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Forty-five thousand dollars.
I’m numb just from thinking about that amount of money.
“Fifty.” The man cuts into our stare, and we both look at him.
Silence settles over the room, and the only thing that can be heard is the sound of Jericho’s shoes on the floor as he makes his way toward the man. He stops in front of him and stares him down.
“Sixty thousand,” Jericho announces, and a bolt of shock lances through me.
He just bid sixty thousand dollars.
Sixty. Thousand. Dollars.
Those words ripple through my mind like an echo in the mountains.
“We can keep going all night if you want,grandpa,” he directs at the man, his accent sounding thicker with his annoyance. “A word of advice, though, if I were you, I wouldn't challenge me. You do know who I am, right?”
“Jericho Grayson.” The man’s voice is rigid with a hint of a challenge, but everyone can see from the sweat glistening on his brows that he looks like he’s been backed into a corner.
“Well done.” Jericho makes a show of brushing invisible lint from the man’s jacket. “You know who I am, so you know you won’t win.”
My lips part. I can’t believe what he just said any more than I can believe that he just bid sixty thousand dollars on me.
A deadly silence hangs in the air as the man seems to heed Jericho’s warning and says nothing more. Neither does anyone else for what seems like an eternity.
“It seems we’ve come to an agreement,” Zara announces in a cautious voice, glancing at me curiously. “Our beautiful mermaid is going once, twice, and sold for sixty thousand dollars to Jericho Grayson.”
While whispers erupt all around me, Jericho walks onto the stage like he owns the place. He’s supposed to collect me from the office, where further arrangements will be made, but those rules obviously don’t apply to him.
He moves toward me, takes off his jacket, and sets it over my shoulders to cover me.
Those bright blue eyes are riveted to mine as I stare back at him, speechless, and I hate, hate, hate that the shield of his jacket over my body comforts me.
I hate it even more that I feel like he just rescued me when he takes my hand and leads me away from what I previously christened my hell.
ChapterEight
River
Jericho marches down the corridor with me, still holding my hand.
All I can feel is the heat emanating from his palm as he tugs me along.
I’m moving, but I feel like a mindless automaton walking in a dream, and I can't get my mind to focus past the raucousness of emotions writhing through me. Each of them wars with the pounding of my heart in my ears and the discordance created by the thud of his shoes and the click of my heels against the floor.
It doesn’t help that his scent is laced into the soft fibers of his jacket. That scent of musk and the forest has never left me. It lingers beneath his expensive cologne, taunting me with the past and creating more chaos inside me.
I need to say something, but I can’t think past the truth and the lie I’ve been trying to uphold that everything is okay.
Jericho has seen quite clearly that everything is not okay with me. Everything is shit, and I've never been more embarrassed in my life.
Oh wait, actually, yes, I have.
There was one other time that I remember quite clearly. It was the night I first met Jericho, but this is so much worse. Saving me from high school bullies is tame in comparison to shelling out sixty thousand dollars to save me from selling myself.
The same guy saved me from both, but I’m not supposed to need saving from my ex.
My pride has fallen through the earth, and the knots of tension living in my stomach have piled mountain high, rising into my throat.
