He Chose His Ex, So I Chose My Empire novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Lot Twelve

I texted my husband at noon on Saturday.

"If you bid on Lot Twelve, I walk out of that ballroom and you never see me in a room again."

He answered in under a minute.

"Understood."

Then, a minute later: "Wear something warm. The Fairmont's freezing."

I wore red.

It had no back and almost no front, and Imogen had zipped me into it in the ladies' room of her warehouse with her rings clinking against the zipper.

"Warm is overrated," she said. "You look like a lawsuit."

The ballroom at the Fairmont was all gold columns and white flowers and six hundred people who'd paid fifteen hundred dollars a plate to be seen eating chicken.

Every table had a printed catalogue.

Every catalogue was open to Lot Twelve.

I felt it the moment I came through the doors.

The looks. The little smiles behind the menus.

A woman I'd once sat next to on a hospital board leaned to her husband and tapped the page with one nail.

Jo was at our table already, in a borrowed green dress, demolishing the bread basket.

"Sabrina's been on the stage twice," she whispered. "She's doing a voice. Like a kindergarten teacher."

"Good."

"How is that good?"

"It means she thinks she's winning."

Hugh was three tables away with his firm's people and Imogen.

He stood up when he saw me.

Half the room watched him do it.

He didn't come over.

He just stood there for a second in his black tie, looking at the red dress, and then sat back down.

The housing director was at the table next to his.

She lifted her glass to me an inch.

The auction started after dessert.

A week in Tuscany. A signed baseball bat. A private dinner cooked by a chef who'd been on television.

Sabrina introduced every lot from a gold podium in a pale pink dress, with that soft voice the microphone made huge.

Then a photo of my ring filled the screen behind her.

"Lot Twelve," Sabrina said.

She paused.

She let the pause get long.

"I'm told it comes with a very sad story," she said, "but a very good cut."

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