The Bachelor Auction (The Bachelors of Arizona Book 1) (26 page)

Present Day

B
entley groaned as the woman, whose name he’d already forgotten a few hours ago, spread her toned thighs over his body and rode him. The scent of her vanilla lotion clung to the air as he slid his hands up and down her hips.

She was just another nameless face.

Another willing female in a long list of women who wanted to have a piece of the notorious playboy Bentley Wellington.

Because that’s all he was to her—all he was to anyone. And most of the time? He was completely okay with it—he had to be. A familiar tightening threatened to choke him and completely ruin his morning. He feigned boredom.

And covered his yawn with his hand as she started to increase her speed, her breath coming out in small fake pants that had him sporting a bored grin, as if to say
is that the best you can do
? She woke him up? For this?

Her seething glare said it all.

He
was
a jackass.

Then again, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been painfully aware how much of a player he was. With a smug-as-hell smirk, he winked. “That the best you can do, Sarah?”

“It’s Christine!” She smacked his chest and panted as she rode him harder, her skin slapping against his in a way that should have felt good but instead irritated the hell out of him. “You’re a complete asshole!”

He gripped her hips and quickened her movements with deep thrusts. “But…” Another punishing thrust. “I’m a handsome asshole.” Her lips parted on a moan as he leaned up and finished what she’d started. “Right?”

“The last thing you need,” she said in a breathy whisper, “is for me to stroke your ego.”

“Aw.” He made a face and pulled free from her body. Bored. Angry that she was speaking. And maybe a little bit sick of himself, if he was being completely honest. “Play fair. I’m always in the mood for a good stroking.”

Her bright blue eyes flashed before she rolled off his sweaty body and out of the bed. “I’m leaving.”

“That was fun, Sarah,” he called after her. “We should do it again sometime.”

She screamed in fury, and two minutes later the door slammed.

Frowning, he sat up on his elbows. Now, that was a bit of an overreaction. Whatever. Whenever one left, there were at least a hundred waiting in line, willing for a glimpse or even just one small taste of what he had to offer.

His sexual appetitive was huge—and legendary. But basically Bentley had a problem with boredom. He hated marriage, commitment, dating…really, anything that sounded like long-term.

Because long-term meant exactly like it sounded.

Long.

Term.

Like a contract he couldn’t get out of. And the last thing he needed was to allow someone in—someone who would want to share all of his demons, or worse—free him from them.

The door opened again and clicked shut.

“Back for more?” He chuckled and pulled the covers over his naked body, waiting for whatever her name was to come back in and finish the job she’d started. Damn it, he could have sworn her name really was Sarah.

He snapped his fingers. No, no, Sarah had been the night before. Amazing mouth. Jet black hair.

He hardened again just thinking about how she’d used her long silky hair to—

A shadowy figure stomped toward his bedside with clenched teeth and a furious look in his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be on your way?”

“On my way?” Bentley repeated, fisting the sheets with his hands. His grandfather was a giant pain in the ass. “To hell?” Another nonchalant shrug, because that was what his grandfather was used to. He was the younger twin by a few seconds, the one who would never amount to anything—though not for lack of trying.

A dull pain flared in his chest, as if his grandfather was standing on his ribs rather than towering over him from the side of the bed.

“Don’t be a jackass.” His grandfather’s mouth twisted into a disappointed frown.

“Prudence McCleery spent ten thousand dollars for your services. You’re due to arrive at their country estate today and make good on your promise.”

“Right.” Bentley hadn’t forgotten. How could he, when he’d been nearly scarred for life two weeks ago as every rich woman in the greater Phoenix area had tried to win him at auction? The charity event had been his grandfather’s grand plan to get his brother Brock married off, but Bentley and Brant had stepped in to help save Brock for the woman he was truly meant to marry.

He’d assumed some bored, rich, trophy wife would take him home, have her way with him, then slap him on the ass and send him on his way.

Instead, a woman with bright green eyes and equally bright white hair had lifted her paddle—and basically purchased him for a weekend getaway.

Bentley liked older women, just not
that
old.

Thankfully he’d found out later that he wasn’t being bid on for the silver-haired woman at all—but for her granddaughter. And suddenly the past,
his
past, became the present as images of a girl with bright red hair burned his vision.

“I tried.” Grandfather’s shoulders slumped. “I tried to do right by you boys. Maybe I was just too focused on grooming Brock to lead Wellington, Inc. to realize how horrible you and your brother have turned out.”

“Thanks?” Bentley offered with a grimace. It wasn’t like Bentley didn’t work for what he had, he just didn’t work very hard—a fifty-million-dollar trust fund had a way of doing that to a man.

