by Vivi Paige
When the last of the items was carried off the stage, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I’d nearly dozed off during the long auction. But I soon found out my eagerness to leave was premature.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Belle said, her eyes suddenly intense. “The official auction is now ended. However, if it pleases you, we invite you to remain for one final, special item. A one-of-a-kind rare delight, which can only be purchased here and nowhere else.”
“Oh, what is it this time?” asked a man with a handlebar mustache and a checked turban. “Some broken bit of crap dug up from the bowels of Europe like last time?”
“That was a third-century scythe handle, and no, this item is far more… ripe.”
I sat up straighter. What was she getting at?
“How about if I just bring out our next item?” Belle gestured toward Starkey, who disappeared behind a curtain and reappeared a moment later, holding an elegantly gloved hand.
Gently, he coaxed the hand’s owner out onto stage. The elegance extended to her garment, a body-hugging strapless white dress, which seemed a hair too short in the skirt and revealed an expanse of creamy cleavage.
But my eyes did not feast upon those charms, oh no, because they lingered upon her pained, somewhat frightened face. I knew the face well, one that haunted me in both my dreams and the waking world.
Ella Ashmore. The one that got away. Now there, available for purchase. I remember thinking it was a dream, but I had no intention of waking. I only knew one thing for certain.
I had to have her.
Chapter Four
As soon as I stumbled out onto that stage, teetering on ivory heels, I felt as if I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.
My mind raced back to the phone call with Mr. Starkey. He’d taken me out to dinner at a restaurant whose name I couldn’t pronounce, ordering off a menu available only in French.
I knew I was being cajoled toward something, probably something unconventional, i.e., illegal. At the time, my thoughts kept dwelling on some form of prostitution. I mean, what else could he have been getting at?
I had no education beyond prep school, few useful skills that could be of use in the higher-paying managerial jobs. I’d hit a glass ceiling some time ago. I could get and hold down low-paying McJobs but was forever denied access to the upper echelons of management. Not that thirty thousand a year was a godly sum, but compared to the one-third of that I made at two of my jobs combined, it seemed like the Promised Land itself.
So, I knew Starkey wasn’t going to offer me a waitressing gig. But I’d showed up anyway, and even dressed myself up a little. Like wrapping a present. I’d already decided I would do whatever it took to keep my father from being evicted because I sure couldn’t take care of him myself. He required someone with medical training twenty-four hours a day.
An eviction would be a death sentence for him. And it would condemn me to watching him die piece by piece, hour by hour. So yes, I went out to dinner with Mr. Starkey fully expecting that I might wind up on the menu.
And I did, but not in the way I expected.
“How is your soufflé?” Starkey had asked, spearing a bit of cheesecake with his tiny dessert fork and delicately placing it in his mouth without besmirching one single whisker of his impeccably trimmed beard.
“It’s fine,” I said with a heavy sigh. “Look, Mr. Starkey, can you just end the torture, please?”
“Torture?” Starkey chuckled. “My dear, if you object to soufflé so much, simply order a different dessert.”
“I’m not talking about the damn dessert,” I snapped. He arched an eyebrow, and I held up a hand to forestall any coming recrimination for my outburst. “I’m sorry, but wouldn’t you be suspicious if you were in my shoes? What’s your pitch?”
Starkey had settled back in his seat, like a wolf on its haunches. His gaze locked with my own, and he nodded subtly. “I can in fact respect your position, Miss Ashmore.” Starkey’s index finger traced a path through the condensation fogging his glass of ice water. “Very well. My pitch is that you will offer companionship to a member of the cultural elite in exchange for a five-million-dollar slush fund intended solely for your father’s medical and living expenses. A slush fund, which your stepmother will be unable to touch.”
“Five million?” I gaped at him. My hands clutched my water glass, and I drained it in one go out of a desire to slow down my racing mind. “For companionship? What kind of companionship?”
