Crazy for Your Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 5)

“You do owe me a favor.”

I frown. “I do?”

He folds his arms. “Remember the night you mauled me in Jackson Brews and made me pretend to be your boyfriend?”

Right. That. My cheeks blaze with the reminder. “I already said I’d help.”

Out front, the music begins to play—Carter’s cue—then Molly says, “Now, to kick off the night, the man you’ve been waiting for, Jackson Harbor’s most eligible bachelor, Carter Jackson!”

“They’re waiting.” I wink at him.

Carter rolls his shoulders back and pushes through the curtain. I blink as he transforms himself with a smirk and a cocky swagger. He looks at home on that stage, as if doing this is his fantasy.

“We’ll start the bidding at one hundred dollars,” Molly says. She beams at the crowd, a picture-perfect emcee with her fitted pink dress suit and sleek platinum hair. “Friendly reminder, ladies, your bid entitles you to the pleasure of Carter’s company for the evening, nothing more. This is a family event.”

As the crowd laughs at her warning, I jog to the access door to take the back hallway around to the banquet room. I was only in the back to tease Carter, and I’ll be in the way if I stay through the whole auction. By the time I enter, a throng of women have pushed themselves to the front, and bidding has reached fifteen hundred dollars.

“Fifteen hundred dollars for a couple of hours with my brother?” Shay asks, stepping up beside me. The lone Jackson sister is dressed like me tonight—little black dress, her dark hair pulled up. “Damn. Maybe he should leave the fire department behind and be a male escort.”

I laugh, shaking my head as the women talk over each other with their bids. Carter is smoking hot, and if he weren’t a friend, I’m pretty sure I’d happily empty my bank account for a night of looking at that face and getting to feel his body pressed to mine.

“Two thousand dollars to the woman in the pretty red dress,” Molly says.

Carter struts across the stage and stops by Molly, who’s updating the bids as fast as her mouth can say the words. He scans the crowd and then stops when his gaze lands on me.

“Excuse me,” he says into the microphone. His sexy baritone reverberates throughout the room, and the women at the front lose their shit, throwing their arms up and surging toward the stage like he’s some sort of rock star.

“Marry me, Carter Jackson!” someone shrieks from the mass of bodies.

Carter chuckles into the microphone and gently takes it from Molly’s hand. “Hey, everybody.”

More screams of adoration. More desperate shrieks proclaiming love.

“There are no words for this level of insanity,” Shay says.

I grin. “No kidding.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt the bidding, Molly,” Carter says with a bashful grin toward the banquet’s emcee. “I have something I need to do.”

“Four thousand dollars,” someone shouts, and the crowd laughs.

Carter draws in a deep breath. “Wow. Ladies, I’m humbled. I truly am. But I’m going to ask if we can do something a little unconventional tonight.”

“What is he doing?” Shay asks.

“I have no idea,” I mutter, even as dread curls in my stomach. Is he going to call in that favor now?

“When I agreed to do this bachelor auction, I was a single man looking to meet a beautiful woman, but a lot has changed since I signed up to stand on this stage tonight.” The crowd laughs. “I started seeing someone. We’ve kept it a secret until tonight, but I have to confess, in the past two months, I’ve fallen in love.”

“He’s what?” Shay says as the crowd reacts with a chorus of aww and a few gasps of protest.

“Would the beautiful Teagan Chopra come on stage, please?”

He didn’t.

Shay snaps her head to me, her eyes wide. “You’re seeing Carter?”

“I . . .”

One by one, the members of the crowd turn away from the stage with whispers of “Who is she?” “Where?” “He has a girlfriend?” “I thought this was a singles auction?”

“Teagan?” He crooks a finger at me and flashes that lopsided smile that makes even my knees go a little weak.

My cheeks blaze. To all the world, Carter is smiling at his girlfriend, but I know him well enough to see the truth in his eyes. “You owe me,” that smile says. “Don’t let me down.”

My journey from the back of the room to the stage is miserable. Thousands of eyes are on me—judging, speculating, criticizing—and the whispers feel like razor blades to my flimsy confidence. If this is Carter’s way of calling in a favor, I’ll be sure to never ask anything of him again.

When I step onto the stage, he takes my hand and grins. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he asks the crowd, and he’s treated to agreeable, if reluctant, applause.

I lift onto my toes so I can whisper in his ear. “I’m gonna kill you.”