Acquired: A Billionaire Auction Romance

by Charlotte Byrd

  “A what?”

  I said nothing. I picked at my fingers more. I noticed blood was starting to pool out from beneath one of my nails. I shouldn’t have said anything. This awful day was already getting worse and it wasn’t even time for breakfast. The silence made me feel guilt. I wished the music were still playing. I wish that there was some bustle or bang from the staff. I would have taken the sound of a rocket taking off over this. Anything to fill the void.

  The elevator dinged and we both looked to the doors. As they parted, the last person I wanted to see was standing in there, looking confused and hurt. Grant looked out at us, sitting at a table in the lobby, me in a robe and Tom in his pajamas. I could tell that there was going to be big problems. Grant’s charm wasn’t turned on, instead we saw the raw and vulnerable Grant that rarely showed himself. Especially on business.

  He walked slowly and calmly to our table. Tom’s red eyes were large, watching each movement that was made. I was frozen again. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to speak. I had lost the ability to communicate completely. Tom was the first one to break the silence.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re dating a whore?” Tom was frantic, shouting at the both of us. Grant’s stone face dropped into a frown. He gave me a disappointed look and walked to our table quicker. He starred at Tom. “You’re dating a fucking hooker? That’s what your life has stooped to? I can’t believe this. You have to be kidding me.” He stood up and walked the rest of the way to Grant, his hands balled in fists. Once he was feet away I realized what he was charging at Grant to do.

  I yelled at him to stop, but it was too late. He swung his fist, missing Grant’s face. Grant dodged back and grabbed his hand. He punched him in the face with his other hand and Tom fell back to the ground.

  I ran over to him immediately. His eyes were shut and he was limp on the floor. “Tom? Tom, can you hear me?” I held his head in my lap and looked up at Grant.

  Grant said nothing. He only looked down at us. His face was stone again. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. I was upset. I was furious with Tom but I was still upset with Grant. I hated violence. Tom was a kid, he didn’t know how to control himself. I didn’t know what happened with Grant. His face was impossible to read.

  I kept tapping Tom, trying to get his attention. Grant turned on his heels and left, going back into the elevator. I didn’t know why he came down in the first place. He must have been looking for me. I should have just stayed in the room. I didn’t know I was going to ruin our time. I needed to tell Grant that it wasn’t what it looked like. Or maybe it was.

  The point was I didn’t want Tom back. I didn’t know that was why Tom needed me either. There was so much I had to say to Grant still. I kept tapping Tom, trying to get his attention. He was still breathing and his finger twitched. He slowly came to and I helped him back up on his feet.

  I pushed the number to our floor several times. I paced back and forth in the elevator with Tom. He held a Kleenex to his nose and watched me as I planned my speech for Grant in my head. The doors were taking too long to close. The elevator was taking too long to move. I tapped the button several more times. I knew it wouldn’t change anything, but I needed something to do.

  My palms were sweaty. My mind was racing. I could tell Tom was annoyed by me. I could see that he was mad that I was worried about Grant. I didn’t care. Maybe that would help get him to back off. When we got to the floor the doors spread open and I jogged to my room. I pushed the key in several times before it worked.

  I walked in. I didn’t see his suitcase. I checked the door of the dresser. All his things were gone.

  24

  Grant

  I waited in the airport for hours for the next available flight. It gave me time to cool down. I had never lost my temper like that before. I had never punched another guy. I was glad that if I was ever going to only punch one person, it was Tom.

  My knuckles were bruised and I took it as a badge of honor. I put ice on them, hoping it would keep the swelling down. It was expensive to fly last minute from Santa Barbra to Las Vegas. I didn’t care. I had more than enough money. I didn’t want to spend another moment here, even if that meant taking coach.

  I was mad at Tom. He deserved what he got. I had been waiting to punch him since I had heard about him. I never would have thought I would have gotten a golden opportunity like that.

  Whatever April saw in him, I was blind to. She could run off to him. I didn’t care. I was so disappointed. She wasn’t the smart woman I thought she had been. If she fell for a doof like that, there must have been something I was missing.

  I didn’t know why she went back to him. We were having a great time. We were having a perfect time. I thought that maybe we were starting to have a spark. I could have seen myself seeing her several times within the next month. I could have seen myself asking her out formally.

  I fell for her spell. I must have been distracted by her beauty. I had thought she had been perfect. I was told that she was great. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t getting any jobs. I also didn’t understand why someone would leave her. There had to be something.

  She got what she wanted after all. She got Tom back. She could go back to living her happy perfect life from before her accident. She could get re-engaged and marry someone on the verge of bankruptcy. They could be homeless together and be clueless and hopeless people.

  This was the first weekend I lost money being an escort. It was also going to be the last time. I wasn’t going to whore my services out for friends anymore. I would never do a sexual favor for free again. I had standards.

  The plane was called and I watched the movie they played on the way back. It was one of those romantic comedies that was really popular in the early 2000s. I hadn’t seen it before, but I remembered the commercials and I remembered knowing women that liked it.

