Page 94 of Cru's Crush
I hadn’t planned on telling anyone other than Bit, but I knew the two would keep after me all night if I didn’t divulge my intentions. “I’m on a flight out on Monday, traveling to Perth.”
Like the look that had passed between Beau and Alex, I caught a similar one between my oldest brother and my best friend.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Beau put his hand on my other shoulder. “Nothing, man. Just glad to hear it.”
I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter what they thought. I had to go to Australia. Even if Daphne couldn’t leave, we’d figure it out. We had to. I’d loved her most of my life, and now that I knew how it felt to have her love me back, it wasn’t something I could live without.
26
DAPHNE
“What do you mean he’s not participating?” I practically screeched at Alex.
“He’s refusing. In fact, he said if I didn’t let it go, he’d leave now.”
I sat on a chair in the office where Beau had brought me when I arrived, saying the element of surprise would work best in this case. “He won’t make a scene if you bid on him. You know he won’t,” he’d said when he convinced me to do this.
Now what?
I glanced at Alex, who had a look on her face I’d come to recognize. She was plotting something.
“What?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “I have an idea.”
I raised a brow and cocked my head. “Again, what?”
“What if we…”
27
CRU
One of the reasons I drove myself to the ball tonight was so I wouldn’t have too much to drink. We were over two hours in, and I’d had one glass of wine, along with a four-course meal. The last served was dessert, which I looked forward to every year. My favorite was always the banana-chocolate cake, which looked and tasted like nothing I ever imagined it would. According to the description on the menu, it was made of crunchy almond praline, chocolate mousse, and banana confit. I had no idea what the last thing was, only that it tasted fantastic.
“Here we go,” said Brix, motioning to the stage, where the auction would take place.
I groaned, then reminded myself the main reason I was here was to make sure everything went okay with Bit. I’d gone so far as to ask a couple of the women I knew would be here tonight to bid on him. In bothinstances, when I offered to cover the cost, they said they’d already planned to bid on him. While I was relieved they were, I couldn’t help but feel anxious. Bit had always been uncomfortable being the center of attention, and in this case, he would be in ways far exceeding anything he’d experienced before.
I took a deep breath, glad my older brother was beside me, knowing he was as anxious as I was that it all go okay.
Alex went through her usual over-the-top introductions when each new bachelor came on stage, trying to drive the bids up so she’d bring in more money than she had in years past.
Since I was scheduled to be last, that honor would fall on Bit since he was right before me.
Surprisingly, he handled it better than I ever had. He didn’t make a spectacle of himself like Zin always had, nor did he shy away from it. He smiled with an air of calm confidence.
“He’s doing great,” Brix leaned over and said.
“He sure is.”
Bids were the highest of the night, driven up by one of the two women I’d spoken to. The winner, though, was someone I hadn’t talked to. Eberly Warwick upped her final offer by five grand, a collective gasp went through the audience, and when Alex lowered the gavel, saying she’d won, the crowd got to their feet and cheered.
The whole thing couldn’t have gone better if I had staged it.
“Okay, everyone, bear with me. We have one more date to auction,” I heard my sister say.
