Chapter 9 – Charlie

I reach for Penny’s hand underneath the table.

I do it without thinking. I freeze for a second, ignoring the spotlight lighting us up, ignoring the whole fucking crowd around us. In that moment, all I care about is whether Penny is going to push me away.

My heartbeat – each single, solitary beat – seems to stretch out into a lifetime.

Boom, thud.

Boom, thud.

Boom, thud.

Penny squeezes my hand back.

I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. The world returns to motion and life.

I hear the clinking of champagne glasses, the slightly-too-loud cackle of a woman who’s had a bit too much to drink.

I see a hundred bored-looking gray-haired men staring up at me, and another hundred platinum blondes with Botoxed lips, looking at their paycheck. It wouldn’t surprise me if half the women in this room have had a client die on them, mid-thrust.

Until this very moment, I didn’t realize that – no matter how fake this thing is between Penny and me – she’s still by far the most real woman in this room.

“Charlie,” Penny whispers. “What’s going on?”

I wish I could give her an answer, but in all truth, I don’t know. What I do know is that someone’s ass is on the line. I give the Children’s Fund tens of millions of dollars every year, and I ask for only one thing in return: complete, absolute, and utter, discretion. They had to wrestle with me to get me to this damn ball at all.

I don’t care whose idea it was to stick this fucking spotlight on me, but I’m going to see they regret it.

“Just sit tight,” I reply through gritted teeth. I smile at the crowd, because it seems like the thing to do. “I’ll get this sorted out.”

I reluctantly release Penny’s fingers. Without the touch of her skin, my hand feels cold. I half-stand in order to begin my search for whatever idiot is responsible for this mess.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the master of ceremonies announces. “Please put your hands together for Charles Thorne, tonight’s generous patron!”

A smattering of applause fills the room. I wouldn’t call it warm. I know the men in here: each and every one. They don’t give a fuck about charity, not like I do. They are just here to get their picture in the paper, another tax write off to send to the IRS, and of course a pair of pumped up lips around their cock.

I wave away the applause. It’s not fake modesty, it’s the real deal.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the portly announcer says. “As you all know, some very generous people have donated fantastic prizes for tonight’s charity auction.”

I sit back down. There’s no way I can interrupt this without making a scene. As long as the spotlight’s the biggest problem I have to deal with tonight, then I guess I can handle it: just this once.

A murmur of excitement fills the room. Charity auctions aren’t about charity: not really. In my experience, they are about competition. They’re about showing off. They’re about showing who’s got more “fuck you money” than the guy sitting next to you.

I don’t get involved. It’s not my style. I just donate the prizes: every single one; a week’s stay on my Monaco-based super yacht; a private trip on my 737. For these people, it’s about status. Nothing says status like a private plane. It doesn’t matter who owns it…

“Before we begin, I’ve just been informed,” the announcer says, while I’m lost in my own little world, “that a particularly generous individual has thrown another prize into the pot.”

The man looks up and grins into the crowd. “Gentlemen, this one’s for you. I think you’ll agree it’s a real peach.”

Penny leans back in her chair and reaches for my hand again. It’s a calm, unhurried movement. She’s loose and relaxed.

I wish I could say I feel the same way. I’ve got an overdeveloped sense of personal preservation. Some have called me paranoid, and in truth, they aren’t far from the mark. The prickling feeling that I’m getting in my belly tells me that something ain’t right.

The portly announcer stretches out his arm, palm up: and points it at me! I grimace. I feel like a car wreck is unfolding in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“Once more, let us thank our generous patron, Charles Thorne, ladies and gentlemen!”

There’s more applause.

This time it’s longer, more sustained. The atmosphere in the room has changed. This ballroom is full of predators – sharks. They can sense blood in the water as easily as breathing: my fucking blood. I chew my lip, trying to figure out what to do.

“… and his beautiful new wife, Penny.”

She looks at me with nerves in her eyes. I paste a fake smile onto my face to please the crowd, and turn to my wife.

“It’ll be okay,” I say. “I promise.”

I speak too soon.

“We’re going to kick off our third annual Charity Auction with the grand prize…” The announcer pauses, leaning forward. It’s like he thinks he’s on Dancing with the Stars, or something, and speaking to the whole of the United States.

He winks at the crowd. “Drumroll please… I’m just kidding. Tonight’s grand prize is – and you’ll have to believe me on this one – a weekend away with Mr. Thorne’s gorgeous young wife, Penny.”

