Page 68 of Fake

Mina and I dance. We laugh. We talk with friends and family. We find Benjamin Bancroft standing on the outskirts, watching everyone with interest, and chat with him until Angela finally arrives to steal Mina for the auction.

“She’s something, isn’t she?” Benjamin asks me, unable to take his eyes off Mina’s back.

She’s everything.

I swallow hard, watching as she disappears with Angela.

“She is more than I bargained for, that’s for sure.”

Benjamin lifts his glass, his eyes on Mina. “Here’s to finding happiness in unexpected places.”

There’s something strange about him tonight. Something tense. Or expectant. The usually friendly architect seems reserved. Before I can decide if I’m imagining things, Aunt Maisie steps onto the stage my uncle Joe and cousin Mason built specifically for this event. With long strips of sheer fabric draping from arching timbers, its simple elegance is striking. I say goodbye to Benjamin and grudgingly take the nearest open seat…right next to Dom. He spares me a cool glance, then glues his attention to the stage as my aunt explains the rules for the auction. There’s a light spattering of applause when she finishes, and the games begin.

Several ROF employees take the stage. My assistant, Rita MacDonald. David Doughtry, one of our best caseworkers, an older man we affectionately call Keto Santa. After we cycle through employees, we move on to family members. Micah. My sister Maren and her twin Joshua. Angela. Charlie. Even Uncle Lucas and Aunt Cat.

And then Mina.

There’s a collective gasp as she steps into the spotlight. That champagne colored dress. Her red lips, pale skin, and ebony hair. Aunt Maisie starts the bidding at one thousand dollars and several hands hit the air. The price rises, but so do hands, strangers fighting for a night with the woman who came with me.

“Do I hear twenty thousand?” asks Maisie with a conspiratorial smile for Mina.

Twenty-five.

Thirty.

Dom raises his hand. “Fifty.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” I whisper.

“Taking your advice and getting to know her,” he responds and my jaw clenches.

Before I can say anything, a voice calls out from the back, “Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

The audience gasps. Mina’s jaw drops. And I turn to see Benjamin Bancroft lowering his hand with that strange look still on his face.

Dom crosses his ankle over his knee and sits back, eyeing Mina like he wants to dissect her. “Seventy-six.”

“Eighty,” I say without thinking.

A murmur rolls through the crowd like waves preceding a storm. They know Mina came with me. They know I’m bidding on my own date. I look like a territorial asshole, but I don’t care. I can’t let Dom buy a night with her. Not after everything he’s said. Not when he won’t think twice about saying it to her face.

“Eighty-five,” counters Dom.

I glare and set my jaw. “Ninety.”

“One hundred thousand.” Bancroft’s voice comes from the back.

“Do I hear a hundred and one?” Aunt Maisie looks like she can’t believe she’s asking for that much money and Mina seems downright distraught.

Dom scoffs and rolls his eyes. I wait an eternity before Maisie cries, “Sold! And that’s an ROF record, ladies and gentlemen!”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Mina

“What just happened?” I step off the stage after the most surreal experience in my life and gape at Angela.

“Someone paid one-hundred-thousand dollars for a night with you,” she responds, looking as shocked as I feel. “I’ve never seen the bidding go that high.”

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