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“You’re up,” a voice hissed, and the woman who’d shown me in popped her head behind the privacy screen, her scowl widening as she stared at me. “We have a schedule!”
“Sorry,” I muttered, my hands fluttering around my chest, trying to lessen the impact of so much boob. I walked around the partition, my eyes widening when I saw the room was completely empty. Evidently, I’d taken longer than I thought to squeeze into that dress.
“Just walk out on the stage, wave at the crowd, and walk to the side,” Ms. Golden-Ray-of-Sunshine explained in a bored tone as she all but pushed me towards the hallway that led out to the stage.
“Right,” I muttered, feeling like a swarm of bats had taken up residence in my insides.
I was going to throw up. Yep. It was going to happen.
“Do not throw up,” she snarked at me like she could read my mind. Or maybe it didn’t take a mind reader—I was sure my face was a lovely shade of putrid green at the moment.
Terror. That was what I was feeling. The dress, beautiful yet so unforgivingly tight, clung to me like a second skin. How had I ended up here? Was this real life?
As I walked onto the stage, the blistering spotlight focused its intense heat on me, making my skin tingle and prickle with discomfort. The brightness was overwhelming at first, causing me to squint and blink as the relentless glare threatened to blind me. The world beyond the spotlight's boundary became a hazy blur, and the faces in the audience seemed distant and indistinct.
The heat seemed to intensify, and I suddenly had a vision of myself looking like a stuffed pig on the stage, sweat trickling down my skin.
As the initial shock wore off, my eyes slowly adjusted to the brilliance of the spotlight. The world beyond it came into focus, revealing the eager faces of the audience, the glittering decorations, and the grandeur of the room. Though I still felt the intensity of the spotlight's heat, I was no longer blinded by it.
The MC, one of the team’s game announcers, stepped forward, his voice carrying through the room.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, his voice dripping with charisma, "may I have your attention, please? We have our last participant for the night, and might I say, gentlemen, that dress and the woman who’s in it is leaving us breathless, am I right?”
Pig.
Now I wasn’t thinking of myself looking like a stuffed pig, because there was one right by the stage.
My hands itched to cover my chest, as my cheeks blazed with embarrassment. But I kept them at my sides, trying to plaster a hopefully pleasant looking smile on my face as he continued his idiotic diatribe. Had he been this annoying with the other women and I just hadn’t noticed?
I focused my gaze on the wall behind the crowd, unable to look at anyone too closely. Especially the three of them. I couldn’t take it if they were laughing at me. Or disgusted. That would suck too.
What was the advice people gave when in front of a crowd? Imagine that they were all naked? That didn’t seem very fitting. My gaze accidentally fell on the owner of the team, who while seemingly nice…was sporting a blond bowl cut. Definitely didn’t want to imagine him naked.
I realized the announcer had stopped speaking and there was silence in the room. An excruciating, uncomfortable silence.
Fuck, this was it. Here I was up here. And no one was going to bid on me. Insecurity lashed at my chest and I was seconds away from running off the stage whereafter I’d become a nun in a far-away country where no one would hear from me again.
Just as I was almost to the point of no return with my delusion…as if a dam had burst, the room erupted in a roar of voices. Bids were called out from every direction, the numbers rising faster than I could comprehend. My eyes widened in shock, my heart racing even faster as I struggled to process what was happening.
Amidst the chaos of competing bids, one voice cut through the crowd like a beacon of clarity. It was Carter's voice, strong and unwavering.
"Ten thousand dollars," he yelled, his bid resounding through the room with undeniable determination. Carter was wearing a midnight blue colored velvet suit. On anyone else, it would have probably looked ridiculous. But he looked straight off the runway, his deep green eyes gleaming as he stared at me. For a second, I remembered how his hard body had felt underneath me, the way his…
“Eleven thousand,” Sebastian threw out, standing up from his seat. My mouth dropped. What were they doing?
Carter shot him a glare. “What the fuck are you doing?” I saw him mouth. Sebastian just winked at him.
“Twelve thousand,” Sebastian said, even though no one else had said anything yet.
My insides heated as Sebastian turned his attention to me, his tongue trailing along his bottom lip, reminding me of just how that tongue had felt on my skin. And the sounds he’d made when he’d come.
“Fifteen thousand!” Jack snapped, also leaping out from his seat. Sebastian’s smirk fell as he stared at him incredulously. Jack flipped him off.
If I’d thought that the opening bids were outrageous, the ones that followed were even crazier. It was like the fact that the three stars of the team had decided I was worth their effort spurred everyone in the room to try and win me.
“Twenty thousand!” a man in front of the stage bellowed, holding up his glass tumbler instead of his bidding sign.
“Twenty-five!” Carter called out.