“Really, Miss Ashmore,” Starkey had said, arching a gray eyebrow. “We’re both adults here. For this kind of money, what kind of companionship do you imagine?”
I froze like a rabbit in a trap. Pimping myself out had been something I was prepared to do—to Gentleman Starkey, and only for enough funds to keep my father off the street. Now, however, he was talking about a major life change.
We’ve all seen the Julia Roberts garbage, where the rich, handsome “John” falls in love with her prostitute character. But I lived in the real world, not a fairytale. My mind flashed through a number of scenarios, none of them pleasant.
“What kind of woman do you think I am?” I asked weakly. “Five million for my entire life seems a bit low-ball, no offense.”
“Whoever said your entire life?” Starkey leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers. “Miss Ashmore, I have no intention of pressuring you. The contract is for five years of service as a live-in companion. You can walk away at any time, with an equivalent exchange of funds deducted from the slush fund. But…”
“But what?” I’d blurted a bit loudly for that fancy restaurant. Wincing, I repeated my query at a more acceptably polite volume. “What?”
“So long as you adhere to the contract, you will obey your owner in all things. All things, without question. Do you understand?”
“What if he tells me to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger?” I snapped.
“You had better hope it is loaded with blanks,” Starkey said. “I’m not offering a golden ticket, or a free ride, Miss Ashmore. I’m only offering a way out of your current predicament, which might be more agreeable than some other options.”
I had hung my head in shame, unable to look him in the eye. I stared at my own lap, wondering how much I’d screwed up in a past life to have ended up in this situation.
“Miss Ashmore, we really are pressed for time. You must decide now. I’m sorry, but this offer expires in one minute.”
“One minute?” I glanced up at him, mouth dropping open in shock. What could I do?
Starkey dug into his pocket and extracted a smartphone, one of those fancy ones that cost a couple of grand. He tapped it to life and set it on the table before me.
“This mobile device contains the account information related to the proposed slush fund. Right now, it’s in escrow, but with a single press of your thumbprint you can claim it and register it in your name. Your father need not worry about his care ever again. And you needn’t worry either.”
He pushed it toward me, bulldozing soiled and crumpled napkins out of the way. I remember staring at the screen for a long moment, the thumbprint scanner insistently blinking. Just one press, and my father would be taken care of for the rest of his life…
“Ten seconds, Miss Ashmore,” Starkey had said. “Nine, eight—” I pressed my thumb to the scanner, and his face split in a wide grin. “Excellent. Be outside your home at eight o’clock sharp. You may bring one bag with you. I’d tidy up your affairs as if you were going on a long trip.”
“Tidy up my affairs?” I chuckled. “I have no boyfriend, I got fired from two of my jobs, and I can’t stand the sight of my stepfamily.”
“There’s no one you want to say good-bye to?” Starkey asked. “Truly, you may not get another chance to speak to anyone here for some time.”
I thought for a moment of visiting my father but dismissed the idea. I didn’t want to face him, given what I was doing to pay for his care.
“No. I just need to ask for a leave o
f absence at the hospital. That job pays fifteen an hour. I can’t afford to give it up.”
Starkey had grinned for some reason, and I plied him with a few more questions.
“What about food? Should I pack some groceries? Are there restaurants within walking distance, I mean—I need money to live.”
“Your room and board will be taken care of, I assure you,” Starkey had said. “As far as where you will be allowed to go, that will not be up to you.”
“Who will it be up to?”
“Your master, of course,” Starkey said. “Or mistress. Sometimes it goes that way.” My eyes widened with shock, and Starkey nodded. “Now you finally begin to understand your position, Miss Ashmore. Eight o’clock. Be ready, be prompt.”
Now that I was up on stage, about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder while dressed as Debutante Slut Barbie, I was having second thoughts. Maybe I should have left that phone sitting there and walked right out of that fancy restaurant.
But I didn’t, and it hit me right at that moment that I was going to have to pay for my decision.
