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I glance beyond Ashton for a moment, and sure enough, Phil is watching us. He flicks his eyes away when I look at him.
“Make them think you don’t care?” I ask.
“Yeah, you show them nothing,” he says, following my glance over at my rival. “This guy is probably good at what he does, but he probably lives for the fight, babe. He gets off on it. Don’t give him one.”
“We’ve had a spat or two in my time on the circuit,” I admit. It feels murky to think Phil would get off on that—Yuck.
“I might throw a bid in myself; just throw him off,” he laughs, glancing back to the front.
“It will confuse the hell out of him when I’m bidding for someone else, just try not to drive it up too much.” I laugh, nervously.
“We could play with him a little.” He squeezes my knee, totally oblivious to anyone else around us, including Tess, sitting to my left, fixated on the auctioneer.
“Yes, let’s.” I nod. “I’ve never had that notion before of having fun with so much at stake.”
“Well, now’s your time.” Ashton shrugs. “Show ‘em what you’re really made of.”
And I do just that. I don’t get all my cards out at once.
Ashton keeps his hand on my leg when the bidding gets underway, and Phil opens the show. Both Ashton and I look at each other, he rolls his eyes.
“Could never have picked that,” he mutters.
I laugh under my breath, watching as new bids emerge and the auctioneer goes back and forth.
“Are you going in?” Tess looks tense beside me, but I know how to hold my own here now I’m getting my composure back.
“Not yet,” I whisper. I know I need to bide my time.
“What’s your client’s limit?” Ashton whispers next to me.
“Three point five,” I whisper back. I know I shouldn’t be talking like that, but it isn’t like he knows them.
“I’m gonna drive it up in small increments with my new mate, Phil. Then, when he’s thrown off and thinks he has me, you swoop in and take it,” he tells me.
“What kind of strategy is that?” I wonder, watching the bids slowly go back and forth. I’m itching to get in the game, but don’t want to peak too soon, or miss my opportunity either.
Ashton shrugs. “I don’t know anything about this stuff. You know more than me. But I figure there’s nothing like doing something different to the way you’ve done it before.”
I glance at him, surprised and impressed.
Then he raises his paddle, one I didn’t even know he had. “Two million,” he calls out, raising the bids by five hundred thousand.
Tess gasps next to me, along with a stir from the crowd, turning to look at him. He acts like we’re the only ones in the room. He seems to be intimidated by nothing.
“You better not buy this house,” I whisper as my eyes flick over to Phil. Sure enough, his composure has dropped; driving it up this quickly is clearly not what he wants. He looks annoyed.
Good. Maybe this is the way to play the game. We all know it’s going to go over the three million.
Maybe I’m sick of being Mrs. Nice Guy.
I hear him chuckle darkly next to me. “It actually looks pretty nice.”
“It ought to be for the millions someone is going to pay for it.”
I see a bidder in the front raise his paddle to two million and fifty thousand. I’m getting nervous. I need to get in the race. Tess is trying to get my attention, but something sparks in me, and I brush off everything around me, except Ashton. He adds another fifty thousand to the mix and it goes back and forth in increments. Phil hangs tight.
Ashton glances at me.
