Page 2 of The Marriage Bid
We stood in line according to our numbers and waited outside another door that led, I presumed from the glimpses I caught, to a stage. Olga was right. The auction did not take long. The first woman up was one of the French girl’s friends. She went in nervous and came out less than ten minutes later, smiling. She looked like she had gotten her desired husband, and the other women were congratulating her. “How much did you get?” Frenchie asked.
“Five million,” the friend responded. Everyone else in the room gasped. Damn. I had underestimated these men. They had a lot of money.
Make sure she gets no less than two million.That’s what my father had said to Olga. I hadn’t ingratiated myself with the men, but hopefully Dennis or Larry had that much to throw at me. Or should I say, my father? I doubted I would see any of that money.
I guess it will not be so bad, I thought, but didn’t Olga say they wanted to be here? They wanted this arrangement? The next woman went on, and the next. The queue slowly dwindled until it was my turn.
“Next up, number seventeen,” I heard Olga call out. At the time, the door opened, and the woman who gave me the sash guided me onto the stage. It was a theater with bright lights, curtains, and a stage large enough for any Broadway production. The light was so bright, I had to blink to adjust to it. It was notunlike walking a runway, I realized, although the light in the seats was so dim compared to the light on stage that I could barely make out the bidders.
“Number seventeen is a sought-after supermodel. She has walked the runways of Milan and Paris and graced the covers of magazines. You might have seen her on a billboard or two.” I almost sniggered at Olga’s hammed-up description of me. Yes, I had modeled in Milan and Paris, but it wasn’t for top fashion houses, but for independent designers. And yes, I had been in magazines, but not on the cover or on any feature spread. As for billboards, I’ve been on two. Or at least my bottom half has been. It was a shaving cream commercial that only showed my legs. But the description seemed to satisfy the bidders. A rumble rolled through the room, and I heard a few people shift in their seats.
“But not only do you get a supermodel in your bed when you marry seventeen,” Olga said, continuing her glaze fest. “You also get a polished young lady who is not only sophisticated but attended finishing school. You’re guaranteed she will be a perfect hostess for any party you throw.”
She went quiet as though letting her last words sink in. The room was silent. Then she said, “Bidding starts at one million dollars.” I turned to her, shocked. Most women said bidding had started at two hundred and fifty thousand and most had landed at one million. Unless she wanted to embarrass me for not following her instructions and mingling, Olga better knew what she was doing.
For a moment, no one raised their cards, and my heart sank. As much as I hated this entire process, getting rejected by a bunch of crusty old men stung. But then several cards went up. More than ten. The smile in Olga’s voice was undeniable. “Good. Do we have one point five million?” Again, the men raised their bid cards. Then two million. Two point five million. Threemillion. Three point five million. Four million. At five million, Olga raised the numbers in one million increments. And still, the cards went up. At ten million, a few dropped off. I glanced at Olga. She could not be happier at seeing these numbers. At twenty million, only three men remained. Racing against each other. Bid number one I was sure was Larry. I had spotted his silver beard in the corner of the room when I walked onto the stage. I was hoping the other was Dennis. I could hear his unmistakable cough in the general area where bid number five was being raised. The third man was a mystery. He was at the far end of the room, even more shrouded in darkness than the other two, but I could see his bid number clearly as day. Bid number nine.
“Twenty-one million,” Olga said. Bid number one put his bid card down. There goes Larry. But nine and five kept theirs up. “Just the two gentlemen left,” Olga said. “She must have made a lasting impression on you, gentlemen. Twenty-two?”
Both their cards went up. The price went up again and again until it reached twenty-six million. At this point, Olga was practically dancing, her hips swaying as she called out, “Twenty-seven?” Five raised his bid card. Nine didn’t. Then I heard, “Fifty million!” from where nine was sitting. Gasps went through the theater. My stomach dropped. I knew that voice. It was none other than Tyler Hawthorne. Olga went quiet. She must have lost her voice for a minute, but she quickly regained it. “Did you say fifty million dollars?”
