The applause was too loud to interrupt. Bronx stood, groaning, and headed toward the stage with a resigned smile.
“First up,” the auctioneer announced, “Jaden Bronx!”
The bidding climbed faster than I expected. A woman in a navy gown raised her hand, then an older woman with a thick diamond bracelet. A third bidder, calm and disinterested, said a number so casually, you’d think she was ordering lunch and not dropping over a grand for dinner with a man half her age. I leaned back, sipping my drink. Cool on the outside, spinning like a storm drain on the inside.
Bronx went for a respectable number. Cheers and polite applause followed. Then, West stepped back into the spotlight.
“Oh God,” Sawyer muttered.
West milked every second of it, tossing in a few winks at the bidders. The numbers jumped even higher, the crowd eating it up.
Next to me, Sawyer didn’t react, but I caught the tick in his jaw.
“And finally,” the auctioneer announced, drawing the syllables out like they meant something, “a private dinner with none other than Sawyer James.”
When Sawyer didn’t move, West took the hint.
“He’s a little shy to come on stage tonight, it looks like. Sawyer, raise your hand and let everyone know where you are!”
All polite chatter stopped. Sawyer froze for a moment before waving his hand in the air. I adjusted my dress, crossing my legs, the silky fabric whispering against my skin.
“Let the bidding begin.”
A woman in a blue dress raised her hand with effortless confidence. “Twenty-five hundred.”
A beat later, a sleek blonde lifted her fingers. “Four.”
The blue dress arched a brow. “Five.”
The crowd quieted, the rhythm of bidding falling into a tense, poised dance.
“Six thousand.”
“Sixty-five.”
I knew where this was going. And God, I didn't want her going out with him—didn't want her laughing at his jokes, letting him pay for dinner, maybe letting him walk her home. It made no sense, but it felt like a betrayal of the thing we weren't even calling real.
My fingers curled around the stem of my champagne flute. This was insane. I was insane. We weren't together. I’d made it clear this was temporary, surface-level, an arrangement with an expiration date.
The thought of him sitting across from someone else, giving them that lazy half-smile he'd given me a thousand times?—
My stomach twisted.
Sawyer's hand flexed slightly on my thigh. He was calm, still, but not relaxed. I could feel the tension radiating through his palm, the way his jaw had gone tight. He wasn't looking at me, hadn't looked at me since the bidding started.
“Six-five, going once…”
The woman in the blue dress leaned back, confident, giving me a smug little smirk, as if she'd already won.
And something in me snapped.
Maybe it was the champagne or the way she looked at him like he was already hers. Maybe it was the realization I cared—more than I should—and I was so tired of pretending I didn't.
He was no one's butmineto claim.
“Twenty thousand.” The bid slipped out of me, smooth, sure, and loud enough to cut through the silence.
The auctioneer blinked. “I—excuse me?”
