Highest Bidder

“alright,” he agreed easily and turned away from me again.

I couldn’t let him go. “You will send it, then,” I asked, my fingers plucking at the delicate embroidery on the sheet. “Won't you?”

He smiled sarcastically. “Don’t you trust me, Freya?”

Knowing that I was parting with him for good, made me very, very sad. “I don’t know you.”

He sighed. “Should we draft a quick contract of goodwill, then?”

I nodded.

He placed a quick call, and a few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was his assistant. After speaking to him, he returned with a pen and a blank sheet of paper. He sat down for a little while to scribble on it, and when he was done, came over to my side to hand over the agreement.

I saw his signature across one bottom of the page, and the next line drawn to put mine.

I took it from him and signed.

He took a picture of it, and then handed the paper over to me. “Take care,” he said to me, and made his way out of the room.

I rose to my feet refusing to let myself feel anything. This was, after all, what I had signed up for. I’d receive more money than I could ever have dreamed of. And I had been luckier than most. No one knew, but I had held this man in my mind for the longest time. I had absolutely nothing to complain about.

Freya

I didn’t want to go home smelling of Brent so I decided to go to Maddie’s place. I arrived at her home a few minutes past eight, certain that she would have left for her job at the physiotherapist’s clinic, but just as I inserted her spare key, the door was jerked open from inside the house. My hand flew to my chest in shock.

“You're back!” she exclaimed, her eyes filled with a mixture of curiosity and worry. Without preamble, she pulled me into her living room. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine.”

A few minutes later, I was settled on her sofa with a hot mug of tea clasped in my cold hands.

“What happened?” she asked, unable to hold back any longer. “Are you alright?”

“Stop it, Maddie, I’m fine. Quit looking so worried. I just did what a lot of girls are now doing when they are teenagers.”

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath.

I eyed her over my mug. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“I took the day off, in case you needed me. I didn’t know what state you’d be in.”

That touched me. “Oh.”

“So it was really okay?” she asked again. “I don’t know how to believe that. It must have been traumatic.”

“It wasn’t actually.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“I’m not,” I responded immediately, “I got lucky.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

I thought for a moment what aspect of my great fortune I should share with her first.

“How much did you make?” she asked curiously.

“The other girl’s got between thirty thousand and a hundred and ten.”

“And you?” she asked, “you set your reserve at fifteen-thousand, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, what did you get?”

I raised the mug to my lips. “One million,” I mumbled.

She laughed. “I don’t think I heard you right, because it sounded like you said one million.”

I put the cup down, and arranged myself. “You didn’t hear wrong. I got one million.”

Her jaw dropped. “One million what? Pounds?”

I nodded.

She unfolded her legs from underneath her and sat upright. “Is this all a scam?”

I shook my head and reached forward to grab my drink.

“How can it not be a scam?” she exploded. “What mad maniac pays one million pounds for one night with a girl?”

I abandoned the drink. “Brent Lucan.”

At first, the name did not register with her. “I mean. You haven’t got the money yet. So maybe they have no intention of payin—” She stopped suddenly. “Did you just say Brent Lucan?”

I nodded.

She shot out of the sofa and started pacing the floor “Are you serious?”

I nodded again.

“That Brent Lucan?”

“That Brent Lucan,” I confirmed.

“The Duke of Leighton?”

“Well technically, his father is the Duke, he’s just a lord now until his dad passes—”

“Whatever,” she cut me off. “What the hell was he doing there? He buys virgins?” She leaned away in wonder. “Wow, just wow. On the surface, he seems so regal, but behind closed doors, this is what he’s into?”

“He claims he doesn’t usually buy virgins.”

Her face screwed up in distaste at the blatant lie. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I responded.

“So what was he doing there?”

“He owns the club.”

She stopped pacing, and looked thoughtful. “And so ... Did he buy you to save you ... Did you still have to sleep with him?”

“Why would he save me?” I hissed, remembering the moment I had hoped he had done it because he wanted to protect me. “For a moment … I thought he did it because of our families, but he didn’t.”