I hate how well he can read me. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know I could make you come in two minutes.”
A step back, my calves bumping the small chair where I sat. “You wouldn’t.”
“No, but you wish I would.”
“I hate you.”
A low laugh. “Do you really think you can control the man?”
My fists tighten in the silk, covering my breasts. “Better than the other way around.”
“Would it be so bad?” he asks thoughtfully. “Giving up control for a month? Letting someone else guide you? Letting someone teach you?”
Part of me yearns for that, but not with a stranger. Not for money. “I don’t care what happens to me at night. They can touch me, teach me, whatever they want. That won’t really be me.”
He walks to the window, looking at the city’s skyline. There are people working late in those offices, climbing the corporate ladder, sleeves rolled up for the paycheck. A few of those penthouses are empty, their occupants downstairs, waiting to bid on me.
Without turning he murmurs, “What makes you think it’s only at night?”
I stare at him, unaccountably surprised. I hadn’t really reasoned it out loud or I might have guessed the obvious. My knowledge of sex is so limited that I only imagine it at night. That goes doubly so for a strange old man. Uncertainty vibrates through me. “He’d want me during the day?”
Gabriel turns back, his eyes fierce. “The auction is for a month, Avery. Your days, your nights, your everything. He will own you.”
A shudder squeezes my body. I’m starting to understand what Candy meant about the push. His intensity, his demands. And what would be the pull? My acquiescence. No, she told me not to give in. Innocence and fragility and grace.
I lift my chin, meeting his eyes. “I have to take care of my father. Someone has to feed him, to wash him. Several times a day.”
Gabriel turns back to the window. “The buyer will pay for his care.”
“I can’t—” My voice breaks, and I suck in a steadying breath. I can’t afford to pay for a full-time nurse for a month, not after paying the tax bill and Damon’s percentage. What will we eat when it’s over?
“He’ll pay for his care,” he says, his tone hard. “On top of the auction amount.”
I take a step forward, strangely drawn to him. “Why would he do that?”
A large shoulder lifts. “The men down there have more money than they know what to do with. Whoever buys you, use him. Take what you need from him.”
In the window I can see his reflection, the bold features of his face. But I can’t read him. I could never read him. Is that part of the push Candy told me about? Or is that just the impenetrable mystery of Gabriel Miller? “Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not your friend,” he says gently.
He’s my enemy. When we’re alone, it’s easy to forget that. In a few minutes we’ll be downstairs with the wealthiest men in the city, maybe even the state. Men who would purchase me like an object. Men who Gabriel taught a lesson by ruining my father.
“Fifteen minutes,” he says before leaving the room.Chapter TwelveFifteen minutes feels like fifteen hours when you’re awaiting your fate. The dress that I’m to wear is diaphanous white, almost reminiscent of ancient Greek clothing. It makes me feel more like a sacrifice for the gods—or for the Minotaur in the maze.
I’m relieved that Candy has left undergarments as well—a white bra and matching panties, made of the same satiny material as the dress. At least if someone moves the dress aside, if Damon demands that I take it off, I’ll have something else to cover me.
Except if that were true, she wouldn’t have bothered to paint my nipples.
I pace the room, frustrated that I can’t ask her more questions, that she didn’t give me more direct answers. At this point I’d even take Gabriel’s company over the shameful silence.
A buzz comes from my small clutch, the one I planned to wear with my evening gown. Now I see how foolish that would have been, as if I were a guest at this party. No, I’m the main course.
The screen blinks with a new text message.
Avery, I need to talk to you.
My heart pounds. It’s Justin. I haven’t spoken with him since he broke up with me. There were some things I left at his apartment near campus, but none of that mattered once Daddy got hurt.
My fingers feel clumsy against the screen. I’m busy.
This is important, he writes. I miss you. I made a mistake.
Anger. Denial. Heartbreak. I felt all those things in the wake of his breakup. I have no idea how to handle this text weeks later, especially as I stand in the Den, about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.