  I needed a drink. I hated romantic comedies. No matter how honest they tried to be, they were still just a story. I watched the same imperfect beginning end with the same perfect ending in other movies time and time again. It was boring, predictable, and old. It never happened that way in real life. And when it did, there was still a ton of shit that had to be worked through.

  And they never put in the troubles. They never had the relationship after a few years. They didn’t put in the couples therapy or the divorce that happened if the therapy didn’t help. They didn’t put in affairs or anything but good feeling and light humor. I wanted to live in a Walt Disney world like that. I wanted to live in a world where my greatest pleasure wasn’t being an escort and I didn’t feel so god damn lonely.

  Meg Ryan was on the screen, denying her inevitable future. That’s what the characters always did. They fought the happiness until they no longer could. They wanted to be upset. It made it a tunnel vision, like a relationship would fix all the problems you didn’t know you were having. It didn’t work that way in real life.

  In real life your romantic interest left you for their douche of an ex-fiancé because their self-confidence is low. In real life there wasn’t a big character change or happy ending, just a ton of small changes and tiny victories.

  I counted this weekend as a loss except for the punch. It was well worth it. Even if it had broken my hand, which I am glad it didn’t, I would have done it again.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with my life after this trip. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be an escort anymore. Maybe I should move back to California, or somewhere else on the coast. I would love to swim. I had more than enough money and time. Even if I just did it for a year, it would be worth it to get away and reevaluate everything for a while.

  I looked online at condos. I tried to find one with a small lease. If all else failed, I could just stay in a hotel. I would have originally stayed with Alex, but now it would be too big of a risk to run into April.

  I could run away from my parents and put an out of office reply on my messages. Maybe I cou
ld get a secretary for my messages from clients in the mean time. I didn’t need any more money. I could be set for the rest of my life if I was careful with funds.

  I thought about it. Running away from everything and everyone sounded nice. A fresh start. I could change my name and work only when I was bored. Maybe I could become a surf board trainer. Maybe I could just chill out forever.

  I saw the water and ocean below us, the land shrinking smaller and smaller. The sparkle of the waves reminded me of our day at the beach. It all reminded me of April. The sooner I left the better. Or at least that was what I kept telling myself. I could never visit that hotel again and I would be fine. It was gorgeous and I would miss it, but I would be fine.

  We flew farther and farther away from it as we saw the guy get the girl in the movie. It wasn’t a long plane flight from Santa Barbra to Las Vegas, but it felt like it took forever. I couldn’t wait for the credits to roll. I couldn’t wait to get away from what was the worst weekend of my life.

  I never wanted to go to another wedding ever again. I took my phone out and blocked April’s number. It was for her own good as well as mine.

  25

  April

  I wiped the sweat off of my brow and clicked my phone to see how much longer I had to run. My heart sank when it saw that I had no new messages. I should have been used to it by now, it had been a week. I was being chased by the wrong guy and ignored by the one I cared about. I pushed harder for the last five minutes and then did the cool down on the treadmill.

  Travis was in the tanning room and I was tempted to go break in and cry to him again. I had been more of an emotional wreck now than before I went to the engagement party. I should have seen that coming. No one leaves weddings feeling the same way they did before they went to them, and I was stuck in the worst situation that only got worse as time went on.

  I checked the scales. I hadn’t lost any more than a pound. Exercising felt useless. I wasn’t doing it for fun, and I almost didn’t care if I gained all the weight back. I didn’t have much hope for a future boyfriend. Getting thinner was the only way I knew to redeem myself, though. So it was what I was going to have to keep doing until I no longer felt so sorry for myself.

  It was worse that everyone gave me puppy dog eyes when they saw me. They knew about the wedding. They knew about Tom. When he called off the wedding, everyone was very disappointed and they both blamed me and felt sorry for me. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want Tom back. I never would again. He turned out to be less mature and worthwhile than I remembered.

  I wasn’t sure what to do at this point. I kept applying for jobs and I kept getting rejections. I could freelance for some money, but I couldn’t make a career out of it. I was able to give Travis the money Grant didn’t take, but even that didn’t cover a fraction of what I owed him.

  Travis was being the nicest about this. I think he felt worse since this was sort of his idea. I told him all the details. He agreed that I had a right to be confused about where me and Grant had stood, but he also saw why Grant left.

  I didn’t blame him either. I drug him along and made him dance like a monkey and he didn’t get anything out of it. Tom tried to punch him in the face. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it and thinking back made it feel less real. I was going to miss Grant. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Even when he pissed me off, I knew that he had a right to feel the way he did, he wasn’t just throwing a fit. Grant had been nice, helping me through what was already a tough weekend. And then, of course, I blew it. I always ruin things that start to go my way.

