Highest Bidder (Salacious Players Club, #5)

by Sara Cate

Even with her bloodshot blue eyes and blotches of pink on her pale white cheeks from crying, she’s still breathtaking.

“No, Ronan. I love you for free.”

I know the weight of that love. The willingness to sacrifice whatever it takes. A love so rich you’d willingly drown in it.

I can’t watch her leave. Instead, I turn and face the window overlooking the city below, then hear the sound of the front door closing, like the ring of a gunshot that nearly kills me. Just like that, she’s gone. And I’m alone.

There’s something weird about silence, as if it holds me hostage. It won’t let me move. Won’t let me put on music or the TV. And it certainly won’t let me sleep. Instead, it forces me to be alone with my thoughts. Cruel, cruel silence. But at least tonight, my thoughts are filled with a sweet face. Round blue eyes and blushing red cheeks.

Her mouth is set in a straight line and it’s kind of cute how confidently she’s arguing with me—like she’d actually win.

Getting my heart broken is painful enough. But getting mine broken by a woman like Daisy might kill me.

The way he stares at me with interest is intoxicating, and I worry I’m falling into his hypnotic trap.

Her eyes take on that sweet, playful look, and I’m fighting the urge to pin her against this wall and kiss that innocence right off her face.

He doesn’t say a word, just stands against the wall as if he’s waiting for me. It must be obvious just how much I’ve been crying, and he must be incredibly confused, but it doesn’t matter. Because he doesn’t say a word, just opens his arms for me, and I step into them like a moth to a flame.

Struck by this new information, with only inches between us, I stare into his eyes. Those rich brown eyes are gazing into mine, and suddenly, I feel closer to him than I’ve felt to anyone in a very long time. Like an entire world exists between us now, and it’s only been two days.

It was all too much at once. Then, I just got stuck for a while. And I thought the only way to get myself unstuck would be to just run away. My life was so dreary, and I just wanted it to be…poetic.”

“Life can be very poetic, Daisy. But that doesn’t mean it will always be pretty.”

I’m devouring his kiss like I need it to survive.

“It’s not that I don’t want you, Daisy. You have to understand just how much I want you.”

Without warning, he turns me toward him, lifting my chin again. “You will stay next to me the entire time, understand?” I bite my lip to keep from smiling as I nod. “Yes, sir.”

I’d be far more excited about falling for him if I wasn’t harboring a secret about Ronan that will shatter it all. I’m building a house of cards around my heart, and when he learns the truth, it will all fall apart.

“But being sad is okay too, baby girl.”

The number of years a person has lived seems like such a trivial detail when you find someone who lights a spark in your soul and makes life worth living again.

“Baby girl, you make me crazy.” “Why are you fighting it so much?” I reply in a whisper. “I don’t know anymore. You make me forget.” “Then, touch me. Touch me like I know you want to.”

We might be in public, surrounded by people at one of the most famous attractions in the world, but right now, it’s just me and Ronan.

Right now, it’s just about her and me, and this boiling hot passion that neither of us can seem to ignore any longer. I need Daisy. I feel as if I might die without her touch because life certainly isn’t worth living without it.

Happiness like this doesn’t last for long—I know that much. But I’m going to do everything I can to savor every second of it. It’s going to hurt like hell when she breaks my heart, but fuck…she’s worth it.

You want your life to be poetic, so here you go. I’m not a poet but I’ve been dying to tell you this. Your eyes are not as blue as the sky. The sky is as blue as your eyes. You write the rest.

“You feel so good, Daisy. Like you were made for me.”

“Just because I wanted her, doesn’t mean I deserved her. And it doesn’t mean we were meant to be. I loved her…a lot. But I refuse to live in the past. I’m here now, and this is exactly where I want to be.”

Everything about her is familiar to me now, like she’s imprinted herself on my skin, already a staple in my everyday life.

What we have could be so much more. I’m a fool to hope. But I’ve been a fool before. And I’d be even more of a fool to pass up the opportunity, to not play the hand I have in hopes of winning the whole pot. I’d risk it all for her.

Aside from the fact that Daisy is beautiful, smart, and funny. This is about more than her good qualities. It’s about the way she makes me feel when we’re together. The way she makes me feel about my own life.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words, and never stops—at all… That’s how Daisy makes me feel. Like I have more life left to live than I let myself think. Like I might have more love left to give.

“Look what you do to me, Daisy. You make me fucking crazy.”

I’m not just falling for Ronan Kade. I’m addicted to him. I crave him in a way I don’t fully understand. He doesn’t make the pain of my grief go away, but he does make me forget about it for a while. And when I’m with him, I’m not wading in the water alone. He’s right there next to me.

Ronan didn’t just capture my heart; he ruthlessly stole it right out of my chest. He didn’t even have to try. He did it by being genuine. By just being him. He might be the best person I’ve ever met in my life. No, he is. He definitely is.

“You should see the way he stares at you when you’re not looking. I’ve never seen him look like that before.”

I just want to swallow her up in my arms, tell her how much I love her, and take all her pain away.

I make thoughtful, strategic, careful plans. My business and my success have proven that. So then why am I such a fool when I’m in love? Why do I fall so easily? Give away my heart at every opportunity?

Life isn’t poetic. It’s unfair, ruthless. Nothing more than a fight for survival in a bleak, brutal existence. It takes but never gives. Life is nothing but a series of days in which you work, grieve, sleep, and eventually die. Alone.

With Ronan, I had something to lose. Happiness is dangerous. The more you have, the more that’s at stake. The higher you feel, the further you fall. I was happy before. I should know better.

I was blinded by that happiness. I was blinded by him. But the sunshine is gray again, because I was a fool who fell into life’s little trap. I made the mistake of feeling an ounce of bliss, because what is joy if we don’t know the opposite? If I had never felt the overwhelming rush of anguish, joy would be flat and pointless.

His warm smile. The way his soft hands felt on my body. The comfort of his touch on my back. And the intoxicating scent of his cologne. Him.

Maybe if I let my mind replay all the things about him that I love, then it will eclipse the way he looked when he told me to leave.

Unable to string together a coherent line of words, I flip to the next page. And there it is. The lines he scribbled for me. The poetry he wrote…for me. I gasp for breath before closing the book.

I wish I never got on that stage in the first place, so I would have never known what it’s like to be loved by Ronan Kade.