Page 91 of Auctioned To Be Mine

I knew what it felt like to have people in your life who operated without a single care about how their choices impacted others. I had grown up in that world and I absolutely hated it. My parents moved through the world with that same brazen certainty that consequences were for other people. My father could say whatever he liked at whatever dinner table he sat at because he owned the table and the room and most of the people in it. My mother could cut me out of her life without a backward glance because what was I going to do about it? What recourse did I have? None. I had none because the power was never mine.

It was always theirs.

I’d walked away from all of it. Most people didn’t understand what it actually cost to leave a life like that. It wasn’t just the money, though that part was very real and very hard in ways I still didn’t entirely like to think about. It was the identity. Everything I was supposed to be had been built by other people. I had dismantled it piece by piece and rebuilt something that actually belonged to me.

And it hadn’t been pretty. There had been months when I didn’t know if I was going to be okay. I couldn’t even count the number of times I had wondered if I’d made a catastrophic mistake. I cried in the shower because I missed my family. Not them for the people they were, but the idea of having a loving family. I hated myself for missing something that had never been real to begin with.

I survived that. I survived it alone, without anyone catching me. There wasn’t a safety net. Working with Betty had given me something to hold on to. A reason to be good at something. A reason to believe that I was worth something beyond the name I’d been born with or the bank account I no longer had access to.

I would not compromise that. I had refused to compromise it for my own family. People I had loved with everything I had before I understood that love wasn’t supposed to feel like a leash. If I wouldn’t bend for them, I couldn’t bend for this. Even if this felt like something I hadn’t expected to feel. Even if the thought of Callum not being in my life caused me physical pain.

I had no cushion. I had no backup plan. I had no family money waiting in a trust to soften any blow that came my way if and when I lost my job. When something went wrong in my professional life, I felt it. Maybe it was my fault for not having a nest egg but I made ends meet and that was that. I could accept that was on me.

I didn’t think Callum was a bad person. He certainly hadn’t meant to hurt me. That was the worst part. He’d done it because he cared. He couldn’t stand the thought of me being in a situation that could go badly. I believed him, which made the resentment sitting in my stomach that much more complicated to digest. I felt a little guilty for being pissed at him. He didn’t do anything with ill intentions.

But good intentions didn’t pay my rent. Good intentions didn’t provide children’s hospitals with the funding they needed. His good intentions didn’t rebuild the professional credibility I’d spent years building. Yes, he could donate money to the charity, but that was putting a finger in a broken dam.

I must have dozed off because when I woke up, the nurse found the old couple. It was the part I’d been bracing for and dreading because I knew how it would hit me. I watched it anyway. I let myself feel it and told myself I was crying about the movie and not my own life. I wiped my face on the sleeve of my robe and drank more wine. The nap had killed my buzz.

I pulled the blanket up over my legs and stared at the TV, debating if I wanted to go to bed or torture myself with another sappy movie. Another movie and more wine.

“I need pizza,” I declared to no one.

I looked around for my phone. I had purposely put it out of reach because I didn’t want to drunk text him. I had to stay strong. But now I needed pizza. It took me a minute to find the thing. I apparently left it in the bathroom.

I ordered a supreme pizza and told myself after my pity party I would take up jogging. I hated running but it was my bargain with the part of me that was trying to make me feel guilty for my indulgences. It was eat and drink my feelings or completely lose my shit.

I looked down at the phone in my hand.

I wasn’t going to call him. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. Maybe ever. I needed to figure out what I actually wanted before I said anything, because the last thing I was going to do was walk back into something without knowing exactly what I was walking into. I needed to figure out what I was willing to accept and where my lines were. I also had to consider he might reject the lines I needed. He might just be one of those guys that needed control. Relationships were about compromise. How much were either of us willing to give?

I reached for my bottle of wine and gulped some down.

He had better figure out what his lines were and whether he was actually capable of respecting mine. I was not going to spend whatever years I had left in this life feeling like I was making choices based on someone else.

The pizza arrived, the perfect distraction. I sat back down in my nest of blankets and pizza grease and thought about the charity runway show. We had built something together. Not just Callum and me, but all of us. I wasn’t going to hand that off to someone else or walk away from it unfinished. That wasn’t who I was. The charity was important and I wasn’t going to let Mimi and Tiana down.

But the rest of it? That needed to slow down. At least until I could think clearly. I couldn’t think clearly when he was anywhere in my vicinity. I reached for my phone before I could talk myself out of it. Not to call him. I couldn’t hear his voice.

I sent him a message. I think we should put things on hold until after the show. We’ll figure it out from there.

That was it. I turned off my phone and chose another movie. I had half a bottle of wine and a pizza with my name on it. And a bucket of tears to cry.

33

CALLUM

On hold.

What was I supposed to say to that? It’s not like I had a choice. I didn’t get to say yes or no. It just was what it was.

I had no idea what to do with this feeling. I was the one who left. I was the one who never called back. I thought about every woman I’d ever walked away from without a second thought. And I felt, for the first time, something very close to shame about all of it. I’d taken that choice away from all those women without a second thought. I had made up my mind and I didn’t care if they agreed with it or not. They had probably felt something like this. And I had caused it without losing a single night’s sleep over it. I had never thought about it at all.

They all deserved better than me. So did Victoria. Maybe the best thing I could do for her was exactly what she was asking for, except permanently. Let her go. Stop trying to fix something that I had broken. She had built her life from nothing and she didn’t need me showing up to wreck it.

I heard footsteps and frowned. Dash and Krista were out. That could only mean one person—Drew. He didn’t come into the living room, which meant he was probably raiding my kitchen. Or I could have a squatter moving in.

I forced myself to get up and go find out if I was being robbed. Oddly enough, I couldn’t be bothered to care. Hell, I might hand the burglar the keys if they asked. As expected, it was Drew making himself a sandwich.