Page 2 of Bidding War

Stretching my gear over my body makes my brain freeze up. It’s tight. Tight like binds. Like the binds the kidnappers had on my wrists. When I was trapped and helpless and?—

Three good breaths, June. You can do three things. Breathe in. Don’t let it out. Breathe in again. Hold on. I know it feels like your lungs will burst, but they won’t. One more good breath, then let it out slowly. When I do, I’m not in that grimy basement anymore. I’m at work. Changing for a run. No. For a donut mission.

I’d read about the breathing technique being good to get rid of hiccups or panic. Something about how it grounds you. I don’t know about that, but it seems to help when I have flashbacks. Can’t tell anyone about them. No one would understand. The two people in my life who even know about what happened have never been kidnapped, and I’m not polling my other friends to find out who has been just so I have someone to talk to. That would be risky and I don’t plan on telling anyone about that.

Lacing up my shoes, I’m ready for the fresh air, icy or not. The runners are out of the ladies room. Apparently, they fled during my deep breathing meditation. Checking myself in the mirror, I tighten my ponytail and feed it through the hole in my purple knit hat. If I don’t bind my frizzy brown hair for a run, it will fly into my face and jab my eyes?—

I should have been an eye jabber when the kidnapper grabbed me off the street. But I was so shocked when it began that I didn’t have the time to think of it. Didn’t have the time to think at all. Before I knew it, he had a knife at my throat.

Shake it off, June. We’re fine. No physical harm was done. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Strange the way it hits sometimes. The slightest thought throws me back into the basement I was sure I’d never leave. But put the thought away and jog back to my desk and stash my bag there before bounding out of the office. The elevator trip is short, a quick swerve through the glass and stone lobby, and I’m outside.

It is so cold that the air has needles in it.

But it’ll warm up when I do, so I begin my run. The sidewalks are packed with office workers going to lunch, and I’m an idiot running her fool head off while dodging their foot traffic. Doesn’t matter. I have to get to MacGregor’s. Can’t let Garrett down. I have to clear my head. Can’t let my clients down. People are counting on me to get this run in.

It's stupid that I have to couch it that way to myself, but I do. I’m much better at being accountable to other people than I am at being accountable to myself. Not that I’m a pushover or anything, but in my head, it makes more sense when I tell myself I have to do something for someone else.

Which is probably why I was okay with going along with Anderson’s plan. I still cannot get over the fact that his father caught us in bed together. And stole my money. This has not been my best month.

Where did it all go wrong?

Probably right at the start, when I illegally auctioned myself off to the highest bidder. It wasn’t for my time, like a professional escort. It was explicitly for sex. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I have to leave my job. I hate it so much that I was willing to bang whoever walked into the suite if it meant I got paid enough to leave my job.

He could have been ugly or old or whatever, and I wouldn’t have cared. My job is soulless, and I cannot stand the work I do. But I lucked out. My winning bidder wasn’t ugly or old. He was Anderson West, my high school bully.

As handsome as he is rich, Anderson had made my teenage years a living hell. But the years have changed him. He isn’t the cocky boy who teased me for wearing thrift store shoes. He’s grown into a caring, smart man who looks like he lives at the gym.

But then his dad froze his bank account, so he couldn’t pay up after that night. Since his father is on him about proving his worth by committing to someone, I pretended to be his fiancée, and it was all going well until his father’s enemies kidnapped me. Sure, it was only for a day, but it was the second worst day of my life.

Once Anderson got me back, he didn’t tell his father. Instead, he said I was kidnapped, so he needed his bank account unfrozen. His father made him do him a favor—something Anderson still won’t tell me about—and then gave him the money to pay the kidnappers.

It worked, and I was incredibly proud of Anderson for his plan. Worried, of course. His father is, by all accounts, a dangerous man in his own right. He owns the entertainment law firm in Boston with a media empire on the side. He has powerful allies and enemies. Not someone we wanted to cross, but he left us no choice.

And then he walked into my apartment, caught us fucking, and stole the money back.

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2

JUNE

At MacGregor’s, I order Garrett’s donut and a bacon maple crème for me. I would have grabbed a chocolate-iced, crème-filled for Callie, my other office friend, but she’s out today. She was there the night of the auction and encouraged me to go for it. How could she have known what would transpire after that? I didn’t blame her for any of it—I make my own choices. But when I came back from pretending to be sick to cover the time I’d missed, I’d blurted out the whole story to her. She and Anderson are the only two people who know.

She deserves a donut.

As I’m paying, a text notification pops up. Anderson again. I swipe the notification off my screen, take my donuts, and go. Texting him is too close to talking. Ever since the morning after his father robbed me, I’ve had all kinds of feelings about him, and none of them are good.

It's too complicated, so I am not ready to speak to him yet. I texted him a few times to let him know I was okay, but that’s been it. I know he wants more than that. But I can’t give it right now.

Every moment feels like I’m waiting to be grabbed again. Each time someone bumps into me on the street, I’m sure they're going to be the one to press a knife to my throat. When a van slows down near me, I freeze. Can’t stop myself from it. But this time, I look the driver in the eye. I want to know who takes me.

Just a money truck picking up at a bank, or so the sign on the truck says. Oh. Maybe I shouldn’t be having a staring contest with an armed guard. Keep walking, June.

Back to Anderson, I don’t know how to make him comprehend any of this. He was the one to collect me from the kidnappers, so he saw how I was at that moment. But I don’t think he gets how much it still affects me. Plus, I was taken because of his father.

How can he not understand that I’m not ready to talk to him?

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