Page 36 of Auctioned To Be Mine

He looked sheepish. “My siblings convinced me that if I looked terrible, Chantilly would lose interest.”

I nearly choked on my wine. “That’s clever.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s both.” I grinned at him. “But it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Chantilly doesn’t care what you look like. She cares what you represent—money, status, Instagram content. For her, it’s enough that you’re you.”

“You say that like you know her.”

“I know people like her. I grew up with them.” I pushed some chicken around on my plate. “They’re not bad people necessarily. But an ugly shirt was not going to be a dealbreaker for her.”

He groaned. “Let’s hope her new man works out.”

“She swore he was the one.”

“Whatever. That woman is dangerous. I think I can justify pulling fifty fire alarms.”

13

CALLUM

The bib was humiliating. I was sitting in a restaurant wearing what amounted to a tarp around my neck, eating spaghetti like a toddler at his first birthday party, and somehow I was having the best time I’d had in months.

I twirled another forkful of pasta and watched Victoria cut into her chicken. She’d been right about the spaghetti. Delicious and messy.

“So you’re also in the wedding business?” she asked, looking up at me. “How did that start? Was that always the plan?”

“God, no.” I reached for my wine. “My sister Cleo had this idea. She’s been designing wedding gowns. Her best friend Mandy is a well-known wedding planner. I’m more the business guy. We combined our talents and came up with the Blackwell Wedding collection.”

“Sounds classy.”

“It is, actually. I won’t bore you with the whole sales pitch, but we offer everything a couple could need for a wedding. Like you could just buy a dress, but you can also buy the dress, and a tux that complements it, and themed packages, with a curated selection of flower arrangements, centerpieces, invitations, thank you cards. All of it meant to synergize and work together. With a ton of ways to personalize each event. We also have a staff of wedding planners that work directly with people, if they want. There’s different tiers—” I stopped myself and laughed. “Sorry, there’s a lot of moving parts to it. Long story short, we sell fancy wedding stuff.”

“I’ll admit, I’m having a hard time visualizing it,” she said.

I sat up and leaned forward. “Funny you mention that. The new Blackwell Couture store is going to have a section showing people what they can expect from our company. They can see our products and they can talk to one of our planners to see if they want a more personalized service.”

“Well, that’s smart.” Victoria nodded. “Everything is digital now. Sometimes it’s nice to see things in person. Feel the fabric with your own hands. Look a person in the eye and see if they’re full of crap.”

“Well, it was my sister, Cleo’s, idea. It was also her idea to partner up with Blackwell Couture in the first place. They had the resources to help make it happen.”

“Just that fast,” she said, one eyebrow arching upward.

“Cleo has a way of making things happen when she really wants it.” I shook my head. “She came to me with this business plan. Said she just wanted my opinion. And now things have taken off.”

Victoria smiled and I found myself staring at those sexy dimples. I’d never been a dimple guy, but on her, they worked for me. A lot. Normally, I didn’t like the whole wining and dining process. Dating sucked. I didn’t mind the end of the dates. That was when the fun started.

“She sounds like my kind of person,” Victoria said.

“She’d love you.” I meant it before I’d finished saying it, which surprised me. “Especially you engineering that sweet revenge.”

She laughed but didn’t apologize.

“So, the charity,” I said, steering the conversation back to her. “You just stumbled into it?”

She sighed. “Yes. Kind of. I was at an event that benefited the charity.” She reached for her wine. I felt the energy shift. I couldn’t explain it but there was a sadness to her when she’d been so cheery before. “Betty was the keynote speaker. She talked about this one family—a little girl, maybe six years old, who’d been diagnosed with leukemia. The parents had to choose between keeping their apartment and staying close to the hospital.” Victoria turned her glass slowly on the tablecloth. “Betty’s organization paid three months of their rent so they could stay. The little girl made it.”

“And that got to you.”