I groan in my head. He’s in this for the challenge and I have no idea how deep his pockets are, but I suspect a tunnel to hell from my perspective.
Crystal walks to the stage and steps behind a podium, speaking into a microphone. “Welcome everyone,” she greets, before relaying a few rules and processes and then says, “We’re going to bring our expert auctioneers up to get this event started.”
And so the auction begins.
Item after item is auctioned off. The wine is more than halfway through the event and my nerves are jumping all over the place when the bidding begins at one hundred and fifty thousand. Alexander bids first. I lift my paddle and bid. Another man bids. We repeat. The “other” man falls out at three hundred thousand. Alexander bids three-fifty and eyes me over his shoulder.
I bid three-sixty. He goes three-seventy-five. My chest is tight. I need this win. I bid again. Three-eighty-five. He bids four hundred and that’s it. I’m out. A blade of despair guts me. Alexander turns to gloat. I want to throw my paddle at him. I inhale and exhale, trying to calm my emotions. I want to get up but no one has gotten up. I need to impress Mark. That’s all I have left, my only way to get to that violin for an early viewing. And so I wait and wait until the crowd disperses. When I’m on my feet, I squeeze through the bodies and hurry out of the room, but not the building. As much as I want out of the here now, I am going to have to wait for a car service and I need to use the ladies’ room.
I follow the signs and once I’m inside one of the many stalls, voices echoing around me, I grab the wall. My brother’s gone. I have no money. I have to make this work. I’ll find another bottle of wine for my client and get a commission to pay the bills. I’ll talk to Crystal. Maybe she has another prize for my client. That’s what I’ll do. Still, I can feel the eruption inside me that wants to happen. I need out of here before I fall apart. I quickly do what I came in here to do, wash up, and manage to smile at two women also at the sink.
When I walk to the door, I steel my spine. I could run into Mark or Crystal. I need to stay focused. I need to stay strong. I’m here to find Gio. I exit to the hallway and make it to the lobby without impediment, but there stands Alexander with Mark. I draw a breath and walk right up to them both. “Congrats, Alexander,” I say and then to Mark. “My client capped me at four hundred. My hands were tied. It’s undrinkable or I might have gotten him higher. He actually prefers to sample the old vintages.”
Mark’s eyes assess me, and I swear the man could move a mountain with the force of his steely gray stare. “You put up a good fight. Maybe next time.” He then nods at us both. “Goodnight.” And then walks away. Hope flutters inside me like a pair of butterfly wings afraid to fully take flight. I think he just told me that I’m invited to the VIP event where Sofia is certain to be as well.
“Why don’t I make it up to you with a nightcap?” Alexander offers.
“No thank you. I’m not a big drinker. And I have to talk to my client.”
“Then how about dinner tomorrow night?”
“I’m going to be hunting another bottle of wine, but thank you. Good night, Alexander.” I head for the door, and exit into a crowd of guests hovering around the building, shivering with a colder temperature than expected, wishing I’d brought a coat. I step off to the side of a group of people and I’m about to call an Uber when Kace is suddenly in front of me. He’s in a brown jacket made with soft fitted leather, the color contrasting with his blue T-shirt and matching his boots. The entire outfit screams cool. And warm. He’s warm. I’m not. I shiver and hug myself. “You’re cold.” He motions behind him. “I already had my car pulled around. Come. I’ll give you a ride.”
“No, I-”
He steps closer, the mix of the scent of man and a woodsy cologne lifting in the air and teasing my nostrils and apparently every other part of my body. I’m so hyperaware of this man it’s insane. “Don’t say no,” he says softly.
He’s close, so very close and I want him closer when I should be pushing him away. I tell myself to decline, but he repeats his words. “Don’t say no, Aria.”
My name on this man’s lips undoes me. Maybe he’s just being friendly. Maybe this is more. God, it feels like more. Maybe it’s a dangerous fire igniting, but I don’t seem to care. I can barely find my voice, but somehow I manage and awkward, “I ah – yes. Yes, please.”
His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Well, since you said please. I do think that word could grow on me.”
My cheeks heat and my lips part with what is surely a suggestive comment and he laughs low and deep, a musical masculine rumble that I feel in every part of me. “You blush easily. Come on. Let’s get you in the warm car.”
He slides his arm around me and ushers me forward, and the thing is, I let him.
CHAPTER SIX
What is happening to me?
I’m melting like butter from having this man’s arm around me.
I tell myself that my intense reaction to Kace is simply that I haven’t been touched in a very long time. And I’m alone right now, so very alone. Gio is gone. My rock is gone. And Kace came into my life at just the right moment to stir a fierce reaction. That’s all this is.
To prove this fact to myself, I try to focus on something other than his body warming mine, like his car—a fancy blue sports car, that I’m pretty sure is a Roadster, which I only know because I had a rich classmate in college who drove his father’s on occasion. They’re outrageously expensive, but then, Kace has money. Of course, he does. He’s a Grammy award-winning artist. He tours the world. He has fame, and millions of albums sold. He has women falling at his feet and I don’t intend to be one of them.
He clicks his locks and when his arm leaves my shoulders, the absence of his touch is a shock that sends a chill radiating down my spine. He opens the passenger door for me. “You don’t have to do this,” I say.
He steps closer and Lord help me, I want him even closer. “I want to do this,” he says softly.
Want.
That word was in my head and now it’s on his lips.
I hesitate, but I don’t know why. I know that I’m not going to say no and so does he. To play a game of yes or no is silly. I climb inside, sinking into the luxury of the car and the leather seat. He surprises me by kneeling beside me. “Where are we going?”
That question jolts me. I don’t live in a neighborhood that suggests I have clients capable of bidding on a ten-million-dollar violin. I rotate to get out of the car, but that’s a mistake because Kace is not eye level. “What just happened?” he asks, and his hands, his musically talented hands, rest on his powerful thighs. I find those hands incredibly alluring.
I’m not only drowning in everything seductive about this man, I’m captive to the façade of money. No, I’m captive to lies. Lies have held me prisoner my entire life, and I just can’t add another. My gaze lifts to his. “I don’t live in Tribeca or Soho, or whatever fancy neighborhood you live in, Kace. I live in the West Village.”