Page 86 of Bought By Three Men

“Of course.” How bad could it be?

“Well, it’s all a tad much and confusing.” She opened her laptop and showed me a few documents. “It took a while, and the only reason I was even able to find out was because I was on a Moore Tech server. You see, the glitch came from Moore Tech.”

“So Ethan did it? Why? I thought he wanted me to himself. Why put a glitch that allows others to purchase me?” I tried to read the screen. There were so many numbers and letters mixed together. It made no sense to me.

“That I don’t know. But it was set that only a million-dollar buy would get you. My guess is Ethan and Tristan did it, and Adam was an accident.” She chewed her lip.

“Why do you think Adam was an accident?” They knew each other. Maybe it was some weird payback for trying to rescue his sister.

“A gut feeling. Nothing I have found has his name on it. Not even the original purchaser lists,” she replied.

“But he did purchase me. How would he not be on the list?” I asked.

“He was after the auction. Purchaser 63 was blank, and his name was added after. That’s not even the weirdest thing about the auction. Look.” She pulled up a screen with the entrant's names.

Judith Blackwell

Bid #1 Purchaser 12: $2,000

Bid #2 Purchaser 20: $40,000

Bid #3 Purchaser 4: $65,000

Bid #4 Purchaser 7: $100,000

Final Bid: Purchaser 0: $0

I blinked and reread the screen. “How?”

“So, I did some digging, and the same glitch that allowed you to be purchased by multiple people prevented her from being purchased at all.” Dottie raised her eyebrows.

“Ethan.” I suppressed a smile. It was sweet that he did that, but completely wrong. I was gonna have to talk to him.

“Yes. There’s more.” Dottie clicked away.

“How is there more?” I asked.

“The only reason homeless were allowed in this year was to get you to enter. It all connects—the fights closing down, the homeless in the auction, the glitch. Ethan wanted you and was going to stop at nothing to get you,” Dottie said.

“How do you know? It could still be a coincidence.” I didn’t believe it was for one second.

“Because of this.” Dottie clicked on the screen, and an email popped up. “It was encoded, but I fixed that.”

Mr. And Mrs. Gould,

I am emailing to inform you that this year you are to allow the homeless to enter the marriage auction. Honestly, it only has to be one, an Ava Palmer. I trust this will not be an issue.

Ethan Moore

“Why did he go through all the trouble to get me? He could have anyone.” I pressed my nails into my palms. Ethan was hiding more than the glitch, and I was going to find out.

“I don’t know. But let it go. I tried to pin the glitch on Adam, but this is all so sophisticated I can’t. Plus, it's all tied back to Moore Tech, no matter how hard I tried to change the codes. You know the truth, now let it go,” Dottie begged. “We have a great life. Please don’t make another bad decision and ruin it.”

I pulled Dottie into a hug. “Don’t worry.”

Making bad decisions was part of who I was. It wasn’t something I enjoyed, and when I tried to make the right choice, I ended up making the wrong one. It was how things always went. Maybe that was why I left Dottie’s room and went in search of Ethan to confront him.

CHAPTER35

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