Chapter 3
Evangeline
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.
I suck in a deep breath and pull my shoulders back, taking an instant to center myself before stepping out onto the stage. I’ve done tons of risqué fashion shows before. I posed on the cover of Visage Magazine in nothing but a wet shirt. I’m a professional.
I can do this.
Sure, some strange man is about to lease my body for a predetermined length of time but he’ll never own me. He’ll never get to know me, to control my thoughts, to kill my dreams. In 30 days I’ll be out of this situation. And I’ll be free.
Madame Gwendolyn’s irritated whisper hits me in the pit of my stomach. “Ms. Brooks! Go!” She coaxes me forward.
The curtains slide open and I take a wobbly step onto the stage. My head goes light. I can’t see a thing. I stand under the hot, bright lights in my shimmering gold bodysuit and I might as well be bare naked. I’ve never been an insecure person. I’ve always been comfortable in my skin. Until now.
I feel like I’m inside of an aquarium, struggling to think and breathe. Bobbing with the movement of the water.
I register the auctioneer’s voice but I’m too out-of-sorts to compute what he’s saying. I think the bidding has begun.
Every sound is garbled and echoic. I stare out into the crowd, trying to make out the faces. I can’t. The buyers are hidden, the shadows veiling the men’s identities in vulgar contrast to the spotlights exposing every last facet of my body. Every curve, every freckle, every shivering inch of my flesh.
The shadows offer them anonymity while the spotlight robs me of every last shred of human dignity.
Thirty days. Thirty days, I repeat silently running my thumb over the place where my wish bracelet used to sit, searching for something to ground me.
Suddenly a woman’s voice breaks through the fog in my mind. “Sixty-five thousand!”
Huh?
I’d assumed that the bidders would all be men. I guess it was sexist of me to assume that rich women don’t have unique preferences of their own. My heart beats faster now.
I hear another voice. A shaky, weak voice. “Seventy thousand!” Fuck – he sounds old. Really old.
Oh god! Oh god! Oh god!
“Seventy-five thousand.” The eastern European accent causes my palms to go sweaty. Images of life in Moscow – furry ushankas, hopak dancing and those clunky wooden Russian shoes – flash before my mind. What have I gotten myself into? Standing under the hot glare of the spotlight, I feel tears forming in the corners of my eyes.
The price is rising fast. Listening to these people bid over me is surreal. Nobody asks for my input, nobody asks for my opinion. I’m just another commodity that these rich fuckers get to compete over, just another off-the-books asset in their portfolios.
A deep, confident whiskey tone bursts through the fog of my thoughts. “One hundred thousand.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention and my body keens subtly toward the sound. I’m not sure why…
My eyes scan the blackness, desperately searching for him, begging him to be the one. Because I haven’t seen him but hearing his voice is enough to make me feel like maybe, just maybe, he might be the answer to my silent prayers.
But the bidding war continues. I hear the amusement in the auctioneer’s tone. The geriatric bidder is starting to get aggressive and the woman is now willing to pay $300000 to have me. The Russian won’t back down, either. Tempers are beginning to flare and it’s a pissing contest amongst them. My blood roars through my ears. Whoever I end up going home with tonight will have a raging temper and an ego to match.
The loud, sudden crash of a table being overturned is followed by the shattering of glass. "One million, goddammit!" the whiskey voice roars.
A stunning silence blankets the room and I hold my breath until the auctioneer stammers, "Uh...one...one million. Going once...” No one says a thing. “…going twice...” Dead silence. I feel faint. “Sold to bidder seventeen for one million dollars."
My heavy lids drop shut as I take a shallow breath into my mouth. Someone bought me. Someone actually bought me.
I hear angry footsteps approaching the podium where I stand. Alarmed, I look up, taking a step backward out of self-preservation. A tall, wide-shouldered man in an impeccable tan suit bursts out of the shadows. My jaw drops open as recognition washes over me. His strong fingers wrap around my wrist and he gives me a firm tug.
I’m looking into the stormy gray eyes of Raphael Silver, my father’s best friend.
“Come on, Eva,” he grits out. “Let’s go.”