A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside me, and I had to force myself to keep it down. Maybe if I broke down on stage, they wouldn’t want me.
Probably not.
They wanted me for my name. Not how mentally stable I was.
I clamped my lips tightly together as the auctioneer droned on behind me, the bids coming quickly. Unlike before, I kept my head held high.
I was still Leda D’Agostino, a survivor for all those that thought they could destroy me. Whoever got me this time was going to find someone defiant, someone who wasn’t going to just lie down and take it.
I scanned the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lucas. Not because I wanted him to be my savior, but because I wanted him to see just how much I hated him.
I wasn’t going to open myself to anything or anyone ever again. Lucas had taught me a valuable lesson, and that lesson was never to trust anyone again.
“Eight million going once!” the auctioneer called out. “Eight million going twice! Sold for eight million!”
There were jeers, and the murmur rose, but I was already turning away, not caring who had bought me this time. It really didn’t matter anyway.
I was alone in this fight.
But I didn’t get far. The auctioneer stopped me as I passed, and before I knew it, there was a guard at my elbow, grabbing at my arm.
“Let’s go, bitch,” he said, tugging me away from the stage and back the way I had come. We passed the room that I had been undressed in, walking further down the corridor until I lost track of where we had turned. I briefly thought about asking him to let me go, telling him that I could pay him handsomely for it, but where would I go?
I wasn’t safe anywhere, not with my father still alive and now an enemy of Lucas Valentino.
That had to be the only thought, after all. He had to hate me, not love me. Otherwise he would never have allowed me to be put on display like that, to be bought by some unknown person for their own personal enjoyment.
A person in love didn’t do that. People in love didn’t hurt each other.
They sure as hell didn’t turn their backs on the person they loved. I had been prepared to do whatever it took to keep him safe.
Now, I wanted to kill him myself.
The grip on my arm tightened and I winced. My feet were cold against the wood floor, but hey, I had been here before.
I knew what was going to happen next, and this time, I wasn’t so sure I would like the outcome.
The guard escorting me pushed me into a room, one that was different than the first one. “Don’t cause any trouble,” he growled before shutting the door.
I let out a crazed laugh, looking at the bed and extraordinarily little else in the room. Cause trouble? I was going to go insane, more like it.
Lucas had put me back up on the auction block. I still was having a hard time processing the fact, not to mention why he would do so in the first place.
Had his words meant nothing?
Had this all been a sick, twisted dream? I felt like it must have been. I felt like at any moment I was going to wake up and tell Lucas how crazy this was. That it was all just a sick nightmare.
But the cold air on my skin was real. The shiver in my body was real.
This wasn’t a nightmare.
This was real, and the pain was real.
I hated the pain. I thought I had felt it all, but the way that Lucas had coldly walked away from me, letting his second-in-command take me to the same old woman who had forced me to dress like this…
He said he loved me, but then he did this? No wonder he had acted the way he had in the penthouse.
Lucas was saying goodbye. He knew all along that he was going to bring me here tonight. Yet he still allowed me to touch him—allowed me to think that we were making love. He gave me a single happy memory, and then cruelly ripped it all away.