Page 17 of Scarred Sins

As soon as the bidding begins, she offers the minimum of five thousand.

To rile her up a little, I offer a hundred over her original bid. Of course, she doesn’t back down.

For a while, it goes on like that. She offers a thousand over me, and I just add a measly hundred to piss her off.

It’s then that Arson hops on the bed, giving me a clear view of Blair’s face.

Her brows crease in concentration, her bottom lip rolled between her teeth. That’s enough to get my cock stirring in my pants. It takes a lot of restraint to brush it off and focus on the way her hair falls down her back messily.

I take a quick glance at the watch and the time remaining of the bid, and I realize that I have to cut all of this short. By now, the offer is at twenty-four thousand five hundred dollars.

Blair’s nervous. Her nose is scrunched, and she bites the inside of her cheek, then cracks her fingers. That’s something she does whenever she’s anxious or nervous. Over time, I learned her small tells.

To cut it all short, I offer five grand over the last offer and have the satisfaction of seeing her mouth drop open, eyes widening at the number. It’s way out of her budget; even the previous price was breaching it.

“I’m sorry, Blair. You’re not going; it’s too dangerous for you.”

Momentarily, she freezes, cocking her head to the side slowly. She struggles to comprehend until the realization hits her that someone knows who she is. Immediately, she shuts her laptop and moves further away from it.

Fuck.

It slipped.

The last thing I wanted was to make her scared. I vowed to give her the sense of safety she never had, and I just ruined it all. Fuck, one sentence is enough for her to tremble like a leaf, and I know I fucked up pretty badly.

Her pretty eyes swell with tears, and she swallows them, trying her best to remain strong and collected.

My heart aches, and thoughts of self-loathing fill my mind. The moment a tear slides down her face, I wish I could just beat the shit out of myself.

Arson jumps off the bed, preventing me from seeing Blair.

I sigh, slam the laptop shut, and toss it aside. I take a big gulp of the whiskey, then switch to drinking straight from the bottle.

I’ll make it up to her.

But in the meantime, I have to start all over again.

Why is she interested in the banquet? Why now, of all times?

Nothing is making any sense. Her parents were barely scraping by; however, since I now know the reason she killed them, I have no doubts that someone attending the banquet was giving her parents money.

Which is why the situation is too dangerous for her.

To the rest of the world, Blair Hawke is dead.

I ensured that.

Going there and mingling with those filthy pigs won’t do her any good. It will only put her in danger and put her on their radar. She may have changed her hair color, but those dangerously dark brown eyes remain the same. There’s a possibility of being recognized, so why the fuck is she willing to risk it all?

By the time the banquet comes, I’ll find a way to prevent her from going, using any means necessary.

FIVE

Ihave a lot of things on my mind right now.

One of them is my new roommate, Wren. She’s not much younger than me, and she’s filthy rich. Her father is some sort of a high politician with a lot of influence, so it makes no sense to me that she’s renting instead of owning. It’s in the safe, good part of the city, but given the generational wealth, she can afford much, much more. She claims she wants to gain her independence, which is admirable.

That is, until she told me that her parents are paying for everything. So much for being independent.