The lights were so bright, I really couldn’t make out who was in the audience. I heard some gasps of surprise at my presence. Was it because I was that striking in this dress or because they weren’t expecting a human being to be auctioned off tonight? I was leaning toward the latter because I hadn’t noticed any other twenty-somethings with hard luck stories lingering backstage.
“Come over here, honey,” the auctioneer said, covering the mic with her gloved hand so she wouldn’t be transmitted over the speakers. “Don’t be afraid. You look ravishing.”
“I feel like a piece of meat at the market,” I said, standing near her.
“Well, it is what it is. Just remember that you’re worth something, no matter what. You hear me?”
I nodded, and she patted me on the shoulder before gesturing grandly toward me.
“Here we have Ella, age twenty-two, certified fertile and disease-free. Bidding starts at one million US dollars.”
I gaped in humiliated anger at her. How could she say such things about me? To my horror, the auction began with a half-dozen men trying to bid on me at once.
The one million was eclipsed by twice that sum in less than five minutes. The clever auctioneer stopped moving up by six figures and began in increments of half a million. When the bids reached ten million, I nearly passed out.
Soon it became obvious that all but two men had been outbid. One was an elderly white man in a wheelchair. The other was a rotund Middle Eastern man with a thick accent.
The mysterious sheik bid thirteen and a half million, and the old man looked dejectedly away. My heart leaped up in my throat. I really didn’t want to serve such a man.
“Thirteen and a half million,” the auctioneer called. “Going once. Are there no other bids? No other bids for this beauty? Going twice. And so—”
“Fourteen million.”
The whole room, me included, looked back to see a tall, slender young man cut through the crowd. His dark hair was impeccably styled, with devilish eyebrows trimmed to perfection above piercing eyes bluer than a spring sky. Even if I couldn’t see his handsome face, I’d know his rich, melodious baritone anywhere.
Deryk Mayne, my ex-boyfriend, the one I left because his family had ties to organized crime.
I froze, disbelieving my eyes and ears. It couldn’t be him. In my hysteria, I was hallucinating his features over some stranger.
“Fourteen million,” the auctioneer said. “Very well. I have fourteen million. Going once.” The sheik went to open his mouth, but Deryk spoke again, and I knew I wasn’t dreaming. “Fifteen million,” he cut the sheik off and glared at him with cold eyes.
“But you just outbid yourself,” the auctioneer stated, clearly flustered.
“I am leaving this place,” Deryk jabbed his finger at the floor, “with that woman, period. End of story.”
The sheik went to open his mouth again, and the auctioneer shook her head. The sheik got a pained expression on his face but then sighed and hung his head in defeat.
“Very well,” the auctioneer said. “Fifteen million. Going once, going twice—” She looked up at Deryk and frowned. “Are you sure about this, Deryk?”
“Do I look like I’m not sure, Belle? Just because you have Pete by the short and curlies doesn’t mean I’m impressed with a skirt. Do your fucking job.”
Belle sneered at him but banged her gavel nonetheless.
“Sold, to the snot-nosed punk for fifteen million.” Belle looked at me and sighed. “You might have been better off with the sheik.”
As Deryk’s eyes bored into me, a shiver ran through my body. I feared then and there that Belle was right. Deryk didn’t save me so much as capture me for himself.
Chapter Five
Ella Ashmore. I wanted to walk right up on that stage and claim her then and there, but there were protocols to follow. Or so I was told as a pair of very polite but also very large and insistent security guards in tailored suits escorted me off the auction floor to one of the VIP lounge suites.
Old man Hook’d had a real naval and sailing fetish. The VIP suite was thus decked out with rich blue carpet and lighter blue abstract curving designs, which made it seem like the ocean, I supposed. I was far from an interior decorator.
All I knew was that I found the ship wheel theme of the cocktail tables to be a bit on the nose, and the overhead lighting seemed far from adequate. In short, it was a dark and dismal space struggling to be relevant while clinging to an outdated oceanic theme.
