Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Caleb comes through the velvet curtain and strides confidently up to the microphone. All the nerves from moments ago appear to have dissolved. I’m not that naïve. Maybe that’s why Caleb and I get along so well. He knows a thing or two about swapping masks.
“The auction is about to start,” he announces into the mic, “so have a seat, gentlemen. We have a gorgeous prize to present to you tonight.”
Everyone meanders towards their seat while Caleb introduces the evening and tries to get the crowd enthused. I take a chair in the back, watching on with bored curiosity. This is entertaining enough, I suppose, but it’s not like being in the club with a whip in my hand and a beautifully pink-assed sub whimpering beneath me.
I can’t even take out my phone because Caleb required leaving them at the door. It only seemed sporting to join along, even though I’m just hosting.
I cross a leg and lean back while Caleb settles into salesman mode.
But the other men seem restless too, at least until a woman steps through the curtain wearing a silk negligee with barely any actual material to it, sky high white heels on her feet. A fall of chestnut curls covers her face.
Caleb hurries back to her and they have a quick consultation about something off-mic. Then Caleb lifts the microphone up again, back in ringleader mode.
“Here,” Caleb says to the woman, holding out and arm to lead her towards the front of the stage, “come stand right up here.”
Her head is dropped, so I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed, ashamed, or shy.
Finally, she lifts her head, and I’m glad I emptied my glass, because it falls right out of my hand, thudding onto the carpet below.
I can only stare at the ghost standing before me, looking even more beautiful now than she does in my memory.
Too bad the last time I ran across her, I swore I’d kill her for what she and her father did to me.
TWO
BROOKE
Five minutes earlier
I breathe out and stare at myself in the brightly lit mirror after the stylist spends over two hours on my hair and make-up.
Like every mirror I’ve looked at the past eight weeks, a stranger stares back.
Who am I?
My hand lifts unconsciously to the mostly healed bash on the side of my head that landed me in the hospital two months ago with no memory of how I’d gotten there. Or any memory. At all. Even of my own name.
The long, lank dark hair I’ve been pulling back with a tie is now glossy and slightly curled in a cascading fall over my shoulders. My brown eyes look bigger somehow, with longer eyelashes that make me look startled when I blink at myself.
Virgin. Auction.
Holy fuck, I’m really doing this.
“You look beautiful!” Moira says gleefully, popping up in the mirror beside my face with an excited smile. “Quinn! Look what a grand job they did. She looks so much better!”
I bark out a laugh, grateful for the relief of tension. This past week was a harrying ride of introductions, contracts, and NDAs. And that was all between setting up my own bank account and getting settled in at Moira’s apartment, not to mention buying a wardrobe of clothes, which Moira insisted on charging to her card.
I met Moira at the women’s shelter—she volunteers there—and she let me crash at her place when they released me. I all but latched onto Moira and made her be my friend as soon as I met her six weeks ago. I might not know my own name, but it’s been nice to feel like there’s still some sort of me inside—a personality that lights up when I’m around the right people.
Moira’s got these big brown eyes that make her look all innocent and sweet, but she’s actually bawdy as a sailor. She loves sex and is unapologetic about it. She’s always telling hilarious stories about her latest hijinks—and she doesn’t shirk on the details. Turns out I swear like a trucker, so we fit like peas in a pod.
Some people with amnesia wake up and find they still speak a foreign language. I woke up telling people that fuck, I’ve got to go shit a cunting brick.
I didn’t have a purse or phone on me when I showed up at the hospital, so they assume I got mugged. I’ve scoured the thin folder of medical records they gave me like a detective seeking any clues to my own life:
Female. Estimated between twenty-two to twenty-four years of age. No broken bones. No evident sexual trauma at the time of the attack. Good teeth, but no dental records to be found anywhere. That made them think I grew up off grid or abroad, but I don’t have an accent of any kind. No surgical scars or anything else that could give them clues about my identity.