The Millionaire's Club: Connor, Tom & Gavin: Round-the-Clock Temptation / Highly Compromised Position / A Most Shocking Revelation

“About your condition.”

“Condition?” Connor folded his arms across his chest, wondering what the hell she was talking about now. “And what condition might that be.”

Her eyes drifted to the vicinity of his crotch. “The damage.”

He couldn’t tell if she was serious, or just yanking his chain. “What damage are we talking about?”

“From the explosion. I understand why you’re afraid to let me see it. But you should know, I wouldn’t be bothered by any…abnormalities. I mean, penises are pretty funny looking to begin with, so how bad could it be?”

“Nita, what are you talking about? Why would you assume any part of my anatomy is abnormal?”

“I’m not assuming anything. You said so yourself last night.”

“When?”

“You said your goods were damaged.”

He nearly laughed out loud. Leave it to her to twist his words into something so totally off the wall. He might have been offended if he wasn’t so damned amused. “Nita, trust me when I say my goods are just fine.”

She shrugged and walked past him, through the kitchen doorway, calling over her shoulder, “Hey, whatever you say.”

He followed her down the hall and into the office. “What, you don’t believe me?”

She crossed the room and sat in the chair behind her wide, cluttered oak desk. “Connor, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Because there’s nothing wrong with me.”

She flipped open her laptop. “So you’ve said.”

She was goading him now, and he was having too much fun not to play along for a while. To see exactly what she thought she might accomplish by antagonizing him. Though he already had a pretty good idea.

She needed justification. She needed to know why he’d rejected her. What she’d done wrong.

And the answer was nothing. She done everything right. He was the one with the problem. If only she knew how difficult it had been for him to turn her away last night, how much he still wanted her. He had no idea how she’d made it this far in life thinking that she wasn’t feminine, that she looked like a boy. She had to be one of the most desirable, sexiest women he’d ever met. The kind of woman he typically avoided at all cost, which was a little tough to do living in the same house, shadowing her every move.

“You know,” she said, thoughtfully. “They have some wonderful new drugs out to help men with certain…problems.”

He swallowed a grin. “Not only am I deformed, now I’m impotent, too?”

“I’m only telling you so you don’t think it’s hopeless. There is help out there for men like you.”

“What was it you said last night? Everything seems to be working fine?”

She let out a long, gusty sigh and rolled the chair back from the desk. “If you’re so determined to convince me I’m wrong, I guess I’ll just have to see it.”

Somehow he knew it would come to this. “You will, huh?”

“Drop your pants. Let’s have a look.” She propped her elbows on the armrests and linked her fingers under her chin—the picture of solemnity, but there was no mistaking that impish gleam in her eye. “Come on, don’t be shy. I promise I won’t laugh.”

No, he knew she wouldn’t laugh. He didn’t even want to think of what she might do if she got him out of his pants. But whatever it was, he was sure she’d do it well.

He propped his hands on the desk and leaned forward, looking her right in the eye, so there was no mistaking what he was about to tell her. “I like you, Nita. Too much. Which is exactly why I can’t get involved with you. There’s a lot that you don’t know about me.”

She held his gaze. “Does that mean you won’t be taking off your pants?”

“No, I won’t.”

She shrugged and rolled her chair up to her computer. “Then get lost, I have work to do.”

“So we understand each other?”

“Yes, Connor. We understand each other. Personally, I think you’re blowing this whole sex thing way out of proportion, but I guess it’s your loss.” She made a shooing gesture with her hands. “Now go ‘way. I have things to do before the applicants get here.”

“I’ll be on my bench in the foyer if you need me,” he said, then headed for the door. He glanced back on his way out and saw that she was mesmerized by whatever she was working on.

She’d been awfully agreeable about the whole thing. Too agreeable. He couldn’t escape the feeling that he hadn’t heard the last of this.

Chapter Seven

“It’s sort of pretty,” Nita said, running her fingers across the photocopy of the map, over scores of tiny hearts, all different shapes and sizes. “What do they mean?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Gavin said. He stood between her and Jake.

Connor stood across from them on the other side of the kitchen table. He’d been keeping his distance all day. Not that he wasn’t still following her everywhere, he’d just been doing it from a couple yards away.

He was a tough one to figure out. She’d told him she didn’t want commitment, and still he’d turned her down, even though he was obviously attracted to her—because there were things about him she didn’t know. Well, heck, there were things about her he didn’t know, either. They didn’t have to be best buddies to enjoy each other’s…company. As far as she was concerned, it was better that they weren’t. She didn’t like it when men got attached to her. That was right about the time they started trying to change her, to mold her into something she didn’t want to be. Something she couldn’t be.

He thought he had issues? Well, who didn’t? That shouldn’t stop them from having fun.

“We’ve been looking for some sort of pattern,” Jake told Nita. “But so far we’ve come up empty.”

There was a time, when she first met Connor, that she’d thought Jake was the more attractive of the two. His stunning smile and cheerful disposition were hard to resist. But there was something about Connor, something dark and exciting, that intrigued her.

And the more Connor eluded her, the more frustrated she grew. Maybe it was the thrill of the chase, but she’d never wanted a man the way she wanted him. It felt almost like an obsession. Getting in his pants was all she seemed to think about anymore, and at the same time, it wasn’t about sex.

She didn’t know what it was about anymore.

“There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it,” Gavin said. “If we knew the location of the land, it might make more sense. All we know is that it’s somewhere in Royal.”

“We thought maybe Connor would recognize some of the markings,” Jake added.

Connor shook his head. “Sorry. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“It looks old,” Nita said.

“Jessamine Golden disappeared shortly after the turn of the last century,” Jake told her, “making the map at least one hundred years old. Most of the landmarks could be long gone by now. It could be next to impossible to determine its location.”

“Let me have a look at that.” Her daddy hobbled in from the living room on his crutches. “I’ve lived in Royal my whole life, maybe I’ll recognize the land.”