Page 27 of Auctioned To Be Mine

“You! You should go with him in my place.”

“Wait, what? No. Absolutely not. I can’t do that.”

“Why not? You were super into him the night of the auction. You kept making me bid higher and higher. I saw the way you were looking at him.”

My face burned. “I was not—that’s not what was happening. I was just helping coordinate the auction.”

“Sure you were.” She giggled. I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her. “Come on, it’ll be perfect. You go, have a nice dinner, and I don’t have to feel guilty about taking back my donation.”

“I can’t. I work for the charity. It would be completely inappropriate. I’m sure I can find someone who’d be happy to take your place.”

“No.”

I blinked. “No?”

“I’ve already decided it has to be you. That’s my condition.”

“Your condition for what?”

“For keeping my donation.” Her voice was still cheerful, but there was steel underneath it now. “If you don’t want to go with him, I’ll just take back my donation. No big deal.”

I gripped the phone so hard I was surprised it didn’t crack. “You can’t do that.”

“I can, actually. My accountant hasn’t processed it yet. I can just tell him to cancel it. Easy peasy.”

My mind raced. Two hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money and we had already made commitments based on having it. If she pulled it now, we’d be completely screwed.

“Chantilly, please. Be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable. I’m giving you an easy solution. Just go to dinner with the hot guy. How is that a hardship?”

Because the hot guy was an arrogant, entitled asshole who thought fire alarms were an acceptable way to escape uncomfortable situations. I’d spent the last few days trying not to think about his green eyes and the way his tuxedo had fit him perfectly. I didn’t trust myself anywhere near him.

But I couldn’t say any of that.

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Yay! This is so exciting. You’re going to have such a good time. Callum is like, super hot. And rich. You should totally try to lock that down.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Is there anything else?”

“Nope! That’s it. Bye!”

She hung up before I could respond.

I sat there for a long moment trying to process what just happened. This could not be happening. My revenge plan had come back to bite me in the ass. Now I was going to have to sit across from Callum for an entire dinner.

I dropped my head onto my desk with a thud.

This was karma. This was definitely karma.

I found Betty in her office, buried under a mountain of paperwork that looked like it might actually consume her. She glanced up when I knocked. I must have looked as miserable as I felt because her expression immediately shifted to concern.

“What happened?”

I closed the door behind me and slumped into the chair across from her desk. “Chantilly called.”

“Oh God.” Betty set down her pen. “What did she want?”