Chapter 26
VINCENT
Gasps filled the room as every head swiveled toward the new bidder, mine included.
Brooklyn stood on the left side of the room, chin raised in defiance. She was at the same table as Scarlett and Carina, who gaped at her with the same shock that must’ve been written all over my face. “Thirty-five thousand pounds,” she repeated. “That’s my bid.”
My heart crashed against my ribcage. What the hell was she doing? She didn’t have thirty-five thousand pounds to spare. Hell, even I wouldn’t bid thirty-five grand on me.
Her eyes met mine across the room. They were a little panicked but determined, and suddenly, I knew.
She was doing this because she’d somehow sensed my discomfort, and she was bidding money she didn’t have to save me from having to spend a night with the woman in leopard print.
I hadn’t said a word about how much I hated being in the auction, but Brooklyn picked up on it anyway.
A tight pressure rose in my chest.
“Forty thousand!” Leopard Print yelled. She glared at Brooklyn as if daring her to one-up her offer.
Trepidation spread across Brooklyn’s face before she squared her shoulders and opened her mouth. “For...” She trailed off when I gave a small shake of my head.
The thought of dinner with Leopard Print made me cringe, but I couldn’t let Brooklyn spend that much money on me. If she won, I’d insist on paying her back every penny, but knowing her, she’d fight me on it. I couldn’t take even the minuscule risk that she’d be hurting because of me.
She stared at me, her eyes searching my face before she finally sat down without completing her bid. She glared back at Leopard Print, whose mouth curled with triumph.
“Going once, going twice, going three times…gone for forty thousand pounds! Wow! What an auction!” The emcee shook his head in amazement. “That’s all we have this year folks. Congratulations to the winners…”
I tuned out the rest of his closing remarks and rushed offstage before he finished talking. The auction was the last event of the night. It was late, and people were already making their way toward the exit.
My pulse clamored as I raced across the ballroom, barely acknowledging the many congratulations and back slaps I got for receiving the highest bid of the night next to Asher.
I pushed past Samson and Seth on my way to Brooklyn’s table. Hopefully, she hadn’t left yet because I needed to talk to her. Right now.
“Vincent!” Lloyd stepped into my path. He looked happier than I’d ever seen him, and I’d known the guy for years. “I have news.”
“Can you tell me later? I have to—”
“It’s about Zenith.”
Any other day, I would’ve jumped at news about the ambassadorship, but not today. “Let’s discuss—”
“They want to do a test shoot.” He barreled on, oblivious to my mounting frustration. “It’s not official. It’s the holidays, so the execs are out of office, but I know someone who knows someone who’s—”
“Lloyd.” I wanted to shake him. “Get to the point.”
“The point is, it’s a freaking test shoot! Do you know what means?”
I stared at him blankly.
“It means you’re in the home stretch.” He flapped his hands in an extremely un-Lloyd-like manner.
“My source says it’s down to you and Filipovi?.
Martin is out after his recent cheating scandal.
Stepping out on your long-term partner for a threesome with her best friend and your best friend’s girlfriend isn’t a good look.
Anyway, word is, the test shoot will be scheduled for sometime in January or February.
Whoever performs better will get the deal. ”
“Great. Looking forward to it. Thanks.” I brushed past him, trying not to calculate the number of minutes I’d lost listening to him talk about Rene Martin’s personal life.
“That’s it?” he yelled after me. “This is fucking Zenith, Vincent! Don’t you want to know the details?”
“Email them to me!” I yelled back without slowing my pace.
I made it two steps before my phone rang. I sent it to voicemail without checking to see who was calling.
I almost made it. I was this close to reaching Brooklyn’s table until the one person I couldn’t brush off stepped into my path.
Coach.
Fuck.
“DuBois.” Like the rest of the club, he was wearing a suit. He wore one to the gala every year, but that didn’t make it any less weird. It was like seeing a grizzly bear play the piano every Christmas.
“Boss.” I switched to calling him “Boss” in case it endeared me more to him, though I doubted it.
We’d resumed our punishing daily schedule of early runs and awkward dinners after I returned from Budapest. I was pretty sure he didn’t know Brooklyn had been on the trip, or he would’ve locked me up in a dungeon by now.
Then again, she’d bid on me in front of the entire ballroom. He didn’t need to know about Budapest to be suspicious, as evidenced by his piercing stare.
“Tied for the highest bid of the night. Impressive,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“My daughter had a hand in driving that amount up.”
