Page 12 of Dirty Work
Chapter Nine
I stand nervously around the corner from the Park Avenue hotel where the event is taking place. Between going home after work, having to go through the hassle of finding something to wear, and then taking the subway back into Manhattan from Brooklyn - in those heels, no less - I am already dying to just go home.
Where are you?
I text Bryan like he had told me to. As I looked up from her phone, I catch him from the corner of my eye coming down the block with a cadre of women on his arm.
Shit.
Who the hell are these women, and why are they with Bryan? I had told myself not to get my hopes up. I told myself that I was being naive and that he was going to hit it and quit it, so to speak. But now that I actually see him with these women, it isn’t that bad.
They aren’t like me. One is tall and thin and blonde, like a model. In fact, I think I saw her on Instagram with one of the local New York City chefs I follow on social media. Another I know to be a hip Brooklynite in a band that I like. They’re both beautiful, in different ways. And there’s another bored looking blonde thrown in for good measure, walking a few paces behind the threesome and completely preoccupied with her phone.
That’s fine. And I’m now determined, in spite of my better judgement, to be bid on and sold and purchased for a date with one of the wealthy guys inside the building.
“Anne! I thought I told you to text me when you got here!” I’m surprised when Bryan breaks away from his harem to talk to me, and even more surprised when he scoops my ass into his hands and leaned down to hug me.
“I did text you. Just now.” I’m annoyed and perplexed, and unsure of why Bryan is now paying attention to me, given the women he’s with. There is no way they could be jealous of me, but I feel bad, all the same. Maybe he should just pick one girl and be done with it.
“Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I just put my phone away for one second and I missed you.” He retrieves his phone from his pocket, pulling an expensive-looking leather wallet out along with it. “Okay. Well. I’m here now. And I’m not letting you go!”
My heart is set aflutter at his words, just like it had been when he first introduced me to a few people in our office building as his girlfriend. It seemed wrong and inappropriate for him to be claiming me, but I feel myself getting addicted to the attention from him and don’t want to let it go.
“You’ll have to part with me, at least for a little while. Remember? The auction? Anyone can bid on me.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, bending down to whisper in my ear, pushing my brown hair aside, “We’ll see about that.”
His hands move down my body.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t keep my hands off you.”
I clear her throat and looking past him, at the group of women assembled by his side. “Don’t you want to introduce me to your friends?”
“My what? Oh.” He pushes his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels. “These are some old friends of mine. They are some ladies that I brought by for the auction.”
I peer past him again at the three of them. They all smile and wave, and I no longer felt as jealous or threatened by them.
Old friends. Here for the auction. That’s no big deal.
Bryan takes me by the hand and leads the four women through the revolving glass doors and up the stairs into the lobby of the old hotel.
