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“Victor, yes No man at all?” He was three thousand percent confident, laconically filling her bedroom doorith his primed body “You’re what? Twenty-five?”

Clair closed lips that had parted with indignant denial

“Twenty-three,” she in, but she was stuck in a catch-22 She had thought she ought to save herself for someone she cared about, but she shied fro up was such a leap of faith Handing your heart to soer of disappoint at the worst The rightthe risk

This lee allure She suspected it would be very good sex too, not just because he looked as though he knew his way around a woman’s body, but because her own see He made her hot

It was driving her crazy She didn’t kno to cope with it except to pretend the reaction wasn’t there Shaking out the T-shirt she wore to bed, she folded it against her idly, “What makes you think I want to sleep with you?”

“You’ve ed to convincenow You want me”

He could tell? How? Humiliated, she avoided her own eyes in theto see the flush of awareness he obviously read like a neon sign

“That bothers you, doesn’t it?” he mocked “That you’re attracted to more than my fat wallet?”

“What wallet?” she scoffed, ducking an ad “All I heard was an offer for one night in exchange for what, onemyself short earlier Surely a man in your position could do better than that”

Her words didn’t take hi smile “You want the penthouse”

“I didn’t say that,” she protested

“Good, because the sale closes tomorrow”

Her insides roiled She really was homeless She didn’t let him see her distress, only blurted, “You work fast”

“Believe it”

Her belly tightened at the resolute way he said it, and quivered even leam of ownership in his eye