Page 5 of Auctioned To Be Mine

“I had salmon last week in Vancouver that was unbelievable,” he said. “You can’t get salmon like that in LA. The water’s wrong. You ever notice how there’s no bears in LA? They know where the good salmon is, and it ain’t here.”

I looked at him across the table. He continued to read the menu with complete absorption. Jack Montana was worried about fish. Did he even know why he’d met me here? Did he remember what he’d agreed to with the auction? Did he have the slightest inclination that hundreds of people were counting on him to focus for a few hours and be a good boy for once?

He reminded me of my father. The kind of person who moved through every room as though it had been arranged around them. Other people were nothing more than ambient noise until they became useful. I had spent the first twenty-two years of my life around people like that. I knew exactly how they worked and exactly what they thought of people like me, which was not much, until you proved otherwise.

My words were wasted on him. But I couldn’t give up. This wasn’t about me. Honestly, if it had been, I would have told him to fuck all the way off at the ten-minute tardy mark.

“The salmon might be worth trying,” I said pleasantly. “And it’s not like you don’t have the money to order something else if you want. You’re Jack Montana,” I said, feigning a dreamy sigh that nearly had me crashing out at the table. If data and empathy weren’t going to do the trick, flattery would have to do. “And I understand you had reservations about the auction. I want to make sure I address anything that’s been on your mind. But I’d love to use our time tonight to actually talk through the details, if that works for you.”

He looked up from the menu and assessed me like he just realized I was at his table. The corner of his mouth tilted upward. He probably wanted people to compare him to Elvis with that little half-smile.

I would never. That was blasphemous. And his was fake. Elvis’s half-smile was all natural and so sexy.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

It wasn’t enthusiasm. It wasn’t even interest, exactly. But I would take any sign of progress. If he opened the door a crack, I would push my way in there. Prepare to be dazzled, Jack Montana. This would be a long night, but if I secured his place in the auction, it would all be worth it.

3

CALLUM

By the time my second drink was gone, I had come to a conclusion—Chantilly Giles was not a person. She was a performance. A carefully curated production designed to broadcast to her followers and anyone else watching. Everything was content. The meal. The restaurant. Me.

I watched her film herself tasting the bread, complaining that it was “so basic,” before sending it back and asking for gluten-free options. The server was a young guy who looked like he was working his way through college and was just biding his time. He nodded politely and disappeared. I imagined he was used to dealing with people like her.

Didn’t make it right, but he handled it like a champ.

“Can you believe they brought out regular bread?” she said to me, or maybe to her phone. It was hard to tell. One eye was always on that fucking phone camera. It was weird. “Like, does this place even know who dines here?”

I sipped my drink and said nothing.

She turned her attention to the menu, running a red nail down the page. “Oh my God, the scallops are only forty-eight dollars. That’s so cheap. They can’t be good.” She looked up at me. “Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Good scallops should be at least seventy.”

I didn’t care if they were three hundred. The sooner she ordered and ate, the faster I could get the hell out of there. My phone was in my pocket. My lifeline. One text and I could end my misery. But I knew I’d hear about it if I didn’t put in some effort.

“The filet is one-twenty,” she continued. “That’s more reasonable, but still. I expected more from a place like this.”

Everything was about the price tag with her. Every item she mentioned came with commentary about cost. Not taste. Not quality. Just how much it cost and whether that was impressive enough for her to order. She was a walking, talking reminder of everything I’d learned to avoid. She had already evaluated the wine, the glasses, and even the fucking tablecloths.

Maybe she was doing things right. Maybe I should notice the little things.

Fuck that. Her way of doing things was exhausting.

Women who cared about money were a hard pass. Women who knew I had money and had an obsession with money were bad news. I’d made that mistake too many times to count. It was easier to keep things casual. A night, maybe two if the chemistry was there, and then we’d both move on. No one got hurt. No one got used. No expectations, no disappointments.

I’d given up on the dream of love a long time ago. My cousins in New York had all found it, one after another, like they were falling dominoes. I was happy for them. Genuinely. But their fairy tale endings only reinforced what I already knew. It wasn’t in the cards for me. Not in LA. Not with the kind of women who circulated in my world.

At least Chantilly was honest about her priorities. That was something, I supposed. She wasn’t pretending to care about art or philanthropy or anything beyond the dollar signs. It didn’t matter, though. I had zero desire to pursue anything with her. For a brief, desperate moment, I considered the possibility of just fucking her and never calling again. That was usually my move. But even that felt impossible. Her personality was so repulsive, I couldn’t even muster the energy to pretend I was interested. There wasn’t enough alcohol to make her attractive enough to take to bed.

The server returned with gluten-free bread. Chantilly filmed herself examining it, narrating the whole thing for her phone.

“They brought me gluten-free bread, which is so sweet, but I don’t eat bread. I literally just wanted to see if they had it.”

The server’s face remained neutral, but I saw the flicker of irritation in his eyes. I would be tipping the guy enough to pay his tuition for a semester.

She shooed the server away and then gave me her full attention. “So, your family does movies and fashion?”

Of course she wanted to talk about my family’s businesses. She wanted to know if the family money had staying power or if it would be gone in ten years.