I helped myself to the top shelf liquor behind the bar. I mean, I’d just dropped fifteen million on one auction item. They could damn sure spot me a drink or two, right? Ella Ashmore. What were the odds she would just happen to be at the same auction I was attending so soon after my conversation with Lucian?
Not very good. As in struck by lightning—twice—on the same day you win the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes and the Mega Millions lottery while the Tigers cinch the series. Damn near fucking impossible.
I smelled a rat. I’d been set up. I was next to certain. It had all fallen too neatly into place. The take on the auction would include a percentage of the fifteen million I just chipped in, so it was like having a steep discount.
So the take would be a little light—okay, a lot light—when I took it back to Lucian. I bet he wouldn’t say a damn word, because that would mean acknowledging it’d happened. No, Lucian was going to play it cool. He’d never admit to any involvement in this affair, because that was his way.
My only question wasn’t whether or not this was a setup. Clearly it was. My only question was how deeply Ella was involved in the deception. Was she a willing partner, ready to play me for a stooge? Or was she being blackmailed somehow, working against her will? It was hard to imagine she would be willingly involved, considering the circumstances of our breakup.
The door opened, and my heart skipped a beat. I turned toward the exit, but instead of Ella I was greeted by Peter’s squeeze, the auction master herself, Belle.
“Oh, it’s you.” I poured myself another shot of whiskey. “Drink?”
“I’m good, thanks.” She strolled across the room. “I just wanted to inform you that your prize will be here shortly. If you break her, it had better not come back on this house.”
“Oh please,” I said, chuckling. “You and I both know you’re in on this shit.”
“All I know is, Peter said it came down from up above there was going to be an extra special item on the block tonight. I didn’t find out it was a person until about ten minutes before you did.”
I cocked my head to the side. I believed her, though I was willing to bet that her flunky Starkey knew more than he was telling.
“Fine,” I said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I understand you have something for me?”
“I do.” Belle handed me a printed receipt. “This is the amount, which has been deposited in the appropriate offshore
accounts, as directed. Minus a fifteen-million-dollar fee, of course.”
“Of course.” I glanced at the slip of paper. Seventy million dollars in profit? Damn. No wonder Lucian liked these kinds of affairs.
“You were almost slick, hiding your surprise,” Belle snickered. “Listen, Deryk. What I’m about to say next I’m not saying as an auctioneer, or as someone engaged to your cousin. I’m saying it all of my own volition.”
“Spit it out,” I barked. “You want to make sure I don’t break the little glass princess.”
“This is serious, Deryk,” Belle said with a sigh. “Please. She’s a human being. Try not to forget that.”
“She’s my property,” I said flatly. “Don’t forget that. If you weren’t comfortable with this arrangement, you shouldn’t have played along.”
Belle’s lips became a thin, tight line, and she gave me a stiff nod. “Have it your way, Mr. Mayne,” she murmured stiffly. “I’ll send her in shortly. Do give my regards to your father.”
“In matters of firm business, he’s my boss, not kin,” I said. “But I’ll pass along your sentiment all the same.”
Belle arched her eyebrow, her features softening. “I suppose it must be hard for you, bearing the burden of your family name.”
“Don’t pity me, pixie girl,” I snapped. “I don’t need it or want it. If you must pity someone, save it for Little Miss Ashmore.”
“The one that got away,” Belle sneered with an icy, mocking tone.
“If you like,” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter.
She stared at me for a long moment, nose twitching, and then left in a huff. I chuckled to myself and poured another drink. Poor Peter. What a harpy, I thought.
I was on my third refill when a knock came at the door. A moment later it opened, and Ella minced her way inside, her gaze cast at the floor and hands wringing in front of her body.
Up close, I could see past the glaze of cosmetics and the changes of time to the young girl I fell in love with. Ella was still undeniably beautiful, with large blue eyes and silken straight hair the color of sunlight filtered through honey. Her elegance and poise were not so much in evidence, given her slumped shoulders and trembling fear. I wondered if I was too late, and she’d been broken already.