The Bachelor's Baby (Bachelor Auction Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

a male voice said.
    It took everyone a moment to realize Linc had spoken.
    “Did you just say eight? You can’t bid on yourself,” Buck told him. “Never in my career have the cattle done this to me, folks.”
    “I can do whatever I want.” Linc tucked his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels, as he waited out the chuckles. He was completely at ease as he took control of the room and held it in thrall. “As it was pointed out to me when I offered to write a generous check and skip this silliness, it’s a good cause and people are here for a show. Let’s make it interesting.”
    He wasn’t being sarcastic, but there was a dig in there toward her, Meg was sure. At the very least, it was a challenge.
    “We’ve barely covered the cost of fuel at this point,” Linc added. “I could write the check myself, stay home and get in a good day’s work. If you want me to go through with this, let’s make sure we’re getting this boy what he needs.”
    “Fair enough,” Buck said, then prompted, “Ladies? Do we have nine hundred?”
    “Nine,” Meg stated.
    Linc sharpened his gaze on her. “A thousand,” he said blithely.
    “Eleven hundred,” she tossed, equally unconcerned.
    The air in the room began to pressurize as breaths were drawn in with anticipation.
    “Twelve…?” he invited.
    “Thirteen,” she called flippantly, nodding at Buck that she was serious.
    “Fourteen,” Linc said. “And I can stay silent when you say…”
    “Fifteen,” she pronounced deliberately.
    Everyone clapped. Meg started to grin with triumph.
    “But I won’t,” Linc said. “Sixteen.”
    Meg sobered.
    The room silenced.
    “Really?” she asked.
    “It’s a good cause,” he reminded. Taunted .
    “Seventeen,” she allowed.
    “Two thousand,” he said.
    “What?” His leap over three hundred dollars startled her. He was doing this on purpose. Punishing her. She rose to her feet. “Twenty-one,” she said in a strong voice, firm with warning.
    “Twenty-two.”
    “I’m getting the feeling I’m not needed here,” Buck joked. “In fact, I think we should all leave the room.”
    Meg blushed hard. “You’re just—” she started to blurt at Linc.
    He lifted his brows in a prompt for her to finish her statement. Getting back at me , is what she wanted to accuse. The corners of his mouth were digging in, smugly enjoying her discomfiture.
    “Twenty-five hundred dollars,” she said. It was as high as she would go and screw his helicopter tour. That was her signing bonus that she had set aside for an all-inclusive when she got tired of winter. He was going to provide a lot more than lunch if she was giving it away.
    “Two thousand, five hundred…and one,” he declared precisely.
    Jerk . The entire room was laughing at her.
    “You know what?” she said as the noise died down. “You write your check and I’ll write mine. We’ll call this date done because you obviously don’t want to go through with it.” Not with her, at any rate. She was burning with humiliation and just wanted this hideous scene over.
    He lost some of his self-assured demeanor. His expression blanked with surprise, but he recovered quickly. His eyelids came down in a shuttered blink and he nodded. “Deal.”
    *
    Linc had forgotten for a minute that he wasn’t dealing with a bunch of CEOs where one-upmanship was not just a game, but a professional survival tactic. His testosterone had got the better of him and now he felt like he’d walked through a door ahead of a woman and let it slam in her face.
    He got his ass off the stage, grateful for that much.
    After dropping off his check and picking up the beer he was nursing, he went to the bar and arranged to cover whatever was on Meg’s tab. Then he turned around in time to see her confusion as she tried to write her own donation check.
    A second later, she approached him with a disgruntled frown wrinkling her strawberry blond brows. “They said you wrote a check for five thousand