And by hour and a half, I mean millennium.
Farrow studies my features. “Shit, you’re so moral.”
I stretch my arm over my back. “You’re so damn cool. How do I become just like you?” I ask, sarcasm thick.
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, smartass, it’s a charity auction. Not a prostitution ring.”
I frown, my jaw locked for a long pause. Until I ask, “How sure are we that it’s not?”
“Maximoff,” he starts like this is paranoia, but he pauses. Because I’m not in control of this H.M.C. Philanthropies charity auction. I have no details.
We have no details.
I signed on because this—right here—was the stipulation Ernest Mangold made, the one task the entire H.M.C. board said I had to complete in order to be reinstated as CEO: a charity auction that they orchestrate. I’m supposed to be told where to go, what to do.
A follower. Which I’ve never fucking been.
I finally understood why the H.M.C. Philanthropies board chose this—why they even agreed to vote me out of the company I built and let Ernest take my spot. I’ve always rejected the board’s charity auction proposals where my cousins and siblings were the ones up for bid.
I would never in a million light-years agree to this unless they had kicked me out and held it over my head like bait.
Which they did.
Farrow lets go of my hand, just to clutch my waist. His fingers glide beneath my tee, and my skin electrifies at the touch.
More confidently, he says, “This is nothing but an innocent, aristocratic, stuck-up gala”—our eyes dive deeper in each other, our mouths closer—“because if it were anything that threatens your body, your life, I’d break the neck of the motherfucker who bids on you.”
“Pretty sure I’d break a neck first,” I joke.
Farrow shakes his head, but he looks like he wants to kiss me. I probably, most definitely, look like I want to kiss him.
But his tattooed fingers suddenly touch his earpiece, his gaze drifting.
While security speaks to him through comms, I can’t stop thinking about everyone else’s fate at this auction.
I’m thinking about my sister.
About Jane my best friend, and then my cousin Beckett and even Charlie. The four who signed-up for this insanity. Sullivan bowed out when she heard the title of the event, too uncomfortable, and Beckett planned to join her—but Charlie, of all people, convinced his twin brother to do the auction.
I don’t know why.
No one really does. Charlie wouldn’t say, and we’re still not friends. I have a couple texts from him that aren’t insults, and we haven’t thrown a punch since the FanCon. So there’s that progress. Really, though, I’m glad I know why he hates being around me. Even if it’s painful knowing that who I am hurts Charlie.
I glance back at the entrance where Omega stands in a row. Through those double doors, Jane is consoling Luna in the lobby. My sister went eerily quiet after an old man won her, which led me on a tirade towards the event organizer.
I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t change it or make it better for her.
And I’m trying to be okay with that.
It’s so damn hard.
I rub the back of my strained neck, muscles taut.
Farrow swivels a knob on his radio before he returns his hand to my neck. “Here. Let me.” But he doesn’t massage my muscle.
Because Bruno approaches.
Our arms fall off each other. Almost out of habit. We even add a couple inches of distance between us, side-by-side.
But the Alpha bodyguard can’t be here to reprimand us for touching. We’re allowed to touch publicly now.
“Farrow,” Bruno says curtly, not acknowledging me as he comes to a stop. He extends a hand to Farrow, but not in a shake. His palm is out flat like he wants something.
“What’s going on?” I ask Bruno.
He looks at Farrow as he answers, “Farrow is off-duty tonight. I need his radio and gun.”
Farrow doesn’t flinch, and he’s already unclipping his radio from his belt. Before I advocate on his behalf, he tells me, “I chose this. It’s okay.”
My frown darkens. “You chose to go off-duty? In what universe?”
He winds his earpiece cord around the radio. “The universe where my boyfriend was grabbed.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I lie. “I didn’t get grabbed.” Contesting Farrow is like word vomit at this point.
He gives me a pointed look while he takes his holstered gun out of his waistband. Discreet. None of the seated guests have a view of his hands.
Farrow tells me, “That’s cute that you keep pretending I can’t see.” His gaze descends my six-foot-two build in slow, agonizing desire.
Christ.
Without tearing his gaze off me, he passes the gun and radio to Bruno. As the Alpha bodyguard steps back, giving me a wide space, Farrow whispers with a teasing smile, “Excited?”
“Opposite.” I swallow hard.
“You sound a little choked.”
I’m dying to be alone with him now, and I dig for the last of my bearings and say, “Fuck you.”
“I think you mean fuck me,” he says matter-of-factly.
A growl scratches my lungs, and I eye his lips—the music falls silent. My head turns to the podium on stage beside the string quartet that has stopped performing.
An auctioneer in an Armani tux adjusts the microphone. “Hello.” His even-tempered voice booms. “And we’re back. I hope you all enjoyed that intermission and the excellent performance from Harmonious Strings.” Soft clapping. “Next up for Win a Night with a Celebrity…”
All humor dies in my chest as I hear the name of this event again.
It’s not sexual, the board has told me. As though my brain is hooked on sex—because my mom is a sex addict, maybe. I don’t know. I’m not fucking sure. But I can’t be the only one who thinks a night with someone means a hookup.
I have a boyfriend.
I’m the only one up for bid that’s committed to another person. Guilt already gnaws at my insides. But with Ernest as CEO, my family’s wealth inside the philanthropy is at risk.
I’m caught in a moral web between family and love, and I’m wondering how those two missed an intersection and when they started running in opposite directions.
“What are you thinking?” Farrow whispers while the auctioneer repeats a few technical details about bidding. s
I stare faraway in thought. “I think this is the part where I’m supposed to choose between my company and the guy I love.” I look right at him. “Real or rumor?” SFO say that a lot, especially when we were on tour.
Real or rumor.
His eyes caress mine. “Rumor. This auction is a pseudo-fake thing, wolf scout, and what you and I have is real. Whoever bids on you isn’t a threat to me.” His brows arch. “Bluntly, you’re not cheating on me by going up there, and you can’t walk away from this. It’ll kill you not to try.”
Yeah.
But what if trying kills me too?
“Maximoff Hale,” the auctioneer with slicked hair and spectacles calls me up to the podium, and two-thousand eyes fix on me.
3