Auctioned to the Billionaire Mayor (West Bay Billionaires #1)

CHAPTER ONE

Nadine

“Girl. You got a lot going for you. But you’re not gonna find it back in your room watching old fairy tales while you cry over that asshole.” Mama stared at me as she washed the dishes in our single-wide.

“I know, Mama. But haven’t you ever been heartbroken?” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. I knew she’d been heartbroken, and it had been way worse than what I’d been through. “Sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to bring up hurtful things.”

“Peaches. That’s just what I mean. You don’t think things through.

You don’t got the kind of brains you need to get out of this hellhole.

You’re too nice, and you don’t have much ambition.

And, well, you don’t have a whole lot of options left.

” Mama didn’t say it mean. Just matter of fact.

She was frustrated, and maybe a little sad.

I didn’t blame her. She had wanted me to go to college so bad right out of high school, but my grades were shit.

I was always thinking hard. It was just about the wrong things.

Instead of focusing on grammar and math, all I could think about was boys and gossip.

Then I flunked out of beauty school. People don’t give stylists enough credit. Mixing those chemicals to get the dye right? I wasn’t so good at it. And when I’d had to mix custom colors? Just forget it.

Then I’d had a long spate of part-time jobs.

I’d gotten fired from the Dollar General because the manager said I was too distracting and attracted the wrong customers.

I hadn’t known what he meant, but Mama had.

Apparently, I’d brought in a whole bunch of men who didn’t want to buy anything. Except maybe a drink or dinner for me.

But I hadn’t worried too much about bouncing from dead-end job to dead-end job because I’d thought Mark was going to marry me. Just the thought made tears well up in my eyes. Again. That sure as hell hadn’t worked out, and I was left with nothing but dried up hopes and dreams.

If my current crappy job as a part-time waitress for a bitchy caterer didn’t work out, I knew what was waiting for me.

I’d be twenty-two years old, living in a single-wide with Mama in Puckins, Georgia, and I’d be stripping at that nasty club over in shitty Wilkins.

There wasn’t a strip club in Puckins, or I might have already been working there.

I didn’t want that for myself any more than she did, but I also didn’t have a long list of talents to pull from.

But it still hurt that she thought bad of me.

I mean, I wasn’t stupid. I just had never had much interest in school.

Not the books part, anyway. I’d always liked the social part just fine.

Mama and a bunch of my teachers had warned me that if I didn’t start paying attention to my grades, I’d regret it one day.

Was this that day?

I was afraid it was.

“Go get dressed, Nadine. You’re gonna have to go on that job whether or not you want to. There’s not a way around it. We need money quick to keep the water running.”

“Mama, please!” I was trying not to cry.

“Don’t make me go. It’s gonna be so embarrassing.

” She sighed. “I know, peaches. I know.” For a minute, the hard exterior that had cemented into place back when my daddy left us fell away, and I saw my mama the way she used to be.

When she was sweeter. But that view of her was gone in a flash.

She stopped washing dishes and leaned against the counter.

She narrowed her eyes and looked out the window at nothing I could see.

I held my breath while I waited for her answer.

Finally, she looked back at me. “Baby, I don’t want you to have to go today, either.

But I just don’t see a way around it. We both thought Mark was going to marry you one day.

The bastard.” Her lips slimmed into a thin line.

“But that’s not what happened. He’s marrying that Jessica Huber ‘cause her daddy owns the big car dealership off the interstate. That’s the only goddamn reason, and we both know it. ”

I wanted to throw myself back on my bed, cry some more, and put one of the old VHS fairy tale movies in the VCR we still had. But I knew Mama had just about had it with me. I loved Mark. But it turned out he never loved me. He just loved my looks, and, well, what was between my legs.

“I’d go for you, but I don’t think I’ve got the look they’re expecting.” Mama tried to smile. She’d been beautiful once. But life had beat it out of her.

“So, I have to go?” I worked for Maybelle Dickens’ catering company, and wouldn’t you know?

That’s who Jessica Huber had hired to cater her wedding to my boyfriend of eight years.

Well, ex-boyfriend. He’d never actually broken up with me.

He’d just let me hear about the fact he was marrying somebody else from our mutual friends who got wedding invitations.

“Yeah, peaches. You have to go.”

I closed my eyes briefly. But when I opened them, I put on a strong face. “Okay, Mama.” I started to walk out of the trailer.

