Page 28 of Claimed
Chapter Nine
Jasper ran into the room, his eyes wild with worry. “She was lying. I never touched her. I never wanted to. I couldn’t do it.”
I felt so vulnerable as I studied him. What Gina had told me that day at the pool echoed in my mind. She’d tried having sex with Jasperseveral times with no success. “Everyone knows he can’t get it up,” she’d said.
Jasper approached me with his hands up in surrender and cautiously sat beside me. “She was the one who informed Arthur about our interview forThe Rochester Report.”
I wasn’t surprised, but I did have one nagging question. “Why did she come to your bedroom?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Juliahas gotten into the habit of roaming freely through my home. I treated her as a friend just so I could tolerate our arrangement.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
I rested my hand on his thigh, and he opened his eyes to gaze at my lips.
“It’s okay, Jasper. I believe you.”
He cupped my chin and guided my mouth toward his. Our lips embraced as his tongue stroked mine. My mind floatedand only made its way back to earth when Jasper ended our kiss to whisper, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied in an airy voice.
His expression turned grave again. “I must let you know, though—today Arthur Valentine learned that his family is losing its fortune at an alarming rate.”
I frowned hard. “How?”
“I drained him.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly understanding.“That’s what you meant by draining the life out of him?”
“Yes.”
I thought about the Valentine fortune. “But how? Valentine money is old and strong.”
Jasper’s brows drew close together, and he thought for a minute. “Thomas Valentine made a mistake when he split his assets among his heirs and didn’t leave his wealth to his most capable descendant.”
“Right,” I said, takinga moment to recall what I knew about Thomas Valentine. He was the tycoon who’d taken a percentage of the oil industry out of Rockefeller’s hands after the Antitrust Act of 1890 started the dismantling of Standard Oil. Jasper had said that when Thomas died, he split his fortune evenly among his descendants. Together, they agreed to sell their oil interest and split the profits among them. TheValentine fortune had become disjointed, which had been a blessing and curse, depending on who was telling the story. The blessing was that spreading their wealth limited their power, and the Valentines weren’t the most moral individuals on earth. The curse was that as each decade passed, a new crop of Valentines found themselves broke. Conrad Valentine, Arthur’s father, had left his son a diversifiedportfolio, and that had made Conrad and Arthur some of the strongest Valentines, at least until then.
“But how did you bankrupt him?” I asked.
“Methodically,” Jasper said.
I waited for him to say more, but his lips were pressed shut. That was all he was willing to say. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take that answer—not this time.
“What’s an example ofmethodically?”
He tightened his jaw. “Do you recall the demonstration I gave you the other day?”
I cocked my head, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—all I could recall was the love we’d made.
“With the travel magazine?” he asked leadingly.
I nodded. “Oh, yes. I remember.”
“I was able to bankrupt him because I’m smarter than heis.”
I watched him with a frown. For some reason, I couldn’t take that explanation as the be-all and end-all. I didn’t want to be one of those women who hid in the shadows of her man’s darkness.
“You said your actions were methodical,” I said. “But they sure as hell couldn’t have been legal.”
Jasper kept a straight face. “Was it legal when Arthur broke into your room and threatenedyou?”
