All details and possibilities my team has already vetted and verified while many of us wait for her to open the bidding.
And where I plan to step in with a price on the first bid that will knock everyone out.
“Bidding opens at ten million. Do I have any takers?” At a quick glance of the room, about a dozen people call out and lift their paddles. “How about at eleven million?” Paddles raise again with voices saying aye.
“Fifteen million,” I state loudly with a raise of my paddle so that many people in the room look my way with eyes wide, including the auctioneer.
“Fifteen, sir? Did I hear you correctly?” she asks as her assistant next to her takes down my paddle number and scribbles furiously.
“Yes. Fifteen.”
“Do I hear anyone at—”
“Fifteen-five,” a female voice I can’t see calls out from the far end of the room.
“Fifteen-five for the lady in red. Do I have—”
“Sixteen,” I say.
“Sixteen-five,” the female voice counters, which has me rising to my feet to look at my competitor. I can’t see her. She’s obscured by the two men earlier talking about letting her bid. I take in their smug smiles and knowing glances.
“Seventeen,” I respond before the auctioneer even prompts, causing her to emit a slight chuckle as the audience swings their heads back over expectantly in the direction of my competitor.
“Seventeen-five,” the woman says, and I can finally see her paddle raised above the heads of people seated around her. It’s then that the two men shift, and I see her.
I do a double take about the same time she looks over at me. I know those blue eyes and that startled smile.
“Ellery?” I mouth her name as I stare at her in absolute shock, my head shaking, my jaw lax.
She stares at me and the men beside her—the one I know but can’t place—stare at her in a way that tells me they know her. That . . . it’s her stepbrothers.
The thought dawns on me as the comments I overheard earlier and her explanation of things a month ago take root in my mind.
“Sir, would you like to counter?” The auctioneer’s voice finally breaks through the surprise that’s shocking my thoughts.
Yes.
No.
They spend all their time hoping to be the one selected to take over dear old Dad’s ownership when he retires. Hell, everything I achieve they try and take credit for. Every idea I float out there is shot down only for them to say the same thing the next day and it’s deemed the best thing in the world.
I open my mouth then close it.
“Going once,” she states. My eyes dart over to Ellery and the silent plea she’s asking of me. “Going twice.” I go to raise my paddle but don’t. “Last call for any bids.” Ellery’s eyes hold steadfast to mine. “Sold to the woman in red for seventeen million five hundred.”
Applause ripples through the crowd as I stand there stunned, staring at her and realizing everything I pleaded with my brother for yesterday, she possibly needs more.
The question is, why did I give it to her? And where the hell did she go?
CHAPTER TEN
Ellery
I’m going to throw up.
That’s a normal thing to feel when you’ve just spent a large chunk of your life savings—including some of the trust fund you haven’t received yet—and funds from a loan you are the personal guarantor on . . . for a property that needs a shit ton of money put into it to have any chance at thriving.
I’m seriously going to throw up.
My hands shake from the adrenaline—of the auction, of what I did, of seeing Ford there bidding against me.
Ford.
What the hell is he doing here?
I glance over my shoulder to see if I can find him, but my brothers usher me through the crowd, their hands on my back as they lead me to the cashier’s office.
“Stop. Just give me a minute,” I say, shrugging their hands off me as I take in deep breaths to prevent myself from hyperventilating.
“You okay, Elle? Get caught up in bidding to prove your point? Did you just realize how much money you spent?”
I level my youngest stepbrother, Gregory, a look. “Go away. Go gloat somewhere else.”
“Me, gloating?” He chuckles. “You should be the one gloating after buying a dump for a cool seventeen-point-five mil just because you couldn’t let the kings of hospitality outbid you.”
“Kings of hospitality?” I ask as I put my hands on my knees and focus on breathing.
Almost eighteen million.
Oh my God.
“Fordham Sharpe? Sharpe International?” Gregory asks as if I’m a dumbass. And yes, my head spins at the name. At the conglomerate that is S.I.N. That’s who he was? Is? Jesus. “We’ve stayed in their resorts before. We’ve discussed how we’d beg, borrow, or steal to get on their preferred contractors’ list. We’d be set with work for life. Are you really that dense that you don’t know who they are?”
I don’t react to Gregory’s condescending bullshit because I’m focused on two simple words: Fordham Sharpe.
Not just Fordham the University, grumpy guy whom I threw the word vagina around to numerous times because it made him blush.
But Fordham, the uberwealthy, wheeling, dealing, empire running, everybody knows his family, Sharpe.
“I went to Wharton with those fuckers too,” Joshua says, and I look at him. “Triplets who think they’re perfect in every goddamn way.”
“Why thank you, Joshua. I didn’t recognize you with the beard. I’d love to return the compliment, but I don’t believe you were giving one.” I look up to see Ford standing there, a smug smile on his lips, and his eyes on my brother briefly before they meet mine.
Whew.
He’s still got it. Has it. Whatever. Because even now with my insides a mess and my head all over the place, one look from Fordham Sharpe reconfirms he definitely still has it.
And I still definitely want it.
And by it, I mean every single thing that makes everyone stand up and take notice.
Even me. Even now.
Fordham Sharpe.
Jesus. How did I not put that together?
“Sharpe.” Joshua holds his hand out in greeting to Ford, trying to cover his ass. “You know I was just joking, man.”
Ford looks at Joshua’s hand and then back up to his eyes, his expression stoic. “Of course, you were. If you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to Ellery alone for a minute.” His smile is patronizing and if I weren’t still reeling, I might find more amusement in Joshua being dismissed so easily.
In a show of awkwardness I’m almost certain I’ve never seen from my brother, he pulls back his un-shaken hand and shoves it in his pocket as if he never extended it.
When neither Joshua nor Gregory move away because they’re too busy trying to figure out how to right their wrong and gratify Ford, Ford places his hand on my back and says, “Shall we go outside for a moment?”
“Sure,” I murmur, but he’s already leading us out the doors, and I attempt to process that he’s here. That he bid against me. That his hand is the one currently heating my back and sending shock waves through my system.
We don’t speak as we move through the random people milling around outside and take a seat on a bench under a shady oak tree. Ford sits so that he’s angled toward me, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees and his face close to mine.