Shock bolts through me as his words saturate my thick head.

Did he just say this isn’t going to work out?

I sit there and gape like a fool. “It’s not?”

He casually checks the fancy watch on his wrist then pulls his starched cuff back over it. He’s detached, the cool of his eyes already a million miles away. “No, I’m afraid it won’t.”

My mouth runs before I can stop it. “But you already bid on me. The agreement was made. I left home and came out here to get on this jet so I could spend the next two weeks with you.”

Travis must see the rejected confusion in my eyes, because his own gaze changes—it isn’t as hard anymore. But the next instant that changes, too, and he’s back to business. I’m not even sure he had a second thought about how I feel.

“There’s fine print in the contract we both agreed to, Nova. It states that either one of us can cancel within the first hour of meeting. All I have to do is pay a fee to get out of this arrangement.”

My surprise is starting to wear off. The site already takes a cut of the fee I was supposed to get—now it sounds like I’ll be paid even less. There goes the money I’d been counting on.

I wonder if Travis Star gets off on firing the rejects. I can’t believe I didn’t make it past the interview.

He looks me over again—my legs, the red dress that hugs my curves so that nothing is left to the imagination. Then his attention falls on the exit. He goes to the doorway and opens it, letting dusk spill in. He reaches into his suit jacket and pulls out a clip that contains a bunch of what looks to be one hundred dollar bills. After leafing off a few of them, he extends the money toward me.

“For your inconvenience,” he says.

At first I don’t move. Truthfully, a part of me is relieved that I won’t have to lose my virginity to a man who clearly doesn’t give a crap about me.

Yes, he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen, and even after he rejected me my skin feels fevered around him, but maybe I can just go back to my old life now. What if no one even realized that I’d left? I’ll be a few hundred dollars richer and…

My hopes drop. Leaving here means I’ll have to go back home, to Gary, and that makes it the last place I want to be.

Gathering what I have left of my pride, I stand, tugging down my skirt. By now it’s a habit. Pushing down my sense of failure, I walk to Travis to accept his money, and as I do, my fingers accidentally brush his. A violent tingle rushes up my arm, zinging straight to my clit, and I bite my lip to chase the bittersweet ache away.

Then I get myself together and say through my teeth, “Thank you for dinner, Mr. Star.”

As I leave, I don’t look back, but as I look forward to the tarmac, to the flat Midwestern landscape ahead of me, my heart sinks to my stomach.

I really don’t want to go back home.

Frustration takes the place of the hollowness in my chest: anger at Gary and even at myself for making a mess of what could’ve been my family’s salvation tonight. There’s also a sense of irritation at Travis. What was it about me that turned him off so badly anyway?

On a wave of emotion, I turn back around and step inside the jet again. One of his eyebrows lifts, and something flickers in his gaze. A corner of his mouth tilts up, but he’s still more unreadable than the Sphinx.

“What did I do to make you dismiss me like this?” I ask. “What happened between the time you bid on me and now?”

“Nova,” he says levelly, “you really should go.”

“I just want to know. Why?” My voice is thick, and I hate that my desperation is so obvious. I hate that my feelings are bruised because some entitled one-percenter tossed me out of his jet without any explanation.

“You really want to know?” he asks.

“Please. Enlighten me.”

He looks at me in that discriminating way again, and my belly aches with lust. Damn him. Damn me and my repressed sexuality. He’s pushing those buttons I’ve never had pushed, and it’s so easy for him.

“Honestly,” he says, “I like my women to be more…innocent.”

In the silence that follows, I start to pull down the hem of my dress again, then stop myself. What’s he talking about? I am innocent. I had to sign an affidavit for the dating service stating that I’m a virgin and everything…

He continues. “That’s why I use the dating service, so they can match me to someone who’s not sexually experienced. Which you obviously are.”

Huh?

Then I think about how I was acting during dinner. And how I wore this stupid dress just to catch his eye.

He dismisses me again. “The bottom line is that you come on too strongly for my tastes. I was expecting someone a lot different than what I got. It’s not the end of the world. It happens.”

He’s talking about me, the apparent vixen who’s clearly cutting a swath through the land with my seductive powers. I laugh, and maybe it’s because my nerves have finally caught up with me. But when I laugh yet again, it’s because this situation is so ironic that there’s nothing to do but find it hilarious.

Expressionless, Travis watches me, loosely crossing his arms over his broad chest as I keep laughing.

“I…” I say, then wave a hand to fend off the laughter. “I thought that’s what you wanted—someone who knew what they were doing. That’s why I put on this ridiculous dress and…” I huff out a breath. “That’s why I was so forward. But the truth is, I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”

He merely surveys me, once again as if he’s stripping layer by layer off of me. I quiver inside as I look into his deep green gaze.

His low voice rolls over me. “So this isn’t the real you.”

“I just tried to be what I thought you wanted. I guess I’m stupid on top of being patently un-sexy.”

He shakes his head, and I think he’s not buying what I have to say.

“I’m telling the truth,” I say, finally, lifting my chin defiantly.

A beat passes, and still he hasn’t responded. Then he says, “Actually, I don’t think you’re lying.”

He uncrosses his arms from his chest, then with another long, inscrutable, yet incredibly hot look at me, saunters away. There’s still champagne in an ice bucket on the table, and he draws out the bottle, the clink of the cubes rattling me as he keeps watching with those eyes that seem to see everything.

“You’ve never had a boyfriend?” he asks.

“Never.”

“Why is that?”

My first instinct is to hide the truth about Gary from him, but after Travis called me out for misrepresenting myself, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Besides, he’s pouring champagne into the flute that I’d been using, and my heart jumps. Maybe I’m getting a do-over.

He doesn’t pour much into the glass, and when he holds it up to me, as if inviting me back, I warily go to him and accept the offering.

“Remember that discussion we had about my staying home from college?” I ask.

“I do.”

“Well, I did that because my father Gary is rather… ‘Domineering’ is a good word. He’s the one who wanted me to stay home to help with the family’s finances. It wasn’t my choice.”

It’s the truth. Not the entire truth about how awful Gary really is, but it’s close enough.

Travis fills his own glass with the golden bubbly. “And as a domineering father, he kept a sharp eye on the boys who wanted to be with you?”

“I live in a small town. Most of the guys there know that if they looked at me much less tried to be with me, Gary would come after them. He’s kept me away from close girlfriends, too.”

Travis’s jaw has gone hard. A muscle ticks in his cheek. After a moment, he says, “It sounds as if you’re running away from him. That’s why you came to the website. That’s why you put your virginity up for the highest bidder.”

“Pretty much.” I don’t add that the money is going to come in handy for Mom and Tate, too. “All of this is more than you probably wanted to know, but I’m only being transparent.”

“And you’ll want to keep it that way from now on, Nova.”

I don’t drink the champagne. I can barely even breathe.

“I require the utmost honesty,” he says in that low voice, “as well as the absolute truth during the short duration we’ll be together.”

Yes, I’m back in it! part of me thinks. But the other half? It’s scared and nervous all over again.

As the attendant emerges from the front of the jet, Travis gives her a nod, and she disappears. He returns his full attention to me. It’s as if he’s doing more than peeling away my layers—I’m pretty sure he’s taking off my red dress in his imagination, beginning to get his money’s worth now that we’ve come to terms.

Desire drips through me, making me more wet than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

And the crazy part is, he hasn’t even touched me yet.

He smoothly jerks his chin toward a seat by the window. “You’ll want to buckle in for this, Nova.”

I leave my champagne untouched. I’m pretty sure he’s talking about more than just take off as he drags his hot gaze away from me and walks toward the back of the jet.