Highest Bidder (Salacious Players’ Club)

Daisy

My breath comes out in foggy puffs as I scroll through various apps on my phone. There are three layers of socks on my feet, but no matter how much I rub them together, they still have a chill that goes down to the bone. My tiny little space heater does a nice job of heating up the van, but it smells like burnt hair and I’m too scared to sleep with it on, so I’m curled up under three blankets instead. I wish I could sleep, but I can’t shake the nip in the air.

Plus, I’m too busy reliving my strange encounter with Ronan Kade. I’ve barely spoken ten whole words to the man in the past three months, even though I see him nearly every night.

Then, tonight, he randomly bids a hundred grand on a date with me…that he doesn’t cash in on.

Why?

I mean, maybe he did actually want a rain check? Maybe he wasn’t in the mood or wasn’t feeling well. So then why bid at all? None of it makes sense. Even Geo was thrown off by Ronan’s behavior.

In some weird way, I feel like I’ve earned some bragging rights from this. For just a few minutes up on that stage, I had the attention of the richest man in Briar Point. And yes, I looked him up online. He’s worth one-point-five billion dollars.

He’s not just rich—he’s filthy rich.

And he bid on me in an auction. I probably shouldn’t feel special. I’ve watched him do the same with dozens of girls, but it still felt nice.

I mean…I didn’t really want the date anyway. If Ronan Kade was about thirty years younger, I would have been all over it. I’ve seen pics of him in his twenties. He was seriously gorgeous, but no matter how well he’s aged, it doesn’t change the fact that there are three and a half decades between us. He’s still handsome…but I just can’t seem to convince my sex drive to see him as anything other than a dashing silver fox.

Suddenly, I find myself laughing out loud like a crazy person. Because here I am…sleeping in my van and judging a billion-dollar man for not being young enough for me.

Daisy…you’re an idiot.

If I were smart, I would have thrown myself at that man. I had the perfect opportunity to do just that, but I blew it.

A smart girl would have used tonight to get close to him. Perhaps, even slept with him to get the answers I want. I mean…sleeping with Ronan Kade is hardly a sacrifice. I’m sure plenty of women do it for free.

But I’m not all that smart, or sexy, or cunning.

The truth of the matter is that I have a savings account with over a million dollars in it, issued to me nine years ago by a man named Ronan Kade, who before three months ago, I had never met.

So yeah, I might be willing to trade sex for that information if it came down to it.

All I know is that when my mother passed away three years ago, there was a folder in her files with some lengthy paperwork and a high-yield savings account in a bank in Briar Point, California, listing me as the beneficiary.

My mother, as amazing as she was, failed to tell me the reason this complete stranger left me with enough money and compounding interest to get me through college. And I won’t touch it until I know why.

Which is why I have gone to great, slightly unhinged, lengths to figure it out—including some minor stalking, moving across the country, getting a job where I know he goes, and slowly studying him over the course of three months.

Is it the most deranged thing I’ve ever done? By far.

Do I have anything better to do with my time? Sadly, no.

Until I figure all of this out, I’m not using that money for music school or a fresh start. I need to know why it’s there before I touch it.

After placing my phone on the shelf next to my bed, I roll onto my opposite side. The thought of my mother feels like picking at a wound that refuses to heal, so I attempt to brush the thought away. This always seems to happen. It’s like a cruel game of six-degrees-of-separation. Thinking about work makes me think of Ronan, which makes me think of the account, which makes me think of my mother, which immediately makes me think of her grisly and torturous death.

It seems every thought leads to this point eventually.

I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is. Once I get going, thinking about her in that bed, sunken, pale, and struggling to breathe her last breath, it’s all downhill from there. And I know sleep will never come.

There I go again…my brain replaying the whole thing, even though I explicitly begged it not to.

I was eighteen when my mother died—which is a terrible age to lose a parent, not that any of them are all that great. But being thrust into adulthood, both literally and figuratively, is bad enough on its own, but carrying the weight of grief on top of that is completely unfair.

I had nothing when my mother died. In the figurative sense, I mean.

So I coasted for three years in a home that reeked of her absence, and soon that home turned into a prison. Until one day late last year, I was going through her paperwork in search of something the insurance company wanted, but instead of finding it, I found a bank statement from when I was twelve with the name of a man I had never heard of before.

To say I became obsessed would be an understatement. My life revolved around this mystery, and still does.

There were a few things I ruled out immediately.

