Chapter One
“Are you ready?” Jackie, the blonde who’d been helping Izzy for the most part of that god-awful day, asked.
Isabela Lima scratched her head, hating the amount of spray the stylist had used to make her hair fuller. “Not yet.” She sighed, and her heart raced. How ready was she to get the money she needed to go to a country in Africa and avenge her stepmother’s death? Very.
How ready was she to sell her virginity in order to get said money?
Not at all.
Jackie nodded. The woman reminded her of a damn Tinker Bell, with her kind eyes and pixie hair. “How do you feel?”
Izzy glanced at her feet. The outrageously high heels made up for her five-foot-four height. She had to practice wearing them ever since Madame Alexa had suggested them, during their multiple interviews. “Like a new life is about to begin.”
“That’s a way to look at it,” Jackie said.
Izzy smoothed her hand over the golden empire dress they’d picked out for her. When she told them she was a high school history teacher, they picked a gown straight from the Game of Thrones dressing room. They’d braided her hair and sprayed some shit on her head, face, and neck to make her sparkle. Sure, she was no supermodel but did she really need all this junk to pass for pretty?
“Madame Alexa would like a word,” Jackie said, before discreetly leaving the room.
A cold sweat slicked Izzy’s palms. Shit. What if Madame Alexa, the boss lady who founded and ran the controversial House of Alexa, Nevada’s infamous virgin auction, had discovered the real reason behind her becoming an auctionee?
To earn enough money to travel to the kingdom of Gwokon, in Africa, to find and avenge the people responsible for her stepmother’s murder. Mary Roberts had married Izzy’s adoptive father Harold, and even after his death, continued to be kind and supportive to her. She’d been more of a mother figure than her own birth mother, a crack addict who abandoned her in the orphanage in Rio de Janeiro at five, until Harold had adopted her at ten years old.
Anger thickened her throat, and she tried to swallow, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. For the past twelve months, she’d tried to get a second job, or a loan from the bank, but with no luck. Because of the money she’d spent hiring a detective to find her stepmother, all her resources were tapped out. And worse, the slimy investigator scammed her and never gave her a solid lead.
When Izzy heard about House of Alexa, she’d laughed. Of course she wouldn’t make it through the scrutiny of the selection process, let alone be picked for a weekly virgin able to make hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling her body for up to a month, the amount of time the buyer would have her at his disposal for. And, after that month, she’d be a rich woman with enough money to pursue her goal. Besides, a lot of buyers came from Gwokon. How lucky would she be to get a buyer from the very same place she aspired to visit? A rich man, no doubt, who could, unbeknownst to him, provide her insider information about the Gwokondenese monarchy.
Finally, she’d stop having nightmares of the terrible things Mary had to endure abroad. Mary Roberts had gone to Gwokon to meet a man she’d met online. Obasi Akenzua. After a few days in the country, she disappeared, and two weeks later, was found dead by the river with needles of heroin still injected into her. Obasi had conveniently vanished as well.
“Izzy?” said a deep female voice, one that belonged to the imposing woman who ran House of Alexa.
Izzy turned to see Alexa’s curvy figure, her bright blue eyes and sultry hair that framed her face and shoulders like luxurious dark drapes. “You wanted to talk to me?”
Madame Alexa sauntered over to her. “Yes. I wanted you to wear this,” she said, lifting the velvet box in her hands.
She opened the box, and a gold necklace sparkled. Izzy leaned closer to take a good look at it—if this had been part of her costume, why hadn’t they told her sooner? She touched the jewel, feeling the solid gold. During her comprehensive research before she joined House of Alexa, she’d never heard of auctionees wearing expensive jewelry. “Why?”
“Because you’re smart. But smart women can like pretty things too.”
Izzy withdrew, an old insecurity tightening her chest. She knew she wasn’t a beauty—not in the classical sense. She usually put her hair down to hide her ears, wishing they didn’t stick out as much. She also favored nude-colored lipstick, hoping they’d help minimize the generous size of her lips. And her eyes…one brown, one green. She usually wore lenses, like now, to make them the same color. Green. “I don’t know about this… I don’t want to lose your jewel or damage it.”
“You’ll take it off after the auction,” Madame Alexa said, twirling her fingers in a silent gesture for her to move around.
Sighing, Izzy followed her lead. Yes, she obviously needed all the help she could get to fool a man into paying money to sleep with her. Most guys wouldn’t do it for free—to date, only a couple had tried, but she hadn’t felt attracted to them enough to have sex.
“Yes, appropriate given everything else I’ll be taking off.”
A hint of a smile formed on Madame Alexa’s face. “What did I say? Smart.”
Madame Alexa snapped the clasp of the necklace closed, and Izzy touched it, tugging it a bit even if it didn’t suffocate her. “How do I look?”
“Like a smart, sexy woman ready to make a great deal of money.”
A great deal of money I’ll use to get revenge.
…
“More scotch?” a pretty waitress asked. She tipped down the aged bottle before he denied it.
