Page 48 of Reckless Seduction
So I refrain.
Barely.
I imagine it in my head instead.
“What about the auction?” Ava asks, nervously chewing on her lower lip.
“What about it?” Seamus repeats. “We won’t be able to do much with it. The only way you can be a part of it is if you enter as a bidder.”
“So we enter one of you as a bidder,” Matthias states simply. “You have something to bid. Or at least, under pretense, you do.”
“No,” Kiernan growls. “Spying on her father is one thing. I will not subject her to that.”
“To what?” I question.
“Nothing,” Kiernan snarls.
“It must be something if you’re all riled up about it,” I point out.
“It’s a flesh auction,” Seamus mutters darkly.
Oh.
OH.
“Umm… you want to put me up for sale?”
My question is met by two emphatic no’s, a hesitant kind of, and a very Russian-sounding yes.
Well, that answers everything perfectly.
“It could benefit her, too,” Ava points out. Kiernan glares at his sister.
“For someone who abhors the skin trade, you sure as hell are pushing her into it.”
“That’s not what I?—”
“What you meant?” Kiernan snarls. “What happens if we can’t get her out of there or they drug her? Huh? Did you think of the ramifications of that?”
Ava looks away, somewhat chastened, but it doesn’t stop her from whispering, “It might help her find her friend. That’s all.”
“Putting her up for bid would also guarantee a spot for you,” their father puts in. “She is of worth.”
Of worth?
“Every woman has worth,” I point out.
“Yes,” Liam agrees. “But you are the daughter of an esteemed senator. That holds power. People would pay a lot of money to own something so precious to their rival.”
Yeah, I am precious all right.
As precious as fucking coal in a stocking at Christmas.
But if it means finding Lina…
“I’ll do it.”
EIGHTEEN