First, I asked my dad if he knew a Ronan Kade in Briar Point, and he said no.

Second, and this one is a relief, Ronan and I are not in any way related. He’s not my long-lost grandfather or secret daddy. Thanks to my dad’s strong biological genes, I look just like him, so that’s a saving grace I didn’t ever think I needed.

And Ronan is old, but not old enough to be my grandfather, so that’s ruled out.

My first observation was that Ronan Kade didn’t know me. I worked at the club, my name tag in full view and not once did he say, “Hey, aren’t you that kid I gave a million dollars to almost a decade ago?”

Not once.

So, whatever the reason, I’m clearly a mystery to him as much as he is to me.

Which leads me to my last two theories.

One, that I won some random Ronan Kade lottery for a hefty sum that neither of my parents chose to tell me about. Doubtful.

Or two…it has to do with my mother.

My parents split when I was twelve, and that first summer, as a child of divorce, I spent it with my dad. My mom went on a work trip to Briar Point. This much I was able to find out, thanks to social media, but that’s all I have. I know she was here and from what I can tell, she stayed longer than she was supposed to.

Did my mother have an affair with Ronan Kade?

This seemingly impossible scenario still doesn’t quite explain why he would leave me so much money. And yes, I admit, I could just ask him, but I don’t think I’m ready to know the answer to that question just yet. It’s like a vault I’m too afraid to open.

So here I sit in a renovated camper van I purchased with the money I got from selling the house, and I call it freedom.

Freedom from that house with all of its memories.

Freedom from all the empty spaces my mother should be filling but isn’t.

Freedom from the suffocating weight of disappointment, mostly in myself.

I could have driven this van anywhere. Woken up on the beach or at the base of a mountain range. Instead, I drove straight to Briar Point because I knew he was here. I got a job at Salacious because I stalked him just enough to know he’d be there. Now, I’m sleeping in public parks and, on occasion, Geo’s couch, until I get the answers I need to move on—or the guts to ask those questions.

And as for the money, until I know why it’s there, I’m not touching it.

I call it freedom, but even I know that’s a lie. I simply traded one prison for another.

I’m supposed to be writing my own songs. I’m supposed to be filling my book with deep and thoughtful lyrics, in search of life’s purpose.

None of it is really going as planned.

My phone lights up from the cluttered shelf next to my uncomfortable foam bed. Turning over, I grab it and read a text from Geo.

Do you realize that you lost your bet and then won a date with Ronan Kade?

Who gets that lucky?

I roll my eyes at his message. With a chuckle, I reply.

There’s no date. I doubt he’ll ever talk to me again.

Besides, he’s way too old for me.

Age is just a number.

Yeah, and fifty-six is a big number.

I’m not sure my dad would be too fond of me bringing home a guy older than him!

LOL

I would love to see the look on his face.

Please invite me when you do.

It’s not happening. I’m not going on that date.

Sure.

You know you get a cut of that money, right?

I sit up so fast, I knock my head on the shelf over my bed.

“Ouch, fuck!” I squeal, holding my forehead as I read his text again.

What?! How much?

Twenty percent.

“Holy shit!”

Quick, what’s twenty percent of a hundred thousand?

“Ten percent is…ten thousand…oh my God. Twenty thousand dollars?”

You’re freaking out, aren’t you?

Are you saying I’m going to get twenty thousand dollars on my next check?

Yep.

OMG. Geo!

When is the next auction night?

Easy, Pretty Woman.

I am nothing like Julia Roberts. She relied on a rich man to save her. I think I just saved myself.

With money from a rich man.

Semantics.

I hope you’re not parked anywhere dangerous tonight.

The couch is open if you don’t want to be homeless.

Is your boy toy there?

Not tonight. He’s working.

You mean with his girlfriend?

You’re being mean tonight. The money has changed you.

I giggle to myself. The pit of anxiety in my stomach is gone, and it’s been replaced with excitement. I can’t believe I just made twenty thousand dollars.

Thanks, Geo, but I’m good tonight. Parked down by the beach, in that family campground. I’ll stay over tomorrow night. Promise.

Okay, babe. I’m glad to hear that. You need to take care of yourself. Get some sleep. Night.

Night.

When I put the phone back on the shelf, I feel a little bad again. I lied about staying at the family campground. I’m in a city parking lot downtown, close to the club. For some reason, I think that if I lie about how great my life is, then I’m somehow manipulating it to be better, but it’s not. It’s still the same disappointing mess it’s always been.