Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [3]
Who cares? You’re not going to win him. Not a chance. Not with what that last guy went for.
And suddenly, she couldn’t stand to see who did win him. Nor did she really want to see the man in the flesh, because, honestly, the picture had to have been majorly touched up. No man was really that good-looking in person.
Before she could move, however, Tara pointed at the stage, where the announcer was milking the audience, building things up to the final moment of the night. The big finish. Bachelor Number Twenty.
“This auction was your best chance, and this next guy is your last chance. So don’t blow it.”
“We should just go.” Annie put her hands flat on the table to push her chair back. “This isn’t going to work.”
“Come on, what’s money for if not to blow? We both know this last guy’s the one you’ve had your eye on all night.”
Had she really been that obvious? Maybe only to Tara, who had been the first friend she’d made when she’d moved to Chicago five years ago. Then again, her family had always told her that she should never play poker because she wore her emotions the way rich women wore their jewelry: blatantly.
“Have you noticed how much emptier the room is?” Tara leaned close, trying to convince her as much with her calm tone as with her words. “Half the women in the place got up and left after that last guy went, the international businessman.”
Annie had noticed, though she didn’t understand it. “Still can’t quite figure out why though,” she mumbled.
Ten minutes ago, when Bachelor Number Nineteen had gone for an unbelievable sum—twenty-five thousand dollars—the crowd had begun to rapidly disperse. As if some of the bejeweled, fur-wearing women had come only for that one man. Entire groups of women had flounced out, thinning the room considerably and emptying a dozen tables near the front.
The brown-eyed bachelor had been good-looking. But, in Annie’s opinion, he couldn’t hold a candle to the last man of the night. “I bet the high price scared everyone away because it means this next guy’s going to go for fifty thousand.”
“I don’t think so.” Tara leaned even closer. “The Junior League set is gone. Look who’s left…Just rowdy blue-collar chicks like us.”
Annie cast a quick look around, noting the laughter and easy, laid-back atmosphere in the room. And she began to wonder if Tara was right. These looked more like two-for-one happy hour girls instead of the Dom Perignon types who’d been involved in the bidding frenzy for Bachelor Number Nineteen.
Tara tapped the tip of a red-painted nail on the face of the sexy bachelor. “You can win him, Annie. And you deserve to.”
Maybe….
“Look at his picture,” Tara snapped. “Talk about saving the best for last. Go for it or I’ll never speak to you again!”
On some days, that would probably be a blessing, but Annie was too caught up in the moment to think about it.
As the auctioneer began reading the last bachelor’s bio, the remaining women quieted. Annie’s pulse, which had accelerated throughout the evening as she pretended interest in some of the other men—even halfheartedly bidding on a few of them—picked up its pace. Her blood began a steady gallop through her veins, her quick, shallow breaths leaving her a little light-headed.
“You can go higher than twenty-five hundred. You know you can squeeze out a few more bucks,” Tara whispered.
“You’re pretty quick to empty my bank account,” she muttered. How much do I have in savings?
“Raid the penny jar in the playroom. The kids won’t miss one more alphabet puzzle. They hate those stupid educational toys, anyway.”
“Shh!”
Willing the announcer to hurry up, she watched for a movement behind the black curtain,