Page 59 of Highest Bidder

“He paida lot of moneyfor,” my BFF murmured under her breath. “Has he texted you?”

I shook my head. “No. But he only texted that one time last week. I don’t expect him to.”

“And this weekend will fulfill the contract.”

“Yep, come seven a.m. Monday morning, sixty grand is supposed to hit my account.”

“I want to go piss on your dad’s grave for doing this to you. Think of all the things you could do with that money if you didn’t have a loan shark to pay.”

I sighed. “I have, trust me. I think if the club will let me, I might do another auction to try to get the rest so I’m out from under this shit.”

Kit narrowed her eyes. “Do you think Jeff would bid on you again?”

I shrugged, trying to pretend the thought didn’t appeal to me as much as it did.

“I’m not sure. He might be ready for this to be over.”

“Do you have to give him the collar back?”

I tilted my head. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“But you’re going to quit wearing it after Sunday, right?”

The thought made me sad, but I knew it’d be weird if I didn’t.

“I mean, yeah. I’ll no longer “belong” to him.”

I made air quotes around “belong.”

She finished the last of her margarita and signaled to the bartender for another.

“I hope your heart gets that memo.”

Yeah, me too.

****

Jeff

I made a decision, then plucked my car key from the hook and opened the garage door, intending to drive to her place before I chickened out.

I was going to ask Vivian to keep seeing me. Not because we had a contract and she was getting paid, but because she wanted to spend time with me as my… girlfriend?

I winced as the word entered my head, but had to concede—yeah, that’s what I wanted. Sometime between Sunday night when I went to bed alone and tonight when I walked into anempty house, I realized I’d fallen for Vivian…Holy shit, I didn’t even know her last name.

Then another thought hit me.What if she’d only been pretending to like me because she was getting paid?

I gave myself an internal shake. No, I’d seen the way she’d looked at me. The way she’d smiled when she’d been snuggled up against me. She felt the same.

I pulled out of my garage and pulled up the app linked to her collar. The dot blinked steady on the map, and I tapped the screen to expand the location, then frowned.

Club Allure?

What the fuck was she doing at a strip club?

I took a deep breath even as my fingers clenched around the steering wheel as I drove.

I needed to give her the benefit of the doubt.

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