I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Any idea why she bid thirty-five thousand pounds on her ex-flatmate?”
“Well, sir, we’re friends.” I searched for a plausible excuse. “And she, uh, knew I didn’t want to do the auction, so she offered to bid on me if I paid her back later.”
“Is that right? You looked quite surprised when she stood up.”
Damn me and my slip-ups. “I…didn’t know she was going to start her bid that high.”
“Now that you mention it, why didn’t she bid on you earlier if that was the plan?”
Sweat dotted my forehead. This was worse than getting interrogated by MI5.
“It’s a strategy that we found online. Wait for the small bidders to drop out, then come in at the end and take the whole thing.
Like those last-minute bidders on eBay.” I was pulling my answers out of my ass, and I couldn’t tell whether he was buying it.
“Yet she didn’t place the winning bid.”
“Um…” I stalled for time. “I gave her a cap of thirty-five thousand pounds. I didn’t think we’d surpass that.”
Coach pressed his lips into a thin line. He obviously didn’t believe me, but I’d answered his questions competently enough that he couldn’t find a flaw. Yet.
“So you’re not on your way to find Brooklyn,” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Then where are you off to in such a rush?”
“The…toilet.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes. I generally don’t make it a group activity. Sir,” I added hastily.
“Let’s go.”
“To where?”
“The toilet. I have to take a piss.” He jerked his chin toward the restrooms.
Fuck my life. With no other choice but to back up my lie, I followed him to the toilets, where we used the facilities in awkward silence.
“I’m headed to an after-party with some of the guys, so don’t wait up for me,” I said before he “offered” to drive us home. “I’ll see you in the morning for our run.”
Thankfully, he didn’t ask any questions about my post-gala plans, but it didn’t matter. By the time I returned to the ballroom, Brooklyn was gone.
brOOKLYN
I declined Carina’s invitation to go to Samson’s after-party with her. Normally, I’d be down for a night of hanging out at the winger’s ridiculously lavish mansion—he’d built an honest-to-God, private nightclub in the basement—but I wasn’t in the mood.
I’d lingered at the gala, hoping Vincent would show up, but he’d disappeared right after the auction. He was probably at the after-party right now, living it up with the rest of Blackcastle.
It was stupid of me to assume he’d seek me out after the auction.
What had I expected? That he’d be so overwhelmed by my bid, he’d run offstage and kiss me in front of everyone?
He hadn’t asked me to do that for him, and I hadn’t even won.
While part of me was relieved—the thirty-five thousand pounds would’ve put me in severe debt—I wished I could’ve punched Leopard Print in the face. She’d been way too smug about winning.
I sighed and stared at my computer. I’d already changed out of my gown and into my PJs. I was working on my ISNA application, which was due next week, but I couldn’t focus.
Why was it so hard for Vincent and me to nail down our relationship? The kiss should’ve clarified things, but it left me more confused than ever.
Every time we moved forward, something pulled us astray before we could solidify our progress. My dad, our friends, a freaking kitchen fire. I couldn’t tell if that was the universe’s way of telling us we weren’t meant to be or if we were just bad at communicating.
Someone knocked on the front door.
The unexpected sound echoed through the flat, and I sat up straight, my brow creasing. Who the hell would drop by this late without notice?
My mind flashed to Vincent’s creepy crochet doll and the strange text he’d gotten in Budapest. Fear curdled in my stomach.
The security system he’d installed was still up and running. He’d also moved out, so the chances of the intruder showing up at my place were slim. But maybe they saw us together in Hungary, thought I was getting in their way, and came to take me out.
They knocked again.
I grabbed a cricket bat from my closet and inched into the living room, toward the front door. I peeked through the peephole, half expecting to see a masked stranger with a gun.
Instead, dark hair and a navy suit filled my vision.
My bat hit the floor with a thud, and I opened the door, my pulse skittering for an entirely different reason.
Vincent stood in the hall, his jacket slung over his shoulder and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His eyebrows inched up when he saw me. “You’re home.”
“It’s midnight on a Thursday. Where else would I be?”
“The pub. The after-party. I checked both, but I thought I missed you.” A trace of relief ran through his drawl.
“You checked the Angry Boar before you checked my house?”
He shrugged. “Scarlett and Asher went there after the gala.”
“Ah.” I suppressed a smile, my earlier uncertainties evaporating as though they’d never existed. “You could’ve texted to see where I was.”
“True.”
His gaze held mine, and little crackles of electricity danced over my skin.