Page 101 of Auctioned to the Billionaire Stalker

It was a couple of weeksafterhe’d driven me home and told me he lived in the neighborhood. Jack had lied. I covered my hand with my mouth. Why would he lie about something like that? I thought about him ‘running into me’ while jogging. Had that been an accident? Or something else entirely.

And suddenly it was all too much for me. The club, the auction, the house, the jogging, theCaveSpherecharacter made to look just like me—it was all adding up to seem pretty damning.

Oh my God. I had to get out of here. I carefully put the folder back where it had been and turned to leave the room. I accidentally nudged the desk, and the bank of sleeping monitors flared to life.

There was so much light it temporarily blinded me. Slowly, my eyes got used to it, and I stared at the images before me on the screens. It appeared to be a complex security system. Jack was keeping his eye on something, but it didn’t appear to be anything in or around this house.

And then I recognized things on the screen.

“Oh, no.”

I stepped back in horror as I realized what I waslooking at. The monitors showedmycondo. Jack must have set up cameras inside and around the outside of my condo. He’d been watching me.

I felt sick.

And then I saw something that made me feel worse. One of the screens was paused on an image of me. I stepped closer, looking for a mouse to press play. And wished I hadn’t. It was a video. The video played, cycling through screen shots of me. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. I hovered the mouse over the pause button to see how long the video was. It was over an hour long. He’d taken images of me he’d gotten from the security cameras and compiled them to make a video of me.

My mouth dropped open. I noticed some of the images in the video were exact copies of the animated mock-ups Jack had done of Flora, the newCaveSpherecharacter. The way he’d made her look so much like me was less complex than I’d imagined. He just took still frames and moving images of me that he already had and adjusted them to make them work for the game.

I had my answer.

I knew who my stalker was now. I backed slowly away from the bank of monitors, still watching the video.

I heard a sound from upstairs, and gasped. I couldn’t let him see what I’d found. I turned and hurried from the room, doing my best to hold back tears.

I crept towards the front door slowly. I didn’t want to make a sound to let him know where I was in the house. I winced as I touched the door handle and turned it, opening the heavy door. I breathed a sigh of relief. No alarm sounded, and I hurried out into the night. I lifted the heavy skirt of my dress and kicked off my heels so I could run. I looked around, getting my bearings. I thought I knew within reason where I was. I didn’t think I was all that far from Cinnamon House.

I ran to the end of his driveway and stood there for a second. I wasn’t quite sure whether to turn right or left, but I wasalmost positive Cinnamon House was only a street or two over from where I stood. I would go there and call Carmen. She’d know what to do.

I couldn’t call the cops. Jack was friends with the sheriff and the mayor. I didn’t think they’d listen to me instead of him.

But I knew Carmen would.

I hesitated one more second, unsure of which way to go.

And that was one second too long.

“Daisy?” I heard him calling my name from inside the house. “Where are you?”

I bit back a scream, turned, and ran as fast as I could down the street. I just had to get as far away as I could and hide. Then I could find Cinnamon House once I thought he’d passed me by.

I ran, gasping for breath from fear. How could I have been so dumb? So many things that had seemed innocuous suddenly felt like glaring red flags. How possessive he was, how he didn’t think rules applied to him, why he didn’t have relationships, and the list went on. Tears were running down my face now.

I’d trusted the wrong person. I’dlovedthe wrong person.

And I had to get away from him now. I could hear him calling my name behind me in the distance, and I picked up the pace. I ignored the feel of the rough concrete sidewalk on my feet. It was better than the cobblestoned street. The stones were smoother but uneven. It would be too easy to trip over one in my haste to get away.

I didn’t want to be one of those victims from horror movies who fell down every few feet and ended up getting caught by the killer.

The sound of a car behind me and the flash of headlights had me throwing myself behind the nearest hedge, not caring that the branches bit into my face and scratched my legs and arms.

“Daisy? Is that you? What the hell are you doing out here?”

I practically stopped breathing. I knew that voice. And it wasn’t Jack’s.

“Ivan?” I whispered, sticking my head out frombehind the hedge. A Dinardo’s Deli catering van was stopped in front of me. I stepped out from my hiding spot.

Ivan was staring at me from the van. “Are you okay?”