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CHAPTER ONE
NO. NO. NO. Her ex-husband hadn’t just made an outlandish bid for Emily Stewart’s Manhattan Memorial Children’s Hospital Traumatic Brain Injury fund-raiser bachelorette date.
Lucas couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
Oohs and aahs were sounding around the hotel ballroom as the auctioneer expressed his excitement over the enormous leap in the bid. Emily just wanted to cry, Noooooooo.
She’d never dreamed of putting in a clause that said if her ex-husband lost his mind, bid and probably just won, her donated “date” was null and void. Then again, when she’d first volunteered with the fund-raiser, she’d not seen Lucas in five years. She couldn’t possibly have expected him to show up at the auction, much less bid outrageously for her bachelorette number.
What she’d expected was her boyfriend to buy the date.
The reality was she’d been worried Richard would be her only bidder.
If only he had.
Why had she let Meghan convince her to do the auction? Standing on a stage letting men bid on a date with her was not her thing. Still, it had been for a great cause she believed in and she hadn’t had the heart to say no despite fear of humiliation and embarrassment.
But if she’d known Lucas would show up and bid on her, no way would she have agreed to participate.
Ugh.
If she had one of those auction number thingies, she’d bid on herself. Could a girl do that?
White-knuckled, she forced a smile to stay on her face, but her cheeks were starting to hurt. Then again, that could be from her gritted teeth rather than her fake smile.
She dug her fingers into her palms and pretended everything was just fine, as if the man who’d once ripped her heart to shreds hadn’t just bid a ridiculous sum to go to dinner with her.
He hadn’t eaten with her when it hadn’t cost him a thing except his time. Why would he want to now? After all these years? For that matter, why had he even taken the job at Children’s? Manhattan was big enough for the both of them. Barely. Their paths should never, or at least rarely, cross. They’d been apart five years and, although she occasionally heard his name or saw a photo of him come across one of their few mutual acquaintances’ social media page, she’d not seen him in person since the day their divorce had been finalized.
Until this past month.
Now she saw him every time she worked.
The auctioneer resumed his rapid-fire words, calling for another bid. Emily’s gaze went to Richard, silently pleading with him to outbid Lucas. He might not have Lucas’s millions, but the bid was far from being outside his reach. Why wasn’t he stepping up, letting Lucas know she was his?
One of the auction volunteers walked over to stand near Richard, encouraging him to up the ante. But rather than do so, he shrugged and said something she could only make out bits and pieces of from where she stood on stage. What she caught was that the auction was “all for fun” and “for a good cause.”
Cheeks on fire, forced smile glued in place, heart pounding out of her chest, Emily wanted to disappear. Richard made a good living. He could afford to bid higher. As her boyfriend, he should be bidding higher.
“Anyone else, folks? Come on, just look at her. Imagine a night out on the town with this gorgeous woman on your arm.” The auctioneer turned his attention back to the rest of the crowd, trying to entice a new bidder into the ring. As if anyone else was going to cough up that much money to oust Lucas’s high bid when her own boyfriend wouldn’t. Ugh. This was humiliating.
“Going once,” the auctioneer warned. “Going twice.”
Her cheeks were so hot maybe she’d just spontaneously combust. Then sharing a meal with Lucas wouldn’t even be an issue.
“Sold to the lucky gentleman holding number 146,” the auctioneer crooned.
Great. Lucas had just won her date.
Emily walked across the stage to where the other auctioned-off women waited while the next bachelorette took center stage. In just a few minutes Emily would have to have a photo taken with her ex-husband. She’d have to stand next to him, smile at the camera and pretend she wasn’t dying on the inside.
Thanks to his winning bid she had to sit through a meal with him across the table.
How dared he do this to her? Hadn’t he caused enough havoc already to last a lifetime?
No.
Just no.
She was not having a meal with her ex-husband. Just the thought made her want to barf.
She’d play nice for the picture, but she would make a matching donation to the charity and wiggle out of the date. Although, Lucas had certainly been generous enough that doing so would make a painful dent in her savings. Still, the charity and avoiding time with her ex-husband were worthy causes.
Why? she wanted to scream at him from across the crowded luxury hotel ballroom. The hundreds of attendees might as well have not existed. All she saw was Lucas, smiling so nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just done something so absolutely wrong. Dressed in his tux, he was so handsome she wanted to shake her fist and yell it wasn’t fair that he looked even better than he had when he’d been hers.
Their divorce hadn’t left him any worse for wear. She’d been the devastated one who’d had to pick up the shattered bits of her heart and pretend her whole world hadn’t fallen apart.
Her whole world had fallen apart.
