Page 79 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

When Nicole started the auction up, her first eligible bachelor was Tommy. “If you win Tommy, you will win a night in Iowa City at the restaurant of your choosing! Do I hear ten dollars?”

“Ten dollars!” someone yelled out.

“Going to bid?” Rafe asked, as he came to stand next to me.

I had told him the details about my single date with Tommy, the one he’d crashed. After I’d finished, Rafe had laughed for like five minutes. Which annoyed me because it was not that funny. “Ha-ha.”

Tommy sold for seventy-five dollars, which seemed awfully high to me. Nicole gave me a panicked look.

Fortunately, she had been smart enough to recruit an entire team of firefighters to come out and participate from a neighboring town. The women in the crowd got to their feet, cheering and holding up their dollar bills like we were at some strip club instead of the house of the Lord.

The firefighters had planned dates ranging from cooking chili to going salsa dancing. Nicole racked up a bunch of money by playing the women off of one another.

“It’s not going to be enough,” I muttered.

“What’s not going to be enough?” Rafe asked.

“We’ve only raised about ten thousand so far. I don’t know how we’re going to raise another twenty thousand dollars.”

Brooke Cooper walked over to us, interrupting our conversation. “Hello, Rafael,” she cooed.

“Ms.Cooper. Nice to see you again.”

She narrowed her eyes, not liking his response. Or lack thereof. So she turned her attention to me. “Genesis, I was hoping to talk to you tonight.”

Uh-oh. This would not be good.

“I wanted to make sure you’d be able to head up the blood drive again. You did such a great job on it last year.” She was being nice to me solely for Rafe’s benefit. She’d never spoken so sweetly to me in her entire life. In fact, even though she was talking to me, she only had eyes for Rafe.

“I ...” I was going to say yes. It was like a reflex. Somebody asked me for help and I said yes.

I glanced at Rafe next to me, and a power I didn’t know I had swelled up inside me. “No.”

“Thanks, that’s ... what? Did you say no?” She might have looked stunned if the Botox had allowed her forehead to move.

“I said no. I can’t. I’m too busy right now. You’ll need to find someone else.”

“Oh. Fine. Whatever.” And with a flick of her blonde hair, she was gone.

He put his arm around my waist, pulling me into his side. His pressed a soft kiss against my ear, his breath warm and tingly. “Well done. I don’t enjoy you saying no to me, but I’ve discovered I love it when you say it to other people.”

I elbowed him. “Stop it.”

“She doesn’t seem very nice,” he observed.

“Well, what she lacks in niceness and compassion, she makes up for in expensive shoes. Plus, she was married to Tommy. We have to give her a pass for that reason alone.”

He gave me a half smile and glanced at his watch. “Almost my turn. Are you going to bid on me?”

Now it was my turn to act nonchalant. I lazily shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll see.”

He grabbed my hand and pressed a warm kiss onto my palm before going backstage. I found Aunt Sylvia and Max and sat next to them at their table. Aunt Sylvia handed me her bidding number. “I have a feeling you’ll be needing this soon,” she said with a wink.

Shane came out on stage. Nicole announced, “This is Shane Fitzgerald. His date will be a horse and sleigh ride out to Frog Hollow Lake, where there will be a romantic dinner and heater waiting. Let’s start this bid at a hundred dollars.”

She started it high on purpose. She didn’t want there to be any competition. But someone raised a number. Nicole counter-bid.

“You can’t bid!” someone protested.

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