Page 65 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 2

“You will not teach my daughter how to steal!” Rhodes growled.

I looked at him wide eyed and shoved off the bed. “Of course, I wouldn’t! I may not have a college degree, or a high school diploma for that matter, but I’m not stupid.” I snarled right back.

Rhodes slumped down onto the bed, his elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he rubbed at his face. “Obviously you wouldn’t. I don’t know what I was thinking. Just a knee jerk reaction, I suppose.” He lifted his head. “Forgive me?” His steel gray eyes looked tortured and beyond that, exhausted.

“Yeah,” I nodded quickly then moved to stand in front of him. The moment I did so, he reached out and curled his large hands around my hips. Then, to my utter shock, he pressed his forehead to my stomach.

“I really am sorry. I’m out of sorts. Jet lag, the worry, and then Emily was being so nice…it just doesn’t add up.” He sighed as he nuzzled my stomach, clinging to my hips.

I reached out tentatively and put my hands on his head. Instinctually, I ran my fingers through his hair.

He sighed so deeply it was as though his very essence relaxed, his body slumping deeper, more of his weight leaning on me. I used my nails and gloried when his grip tightened on my hips, reminding me of what we did on the floor in the hotel room not an hour before we boarded the flight to France.

“Hey, the thing with Emily, it’s going to be okay, you know. Teenagers are hard to figure out, and they have strange ways of working through change. I should know, it wasn’t that long ago since I was one,” I teased.

He groaned and shifted his head, so his chin was pressed to my abdomen and his gaze was on me. “Don’t remind me. If I think too hard about our age difference, I’ll have a whole new set of worries to obsess over.”

I dipped my head and kissed his forehead. “I’m very much an adult. And besides, my birthday is right around the corner.”

He sighed. “Still doesn’t change the fact that you’re closer to my daughter’s age than mine.”

I scrunched up my nose. “Let’s not forget I’ve lived as an adult for a decade. I may be younger in years than you’re used to dating, but not in life experience.”

He looped his arm around my back and tugged until I got the hint and straddled his lap, bringing us face-to-face.

“You didn’t get your high school diploma?”

I pressed my lips together, hating to admit anything about my past but knowing it was important if we were going to be married for the next three years. And I liked Rhodes. A lot. Not just how he treated me, but the way he treated everybody. Emily, Alana, Christophe. Heck, he was even genuinely kind to strangers he met in the airport.

“Here’s the thing. When you’re a runaway and want to attend school, they immediately call child services. That means foster care, and worse, a sweet and good-intentioned social worker thatwants to reunite you with your birth parent. Meaning my mother and her abusive husband.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “I see.”

“Yeah. It was hard enough obtaining a copy of my birth certificate and social security number, and Alana had to pull some strings to make that happen, hence the reason I also have a passport. It was how I ended up being able to work odd jobs. Ultimately, I ended up doing better on my own.”

“Pickpocketing.”

I nodded.

“Do you want to get your diploma?”

“Sure. It’s on the list of things I want to achieve, but it’s never been my top priority. That has always been saved for finding a way to get my mother and siblings away from the Devil.”

Now I was the one feeling the exhaustion creep up and smother me in despair.

“I checked my phone when we got off the plane and haven’t received a call from an unknown number.”

“We’ll try again, maybe after we’ve had a bite and taken a nap, yeah?” he offered.

“Whatever you want.” I looked away. What was another day in the grand scheme of things?

“Hey, look at me, Maia,” Rhodes urged.

I turned my head and focused on his handsome face. He really was a looker. The salt and pepper hair, the scruffy jaw, naturally sculpted dark eyebrows, long Roman nose, and gray eyes that seemed to look straight through me with nothing but honesty. The man was a walking, talking, fantasy come to life, and he was mine…for the next three years.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. Just because we’re getting married doesn’t mean I own you.”

“But the auction rules…”

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