Page 13 of A Rake’s Gamble

“Yes. My father invested in this company and it has your name written all over it.”

A flicker of emotion, shock perhaps, on Adam’s features was quickly replaced by a hard glare. “It does?”

Technically it didn’t, and Theo fought against the doubt that threatened to strangle him. “My father’s steward met with you about a new investment, after which he advised me father to be cautious, and then over the next eight years, my father ignored his steward and bankrupted the estate investing in a company called Rosewood Estates. Rose. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“It might be.”

Theo’s breath burned in his lungs. “That’s not an answer. You owe me an answer.”

“I don’t owe you anything. Your father killed my friend, and likely many others too.”

“And you stole all his money as revenge?”

Adam paced to the window and stared out, looking rather like a brooding hero on the front cover of a gothic penny novel. After a moment, he turned slowly and fixed his gaze on Theo. Theo felt the stare like a touch and gulped.

“No one stole your father’s money. He invested willingly.”

“You admit it?” He needed Adam to say it, that he’d deliberately conned his father into sinking the entire estate into a company set up to ruin him.

“The Earl of Milnes-Wilkes owns thirty percent of Rosewood Estates, and Rosewood Estates owns nearly a million acres of land in New South Wales.”

Theo had not expected such a forthright answer and tried to do a quick calculation, but he couldn’t work out why this meant the estate was broke. “Who owns the rest?”

“The answer to that question isn’t going to help you.”

“Why are you so evasive?”

“The Land Investment Corporation owns sixty percent, and a Mr James Watkinson owns the remaining ten percent.”

“A million acres?” The number was so vast that it had to be false.

“Yes. New South Wales is very large. England could fit into it many times over.”

Theo had read something like that which only made the notion plausible, not real. “If my father invested into a company that owns so much land, why is he broke?”

“It’s complicated.”

Theo was done with this nonsense. He rounded his desk to confront Adam, but as soon as he stepped close, his lungs filled with Adam’s unique perfume, and he forgot why he was here. Adam grabbed him by the waist, turned him and pushed him up against the wall. Confusion was immediately replaced with desire.

“And you are making it more complicated.” Adam kissed him forcefully. He should resist but he submitted because the kiss was everything he’d ever wanted. What magic was Adam weaving over him?

Theo pulled away from the kiss, irritation burning his eyes. “Is this how you got my father to agree?” Theo would agree to anything Adam wanted, just to get more kisses like that. Maybe Adam had woven the same sexual magic over his father. A chill went all the way through to his bones.

Adam pushed him and he would’ve fallen if not for the wall at his spine. “Fuck off. He invested because he was greedy. It was easy.”

“You conned him?”

“That is a matter of perspective.” Adam’s slippery answer sent a rush of doubt about Adam’s angry response to Theo’s question. His body was fire and ice in the oddest combination of the blazing heat of desire and the rigid furnace of anger and the chill associated with the creepy idea that Adam used his body to get what he wanted. Theo didn’t know which one burned stronger. Maybe it would all consume him. He had to get a definite answer, or he was going to forever doubt this connection between him and Adam. Doubt was insidious, eating him up inside.

“Did you or did you not use your body to convince my father to invest?”

Adam’s brown eyes became icy, and he crossed his arms, still standing close enough for his hands to brush against Theo’s jacket. “How dare you! No.”

And then, just as the silence between them stretched out and crackled like the air before a thunderstorm, Adam smiled that smug little smile.

“I didn’t have to use my body or any other nefarious measures. Your father’s greed for money and for young girls did all the work for me.”

The truth in Adam’s statement sent a shiver of relief flying across Theo’s skin—relief that the connection between him and Adam was real and not part of Adam’s games—and it felt like it connected them both for a brief moment until Theo breathed out. He knew his father was greedy. Adam’s comment made sense. He knew his father’s tendencies were disturbed as he kept young women in the Dowager house. He knew his father hated men like himself; he’d had the bruises to prove it when he was younger and had been caught watching the footmen. It was simply jealously that had pushed him to the question.