You could hear a fucking pin drop.

“Charlie,” Penny says urgently. “What the hell’s happening? You didn’t –?”

“Of course I didn’t,” I growl. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, or who did this –”

I see Penny’s head drop imperceptibly. “I think I do,” she whispers.

“What are you talking about?”

She points into the crowd. “Landon,” she says. “He said he had a surprise for me. I thought he was just being an asshole, but –”

A surge of blinding rage shoots through me. In that moment, all I want to do is jump from the top table and put my hands around Landon’s throat. I’d do it, too, if Penny wasn’t holding tight to me: holding on like she’s terrified; holding on like she wants to be anywhere else in the world but here.

“Oh, he’s an asshole, all right,” I say grimly. “It’ll be fine, Penny. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

I search the sea of fascinated faces for Landon. It doesn’t take long to find him. The sleazy prick’s the one with the shit-eating grin on his face, reclining in his chair like he thinks he’s a Roman Emperor.

“No, Charlie,” Penny says. “I think I do.”

My head flicks to face her. “What are you talking about?”

“Look,” she says, surreptitiously squinting at the crowd. Her eyebrows tent in the middle. It’s so cute it makes my heart smile, even now, when I’m boiling up with anger. “There’s nothing you can do. If you back out now, it’ll look like you’re stealing money from the hands of dying children.”

Shit, she’s right.

“So what are you saying?” I ask. We don’t have long to talk. An excited buzz fills the room, blocking the plump announcer’s attempts to regain control, but the reprieve won’t last long.

“I’ll do it,” she says. “It’s just a weekend, Charlie.” She leans in close so that no one else can hear. “Plus, it’s not like we are really married…”

I don’t know why, but that, it hurts me the way I wouldn’t have anticipated even a couple of hours earlier. I felt something different about Penny tonight. We acted like a couple: walked like a couple; talked like a couple. I know what we have is a fake relationship, but it feels anything but.

“Okay, let’s do the auction,” I say. “But Penny?” I get her attention.

She glances up at me, face pale and tense with nervousness. “Yes?”

“I’m going to win.”

At that precise moment, the announcer brings the champagne glass to the microphone and taps it with the backside of a knife. A squeal of static bursts out of the PA system, and silences the room. “Let’s get started.”

The room is deadly quiet.

Every single eye is focused on Penny and me. If we were trying to lay low, this is just about the worst development I could have anticipated. I don’t know how I’m going to fuck Landon’s life up for this – but fucking his life up is absolutely on the menu.

For some reason, this particular ruse makes me even angrier than Landon’s attempts to steal my company. That stuff I can rationalize away – it’s just business. But, if Penny is just a deal, a trip, a way to keep Tilly out of the hands of the foster system –

– then why am I so pissed off?

“Penny my dear,” the announcer says. “If you’ll come down here to the dance floor so that everyone can see you?”

Right then, I know that Landon’s slipped this prick a bribe. There’s no way some fat man would dare risk his job parading my wife like a piece of meat if he didn’t have some skin in the game. I add him to my shit list.

I half-stand, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but Penny tugs me back. Damn, she’s only been in this life forty-eight hours, and she’s playing the game like a pro.

“I’m fine, Charlie,” she whispers. “I can handle myself.” She stands up, waves, and twirls for the crowd.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I say out of the side of my mouth.

“Why?”

I jerk my head toward the crowd. “You just made all these assholes with two thousand dollar hookers imagine what you’ll look like naked.”

Penny’s face drains of what little color it had. “Naked?” She whispers. “But I’m not going to –”

“It doesn’t matter if you’ll actually sleep with them,” I say. “It just matters that they think you will… maybe they’ve decided we’re swingers, or something. Maybe they think I get off on selling my wife. It doesn’t matter. They are going to be like dogs on the hunt now. You just raised your price by a million dollars.”

It’s a cliché, but in this case it’s bang on the money. Penny’s jaw drops. She stumbles over her tongue: “… a million dollars?”

I nod. “That’s just the starting bid.”

Penny closes her eyes and composes herself. When she opens them, they glitter with intrigue. She leans forward, displaying that tasty ass to nearly a hundred hedge fund managers, billionaires and CEOs, and plants a kiss on my lips:

our first kiss.

My head spins. I can’t get my head around this girl. Is she innocent, or a master mind? Is she playing me, or really that naïve?

“Then let’s find out how much you think I’m worth.”

