Episode 19
Episode 19
What Have I Done?
RHODES
“Is it almost over?” I asked Christophe as I adjusted my tie for the third time, then undid it and ripped the blasted thing over my head. I tossed it onto the small circular table where my auction paddle sat next to my drink.
We’d just seen several men and women auctioned off to the highest bidder. And if I was being perfectly honest, the entire process was fascinating. I could tell that Madam Alana was proud of her company. She exuded extreme confidence at the podium along with a heaping dose of her charm. She didn’t make the process feel tawdry or debauched, even when the candidates were showing off their bodies. It felt rather similar to a private fashion event, like the kind I used to attend when my ex-wife would walk in a runway show for a particular designer.
“I’m surprised you haven’t bid on anyone, mon ami . I thought for sure you would raise the paddle for Summer. She seems like your type.” Christophe sipped his wine, one leg crossed nonchalantly over the other.
“Why? Because she’s blonde?” I scoffed.
Christophe grinned and shrugged. “ Oui .”
I shook my head. “Let me just say the only blonde I want in my house is my daughter. Portia put me off blonde women in a romantic capacity, for… Well, let’s just say forever.”
Christophe chuckled. “This makes sense. She could put any man off an entire group of women.” His lips twisted into a sour expression.
“Too true.” I snickered and then eased back into my chair feeling a tad lighter, the gin and tonic I drank easing the tension in my shoulders.
“We have our last candidate of the night. It is my great pleasure to welcome Maia Fields,” Alana announced.
I was about to pull out my phone to check on Emily back at the resort when I glanced up at the stage and couldn’t believe my eyes.
“My pickpocket!” I gasped.
“Maia Fields is twenty-three, a native of Colorado, and loves being outdoors. She is a petite five foot three. It is my experience that the best things in life come in small packages.” Alana’s red lips pressed together in a knowing smirk.
“Small enough to spin on my cock,” said a rotund man who nudged his friend’s shoulder while rubbing his hands together. “We call those types of little things spinners ,” he continued, licking his lips as he did so.
Before I knew it, the smarmy fellow lifted his paddle into the air. “Three million for the sugar baby,” he called out.
“Sugar baby,” I sneered under my breath. How rude. How dare he talk down about a woman in such a way when he was sitting there bidding on a bride without having to make any effort to woo her. Probably because he would never have been able to get a woman like that. The back of his balding head had a poorly done combover and he was sweating profusely, his wide, curved nose red and ruddy from the booze he likely partook of too often for his own good. His suit was expensive but ill-fitting.
“Have some respect,” Christophe hissed while tapping the man on the shoulder, earning his attention.
“For what? A pint-sized whore?” he returned with laughter.
Christophe’s head jerked back as though punched, and his facial expression shifted to disgust.
“Oh, I see we already have interest in Maia. As this is the last candidate of the night, and we already have a bidder, let’s skip ahead. I have three million from bidder Number 19.”
“Three and a half million,” another bidder called out, and I sighed in relief.
My joy was short-lived as the jerkish man countered, “Four million!” He waved his lit paddle, then leaned over to his friend. “I’m going to hog-tie her, hang her from a hook in my bedroom, and play with her little body until she begs me to stop.” He grinned wickedly, a malicious haze overtaking his already unfortunate features.
“Are you just going to let him get away with this?” I pointed my hand toward the disgusting person. Christophe’s wife owned the auction. Couldn’t he do something?
“My wife vetted him completely. She has checks and balances in place. Perhaps it’s just locker room talk.” Christophe’s jaw was as firm as granite, his teeth clenched as he spoke slowly. I could tell he didn’t truly believe his own words and it was weighing down on him.
“Pssshttt! Obviously a nasty one snuck through.” I lifted my foot, considering shoving it into the back of the man’s skull the next time he said something inappropriate. I was never one to result to violence, but this guy was fucking gross.
The bidding was now at five million in favor of the nasty bastard.
I stared into the warm brown eyes of the woman I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since I’d opened my eyes and found her sitting on top of me at the airport after we crashed into one another. She was unearthly beautiful with a perfect little curvy shape, but her eyes were sad. Stunningly so. Much like what I saw in the mirror when I looked at my own reflection each morning. There was a shared unhappiness there, one I recognized all too well. Sometimes I thought it was loneliness, other times I believed it was my own karma staring back at me.
Why was Maia sad? Had she lost someone like I had all those years ago? Did her last man cheat on her more times than the years they were together? Did life continue to screw her over in ways most people could never understand? I’d bet I could relate.
Just because someone had money didn’t mean they had it all. Frankly, I knew more rich people who were unhappy than people who lived paycheck to paycheck. The latter individuals knew that money wasn’t the source of happiness. The former continued to try and force it to be, as if they could get more and more and eventually reach the highest level of bliss possible, only to find the top was lonely as fuck. It didn’t mean jack if you didn’t have anyone to share it with. At least that had been my experience.
“Five million going once…” Alana announced.
Maia heard that number and smiled for the first time.
That smile broke me in two. Shattered my resistance into dust. Everything I thought I knew was obliterated. My cock hardened behind my pants, my heart pounded like a drum within my chest, and I lost all common sense.
I lifted my hand in the air, the weight of the paddle feeling like a sword, as if I was going into battle. I flicked the button to fire it up, a beacon of light in a dark, unrelenting sea of bidders.
No other would get that smile pointed at them but me.
Maia would be mine.
* * * *
MAIA
“Seven million.” A new voice that sounded slightly familiar entered the bidding war suddenly.
My mouth dropped open, and I swear my eyeballs practically bugged out of my head. Some man out there wanted me to be his wife for seven million dollars . Me, a tiny little pickpocket. That was more money than I could have ever dreamed of having. The entire process was absolutely unreal and blew my mind every time the bid increased.
