Jade was running down the stairs, holding her dress bunched up around her legs. It didn’t help because when she hit the bottom of the stairs and carpet, one of her stiletto heels caught, and her body arched and catapulted forward, her arms flailing as her knees smashed to the ground.
“Oh my goodness!” I bolted in her direction without even thinking it through.
“Jade!” Memphis, the lone male member of our Candidates Club, called out, his lumbering form quickly following at my heels.
The delicate, gorgeous woman had her hands covering her face and her head pointed at her chest as she sobbed loudly.
“Jesus, woman, what happened?” Memphis knelt beside her and touched the ball of her shoulder. She immediately flinched, jerking from his hold.
“Go away! Both of you, just go away!” she cried, tears pouring down her cheeks.
“Jade, honey, you have to tell us what’s wrong. Are you hurt?” I asked gently, crouching as low as my designer dress would allow. The velvet didn’t have a lot of give, but I did my best to get close and reach for her wrist to pull it away from her face. “Hey, we’re here for you. Talk to us,” I urged.
“It was awful.” She wept, swiping the tears away as they fell.
“The auction?” I swallowed down my own fear.
She nodded. “I-I… They asked right away for the bidders to indicate if they were interested and…and…I… There were only a few that said yes.”
“A few is good,” I tried to soothe.
Her face crumpled into a miserable expression the likes of which I deeply recognized. Mostly because I’d seen that expression on my own face in the mirror more times than I was willing to admit.
Life was hard. It was messy. It was complicated. And sometimes it was all of those things for the same person at the same time.
Jade shook her head. “You don’t understand.” She hiccupped through her tears. “When you get only a few votes, she makes you remove your dress. Right there on the stage. I…I couldn’t do it. I knew it was coming and I was supposed to do whatever she said, but I’d built myself up about the second round. That if we didn’t get a ton of bidders, we would go for a second round, and everyone would go out in their robes and show the goods. Safety in numbers and all that. I was prepared to do it as a group. At least I thought I was.”
Memphis rubbed Jade’s arm from shoulder to elbow which she allowed this time. “It’s okay. If you weren’t comfortable, you did the right thing.”
“No, I messed up. When she asked me to remove my dress, I just stared out into the audience, and my entire body got so hot. I started to cry, and I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop my body from shaking like a scared little chick stuck in a rainstorm. It was humiliating. That’s when a couple of them started yelling for me to take it off or leave the stage.” She sucked in her bottom lip as though she was desperately trying to prevent another breakdown. “Madam Alana had them escorted out by security but…”
“The damage was already done. I understand. Then what happened?” I asked gently, not wanting to spook her.
Her head lifted, and her almond-shaped dark eyes were glassy, like perfectly polished obsidian. Her small nose was red and running. The olive tone of her skin seemed ghostlike as she crumbled.
“I just ran. I ran away,” she choked out between heaving sobs. “I…I…needed this. Needed to find a husband. One I chose! One of my choosing.” She fisted her hands, her knuckles turning white with the effort. “Before…” Her voice broke, and she dipped her head again, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m never going to get to choose,” she whispered cryptically.
I understood that fear even if I didn’t know exactly what she meant. Jade was like me. Tight-lipped and kept her personal life private. We knew exactly why Memphis, Dakota, and Savannah were in this, but Jade and I had taken the speak-no-evil and tell-no-lies approach.
“Maybe you can get in the back of the line and try at the end?” I suggested just as Dakota came clomping down the backsteps of the stage.
Dakota’s dress was balled up in her hands, and she wore nothing but the eggplant-colored lingerie and, shockingly, her own cowboy boots. If I hadn’t been tending to Jade, I’d have laughed my ass off at the sight of those cowboy boots, especially given they were so far out of place. Dakota was someone I’d come to admire in the very short amount of time we’d all been together. She gave zero fucks. Made it very clear the only reason she was in this was to save her land. I appreciated her grit and follow-through. She’d made a decision about her life and had stuck to it.