  Travis felt bad and took me out to lunch after the gym. I didn’t eat much. I wasn’t thinking about food. He kept conversation light. When he noticed that I didn’t have much to say in responses he just kept talking about his weekend. He had gotten a call back for an audition. He also told me a crazy story about someone who auditioned beside him. It was funny, but I didn’t feel like laughing. I just felt like sulking a little while longer. It wasn’t making me feel better, but it was helping me get it out of my system.

  When we got back to our place, Travis kept asking me questions. He kept begging for more detail. The more I talked about the weekend, the worse I felt and the more I missed the good times that had happened. They could have still been happening if I were smart enough to just let Tom be alone.

  Tom still tried to call and text me. He did it semi frequently until he finally got the hint. He would leave several messages, and the more he called the drunker he seemed to get. They would have been funny to listen to before but now I just felt bad for the guy. He was spiraling out of control and he had no idea what to do with his life.

  Travis saw my glum look when I played the most recent one. “Maybe with his fiancée gone he will be able to focus on work now.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “They can’t fire him if his life is falling apart.”

  “That never stopped him from breaking up with me.” We stopped talking again. I deleted the messages.

  I hadn’t talked to either of my parents yet. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what I should say to them. “I told you I shouldn’t have gone,” was all I could think of, but I didn’t even want to say that. I didn’t know how much they knew about Grant. I only knew that they knew he had left early. I thought Tom was a decent enough person to keep his mouth shut, but I have been surprised by him time and time again. It was hard to say what he had told everyone.

  Tom was back to “Single” on Facebook. He had changed his profile picture, too. He was now single and showing it off. The selfie that was in place now was from before his new girl. I went to Grant’s Facebook and flipped through all of the pictures he was tagged in for the third time that week. He had grown so much through the photos. He was so handsome. He didn’t have many photos, so it didn’t take long to flip through them all. He didn’t seem like he actually used his account very much at all. I considered adding him, but if he still wasn’t answering my texts I didn’t see the point.

  Travis left me in the living room while I flipped through them. He stayed in his room for a while and I heard him on the phone. I wondered if Alex knew about this. And if he did, I hope it was through Travis and not through Grant. I didn’t like the idea of having a stranger that was so close to my best friend dislike me.

  Travis came back in the room and hung up. “That was Alex. I called him to get this for you. Please don’t make me regret it.” He handed me a piece of paper with an address on it. It was in Vegas.

  “Is this real?”

  “Yes. He lives in the penthouse of this building. If you get a restraining order, I don’t know how much more help I can be. Just be… careful. Use your best discretion.” I hugged Travis tight and put the paper in my pocket.

  “You should probably pack a bag. Just in case.”

  It took about 5 hours to get to Vegas so I left immediately. It was hardly noon. If I budgeted time right, I could get there in four hours. I didn’t know his schedule, or if he was even home for that matter but I didn’t care. I could drive back the next day and the day after that until I saw him.

  I wanted to take Travis with me. Going on an adventure like this alone was frightening. I hadn’t done something like this ever before and now was a very emotional time for me. I stocked up on all the road trip necessities like gummy worms and energy drinks. I put in a Blonde CD and began the journey.

  The car ride went fast. Too fast. I had memorized a monologue for an apology over and over again in my head, but I still felt like I didn’t have enough time to prepare. I had never been to Vegas before, so when I pulled through it was a culture shock. I saw all the signs on the buildings. This place had to be lit up at night almost as well as it was during the day time. There were people everywhere, scrambling from casino to casino. You could tell by the cars on the street where the good and bad neighborhoods were.

  I grew more anxious the closer I got to my destination. When I went through a gated community, I was worried I w
ent too far. I was in the right area though. As I pulled up to the largest, most lavish hotel in the area it began to sink in just how much he was worth. It was all Egyptian themed. The entire building looked like it was made of gold. Even the parking lot was paved with shinning bricks. I felt nauseous as I walked closer. I didn’t belong. This was all a mistake.

  I didn’t drive across state for nothing, though. No matter how badly I wanted to turn around, I knew I couldn’t. Even if this was the last time that I ever stepped foot in Vegas, I knew that I had to do what I came to do.

  26

  Grant

  My doorbell rang while I was in the middle of packing the last of my things. I had finally decided to go on a small vacation. Okay, a big vacation. I thought that Australia would be a good place. I heard only good things about it. Hawaii was on the list too, but I was getting a bit disenchanted with it by the amount of times that I have visited it on business. I didn’t know how long I wanted to be gone either. I know I wanted to leave long enough to get a break from everyone and everything, but I wanted to be back in time to see my half brother be born.

  Thinking about it made my skin crawl. I wasn’t going to be the youngest anymore. I would have none of the privileges with all of the down side. This was sure to take some of my dad’s attention off of me, but it would just make my mom that much more desperate for all her kids. If I had kids, they would have an uncle that was only a few years their elder. I hated the thought.

  It took me a bit to sort through the things of mine that were by the door to get to it. I didn’t bother looking through the peephole. I would regret that.