I’d entered the auction in the hopes I’d be picked for the base minimum of three million. That kind of money was all I would need to get my mother and siblings away from that horrifying man and his abomination of a son. Seven million would be more than life altering. It was world-changing for someone like me and my family.
Alana smiled wider than I’d ever seen in the many years I’d known her. Whoever this bidder was, she recognized him and was blatantly thrilled he’d entered the battle.
“You just want to take her away from me,” one of the voices that had been bidding griped loud enough for everyone to hear, but the lights on the stage were too bright for me to see anything other than shadows in the audience. I squinted and could vaguely see a large shape with his arm out pointing at something or someone who may have been seated, but I wasn’t sure.
“Maybe I don’t like the way you refer to women as toys.” the new bidder fired back angrily.
That voice.
I’d definitely heard it before, but I couldn’t put my finger on it…Wait. What did he say? Treating women like toys?
A different voice invaded my mind like a nightmare come to life.
“You’re my little toy, Maia. Whenever I want. However, I want. No one is going to save you. Now hush up and do what big brother says…”
Bile rose up my throat and immediately my skin broke out in goosebumps as fear slithered up my spine like a snake, wrapping its coils around me and squeezing every ounce of breath I had left in my lungs.
I let out a harsh cough, sucking in huge bouts of air as I fisted my hands until my knuckles turned white. I would be no man’s toy . Alana had sworn up and down that I didn’t have to do anything that could harm me. I’d been treated like a plaything for someone to get their jollies off before.
I squeezed my eyes shut and instantly shut down the darkness encroaching from the memories as they tried to invade. The darkness was always there, digging its claws and prodding at my mind to find a weak spot to slip through and take over. It took everything I had to shove those experiences back into the safety deposit box where I kept them concealed. I’d locked them away within the deepest reaches of the vault that was my mind, never wanting them to see the light of day.
Not ever again.
I wasn’t that person anymore. No longer was I a terrified teenager with no choices. If the man who was to be my husband scared me, I wouldn’t sign the final contract. I still had one easy out, and I’d take it if I had to.
“Gentlemen, we do not air our grievances during the auction. One or both of you may be removed if this continues,” Alana stated, her authority over the room clear. She waited what felt like a full thirty seconds for the entire room to go silent before she smiled cooly. “Excellent. Let’s continue. I have seven million to bidder Number 38 going once…”
I held my breath.
“Going twice…”
I thought I might pass out right there on the stage.
“Sold to Mr. Davenport for seven million dollars. Maia, love, please exit the stage. There will be a member of my staff waiting to bring you to the signing room.”
My feet were glued to the shiny black floor. The rest of me as heavy as two tons as I stood there trembling, not able to believe what just happened.
I’d been sold to a man for seven million dollars.
I was going to be rich.
I was going to get married.
I was going to be some random wealthy man’s wife.
Davenport. The name bounced around in my head as I blinked against the glaring lights. I knew that name. I’d seen it on the driver’s license of the man I pickpocketed just yesterday. The hot “ Zaddy” I’d used as my personal fantasy man when I got myself off in the shower just this morning.
There was no way the same man was here.
What if he was? What if he just bought me to get the money I stole back? Oh my god—what if I was going to walk off this stage and into a room filled with cops? I’d never be able to help my family if I was taken to jail.
He could hurt Maisie, too.
Sweat beaded on my hairline and under my arms as I panted, unable to get air into my lungs fast enough. A face I recognized, one that was safe, entered my line of vision.
“You okay, chéri ?” Alana cooed, her brows furrowed.
I nodded on autopilot but didn’t speak.
“A little shocked at all that has happened?” she surmised, her tone concerned, not upset.
Again, I nodded, not wanting to share all the things I was frightened of, lest she kick me out of her fancy auction, costing me the best possible chance I’d ever have at saving my family or living a real life.
Seven million dollars.
“Could it really be true? The money…” I croaked.
She laughed out loud, curved an arm around my shoulders, and eased me toward the side of the stage. Her steps were sure while mine wobbled in heels I could barely walk in.
“It has happened. All your worries will be no longer. I know your bidder personally. It will be an experience to say the least.” She gave me a half smile.
Her reassurance helped, but the niggling fear wouldn’t abate. “There aren’t going to be any cops waiting to arrest me?” I whispered, my voice small and scared.
Abruptly, she turned around and held up a finger to the audience.
Shit, I was losing my cool on stage with the audience still present. I started to tremble, the need to run, to hide, to escape tingling at the edges of my nerve endings, demanding action.
“Dear one, I will never let anything bad happen to you.” Alana looked me straight in the eyes, and a soothing balm spread over my frayed nerves. “You have my word,” she promised.
I held her gaze with my own for as long as it took for me to believe her. And I did. Madam Alana and I were kindred spirits. I didn’t have to share the horrors I’d survived, or learn all of hers, in order to know that we’d had similar pasts, or at the very least, shared trauma that contributed to shaping who we were today.
“You’re going to be okay.” She smiled gently and reached her arm out to Jade who was waiting at the end of the stairs.
“Come on, Maia. I’ll be with you the whole way,” Jade offered with a rare smile as if she were trying to calm a frightened animal.
I took Jade’s hand and looked into her pretty eyes.
“What have I done?” I gulped.
“You’ve changed the course of your life in every way possible. Doesn’t it feel great?”
Other than being absolutely terrified of what came next, I didn’t know how to feel. Maybe after I met the man I was to be married to, and if he was a good guy, I could find some semblance of normalcy again.
I let out a long breath I’d been holding. “Let’s get this over with.”