Maliyah.
My eyes caught on her, and hers narrowed into slits before she held her paddle even higher, as if I didn’t already see it.
“Twenty-five hundred,” I said, though my voice wasn’t quite as loud this time.
The Zeta pouted, looking to her sisters who shook their heads before she let the paddle drop.
“Three,” I said, not needing to say the thousand, and Maliyah glanced over at the lovely older woman whom I wished would win, only to immediately hate myself for wishing it.
Clay would want Maliyah to take the highest bid.
This is what we’d been working for, what we’d been parading our fake relationship around campus for months to achieve.
Maliyah wanted him back — and she proved it with a victorious smile as the other woman nodded her congratulations and lowered her paddle.
My sandpaper tongue wouldn’t work, wouldn’t swallow or let me speak as I banged my gavel against the wooden podium. “Sold, to number two-eighty-one,” I finally croaked.
Maliyah arched a brow at me, and I wished I could have schooled my expression, that I could have refused her the satisfaction of thinking she’d gotten to me. But I was a pale, frozen ghost as I watched her in return.
And I didn’t even have to fake it.
Clay was ushered off stage by one of the volunteers, and I tore my eyes off Maliyah where she darted through the crowd to meet him at the other end of it as the next player was brought up to take Clay’s place.
The show had to go on, and I was the conductor.
Three more players were auctioned before we took an intermission, one I needed so desperately that I all but sprinted from the podium once the band began playing again. I stumbled down the steps of the stage, swiping a bottle of water offered to me out of someone’s hands before I even recognized who it was.
“Breathe,” Riley said when I’d guzzled half of it.
I came back to the room with a dozen blinks, only to have her gently take me by the arm and guide me over to a less crowded part of the room. She was a total knockout in the red number she’d worn for the occasion, and she offered smiles to everyone we passed along the way until she had me tucked behind a table in the corner.
“You okay?”
“I’m great,” I said, trying to seal that lie with a smile.
Riley arched a brow. “That was a low blow from Maliyah.”
I shrugged. “It was generous. It’s a great donation for a wonderful cause.”
“Cut the shit, Giana. She bid on her ex-boyfriend. On your current boyfriend. And she did it to be a bitch.” Riley shook her head, glancing over her shoulder at where Maliyah was gathered with the rest of the cheerleading squad on the dance floor. They moved their hips in time with the beat, laughing and tossing their hands up in the air without a care in the world. “I’ve watched enough Breaking Bad that I think I could help you get rid of the body.”
The laugh that escaped me brought my first real breath in what felt like hours, and Riley offered me a genuine, sympathetic smile as she turned back to me.
“It’s okay, really,” I assured her. “It was hard to watch, but I’m not threatened by her.” I swallowed down the lie, eyes flicking to where Maliyah was on the dance floor. “After all, it’s me he’s with. Not her.”
Acid bubbled at the base of my throat, and as if I cued her, Maliyah’s eyes slid to mine.
A snake-like smile curled on her red lips before she flipped her hair over one shoulder and turned back to her friends, and her body language was much more convincing than my words.
It didn’t matter if she believed we’d been dating, or if she thought Clay might actually have feelings for me.
She knew, regardless, that he was hers.
“Damn straight,” Riley said, tossing her arm around my shoulder as best she could for being three inches smaller than me. “Now, you should go find your man and remind her of that fact. Oh! Never mind,” she added with a coy smile. “Looks like he beat you to it.”
I followed her gaze to where Clay easily split the crowd, everyone parting for him as he moved purposefully across the floor and toward me. He walked with the swagger of a professional athlete, the tux he wore perfectly fitted, eyes heating more and more as he closed the gap between us.
“Make that twat cry into her pillow tonight,” Riley whispered, kissing my cheek and releasing me just as Clay made it to the table. She gave him a knowing look before dipping behind him, and Zeke pulled her onto the dance floor before she could make it more than a few steps.