He turned the question on her. “What made you decide to do the Scarlet Auction? You that hard up for money?”
She was taken aback. Because Jake had shown no interest in learning about the women he had purchased, she had expected the same from Ben.
“Why do you care?” she threw back at him.
He stared at her, his eyes ever appraising. “Just making conversation.”
She was irritated and amused all at once. “Sure, the money’s good. Pretty damn good if you break it down to a per-hour wage.”
“You don’t have a problem prostituting yourself?”
She bristled. Was he trying to make a moral judgment? He was the one shelling out a ridiculous amount of money.
“If men don’t have a problem paying for sex, why should women have a problem selling it?” she returned.
“They shouldn’t. Your body, your choice.”
She was stunned. He made prostitution sound like a progressive value. He wadded up the sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the wastebasket like he was making a jump shot. From the soft flick of his wrist, she could tell he had some shooting skills.
“You play,” she commented.
“Do you?”
“In high school. I wasn’t good enough to play for Tara, however.”
“Very few people are.”
She couldn’t help but like that he knew a little about Stanford women’s basketball and the name of the coach. Most men knew next to nothing about women’s team sports. Having eaten half her sandwich, she wrapped the other half to save for Claire.
“You ever watch the team play?” she asked.
“I took my younger sister to a few games. She thought about playing for VanDerveer.”
“What position?”
“Small forward.”
“That’s the position I played—in high school. Did your sister go to Stanford?”
“UCLA.”
“She must be really good.”
“She is.”
Kimani looked down. This was surreal. She was having a conversation about basketball while half-naked in a remote cabin with a stranger who had paid two hundred thousand dollars for sex without batting an eye.
He paid to own you for a week, she reminded herself, and reasoned that she was getting chummy with him so that she could learn more for her story.
“You look like you could use a nap.”
Her gaze snapped up. Was “nap” a code word for some kind of kinky sex?
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing. I...”
“You look tired.”
Even if nap didn’t mean anything else, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back down into that depressing basement.
“Go wash up and rest,” he said. “I’ve got calls to make.”
At her hesitation, he asked again, “What?”
“Wash up where?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “The bathroom.”
“I don’t think there’s a sink in the basement.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The basement? Show me.”
Taking the sandwich, she got off the sofa and headed toward the staircase that would lead to the room she shared with Claire. Ben followed behind. She opened the door to the room and went to put the sandwich in her handbag. Ben looked around the room with a frown.
“Come with me. You can use my room. Grab your stuff.”
She scooped up her bag and clothing.
“That’s it? You don’t have a suitcase or anything?”
“We came straight here from the auction.”
He let out a long breath but only motioned for her to follow him.
Ben’s room was the antithesis of the basement, with more floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the lake and sliding glass doors that led to the balcony, a leather settee and chaise before a fireplace, and a gorgeous mahogany, king-size, four-post bed. This was the opulence that Claire was expecting.
Ben opened his suitcase and pulled out a white t-shirt and sweats, which he tossed to her.
“You can have those for now,” he said. “The bathroom’s over there.”
Leaving the room, he closed the bedroom door behind him.
Alone, Kimani breathed in her first deep breath since arriving. The room was better than the basement. Ben was better than Jake. But she couldn’t relax completely. There was an edge to Ben, and a temper could easily lie behind his cool exterior. But so far, it seemed that things were looking up for her.
The bathroom was equally as luxurious as the bedroom with its granite counters, porcelain-tiled flooring, shower with stone tiles, and a Jacuzzi bathtub. Seeing her reflection in the mirror, Kimani was surprised at how bad she looked. There was a definite bruise on her cheek, and her hair couldn’t look worse.
Why had Ben paid two hundred thousand dollars for her? Because he hadn’t brought a sex partner of his own?
After taking one of the longest showers of her life, she pulled on his t-shirt.
“Oh my God,” she whispered at the softness of the fabric.
Passing by the bedroom door, she checked to see if it was locked. It opened. Unlike the basement door, she could lock this one from the inside. Should she lock it? Well, it would be safer if she was really going to take a nap. She didn’t want to let down her guard in a cabin full of strangers, but she needed rest if she was going to be on her toes.
After locking the door, she drew the blinds and crawled into the bed. When she closed her eyes, she kept seeing Ben. At some point, he was going to want sex. There wasn’t any other reason he would have paid a crapload of money for her. The question she had to decide was: how far was she willing to go for her story?
CHAPTER EIGHT
She had locked the bedroom door, so Ben couldn’t get in the room to change, but he didn’t let it bother him. It was probably better he had some distance from her. She had looked way too hot in his jacket, and his hands kept itching to slide under it and feel her up. Even with her stale makeup, she was pretty with those large brown eyes, thick lashes, and high cheekbones. But there was something else that drew him to her. Maybe it was the way her look shot daggers at Jake. Or maybe it was the defiant flare in her eyes.
Offering to buy her from Jake had not been in Ben’s plan. He had been prepared to suck it up and be the odd wheel with no date. But she—Montana, or whatever her name was—had changed everything.
He had to have her. Or, he didn’t want Jake to have her. Ben suspected Jake had given her the bruise, despite what he’d said. But he’d figure that out later.
But now that she was his, what was he going to do with her?
Supposedly, she had signed up for a week of sex with a stranger. The logical thing would be to have sex with her, but he could tell she wasn’t comfortable with her surroundings yet. And something was off. He couldn’t tell what or why.
Heading back downstairs, he found that Jake hadn’t yet returned, so he made the calls he needed to make, including one to his uncle Gordon Lee, who was in a tight race for mayor of Oakland. Just as Ben finished up his third call, he heard the voices of men and women. Vince must have opened the door because seconds later, Derek and Jason spilled into the room. They must have been drinking on the ride up because they appeared off balance. Two giggling women followed behind them.