Page 67 of The Marriage Auction 2: Part 1

Episode 25

Two Peas in a Pod

GIOVANNI

Julianne handed me the contract right as we heard a knock at the door. Then Madam Alana peeked through before she opened it fully and entered.

“I’m sorry I took so long to return. There was a situation I needed to tend to.”

“Everything okay?” Julianne asked, a shaky hand lifting to smooth her hair back into place. It didn’t help. Her luscious, shoulder length, red locks were a tumbled mess. She certainly appeared nowhere near as flawless as she had when she’d showed up for the auction earlier in the evening.

I winced at the memory of how tightly I’d tugged at the roots of her hair, working her over my cock. I closed my eyes and took a long, full breath, letting it out slowly. It helped ease the chaotic thoughts thundering through me.

I’d defiled Julianne after she’d sucked me off so good I saw stars. The woman had a mouth on her I would dream of for years to come. There had been none better. Then again, if I signed on the dotted line, I wouldn’t be dreaming about the things I wanted to do with and to her. I’d be living them for the next three years.

As her husband.

I fisted one of my hands as I stood, thankfully having already put myself back together after I’d made Jules come like a waterfall. What else could I do when I had her curvy body laid out, naked, and fully under my control?

I shivered at the debauched images my mind so helpfully supplied and clutched the contract as I moved to the table. I scanned the document. Again, I had to give her one last out.

“Jules, is this really necessary? I’d happily give you the money you need. And Brenden can’t get away with letting you go without my signature as co-owner. I’ll move back to New York. I’ll go back to FM Enterprises, and we’ll work this out together. You don’t have to marry me in order to keep your job.”

She shook her head and crossed her arms defiantly. “Marrying me and signing that legally binding contract guarantees you can’t go running away when the shit hits the fan again.”

“That’s a low blow, and you know it. I lost everything! Fuckingeverything!” I growled as the memories of my parents perishing in that plane crash, Bianca’s betrayal, and my best friend stealing my fiancée and fucking her on the very night before we were to wed paraded through my mind. A tsunami of pain barreling down over me all over again.

She stomped to where I stood and put her hand on my arm. She looked me dead in the eyes, her face a mask of the same pain I was just barely holding back. “So did I,” she breathed, emotion choking her words. Her lips trembled, and her gorgeous blue eyes filled with unshed tears. Jules was not a crier. Even letting me see that much of her true feelings gutted me.

I reached out and cupped her cheek tenderly. “I’m sorry.” I ran my thumb over her now wet cheekbone where a single, stubborn tear had appeared. “We really are two peas in a pod, aren’t we?” My nostrils flared as I huffed and inhaled sharply. I couldn’t get in enough air. The room was stifling with all thethings unsaid between us. The many sorrows we did, in fact, share that could, and had, so easily swallowed me whole the past couple months.

Maybe if we worked together, the numbness and anger would eventually fade into something livable. I stared into her beautiful face, so elegant and enchanting. I’d been half in love with the woman since we were children. Brenden made it clear from the day he caught us kissing on the dock that if I so much as laid a finger on his sister ever again, he’d never talk to me. He’d been so angry, he punched me in the face and bloodied my nose. I let him, believing I’d betrayed some cardinal guy code by lusting after my best friend’s baby sister.

Instead, I’d loved Julianne from afar. Dated relentlessly in my teens and twenties to forget all about the one girl that was off limits. Until the morning I woke up with her virgin blood on my cock and flashes of the night before invading my hungover brain. I’d not only been drunk that night, but I’d also tried mushrooms for the first time, after my girlfriend back then had broken up with me. Funny enough, Brenden was the one who’d suggested them. We got high on the ‘shrooms, drank until we were practically falling over, and then he left to go back to his own room.

My girlfriend at the time was a curvy redhead with light eyes. Obviously, I have a type, and that type is Julianne Myers. Somehow, Jules must have shown up. I can only recall bits and pieces, but at the time, I’d thought it was my girlfriend coming to make amends. I was all too happy in my inebriated state to fuck all of our cares away. Only, when I woke up to the worst hangover of my life, I found Julianne asleep in the bed beside me, not my girlfriend. I freaked out. Pretended to be asleep until Jules woke up and rubbed her supple body along mine in greeting. I murmured my girlfriend’s name and, keeping myeyes closed, told her I still loved her. Then faked going back to sleep.

I heard Julianne gasp and choke back a sob. I could practically feel her heartache as she’d scrambled out of the bed and out of my room, then out of my life while she attended college.

She never said a single word about it later that day, or at any time in the many years after. We both acted as if it had never happened.

I’d taken Julianne’s innocence without even knowing it, then responded like a coward instead of facing up to my actions. Worse, I let her walk away from me, and for the nextten years, we never said a word about it. A ghost between us. Neither one of us willing to set aside our pride and share the truth.

It was the most fucked up moment of my entire life.

And as I stared at the devastation, the hope, and salvation brimming in her eyes, I knew this could very well be the path to my redemption. This time I’d stand at her side, help her with her twisted plan, and maybe, just maybe, build something real. What we shared moments ago felt more real for me than anything else had in a very long time.

I turned around, signed my name on the bidder’s line and offered it to Alana. “It’s done.”

Alana nodded. “I’ll have these filed, and the money transferred over as noted in the contract.”

“Transfer the entire thirty million and the commission from my accountant tonight,” I instructed. “No need to break it into payments.”

Alana’s brows rose toward her hairline. “Pardon?”

Julianne made a gagging screeching noise. “No! Gio, you don’t have to do that. I can start with the first ten million after the ceremony. It will be enough to get a new business going if that’s what we decide to do.”

“My wife will have what she needs.” I ground my teeth while looking at her in the stunning white dress. She already looked the part of a bride. “We wed tonight. Alana, would you do us the honor of witnessing our marriage?”

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