Adam shrugged. “I already had Bruce hide all the knives.”
I burst out laughing. My character in the show was a manic ex-girlfriend determined to kill one of the main heroes. She successfully stabbed him three times with a kitchen knife before he subdued her, and she went to prison.
I looked at Sebastian to share my laughter with him, but he was looking at Adam with such an obvious expression of tenderness that it felt intrusive to witness it.
“It’s good to know you can be charming when you want to,” I teased Adam, who smiled slightly and tipped his palms up in a modified shrug.
“Charming enough to agree to marry me?” he quipped.
“Not quite. Is it possible to revisit that part of the contract? I’d like to see how spending time with you goes first.”
“I don’t—” Mi Cha started to say, but Adam cut her off.
“That’s only fair. I would still like you to move in within the next three months. Is that possible?”
“My mom is unwell. I wouldn’t be able to move in until I found a place I could afford that could take her on.”
“Unwell?” Mi Cha asked. “We’ll need details about your family situation so that we can be prepared for any bad press.”
“Mi Cha,” Adam cut off. “Ladies and Boone, I think we can finish off negotiations without you. I will email you the changes to the contract, and Linnea can do the same.”
“But Adam—” His lawyer, Boone, started to say.
“That sounds wonderful,” Mali Issah said, turning to wink at me as she collected my lawyer, Etta Windsor, and swept out of the room.
Chaucer followed suit, basically dragging Rachel out of the room with a frowning Mi Cha and Boone at their heels.
Only when the door shut did Adam noticeably relax, his shoulders loosening, hands unclasping so he could rub one over his stubbled chin.
“Tell me about Miranda,” he said softly.
Suddenly, there was a pit in my throat that I couldn’t speak past.
Sebastian reached over to squeeze my hand. “She has frontotemporal dementia. Linnea moved here eighteen months ago to take care of her, but it’s taken over her life, and Miranda needs proper supervision.”
“Is it terminal?”
“Yes,” I said, spinning one of my rings around one finger. “Eventually. Honestly, she’s the only reason I even entertained this arrangement. She deserves better than I can give her.”
Sebastian made a noise of disagreement in the back of his throat.
“And what about you?” Adam asked softly. “Don’t you deserve better?”
I tipped my chin pugnaciously. “I deserve what I work for and nothing more. My dad taught me to be self-sufficient.”
“So you won’t marry me for my money,” Adam said so dryly, it took me a moment to realize he was teasing me.
My mouth curled despite myself. “For Miranda, not for me. I’m happy with my life.”
It was the truth. I was busy to the point of exhaustion, sure, but I had access to the ocean, a house to live in, and the love of my dad, uncles, and Rozhin. More than that, Miranda and her life choices had honestly made me wary of affluence. She had eschewed so much in the pursuit of fame and fortune, and now, at the end of her life, she only had a small house filled with stale memories, expensive trinkets, and an estranged daughter to take care of her.
“Well, money and sex are all I have to offer,” Adam drawled in that accent that made my toes curl. “It seems you aren’t tempted by either.”
My mouth went dry as my vivid imagination took over. Those big hands on my body, that cool, authoritative voice in my ear demanding I bend and shape myself to his will, those long-lashed eyes dark with desire.
“Adam.” Sebastian’s throaty voice cut into my fantasies and changed their tone.
Four hands sliding over my skin. A mouth on my neck, the other on my breast. Two long, thick cocks to worship.
