Page 42 of The Auction

Daniel almost didn’t understand what she said. But the look in her eyes told him exactly what she meant.

He released her immediately and Anya sat up and pulled her knees tight to her chest in a sudden display of modesty.

“My dress,” she said, her voice hollow and cold. “Please. And please put your clothes on, too.”

Daniel moved off the bed and picked up her sodden dress from the floor.

Anya wouldn’t even look at him.

He handed her the dress and she held it to her chest and made no move to put it on. Then he realized she was waiting for him to leave, to turn his back. Just two minutes ago she’d been completely naked underneath him, her legs open wide, her body wet and waiting for him…now she’d pulled tight into herself, shut down, pushed him away.

Daniel walked into the bathroom and found his pants. As he pulled them on, he berated himself for saying, yet again, exactly the wrong thing to Anya. He’d only meant to help her, to comfort her, to take some of the pressure off of her. That was the only reason he’d offered to pay her. He had to make her understand.

“Anya!” Daniel ran from of the bathroom and found his bed wet and empty. Calling her name again he raced to the living room, tracing her wet footprints. Throwing the front door open, he saw the elevator at the end of the hall closing. Had he been able to fly he still wouldn’t have made it there in time to keep it from closing. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

A few feet from the elevator he called Anya’s name again. All she had to do was reach out and hit the Door Open button. But she had her arms wrapped tight around herself. She looked broken and beautiful, her dress wet with bathwater, her face wet with tears.

“Anya…please stay.”

“I hate you.”

The door shut in his face. And she was gone. And he knew chasing after her right now would only make things worse.

Daniel returned to his apartment and couldn’t even look at the wet mess in the bathroom, on his bed. He stayed in the living room all night, stretched out on the couch, going over every perfect moment with Anya in his head.

The second he had her in his arms, it felt like he finally knew why he had arms. The second he kissed her he understood why he had lips. The peaceful contentment in her eyes as she knelt at his feet made him understand why he’d been born to dominate in the bedroom. And when she lay beneath him in his bed, he understood for the first time why Eleanor had let him go—because he didn’t belong with her.

He belonged with Anya.

There’d even been a moment tonight—fleeting, the span of a skipped heartbeat—when he’d thought, “She’s the one. She’s the one I’m going to marry someday. She’s the one Maggie wants for me, why she left me that note, why I found it today…”

He’d died when Maggie died and Eleanor brought him back to life. And now that he was alive, he knew exactly who he wanted on stage with him for Daniel Part Two. Anya.

That she’d lied to come see him, and had been willing to give up so much money to give her virginity to him instead of at the auction meant only one thing—she was falling in love with him, too.

And he’d fucked it up completely.

He barely slept that night. Or the next. He called Anya every day and received no answer. He stopped by Signore Vitale’s and was told time and time again she was working at another shop—and no, Daniel couldn’t have the address of it. Even Kingsley was of no help.

“She told me she wants to be in the auction,mon ami.And she told me to keep you away from her.”

“When did you start taking orders from submissives?” Daniel had demanded of Kingsley.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Kingsley said, “and I do take orders from furies.”

Daniel spent that night fantasizing of elaborate ways of killing Kingsley. By morning he’d decided on the guillotine. Fitting for a Frenchman. And a traitor.

Three days passed without Daniel hearing a word from Anya or even being able to see her. And during those three days apart from her, he realized he’d give every penny he had just to kiss her again. That’s all. Just a kiss. Less than a kiss. He’d give every cent he had to know she was safe and wouldn’t be giving her body to a dangerous stranger.

Every last cent.

That thought followed him to bed the night before Kingsley’s auction. It lay with him on his pillow and whispered to him until dawn.

And when he woke up the following morning, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He picked up the phone and called Eleanor.

* * *

---