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It’s just me—the new girl—who’s self-aware.
Zara arrives to give us some instructions, but my mind is so far away I hardly hear a thing she says. The only thing I got was that I’m to go on stage when my name is called, smile like I already have the money in my hands, and bring out my sexiest pose when I want the bids to go up.
It’s all good advice, but I’m just thinking of putting one foot in front of the other.
The auction begins, and Maribel, a platinum blonde, is the first to walk on stage.
The bid starts at a thousand dollars and slowly rises to twenty, where it closes and she’s sold to a guy who looks like he just walked off a Davidoff advert.
I might not know the ropes of how the event works, but seeing her get twenty thousand is a good indication of how the rest of the night might go.
The next girl, Laura, goes on, and she gets twenty-five thousand. So do the other three girls after her.
I’m number ten, so I still have quite a wait. My nerves rise with each minute that passes, and by the time my name is called, I’m so anxious I can scarcely breathe.
Zara glances at my robe as I’m about to walk out on stage. I totally forgot I was wearing it.
When I shrug out of it, that feeling of despair hits me again the moment I’m exposed.
With my legs shaking, I walk out onto the stage. By the time I reach the center, my heart is pounding so hard I feel like I should be holding it inside my chest to stop it from jumping out.
I manage a smile, but I’m not half as confident as the other girls. Given the fact that I’m the most desperate person here, I should be skipping out naked and dropping to the ground with my legs open. Instead, I’m standing here like a terrified animal in a slaughterhouse.
The bid starts at five thousand, shocking me. Minutes later, the voices rise with increasing bids, and soon, I’ve reached twenty-five thousand.
Before I can blink, someone casts a bid for thirty. It’s the highest bid so far tonight, and one where I can walk away with well over twenty thousand after the club takes their cut if this was the final bid.
Hope sparks in my heart at the thought, but I’m still too worked up to do anything more than breathe. And now I’m dreading all the things I’ll have to do for that type of money.
The highest bidder, who seems dead set on winning me, looks old enough to be my grandfather and has a Hugh Hefner vibe.
He’s sitting in the front row, so I can see the leery grin pasted on his wrinkly face.
No other bids come to outdo him, and my stomach turns when his smile radiates with sin.
“Well, it looks like we have a keeper for our beautiful mermaid.” Zara speaks heartily into her microphone. “Going once, going twice—”
“Thirty-five thousand,” sounds a loud, booming voice from the back of the hall.
My blood stops in my veins as I follow the sound of the voice and find Jericho standing at the top of the steps leading down to the lower seats.
My God.The bid came from him.
Here’s here, and he just placed the bid on me.
What the hell is he doing here?
I was barely breathing before, but now I’m not at all. Shock has seized my brain, and the combination of humiliation and bewilderment has me rooted to the spot like a tree.
I'm too far away to read his face properly, but there’s a hardness to him that reeks of power.
I can see the impact of Jericho’s presence on the other men’s faces, but the older guy who bid on me tries to look unfazed.
“Forty,” he says.
“Forty-five,” Jericho counters, but now he’s looking at me and walking closer to the stage.
I can’t take my eyes off him either.
