quite understood what that meant until the woman had seduced him.
In the end, they’d all been very happy with the arrangement. The businessman got his wife off his back so he could spin his financial webs. The wife got the sexual services of a rather inexperienced—but very interested in learning—twenty-two-year-old who fell madly in love with her. Sean gained invaluable experience, both sexually and emotionally, given the gentle way she’d let him down at the end.
And he’d walked away with money. A lot of it.
“Mr. Murphy?” The busy auction worker was still waiting for his answer.
Would she, as many women did, immediately understand—or think she did? Would she sneer at him? Proposition him? Grope him? Or freeze him out? He’d dealt with all of the above.
In the years he’d spent traveling out and about in the world, meeting people—meeting women—he’d met with all kinds of responses to his lifestyle. Not that many people really knew the truth about his lifestyle. Or about him. But he couldn’t deny there was a certain prejudice, a preconception about what he did.
Sometimes he corrected it. Sometimes not.
In general, he didn’t bother explaining. Least of all to a complete stranger. So he kept things simple. “I just heard about it from a friend and wanted to help if I could.”
She smiled, readily accepting the explanation. “That’s great. Some of our bachelors got their arms twisted by their sisters, coworkers, that sort of thing.”
He sensed the fellow who’d sold before him, the rescue worker, had been one of them. He’d looked as uncomfortable in his tux as Sean would have in a pair of coveralls and a straw hat. Or, worse, in a classroom surrounded by squalling children.
Tuxedos? Well, those he could handle just fine. Given his family, he suspected he’d had one of them put on over his nappies before he’d learned to crawl.
“We’re hosting a small reception down the hall for the winning bidders and their bachelors to meet and exchange information.”
Uh-huh. Schedules. Phone numbers.
Birth control preferences.
Hell, maybe he was just jaded. There was no maybe about it, he was definitely jaded. Still, he supposed some of the women who’d come here tonight really did expect nothing more than a nice evening out in exchange for their support of a worthy charity.
But not all of them. Not a chance.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work,” the organizer said, her attention drawn to a confusedlooking volunteer counting piles of cash into a lockbox. Before her, tapping her fingers impatiently, was the petite—but curvy—brunette who’d paid such an exorbitant sum for the bachelor who’d sold before him.
She was attractive. Very. And young, too. Which gave him hope for his own prospects. Not much, unfortunately, given the glimpses he’d caught of the audience from backstage, made up mainly of women who’d appeared much older…and much harder.
“Have a good evening,” Noelle said as she stepped away.
Sean murmured his thanks and headed in the direction she’d indicated. Might as well get this over with. He wanted a real look at the woman he’d be spending an evening with this weekend, rather than merely the shadowy glimpse he’d had of her blond head from up on that brightly lit stage.
Figuring out what kind of evening she expected him to provide shouldn’t be too difficult. If he had to guess, he’d say it would take no more than thirty seconds to determine whether she’d known who she was bidding on, or not.
Given the way she’d called out such a large sum without any prodding from the auctioneer, he suspected he knew the answer. He got the feeling that was why nobody else had bid after her. Considering what had happened with the preceding bachelor, she’d simply scared off the competition, who had probably recognized the same note of determination in her voice that Sean had.
So the woman probably had heard some rumors about him. Who he really was, where he really came from and what he really did.
He doubted, however, that those rumors in any way resembled the truth. So he hoped that the woman hadn’t given away a small fortune because she thought it would guarantee her a spot on his pillow tomorrow morning.
Nothing guaranteed that. Not unless Sean was well and truly aroused. It didn’t matter who the woman was or what kind of balance she carried in her checking account. If he wasn’t attracted to her, his services only went as far as being arm candy, tour guide, interpreter, or even, on occasion, bodyguard. Despite what anybody thought. The spoiled women. Their wealthy, older husbands who wanted them kept “occupied.”
Or even Sean’s own father.
Deliberately putting up his defenses, he entered the smaller room, where couples chatted quietly in shadowy corners and near the portable bar. A few of the women were laughing too brightly, a few of the guys were squirming under the attention. A quarter of the “winners” were probably two decades older than their dates but had had enough surgery to look merely one.
Only a handful of couples actually appeared to be having a normal conversation—i.e. one that didn’t involve the rich auction winner trying to get her date, who’d offered a picnic in the park, to take her upstairs to one of the lush suites in the hotel instead.
He let his gaze travel the room, knowing he’d recognize the shade of his winner’s hair, even if it had been lent a more golden glow under the overhead lights in the ballroom.
Then he saw her. One woman, standing alone.
She was blond. She was young. Truly young, not just faking it. And, as he approached her, he realized she was pretty. Very pretty, in a fresh-faced, wide-eyed, all-American girl way, right down to the freckles he suspected were dribbled across her pert nose beneath her makeup.
She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, and didn’t have that predatory look of a rich piranha, which meant she might actually have a personality.
This could work. Unless she opened her mouth and sounded like one of those brainless twits whose idea of fashion and taste came right from the tabloid princesses currently littering Hollywood.
But he doubted that would happen. Judging by her soft, silky yellow dress, the simple hairstyle—short, pulled back and held with a glittery headband at her nape—and her minimal jewelry, he suspected she was much more natural than that.
Then she spotted him. Those pink lips parted on a gasp, and her soft blue eyes—the shade of the cornflowers that grew wild back home in Wicklow—locked with his, and he knew he was right.
Because she was nervous. And absolutely not the predator he’d half expected to meet.
And he found her very—very—attractive.
Which suddenly had him suspecting this whole crazy auction scheme might not have been such a bad idea after all.
2
“GOOD EVENING,” SEAN
