Page 23 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 1

I hit the response button on the email and typed out a three-word reply.

Save my seat.

Episode 9

Coincidence or Fate

MEMPHIS

I tossed and turned all night, thoughts of Naomi keeping me awake.

Her gorgeous smile.

The way her eyes sparkled like black diamonds when she laughed.

How she constantly crossed and recrossed her long-as-hell beautiful legs.

Our kiss.

That kiss had been one for the memory books. I replayed it so many times I eventually had to take matters into my own hand and tug one out. It’s the only reason I even caught a solid hour of sleep.

I had no business carrying on with a woman like that when I was about to put myself up for auction to the highest bidder. And yet I couldn’t find it within me to feel too broken up about it. I couldn’t believe I’d kissed her like that. What a player move.

I’d had the best date of my life. If one could call it that. I guess a better term would be the best non-date I’d ever had.

Damn, Naomi was everything, absolutelyeverythingI’d ever wanted in a woman romantically. She was funny. Cool as a cucumber when she needed to be. Smokin’ hot. A body that could make a grown ass man beg on his knees to worship. Andsmart. So fucking smart. She had a quick wit that I couldn’t match but loved verbally sparring with all the same.

If the circumstances had been different, I’d be calling her the second I opened my eyes. Not letting the grass grow under my feet, as my granny would put it. Not that I’d gotten her number. I’d known better. If she’d given me the ability to reach her, I might have taken her up on it. Cancelled all that I’d committed to and ruined everything I’d been working toward. And for what? The hint of a possibility at a romantic future together? It wasn’t enough.

I needed a big payday. My family needed it even more. Much of my family’s future success depended on my ability to help offset college fees. Sure, my little sister had applied for scholarships and had secured a few thousand here and there. But I wanted the best possible start for her. My mother and father had worked themselves to the bone to give us kids a good chance at a strong, prosperous future but it was nowhere near enough monetarily.

Now, I myself had never been a 4.0 type of student. But what I’d lacked in grades I made up for through skill and talent on the field. All that crashed and burned when I got hurt. Technically I only had a few more college credits to get in order to be a college graduate, and could start as low man on the roster in some corporate office that I’d hate, but it wouldn’t make me happy. It wouldn’t pay the tuition for Paris who’d been accepted into Harvard of all fuckin’ places.

And boy, was I proud of her for making that dream come true. My sister had set her sights on Harvard before she’d even graduated the eighth grade. She’d been committed to the idea of going to that particular school and no other would do. She was even willing to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of school debt in order to live that dream. My parents weretalking about taking a second mortgage on their small home to help.

Me and Sydney and Paris had had a meeting about that suggestion and immediately tossed the idea right out the window. Between the twenty thousand Paris had been able to get in scholarship monies from different organizations and the ten thousand she was able to get in government grants, she was still about twenty-five thousand shy of the fifty-three thousand per year tuition. And that did not include monthly living expenses, books, food, incidentals, and more. Sydney was going to pony up a couple thousand a month for rent, food, and a bus pass, but Paris was still going to have to get a job. Even then she’d still be looking at going into tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt per year. And that was just for undergrad. My baby sis wanted to be an attorney.

Odessa, my twenty-year-old sister, was currently up to her eyeballs in debt from nursing school and worked a million hours a week as a Certified Nursing Assistant while continuing school and living at home. It was ridiculous.

The system we had in America was jacked. If you wanted to make something of yourself, you had to go into decades’ worth of debt to achieve it. How did that make any sense?

My plan had been to go pro. Pay for all my siblings’ school needs so they could be something without the weight of debt hanging around their necks. And it was within my reach, too. Or it had been. Now I was putting up my body for sale in a different way, but with the same hopes for a high payout.

Three million would be put to great use, that was for sure. I could pay Paris’s and Odessa’s school tuition and room and board. Pay off the remainder of my parents’ house. Sock away a good chunk for their retirement. And set up a couple high-earning college plans for Holland and Cheyenne who were still in high school. The rest I’d invest in myself. Figure out what thehell I wanted to do as an ex-baller whose only talent lay on the field.

Football was all I knew.

Hell, maybe being a kept man living under a rich-as-fuck wife’s thumb could teach me a few things about the business world. Lord knows I had zero experience in the corporate sector. Either way, first step was to secure myself a wife.

Groaning, I pulled myself to a seated position on the bed, sloughing off the covers with a deep sigh I felt to my core. Thoughts of what Naomi might be feeling this morning invaded my subconscious.

I shook my head and rubbed at my tight-cropped hair, scratching my dome. “Memphis, you have no business thinking about Naomi. Nothing good will come of it,” I reminded myself as I stood and stretched my arms above my head.

First things first: coffee. Then I’d hit the shower.

With more effort than should have been needed, I pushed all thoughts of last night and the most captivating woman I’d ever met to the farthest reaches of my mind, intent on focusing all my energy on what was happening today.

Today was Day 1 of the auction process.

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