6. Katherine
6
KATHERINE
Several more seconds tick by, and the auctioneer repeats the starting bid. I bite the inside of my lower lip and lift my chin a fraction.
Five hundred dollars? That has to be my mother’s doing.
The room is devoid of paddles in the air. I’m looking now. Hard. A girl I went to high school with smirks near the front of the group.
Oh, this is bad. So bad.
Why didn’t it occur to my mother that no one would pay for a date with the so-called Ice Queen? I’ve heard the rumors, and they suit me just fine.
Or was that part of her plan all along? Did she know about Grandfather’s will before she signed me up for this pageant?
Palms sweating, I glance back at Alex. Will he bid on me? Is that wild connection I always feel whenever we’re within ten feet of each other real, or is it all in my head?
Next to him, Gabriel stares at me. It’s a long, cool look. Thoroughly appraising. Almost as if he’s asking if I want him to join the fray.
My frenemy suddenly seems like a prize.
I give him the tiniest nod.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t lift his paddle.
My heart thunders. I’m going to strangle my mother.
My gaze ping-pongs between the two men. It’s only been a few seconds. Why does it feel like five lifetimes?
“One thousand.” Gabriel’s paddle flashes. Sweet relief shoots through me, and my knees go weak.
Alex’s head swivels toward him so fast it’s almost comical.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see another paddle above everyone’s head.
Tyler.
What the heck is he doing?
The auctioneer confirms the bid, and an ache takes up residence behind my breastbone.
This is exactly as awful as I’d feared.
Bright lights. All eyes on me. A murmur rippling through the crowd. Speculation and gossip.
My temples begin to pound in time with my heartbeat.
“Five thousand. ”
My gaze snaps to Alex, and that’s when I wobble, my knees almost giving.
Gabriel shoots him a baffled look. What the hell are you doing?
Alexander dips his chin ever so slightly to the side, his dark eyes never leaving me. Not even to recognize his friend.
His best friend.
I let out a slow breath, and an ounce of the anxiety fades.
On the other side of the room, Tyler calls out, “Fifty-five hundred.”
Cheapskate. His investments alone would have brought in eight figures last quarter.
I fight to not roll my eyes.
“Seven thousand.”
My attention snaps back toward Gabriel and Alexander. It’s Rothburn’s paddle in the air this time.
And then it’s on. The three men outbid each other like it’s the final match at Wimbledon. Swift and energetic.
My head’s on a swivel as I watch the men volley. No one else enters the war.
Under the hot stage lights, I resist the urge to wipe my palms down my thighs. My mother instilled a few lessons in me at an early age— No fidgeting. Don’t let them see you sweat.
At nineteen thousand, Tyler shoots Gabriel and Alexander a thunderous look .
Why on earth would he think I’d go on a date with him, no matter how much he paid? It’s all to force my hand. To get the last word.
To their credit, once they started bidding, Gabriel and Alexander haven’t paid him a lick of attention. In fact, it seems like they’re barely paying attention to each other. But how could they not?
They’re shoulder to shoulder in exquisite, inky black tuxedos. A sight to behold. To remember. Straight off the cover of GQ, but oh so alive.
“Thirty thousand,” Alexander says.
“Forty,” Gabriel replies.
“Fifty.”
My jaw drops. There’s a chorus of quiet gasps. Even the auctioneer seems stunned.
Tyler’s paddle is stationary at his side.
“Sixty,” Gabriel counters.
“Seventy.”
“Eighty.”
“One hundred thousand.”
This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever witnessed firsthand. But somehow, I don’t feel like a slab of meat.
No, I feel like a toy on the playground.
Their favorite toy. They both want it and so they’re tugging back and forth to see who will win.
Finally, Gabriel glances over at his friend.
Alexander has every right to smirk. He just wagered a hundred thousand dollars for a date. With me.
That’s insane, and yet, that’s a weekend in Vegas for these guys.
Alexander’s regard is cool and questioning. Your move.
Gabriel looks back at me, and this time, he starts at my feet. My toes actually curl inside my Louboutins. His gaze skims up my thighs, over my hips, and to the dip of my waist. I feel the invisible caress beneath my breasts, a phantom touch over my collarbone. Until finally, he’s glancing at my face again.
I have no idea why he’s doing this. Is it all a ploy? Is he going to withdraw at the last second?
Can he see how affected I am? How much I hate all this and yet, for some strange reason, enjoy their attention?
I think he does.
Surprising... because Alexander is the one known for his attention to detail.
But then Gabriel is a bit of a playboy. The handsome geek who stormed through Wall Street. There was a stretch there where he’d been at every party, in every paper, always with a different woman on his arm.
Not that I was watching.
I was totally watching.
The auctioneer clears her throat .
“Five hundred thousand.”
Gabriel tosses the number into the middle of the ballroom like a grenade, and boy does it get a reaction.
Every set of eyes in the cavernous, sparkling space turns to look at the brainiac billionaire.
The auctioneer, for all her fast-talking, is momentarily at a loss for words.
Pleasure and fear twine around each other and zip through my veins.
If only I could go back and tell my fourteen-year-old self with the acne-covered skin and not-in-vogue hair that one day, one day a handsome man (a man she’d long thought her enemy) would offer half a million dollars for a single date with her.
“Mr. Rothburn, thank you for the bid. Any other bids?” Of course she knows who he is.
Her gaze sweeps the room. She’s getting back into her rhythm now, and I can almost feel her composing herself behind the lectern.
She glances my way, but I’m turning back to Alexander, struck dumb. That dark chocolate gaze locks on me again. He can’t match that bid. Right? That’d be insanity.
“Mr. Hunt?”
Gabriel’s lips curve up, and he half turns, waiting to see what his friend will do. The murmurs grow louder, and I know that the auctioneer is giving them extra time to sort out... whatever the hell it is they’re sorting out.
For some reason, it feels important that both of them save face.
“Two dates,” I whisper to the woman behind the lectern.
From the corner of my eye, I see her jaw drop, and her head swivels in my direction.
Then she grins.
“One million,” Alexander Hunt says and Gabriel gives his friend a look that could slice ham.
The crowd loses their marbles and my knees give out. I wobble before quickly righting myself. But it’s too late. Alex and Gabriel noticed, and now, heaven help me; they wear matching smirks.
My jaw is on the floor saying hello to my new shoes, but luckily, no one’s looking at me anymore. They’re looking at the gorgeous man in the back of the room. And even though everyone is staring at Alex, his attention is now on his best friend.
Your turn , that look seems to say.
“Perhaps if Mr. Rothburn cared to match Mr. Hunt’s bid, Miss Montgomery would agree to a date with each of you,” the auctioneer says, her cute little gavel poised in her hand.
“Absolutely,” I agree, finding my voice. I sound way more calm than I feel. Inside, I’m gelatin.
“Done,” Gabriel calls out.
Two million dollars.
They paid two million dollars to date me.