“She’s twenty-three years old. Smart. Stunning. A first-time Companion offering something this stage has never seen before.”
He lets the silence stretch, lets the tension tighten like a drawstring.
“This is a limited, one-time-only experience. No repeat bookings. No extensions. A singular, unforgettable event.”
My breath catches. My knees threaten to give way.
Eve steps beside me, her hand warm on the small of my back.
“Good luck, honey,” she says, soft and steady, and somehow, that helps.
The curtain rises and the lights blind.
I start my walk—each step carrying me deeper into the craziest thing I’ve ever done.
“Please welcome to the block…” A pause. “…Cassidy Hayes.”
The curtain lifts, and as the lights flood over me, a hundred hungry eyes lock on—my breath catches, knees nearly buckling under the weight of being watched, wanted, and appraised.
And the bidding begins.
Ten thousand.
It hits like a slap.
Not because it’s offensive—but because it’sreal. This is happening. I’m standing on a stage in a designer dress, auctioning off the one thing I swore I’d never give away this way…to someone that doesn’t matter… and it starts at the cost of a used car.
A flick of a paddle and it jumps to twenty.
Then thirty.
I try to stay steady, rooted to the center mark just like Eve instructed. Don’t pace. Don’t fidget. Don’t act like prey.
But all I can think is—five million.
That’s what the farm is worth. The land. The stables. The house my mother sketched on a napkin the week after she married my father. Every inch of that property holds something sacred. And if I want to keep it—if I want to give my mother a home to come back to when her next round of treatment is over—I have to reach that number.
Five million dollars.
That’s the prayer. The bargain I’m silently offering up to any god who might be listening.
Forty thousand.
Fifty.
The auctioneer’s voice rolls steady, and the bids trickle in like water building to a boil. But they’re still crawling. I’ve seen the numbers from the earlier lots. Most hovered in the tens of thousands. A few cracked six figures. Eve broke two million, but it was a weeks-long contract and she has a following. A reputation.
I have none of that.
I’m just the hype piece. The mystery virgin. The final lot, saved for the end in hopes the novelty alone might make someone curious—or stupid—enough to bid higher.
Seventy-five thousand.
A hundred.
I force myself to breathe through it. To keep my expression soft and blank, my eyes drifting over the room like I’m above it all. But my heart is pounding so hard I feel it in my teeth.
I scan the space the best I can past the lights, looking for something—anything—to ground me.
