Page 77 of Ruthless Edge

Emma

The prep area behind the stage at the Student Union ballroom is just a side room that someone has tried hard to make look like it was planned. There’s a folding table with a mirror propped on it, a few chairs, a rack with our names on paper tags, and it smells like hairspray and perfume. I've been standing near the curtain for the last twenty minutes, looking out at the room through the gap in the fabric, and my hands won't stop shaking.

The event room on the other side of that curtain is beautiful. I love knowing we made it so great with a lot of hard work. My gaze runs over all of it. Round tables with white linens, low centerpieces so no one's sightline gets blocked, the lighting warm and directional on the stage. Every seat is filled. There are maybe two hundred people out there, mostly men, a mix of donors and students and hockey players in clean shirts, and they're all here to spend money.

On us.

I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, which is a thing I know works in theory and is currently doing almost nothing.

"You okay?" Rory appears at my elbow. She's in a deep gold dress that makes her look like she should be in a painting and seems oddly relaxed.

"Completely fine," I say.

She looks at me.

"I'm nervous," I say.

"Don’t worry, a lot of the women are nervous. It’s normal."

I look at the other women in the room. Dr. Neely's assistant, three other SAB members, two of the hockey program's administrative staff, some of the hockey players' girlfriends who are involved with the hockey team officially in one way or another. A couple ladies are touching up their lipstick and laughing at something, while others are doing the preshow dancing around in place that people do when they're excited. Paige is near the back making Sienna laugh, and even Sienna's laugh has the lightness of someone who is interested to see what happens rather than sick about it.

I'm sick about it.

What happens if I walk out there and the room goes quiet? What happens if there's silence when it’s time to bid, while Dr. Neely stands at the podium and the bidders look at their programs? I wish I knew if that had ever happened before. I'm running this event. I've put more hours into this than anything I've done all semester. I know every logistical detail of what's about to happen, but I’m still just a terrified woman standing behind a curtain in a red dress, my stomach flipping painfully.

The red dress is the one Paige talked me into at the mall. It's not the safe choice. It's fitted through the waist and the neckline is low and sexy. I love it and I'm terrified of it at the same time, and it occurs to me that this is how I feel about a lot of things right now.

I look through the gap in the curtain again.

Knox is out there.

He's at a table near the center-left with his best friend Ethan, and Jace and Declan. He's got his elbows on the table and he's saying something that makes Ethan shake his head. He's in a dark dress jacket over a white shirt and his hair is styled nicely, and he's looking toward the stage already, even though nothing has started.

I let the curtain fall closed.

He made it clear he’d bid on me. He said it plainly, walking me home from the bar, and I believed him when he said it, and now I'm standing ten feet from a stage and I'm telling myself firmly that I can’t be stupid enough to trust him again. He said he'd bid, but his word doesn’t really mean anything to me. But if he doesn’t, someone has to bid on me. Even if it’s out of pity.

He didn't want to be seen with me before. He left me at a table alone for an entire evening and didn't bother to tell me himself why. Whatever Knox is doing now, I know what he did then, and all that's changed is what I look like.

I'm not betting that he’ll bid on me.

Dr. Neely's voice floats through the curtain, warm and practiced, welcoming everyone and explaining the evening and describing how all the proceeds will go to the hockey program, and I hear the room respond with the hum of a crowd that's in a good mood and ready to spend money. She makes a joke about the hockey program needing new ice time and gets a laugh and then launches into the format.

The first woman goes out. Two hundred people look at her and the bidding opens at two hundred dollars. It climbs in fifteen seconds to eight hundred and closes at eleven hundred with actual applause, and the woman comes back through the curtain grinning as the room settles into the next one.

It goes like this. Each woman walks out and the room responds, the numbers climbing, the applause rising and falling, and Dr. Neely keeps the energy moving. By the fourth woman the high bid has reached thirteen hundred. By the sixth it hits fifteen hundred and the room cheers.

I'm four from the end.

Laura comes to stand beside me at the curtain, and I know it’s her without even looking over, even if I don’t know why I know. And without looking at her, I already know she’s dressed to the nines. Counting on all the hockey guys to go into a frenzy bidding on her.

She looks out at the crowd, then looks at me.

"Are they starting the bids lower for you?" she says. Her voice is light, conversational, the voice she uses when she's pretending to be nice. "I'd hate for it to get awkward. Again."

Three months ago that sentence would have hurt me terribly, and I would’ve spent the night thinking about it, but I’ve changed. I didn’t realize how much until this moment.

Something snaps.