After all, people worked to make money.

They worked for success.

And he already had those things.

A nagging voice shattered his confidence, the same voice that reminded him how he used to be a man who’d had dreams—an actual purpose—direction.

And that same voice reminded him that his life had become a boring useless cycle of using women and hiding who he really was from the world.

Because the last time he had tried to be himself, he’d been shattered.

His world had been shattered.

It wasn’t worth it. It was easier to be the rich, good-looking, bored playboy who listed fucking as an actual hobby on his résumé.

He’d been called black-hearted.

A manwhore.

A woman-shaming, prostitute-loving gambler.

Hell, he’d been called it
all
.

And he always shrugged it off. Nothing touched him, at least not typically, but today his grandfather’s comment snaked its way around his throat and took hold.

“The VP of marketing stepped down this morning,” his grandfather said thoughtfully. “I want to hire within.”

Bentley froze; his heart hammered against his chest. On the outside, he was calm, rational, thoughtful, but on the inside, he was freaking the hell out. “Oh?”

“Yes.” Grandfather leveled him with a perceptive stare. “I don’t suppose that would be something you’d be interested in… You do realize you’ll have to take ‘fucking’ off your list of hobbies in order for me to actually process your résumé.”

Bentley smirked. “It was a joke.”

Grandfather’s eyes were granite as he narrowed them. “It wasn’t funny, nor was it professional.”

“Brant thought it was funny.”

“Your brother doesn’t count.” Grandfather’s mouth twitched like he wanted to smile but thought better of it. “So…what do you say?”

“Are you saying that you’ll give me an actual position within your company?”

With a heavy sigh, Grandfather nodded his head once. “The board, of course, won’t like the idea.”

“They can go to hell.” Bentley clenched his teeth.

“It might help your image”—Grandfather’s body was rigid as he spoke—“to be seen doing charity work.”

Hell. It would do more than help. But he had a life in Phoenix. One that on most days he actually enjoyed, or at least liked.

And he was a creature of habit.

“Or don’t take the job and keep sleeping with every woman who will spread her legs in hopes you’ll get her pregnant and be forced to pay child support.”

Low blow.

“I’ll go.” Bentley sighed. It wasn’t like he had a choice, not if he wanted the job, not if he wanted more purpose outside of what he already did for the company, which was basically just smile for pictures and wave when they had charity events and expensive dinners. He was a pretty face. The only work he’d ever done for Wellington, Inc. had been an internship right after college, and he had been bored out of his mind—it had been too easy, but his grandfather had refused to promote him to a position that carried any real weight. So Bentley had quit. Because that was what he did when things didn’t go his way. He quit.

“Of course you will.” Grandfather straightened. “You’re going to be late.”

“Does it matter?” Bentley snorted.

“Punctuality always matters.” Grandfather stood. His thick gray hair was swirled into one sweeping curl that fell across his forehead. Bentley and Brant might be playboys, but Grandfather had an Instagram page dedicated to that very curl. And he was pushing eighty-eight.

Grandfather lifted a brow. “Well, boy? Aren’t you going to pack?”

Bentley clenched his teeth until he felt like they were going to crack. “I’m naked.”

“Ain’t nothing I haven’t had the great displeasure of seeing before.” He unclenched his fists. “Now get your shit together before I cut you off and give your trust fund to your brothers, and hire Brant for the VP position.”

“You wouldn’t.” The words rushed out before he could stop them.

“I would.”

“You hate me.”

“I love you.” Grandfather sobered. “You’re twenty-seven, Bentley, time to stop playing around and actually take responsibility for your actions, starting with Prudence McCleery’s granddaughter.”

“Margot,” Bentley whispered without thinking.

“What was that?” Grandfather cupped his ear.

“Nothing.” A vision of red luscious hair that went on for days burned before his eyes, and bright green eyes and freckles. At sixteen she’d been breathtaking but quiet, too shy for someone like Bentley.

Hell, she’d been too good for him.

Too nice.

Too proper.

Too perfect.

And now…too sad.

H
is eyes whispered a promise his words had failed to do,”
Margot read the words out loud as the sound of her fingernails tapping against the computer keys filled the room.
“‘I love you,’” he declared, tucking his beaver hat under his arm as he took a step toward her waiting arms.”

She hesitated and contemplated the computer screen. I love you? Was that it?

She had exactly forty-seven chapters of historical crap.

Crap she had to turn in within thirty days if she had any hope of meeting her deadline.

She glared at her computer and tried again. The scene was pivotal; it had to be perfect, it needed to be believable.

