher, towards her thigh.

  She lifted her head and looked at him, her heart pounding heavily against her ribs. “Why are you here?”

  He made an exaggerated expression of impatience.

  “No.” She sipped her drink. “At this bar?”

  “I’m on a date.”

  She lifted her brows, disconcerted enough to forget her own outrage. “On a date and you’ve come over here to what? Ask me for a quickie, because you think I’m a prostitute?”

  His laugh was unexpectedly rich. “Not a quickie. What I have planned for you would take all night.”

  A frisson of awareness seared down her spine. She ignored it. “I’m not interested.”

  “I’ve never paid a woman for sex.”

  Her features were pained. “I’ve never taken money for sex.”

  He reclined in the leather chair, his expression thoughtful as he scrutinised her beautiful face. She looked different tonight to how she’d appeared at Hank’s party. Then, she’d been dressed to the nines and made up like a model. Tonight, she was wearing a far more sophisticated dress. It was also far more discrete. It covered her curves in a way that made him yearn to strip it from her body. He compressed his lips. “I’m ashamed to say that I would gladly part with a large sum of money to possess you, Jane.”

  Her heart turned over. It wasn’t the promise of money that made her insides slick with desire. It was the notion of this man possessing her.

  “Not interested,” she said with a quiet insistence.

  The small flicker of his lips showed that he understood. She was lying. “There are other ways you would find yourself rewarded for a night with me.”

  “Such as?”

  He stood casually and moved around the table, so that he could sit beside her. With his eyes locked to hers, he lifted a glass of champagne and filled his mouth with the cold, bubbling liquid. Without swallowing, he lowered his lips to her exposed neckline and allowed some of the liquid to drop onto her smooth flesh. He pressed his lips to it, chasing the drop with his tongue.

  Her sharp intake of breath was matched only by the clenching sensation low in her abdomen.

  “I would make you feel more than you’ve ever felt before.”

&nb
sp; She already felt as though her lungs were burning. Breathing was almost impossible.

  “You used me to embarrass your own dad.”

  His eyes flashed. “Yes. I did. Full disclosure. I hate the man. I thought he might actually like you. Stealing you from him was an opportunity I needed to take advantage of.”

  “That’s… horrible.”

  He shrugged. “My father has a habit of marrying unsuitable twenty somethings. If you’d seen the desperate state he works himself into for a hot piece of ass, you’d understand why I acted the way I did.”

  “And now?” She challenged. “Your father has made me unemployable. The agency has rubbished me across town.” Tears clogged her throat and she swallowed past them. “I needed my job. It was perfect for me. And I can’t find anything else.”

  He lifted a finger and traced her lower lip. “I hate to seem callous, but if you hadn’t come out to the terrace with me, your job would be safe. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

  Her cheeks flushed. He was right. “I’m not saying I’m not partly responsible…”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” His blue eyes sparked with a change in emotion. “In any event, it’s done. Whatever drove you to behave as you did that night is still here.” He lifted a hand and pressed it against her chest, feeling the erratic racing of her heart. “Why not live a little?”

  She shifted a little, moving away from him as much as the furniture allowed. “I’m meeting someone.”

  His expression flicked with something dark and dangerous, but he concealed it. “So?”

  She bit down on her lip. “I can’t just leave. Sorry. I know you believe the worst of me, but you’re really wrong.” She shrugged. “Obviously I think you’re… um…” she bit down on her lip, “I mean…” she gulped. Her mortification was acute. “I’ve never felt like that before.” It was a whisper into the dark. She closed her eyes against what she was admitting. “I surprised myself. I mean, I think I actually would have… had sex with you… right there in the middle of the terrace… if Hank hadn’t interrupted us.” She pressed her face against his shoulder in heart-wrenching shame. “What if we had? And he’d interrupted that?”