Page 18 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 1

“Well, anyway, please give him my best,” I blathered and turned around, crashing right into the man himself.

“Christ!” he cursed as I stomped fully on his foot while his hands curled around my shoulders, holding me in place.

I tried to push around him, but he held on tight.

“You, again! Where the hell is my wallet, you little thief!” he barked.

“Dad, it’s right here. You dropped your phone and your wallet.” His daughter yanked me out of his hold. “Relax. Jeez. She was just returning them.”

“Oh.” He held his hands in the air palms up in supplication, and I slid to the side. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

He also didn’t know I’d taken all his cash—not a small amount—so I needed to skedaddle quickly.

“No harm, no foul, right?” I repeated the weird phrase he’d said to me earlier. I pointed to the carousel that only had a few bags left on it. “I think your bags made it out,” I noted.

When both of them turned around to check, I bolted.

“Hey, come back!” he called out, his voice spreading like an echo through the large open space and drifting away the farther I ran.

That shit had been too close.

Why the hell did I go back to return what I’d stolen?

Maybe Madam Alana was right. I was developing a conscience after years of grifting. It was time I made a big change. She’d been asking me to be a candidate for The Marriage Auction for years. I think the time had come.

I pulled out my personal phone from a small hidden pack around my waist and dialed her number. She answered on the first ring.

“Maia, are you okay, dear?”

“I’ll do it. Put me in the auction this time around.” I gulped as the idea of marrying someone made me break out into a cold sweat.

“You’re sure?” she clarified.

“No, but it’s the best option I have.”

Episode 7

Be Careful What You Wish For

JULIANNE

“If you don’t put me in the next auction, Alana, I’ll go to Angus,” I threatened through the phone line.

“You wouldn’t dare. Your mother would roll over in her grave,chéri. May she rest in peace,” Alana’s familiar cultured voice warned.

I inhaled sharply at the mention of my mother, that wound still too fresh only three months after the crash. “They’ve gone too far,” I whispered.

“Just give it time,ma petite fleur,”my little blossom,she cooed. Usually when I spoke to Alana, she’d give me the best advice and counsel me on how to maneuver a difficult situation, especially in the business world, but this was different.

This was personal.

“You are not listening! She’s destroyedeverything. My brother, my position in the company…Gio?” I gulped down the emotion twisting my gut every time I thought of the one man I could never have. My brother’s ex-best friend and current business partner, Giovanni “Gio” Falco. So much had changed since our parents had died in that plane, Giovanni’s parents flying with them and also perishing. But that wasn’t what broke us. That was all her—Bianca.

“I will admit to being surprised at the sudden announcement of Brenden and Bianca’s nuptials in light of her having been Giovanni’s fiancé only a short time before. That, my dear, says a lot more about her character than it ever would about Gio.”

“And my brother? He stole his best friend’s fiancée right out from under his nose! Gio’s crushed, Alana. Annihilated. He hasn’t been to the office in months. I’ve done the best I could, but when my brother brought me into that meeting and asked me to step down as Vice President of FM Enterprises so that his new wife, Bianca, could step into my shoes, I lost it.”

“Chéri.” Her words were tinged with sorrow.

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