Page 147 of The Enslaved Duet

I shot her an uneasy look, trying to gauge her intentions. Unfortunately, she was British to her core, and she’d been raised to be perfectly poised and opaque. “Thank you. Though, I’m sure the men will spend all their money on you, and I’ll be stuck with the leftovers.”

She snickered like a schoolgirl at my testing compliment. “I have a feeling the man I came with will be leaving with someone else.”

Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, and my hands itched to be wrung together, but I maintained my composure through sheer willpower.

What the hell was this bitch’s game?

“Agatha,” she told me with a small smile. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Cosima,” I murmured reluctantly and watched as her lips twitched with mirth.

“Do I have twelve thousand dollars for the toned and tanned Wesley Longhorn?” the emcee prodded. A woman in the audience jumped in the air as she raised her paddle, and everyone cheered when he was sold to her.

“She overpaid,” I muttered.

Agatha sniggered again. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said sternly. “I’m up.”

Four men bid on her instantly, and she preened visibly as each struggled to outbid the other.

My gaze sought out Alexander in the crowd, idly swinging his paddle between his index finger and thumb even though his companion was currently being bid on by other men. He wasn’t looking at me, but I felt the same fission of alarmed excitement race through my core.

“Sold! For thirty-eight thousand dollars,” the emcee yelled over the applause as Agatha’s suitor fist-pumped in triumph.

“Wish me luck?” I asked as she walked past me off the stage. I was still wary of her friendliness, but I found myself drawn to her; my curiosity always seemed to outweigh my sense of self-preservation.

She hesitated and shook her head, the locks of her pale hair like moonshine under the spotlights. “You won’t need it.”

I swallowed nervously when the crowd quieted down, reminded of the way the Order had leered at me as I was presented as slave Davenport in Pearl Hall’s lavish dining room. It was harder than it should have been to remind myself this was an entirely different scenario. Sucking in a bracing breath, I placed one hand on my hip and smoothed the other down my side from the small of my waist to the long line of my upper thigh. My palm was sweaty against the sheer fabric and my heart thundered loudly in my ears, but I could tell that I had everyone just as enthralled as they had me.

“Now, the pièce de résistance,” the emcee laughed and abandoned his podium to approach me with his microphone. “I know this isn’t protocol, but I just had to ask you…” His black-lined brown eyes were wide with sincerity. “Do you wake up looking like this?”

I laughed with the audience and looked down at the man before me coquettishly. “Very few people know the answer to that,bello.”

“Well!” He turned to the audience, the ultimate showman, and swept his arm toward me. “Maybe this Italian goddess will give up her secrets for a price? Let’s start the bidding at two thousand dollars.”

Immediately, Mason’s paddle was up, but so too were seven others. I watched in delight and horror as the price continued to rise and rise. My eyes sought out my admirers, but the harsh stage lights made it difficult, and finally, I stopped straining to see. The bidding reached thirty-four thousand dollars before Mason’s last competitor gave in.

“Going once, going twice,” the emcee sang into his microphone.

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

A gasp went up amid the attendees, and chatter broke out as everyone searched for the calm voice offering to buy me for such an exorbitant price. They didn’t have to look far. Alexander Davenport, Earl of Thornton, leaned against the bar to the left of the stage, lazily presenting his paddle.

Our gazes snagged and locked together again. I found myself in his gaze, lurking in his metallic grey eyes like a vision of the person I truly was; strong, beautiful, and graceful as I knelt at his feet with my head tipped down, eyes blazing with inner fire from between the dark curtains of my hair. My legs wobbled as I battled the urge to go to him. I didn’t know what I would do if I gave in to the impulse, if I would sink to my knees like a sandcastle collapsing into waves or if I would punch him in the throat for thinking he could usurp my life again. It was a dichotomous sensation I hadn’t experienced since I’d last seen my husband three years ago.

“Fifty-one thousand dollars,” Mason returned, his voice coarse with shocked anger.

There was almost no way he would let someone else win me in the auction even though he was oddly reticent about paying for me. He had been approached about auctioning me off for a date night fundraiser before, but always adamantly refused despite my consent. It was only because of the charity’s connection to his first love that we were participating tonight. Mason was also deeply protective, and the idea of a stranger paying such an exorbitant price to take me on a date would raise all his red flags.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know that the man in question was technically and legally bound to me in holy matrimony.

“Give up, Mr. Matlock.” Alexander’s crisp British voice carried perfectly over the large ballroom, though he didn’t seem to shout. “She’s mine. Fifty-five thousand dollars.”

Alexander, on the other hand, had proven before that he had no problem paying for me. It seemed the husband I hadn’t seen in years had come back to claim me.

My heart wedged itself in my throat and throbbed like something cancerous.

“Going once, going twice…” Everyone was wondering about us; the supermodel on the stage and the gorgeous Brit they didn’t know but desperately wished to meet. I didn’t care. For better or for worse, I was thrilled when the master of ceremonies announced, “Sold to the suave British man for fifty-five thousand dollars.”