“Nadine! Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

I turned and looked at her with big eyes. “Um… work? You said I had to. I was gonna sit out on the steps and wait for Jelly to come pick me up.”

“Not looking like the back end of a possum, you ain’t! Get in the bathroom and you fix your hair and makeup ‘til you look like you’re about to compete for Miss goddamn America! You got me? Make him regret how he’s treated you, peaches.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I hurried towards my bathroom.

“And wear your best push-up bra,” she hollered. “The one I got on sale at the Victoria’s Secret. God didn’t give you double D’s for nothin’!”

She had a point. I looked down at my chest. It was looking mighty droopy in the crappy bra I usually wore with my catering uniform.

I hurried to make the changes before it was too late for me to make it on time. “Alexa, what time is it?” I asked the echo dot while I frantically applied makeup and curled my hair all at once.

“Good afternoon, Nadine. It’s one thirty-five.”

“Shit!”

I had about five minutes before Jelly Pinkoe would be here to pick me up.

She’d been my best friend since pre-K. Her name was Ray Ann, but everyone called her Jelly.

I didn’t know why. She never talked about it.

I always thought she must have really liked jelly when she was a kid or something, but I’d never seen her eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

And I know she’d love to change her last name. Pinkoe wasn’t the weirdest name I’d ever heard, but it sure did cause every guy from here over to shitty Wilkins to call her ‘pink ho’ her whole life.

That wasn’t much fun for her.

I had just finished brushing my teeth and applying raspberry red lipstick to my lips.

I made a kissy face at the mirror and decided I looked as good as I was going to look in the uniform Maybelle Dickens had picked out for her employees to wear.

At least it had turned out to be unintentionally sexy.

Maybelle had picked out white tank tops and black skirts for us. She just didn’t realize that the skirts were short as hell and the tank tops were real low-cut. In my Victoria’s Secret push-up, it looked like my tits were going to jump out and fight somebody.

The horn honked. Jelly was here in her grandma’s weird, mauve-colored Buick to pick me up.

“Coming!” I yelled.

“Damn, Nadine,” Mama shook her head. “She can’t hear you, girl. She’s outside.”

“Right.” I giggled. “Sorry, Mama.”

Mama’s eyes trailed over me, and she nodded her approval. “You look like a real pretty whore, peaches. But that’s exactly what you need to look like today. Mark’s going to wish he’d passed up that car dealership money for you.”

“Damn straight.” I gave her a couple of finger guns and a wink.

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “God. You might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you sure do make me laugh.”

I waved at Mama as I jogged down the stairs and over to Jelly’s Buick.

She stared at me through her pink heart-shaped sunglasses while she blew an enormous bubble with the gum she was chewing.

Jelly always wore weird clothes. She had put her on unique touch on the catering uniform.

She was wearing black-and-white striped thigh-high tights and Doc Martens.

We had on the same white shirt and black skirt.

It was baggy on her, though, because she always ordered her clothes to be a size or two large on her.

I didn’t know why. She had on and purple lipstick, too.

It didn’t do a damn thing to disguise that she had a real pretty face.

That’s probably why Maybelle Dickens hired her.

I didn’t even look twice at the weird clothes. It was typical Jelly.

“Damn, Nadine. You trying to remind Mark he was fucking you just two weeks ago? Those tits are out there, girl.”

“Is it too much?”

“Well, hell, yeah, it is. But that’s okay. He needs to see what he’s never going to get to touch again, right?”

“Right.” I looked down and all I could see was boobs. “I hope Maybelle Dickens doesn’t send me home, though. Mama and I need the money.”

Jelly pulled out of the parking space in front of our trailer, her massive Buick bouncing over the crater-sized potholes and mounds of dirt as she drove towards the entrance. I braced my hands on the roof of the car so I wouldn’t hit my head.

“She’s not going to send you away, Nadine. Remember, she gets a cut of your tips. You always get good ones, but with that bra on? They’re going to double, at least. Plus, Mark’s brothers always wished it was them fucking you. They’ll be extra tippy tonight trying to get in your pants.”

“Ew.”

She laughed. “So, you don’t want to fuck one of them to get back at him?”

I shook my head. “No way.”

“Not even if they tip you a hundred?”

I gave her a look. “I don’t want their money.”