As Penny is sashaying that tight, perfect body down to the dance floor, I close my eyes. I can’t believe she just said that. That’s right up there with “does my ass look big in this?”

This relationship – if that’s what I’m calling it – is like none I’ve ever had. Not only am I married to a girl I don’t know, but apparently I’m going to have to drop five million dollars on her before I’ve so much as slept with her.

It’s not the money, it’s the principle.

“Gentlemen, do I hear a hundred thousand dollars?” The announcer says.

I relax a little. I’d pay one hundred thousand for Penny a dozen times over. I can’t help but bristle, though, when at least thirty hands shoot into the air. Wedding rings glint in the ballroom lighting. These men make me sick.

“Two hundred thousand?”

Not a single hand falls.

“Four hundred thousand?”

I see the first casualty. The blonde hooker by his side looks at him with distaste, rather than irritation. I chalk that one up as a victory. If she puts ten percent less effort into his blow job, then that is fine by me.

“Half a million dollars,” The announcer says it with giddiness, almost as though he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

I can’t believe this idiot’s surprised. Doesn’t he know his crowd? These rich assholes – and I count myself among them – are gagging for a night with Penny. It’s not just sex they want, it’s the bragging rights.

Okay, maybe the sex as well, because anyone looking at Penny – at those gorgeous curves, her flowing red hair – couldn’t help but be turned on. I’m no different.

I look up, and realize that I was lost inside my own head. How much have I missed?

“One… Million dollars?” the fat man says in a quavering tone of voice.

More hands drop out of the race. But others still remain, like oak trees in a dying, wintry forest – each one shorn of leaves.

Mine joins them.

An audible gasp runs around the room. It’s mainly the women, I think. Some put their hands to their mouths as they notice. I don’t know what they think’s going on – maybe some sex game – and I don’t really care. If it’s a game, I’m going to fucking win it.

And if it was a fucking game, I’d win that too.

“Do I hear one point five?”

I just keep my hand up. It’s easier that way. The crowd’s thinning now. There can’t be more than five or six hands left in the air – mine, a couple of hedge fund managers I vaguely recognize, the CEO of Next Stop Trucking – a fat, balding guy who Penny won’t thank me for letting her go on a date with – and, of course, Landon fucking Winchester.

I’m swearing – I know. I’m riled up – I can’t help it. I feel like a lion out on the savanna, except someone’s coming in and trying to steal my lioness. Nothing else matters. I can’t let that happen. I won’t.

The trucking guy will have to drop out of the race soon. I could buy his firm with the change I find down the back of my couch. The hedge fund dudes – well, let’s just say they are all talk, no balls.

In truth, Landon’s my only adversary. He knows it. He set it up like this. He want’s nothing more than to get his hands on Penny – not because he wants her, but because she’s mine.

There’s no way I’m going to let him buy her. Even if he did, I’d hire out SEAL Team Six to guard her.

The thought brings a smile to my lips. Penny looks up at me, and smiles back. God, she’s hot. Right now she’s bracketed by a spotlight that accentuates her curves in a way that makes my cock twitch. God, I’d pay this auction fee twice over to know what she’s thinking right now. Is she disgusted by this display of wealth?

Or turned on?

“Two million?”

Trucking dude’s out.

“Three million?”

The hedge fund managers look at each other, shrug, and sit down. There’s a strange tension in the air now. Everyone in the ballroom can sense it.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like it’s a two horse race…” The announcer says. “Let’s make this interesting, shall we? Do I hear five million dollars?”

I turn my head languidly to look directly at Landon. He chews his lip, and his arm trembles in the air. Even for a man worth about as much as I am, five million bucks is no small sum. What people forget is that assets aren’t cash. I’m worth nine billion dollars, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got nine billion in the bank.

Landon’s got less.

I know it for sure. Every last dollar he has is leveraged up to the hilt for his attempt to buy out my baby, Thorne Enterprises. Hell, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I could do serious damage to any deal he has, in his attempt to buy my company, if I make him pay for Penny.

Five million dollars won’t do it. Ten might. Twenty and he’ll beg me for mercy. It might just be enough to make his bankers call in their margin. They do that, and Thorne Enterprises is mine for good.

“Six million?”

I stroke my chin and catch Landon’s eye. He’s raging. I wonder if he expected me to throw my hat into the ring. I send him a silent message. I don’t need words for this one. It’s simple, and to the point.

It’s your move, motherfucker.