Page 41 of Scarred by You

The bidders are anonymous, not that I don’t know who they are, but I don’t know the order in which they’re ranked.

Bidder 5 – Incomplete. Rejected.

Bidder 4 – Rejected.

Bidder 3 – Proceed to round 2.

Layton Oil – Proceed to round 2.

Bidder 1 – Proceed to round 2.

So I’m in. In with a chance of proving my father wrong. But my thoughts about that are drowned out by the question I’m desperate to know the answer to. Is she in? I watch her shaking fingers as she scrolls through the information I just read, and I wait for her reaction. It comes. The faintest twinkling in those damn gorgeous browns.

She straightens her back, slips her phone back into her bag and heads up the path to the chalet. I can’t stop myself from smiling. She got through, I’m almost certain. And that swagger in her walk tells me she doesn’t want me to know it. She’s stubborn as hell but Christ, is she hot.

I stride up close to her and state the obvious. “You bid.”

“You know I bid. I told you I would,” she says without turning.

“And you’re through to the next round.”

“If I told you it would surely defeat the object of anonymous bidding, no?”

I snort. She turns to face me, and I brace myself for a tongue-lashing.

“Thank you,” she says unexpectedly. “For this place. It’s… it’s really nice.”

I don’t know why I look at the chalet, perhaps because staring at Dayna is just too intense. But she’s right, it is nice. It’s more than nice; it’s a place I love. The three-storey wooden structure towers above us. Snow caps the roof and the railings of each balcony. All ten bedrooms overlook the snow-covered mountains and the best route out of here — on skis, burning through the white plains, glorious sun beaming down on your cheeks, the reflection from the glittering snow blinding your eyes.

“You’re welcome. And Dayna, just so you know, Teddy didn’t tell me y—”

She turns her back on me. I guess that conversation is over.

She steps into the house and turns her head around the open space — lounge, diner and kitchen separated by wooden posts that match the beams in the ceiling. The log fire is roaring, and before it are sheepskin rugs spaced around the slate-tiled floor. Her lips part slightly as she tips her head back and follows the spiral staircase, the skin of her neck pulled taut yet still pale and delicate.

“Clark, I have put the equipment in the cloakroom. Where should we take the bags?”

I direct Hans to the nicest room, on the top floor with a king bed, and tell him to put Dayna’s things in there. I put Tim, Amy and Matty in rooms on the second floor with Spencer. Rachel, Teddy and Yvette take other rooms on the third floor with Dayna.

“I’ll take the bedroom down here,” I tell him. It’s out of the way of the others, the easiest to stagger into if I have one too many, and it’s got the biggest en-suite.

Dayna rolls her eyes. “I suppose we should thank you for sparing us from the noise.”

That’s what she thinks of me. Player. There are so many things I’d like to retort to her shitty remark, but I tense my jaw and quite literally bite my tongue. She follows Hans to the top floor.

I knew this would be an uphill battle but I’m starting to think I’m climbing fucking Everest.

I lug my gear to my room and unpack what I need to, then drop back onto the king bed to take a proper look at the email about the Persian Gulf well.

Layton Oil is ranked second, but who is first? I know Dayna got through this round. I know it. And I can only guess Persian Fuels would have made the cut. Caspar Kahn is the most connected man in Middle Eastern oil; he wouldn’t have missed out on a top three placement.

Second-round bids have to be submitted by midnight Arabia Standard Time on Friday, a week today. But I don’t know who I’m trying to outbid, and the options are very different. If Dayna is top, I can only imagine she maxed out her budget to hit that rank. She’s making a year-on-year increase in profit, but that still doesn’t give SP the fortunes of Persian Fuels or Layton Oil. If it’s Caspar, well, I might already be fighting a losing battle. He has money. He has power over there. And he certainly has a wicked competitive streak. He’s declared he wants something. He’ll stop at nothing to get it.

I’ll speak to Teddy and get him to set up a meeting to discuss finances. I need to know how much money I have left in the tank. An alternative bid would be an option, except I can’t think of a bloody alternative.

I want this well. I’m going to show my father that I can make money. That I deserve to be in control of his legacy. And for some unknown reason, a part of me wants to make him proud.

I drop my hands back over my head and just lie. Still. Not thinking about Connie or Layton Oil and trying desperately not to think of the woman two floors up who seems to hate my guts.

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