I frowned and picked up my red lipstick, intent on pushing past the old wounds and getting to today’s activities so Christophe and I could head back home to France.
“Je vais bien, Christo.” I’m fine, I assured him using his native language. As always since the day I became his, my prince worried for my well-being. If he hadn’t been driven by a physical and mental need to create art through his sculptures, I feared he’d be glued to my side. He only truly cared about two things in his life—me and his art.
Christophe was everything good in my life. My birth mother was a South Korean woman who’d had a dalliance with a German-Irish soldier forty-nine years ago. My first twelve years I lived in squalor and survived on rice and whatever food we could salvage on the streets. Eventually she abandoned me at age twelve near an orphanage.
It took years of hard work, sacrifice, and so many debauched activities to get me to the United States where I believed I had a chance at a new life. It was also where I met Celine. As teens, we lived on the streets, but took care of one another. Until the day we were approached for The Marriage Auction, and everything changed.
For me, The Marriage Auction brought Christophe and a beautiful new life of being loved and taken care of. The same was not to be had for Celine.
Christophe watched me finish applying a thick layer of red stain across my lips before he leaned against the vanity and faced me. His expression was soft and endearing, as it always was when he looked at me.
“Are you thinking of Celine?” he asked gently, knowing that wound had never fully healed. I often picked and prodded at the past hurt as if it had happened yesterday, not thirty years ago.
I flinched, and he sighed, knowing me well enough not to push.
“How can I not on a day like today?” I spat, the old fury rearing its ugly head as it often did.
Christophe rubbed at his exhausted face. The man had flown six hours to be here because he never left me alone on the day I saw my couples off. Knowing instinctively that I’d need him here, especially after the meeting.
He grabbed the tube of lipstick from me and set it back down on the counter, then held my hand with both of his.
“There was nothing you could have done for Celine. You were only nineteen. In a foreign place working under deplorable circumstances. You both made the only decisions you could.” He lifted my hand and kissed my palm repeatedly.
Tears filled my eyes as the memories of that day washed through me. We’d been so happy to be chosen in The Marriage Auction. We had planned to keep in touch and meet back up when our time ran out. Five years was the requirement back then. Only we’d have had all the money we needed to live out our dreams. Together. Best friends for life.
That’s what was supposed to happen.
“This is why you purchased the company all those years ago. To ensure another unsuspecting female or male wasn’t sold to a monster, oui?”
I nodded as my stomach tightened against the painful memories. My heart clenched, and I squeezed Christophe’s hand, needing the tether to him and his love to hold me up.
“And you have gone to great lengths to ensure that each candidate is safe?” he asked.
“I have,” I croaked, trying to rein in the old emotions.
“Bien, bien. Then you have done what you have promised. Today, you will remind them all of their agreements and of their commitment. Not to mention the consequences of their actions, provided they abuse their power. Oui?”
“Oui,” I muttered.
He turned me to face him and cupped both of my cheeks.
“Do you feel these people are safe with their bidders?” he asked, staring me straight in the face, getting to the heart of the ultimate concern.
I nodded. “I do. Though they are a different breed, unlike any couples I’ve had before.”
He ran his thumbs over my cheeks and leaned forward, taking my lips in a light press of his own. A flutter of pure love filtered through my chest, and his light filled me to bursting.
Christophe was my sun, pushing all the darkness and ugly memories away with a single kiss.
“I have faith in you, chéri. You would never let man nor woman enter into an unsafe situation intentionally. Trust that you have worked through any concerns and have come to the other side. Otherwise you wouldn’t be letting them leave today, non?”
I shook my head. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“Then go. I will be here, ready to take you home upon your return.” He smiled tiredly, but his eyes still sparkled with a love three decades strong.
“Merci, mon amour.” Thank you, my love, I whispered in his ear, air-kissing one cheek and then the next.