Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Instead, I sit up straight, cross my legs, and focus on the bubbles in my glass of cava.
Gold Dress leans in, voice pitched for privacy. “Who are you here for?” she asks, a quick glance at the stage where the bachelors will soon be paraded like prime livestock.
Stella is ready: “Definitely Trevor Cahill,” she says, with a breathy giggle. “I mean, look at the lineup? He’s the only one worth bidding on. I hear he’s going to be a trillionaire soon too.”
Bandage Dress rolls her eyes. “Please. Everyone’s going to bid on him. Plus, he looks like he’d throttle you if you said the wrong thing.”
“He probably would,” Stella purrs, “but isn’t that the point?”
They all laugh. Even I have to smile.
But my face feels hot.
I catch my reflection in the water glass, and I do not recognize the girl staring back at me: perfect hair, big lashes, lips done in the kind of red you see in liquor ads and horror movies. Is this what I look like to Trevor, I wonder? Is this what he saw when I showed up in his apartment, trembling and desperate and ready to do anything he said?
A clatter of silverware, then a lull. The club’s lights dim a few watts, and suddenly everyone is quieter, more aware.
I glance at my phone. 7:53.
The show’s about to start.
Women around me lean in, fix their lipstick, check their teeth in compacts. There is a low, continuous hum of anticipation. I hear the first clink of paddles being tapped by manicured nails, the soft whistle of ice in highballs, the clatter of the servers bringing more bottles to the tables.
I do my best to look present.
But every thirty seconds, my eyes do a circuit: the entrance, the bar, the door to the greenroom where the bachelors are probably lined up like dogs at a dog show. I even catch a glimpse of my mom and Henry, at one of the tables near the front, his silver head leaning towards my mom’s blonde one.
Everything looks normal, but my heart’s thumping a mile a minute.
I don’t want to see him.
But I can’t help myself.
And then he appears.
I see Trevor from across the room, over the heads of a pack of thirty-something women who are already jockeying for seats near the runway. He’s in a black tux—no surprise—but it’s the way he wears it that makes the difference. He’s taller than almost everyone else in the room. His hair is slicked back, sophisticated, and his face is clean-shaven and sharp as a razor. The blue in his eyes is visible from here, even with the haze of lights and perfume and noise. He walks as if the party has been waiting for him, as if the night only starts now that he has arrived.
He is instantly surrounded.
A small herd of women in cocktail dresses intercepts him by the bar. They close ranks, all smiles and hair flips and subtle, proprietary touches—one on his shoulder, one on his forearm, one actually reaching out to adjust his bow tie. He doesn’t seem to mind. He flashes them that slow, destructive grin, the one that says: Yes, I know, and yes, you are right to want me.
It makes me want to vomit.
Or maybe it just makes me want him more.
I feel my jaw clench, and I look down at my hands, which are perfectly still.
Next to me, Stella leans over. “Oh my god, he’s even hotter in person. Kay, look at him!”
“I see,” I say, but I do not look again.
Instead, I drain the rest of my glass in a single, burning swallow.
I set it down, pick up my paddle, and run a finger along the sharp black line of the number 7.
The rest of the room, the flowers, the chandeliers, the laughter—everything else vanishes, until there’s just the stage and the man across the room who’s about to be sold to the highest bidder.
And for the first time in a week, I feel alive.
To my surprise, the auction doesn’t start immediately. Instead, the crowd hums a bit more, and a tall man materializes at my elbow when I get up to grab a drink from the bar.
He’s unexpectedly handsome, with hair so blonde it almost glows against the black of his tux. He appears at my left, sliding against the wood bar and nodding his head toward me in a way that suggests both athletic grace and the practiced ease of a man who has never once encountered resistance. His skin is tanned a kind of perpetual summer, and his teeth are the white of fresh business cards.
“Don’t worry,” he says, low enough that only I can hear. “I’m only here to keep your friend’s claws out of my boss’s wife.”
I glance and sure enough, Stella is leaning across Gold Dress’s lap to talk to a handsome older man, laughing at something while Gold Dress stews. The woman has her lips pursed, her expression tense.