“Yes,” Tyler said.
Olga cleared her throat. “F-fifty million dollars? Anyone else for fifty?” she said, looking in the general direction of number five. I could barely make it out, but I think I saw number five shake his head. “Going once, going twice. Sold to number five for fifty million dollars!”
Chapter 2
Saffron
The car ride was silent. A wedding band flashed on my finger, catching the streetlights we whisked past as Tyler drove the car through the busy nighttime New York streets. I didn’t expect to marry him there and then, but as soon as the auction was over, I was ushered into a room where an officiator was waiting. Soon Tyler entered the same room, and we exchanged vows, signed a pre-nup, a marriage contract, and now here I was, driving to my husband’s place. I barely spoke a word throughout the entire time except when we exchanged vows. I was stunned and could barely say a word to Tyler, much less ask him why he married me.
I tried to gather my thoughts so I could form a coherent sentence as he drove down the road, his powerful hand shifting gears of his manual sports car. There was something irresistible, sexy about a man in control of a powerful machine. It woke a primitive part of me I had tried to suppress for years but was now coming out in full force, and I hated that the man next to me was the one responsible.
We arrived at his TriBeCa loft sooner than I wanted. It was a beautiful place. The type I would expect someone with an eye for style like Tyler to stay in. The exposed brick paired with the exposed trusses, arch windows, and wooden beams gave thedeceptively minimalistic place warmth. There was an open floor plan of the kitchen, living room, and dining on the first floor, which we entered from the private elevator. But the sunken court, which connected to the planted green roof garden above that one could see through the glass roof, was the key feature of the loft.
At night, the court gave the place a glimpse of the starlit midnight sky, turning the apartment into a romantic mood. If only what was happening between Tyler and me was anything close to it.
“Nice place,” I said as I came to stand in the middle of the living room.
Tyler dropped his keys into a wide bowl on the kitchen counter, took off his coat, and draped it over his arm, leaning against the wooden counter. I did the same and took off mine and dropped it on the couch, still self-conscious about the sheer lavender dress I had on. I thought I saw him draw in his breath, but the sneer marring his handsome features made me second-guess myself. He probably thought the dress was ugly. I rubbed my hands down the skirt. “It’s kinda awful, I know, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
He didn’t respond. He stared at—no, glared at me as though I was an intruder and not the guest he had brought. “I would have chosen something less… childish, if it were up to me. Did I tell you how nice this place is?” I was babbling. I never babble. His intense gaze made me nervous. I took a deep breath and tried my best to clear my mind. “Why did you marry me?”
“Did you have another beau in mind? Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting another bidder? A Russian mafioso? Or maybe a man about to croak, perhaps?”
I rolled my eyes. “And what were you doing there? Are you having a tough time getting a woman to marry you?” In an effort to seem more nonchalant than I was feeling, I glided around theloft, taking in the round dining table that was at the far end of the room.
“So, are you going to tell me why I am here? And not nursing a cancer patient?”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in his laughter. Tyler threw his coat onto the couch next to where I stood. The cloth landed softly on leather. Like a low-pitched alarm, the sound alerted me to face him again. He sneered at me—a look that should have marred his handsome features but made him all the more menacing, as though he held his anger barely on a leash. A small part of me, the childish part of me, wanted to appease him and hated that he was angry at me. The more mature part, the part that was jaded to men like Tyler, knew that my mere existence ticked him off. If he was angry with me when I did nothing wrong, then that was his problem.
“Your father didn’t tell you?”
Dad had gone on and on about my need to pull my weight in the family business. It was failing. Had been failing for years, and instead of selling it when he could have made billions, he had driven the value further down with meaningless investments. It was because of his folly that it was on the brink of collapse, and yet he wanted my help. Tyler Hawthorne was never part of the conversation. “He said nothing about you.”
Tyler scoffed. “He wanted me to buy you.”
“Why?”