Then again, what was believable about a rich rakish duke falling for one of his scullery maids, only to discover she was really part of the gentry? Even if she came from a good family, it would still be frowned upon. It wasn’t accurate, and it bothered her, but it was romantic, and that was why she’d decided to write it.

It was a horrible idea.

But that was what sold.

Rakes and Rogues.

And poor sad wallflowers who somehow magically became the object of their affection.

It was complete BS.

She’d been that wallflower.

She
was
that wallflower.

And nothing, not one thing, had set her apart from the other girls. Men might say they wanted character, they wanted something different. They claimed they wanted the girl next door, child-bearing hips, whatever. Their actions, however, and the women they actually dated, said it all.

Skinny.

Botoxed.

Implanted.

Airheads.

Margot slammed her hands against the keyboard and stood in a huff.

It was
his
fault.

Because he was late.

Not that she wanted to see him, anyway.

But still, it grated on her nerves.

In a moment of complete insanity, her grandmother, God bless her, had bid on one of the country’s most notorious playboys in an auction set up for cancer research.

Unfortunately, her grandmother had won.

Margot still remembered the phone call from that night.

“I’ve landed you a man!” Her grandmother yelled loud enough for half the country to hear. “Paid a pretty penny for him too! Oh, muffin, you’ll love him, he’s strong, and—”

“You bought”—Margot pressed her fingertips against her temple—“a man?”

“He was spendy, too.” Grandmother slurred her words a bit. “Cost at least half of what I was willing to spend, though.”

“Half?”

“Ten thousand dollars isn’t too steep!”

Margot choked.

Grandmother laughed.

“Are you drunk?”

“I had the whiskeys, yes.” Her grandmother sighed happily. “Such a delicious burn. Did you know Titus Enterprises just closed a deal on Honey Whiskey, Incorporated? Nadine’s such a dear, she even brought me a few bottles. Has her sights set on McCleery Whiskey too, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Margot groaned and sat down on the bed. “A few bottles?”

“Ten,” Grandmother slurred. “Or was it twelve? Did I have two? Ha-ha.”

“Grand—“

“You know him! This man.”

“The man you paid ten grand for? That man?”

“Your new friend.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need you to buy me a man. I can find my own man,” Margot said through clenched teeth.

“How’s that working out for you, love?”

“I’m busy!” she snapped.

“You’re sad.”

“I’m—” Margot clenched her left hand into a fist and refused to stare down at her one good leg. She flexed the toes of her left leg and tried not to stare at the right. “I’m not sad. I’m fine. I have my books. I have my house. I have my work—”

“You have wild tom cats, too and cats are a bad omen.”

“How much whiskey did you say you had again?”

“Whiskeys. Plural,” Grandmother corrected. “Now, he’s going to report to the estate in two weeks. He’ll arrive at nine in the morning. I told him to be punctual. And you’re to give him the downstairs blue room during his stay.”

“His stay!” Margot yelled. “He’s not staying anywhere!”

“Of course he is.” Grandma said in soothing, albeit slurred tones. “It’s part of the package. Hah, not his package, but the package. I bought him, and once old Wellington discovered what I meant to use him for, he gave me more than the weekend that was up for bid. You get him a full month.”

Margot sucked in a breath.

“I know! Thirty days!”

“Did you say Wellington?”

Please don’t say Bentley. Let it be Brant, he always had a teasing smile, or Brock, the serious one
. No it wouldn’t be Brock; didn’t he just get married?

“Bentley Wellington!” Her grandmother shouted with glee, confirming Margot’s worst fears and causing her eyes to search the room for her bottle of Xanax. “Lovely man. When he keeps it in his pants, which, let’s hope for the sake of my great grandchildren he doesn’t—”

Tears burned the back of Margot’s eyes as she blinked away the blurry vision of a boy she’d always wanted.

And never had.

He was a man now.

Featured in
Forbes
, among other magazines.

He dated supermodels, celebrities, pretty women.

Not her.

She glanced down at her right prosthetic leg. The amputation had been made right below her knee, so while her thigh looked normal, there was no foot, no ankle, no toes.

Definitely not women like her.

“Oh, must go, I’ll fill you in later on the more pertinent details.” Her grandmother hung up before Margot could protest.

Why would Bentley even agree to be auctioned off? It made no logical sense. He was either that bored, stupid, or doing it for good PR. God knew he needed it, since he’d allegedly been having an affair with a senator’s wife; not that the rumors were ever confirmed.

And now she was going to be stuck with him.

Margot shook her head at the memory of his smile and wandered over to the window. A sense of dread filled her as a red sports car sped up her driveway, scaring the crap out of every small creature in its way and kicking up enough dust to make the road nearly impossible to see.

Bentley Wellington had arrived.