Page 36 of Temporary Vows

My body goes still.

For a second, I don’t breathe. I don’t blink. The name hits my mind like a sledgehammer, but it’s so wrong in this place that my brain refuses to process it.

I couldn’t have heard right.

Elodie?

Here?

Must be somebody else.Please be somebody else.

My hands tighten on the balcony rail before I even realize I’ve moved. The room blurs at the edges, sound dropping away until all I can hear is the thud of my own pulse.

I stare ahead at the stage. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

The lights shift.

A curtain parts. And then I see her.

Elodie.

MyElodie.

“No,” I hiss under my breath. “No fucking way.”

She steps out like someone dropped her into the world and told her to survive.

Her hair is down, falling in a soft spill around her shoulders, catching the spotlight as she walks. She’s in sheer lingerie that shows everything. I can’t even say it leaves anything to the imagination.

The thing that looks like a bra exposes the huge swells of her breasts and rosy nipples.

A thin strip of fabric barely covers her pussy and has all the men leaning forward like hungry creatures waiting to devour her.

I could act like I’m immune all I want, but my body doesn’t lie. The sight of her has my cock so hard I can barely contain my breath.

Six-inch heels click against the stage as she takes her place on the podium. And the worst part is the way she holds herself together—chin lifted, spine straight, like she’s wearing armor no one else can see. Like if she lets herself break, she won’t stop.

My stomach turns. I was right. She must be in the desperate kind of trouble to do something like this.

Sell her body.

And look at all these fuckers staring at her. Waiting to bid on her so they can have her.

I have news for them. It’s not going to happen.

“See something you like, friend?” Salvatore asks, amused and oblivious to my inner turmoil.

“She’s mine,” is all I tell him, then I’m moving before he can say anything more.

By the time I reach the stairs, the bidding has already begun. It starts at a grand and rockets upward, scaling to twenty before I even reach the bottom.

“Twenty grand,” the host confirms instantly. “Do I hear twenty-five?”

A paddle lifts in the front. “Twenty-five.”

A third man raises his paddle without even looking at Elodie, like she’s not a person, just a number. “Thirty.”

The crowd hums with excitement.