C2 2

As the crowd laughs at her warning, I jog to the access door to take the back hallway around to the banquet room. I was only in the back to tease Carter, and I’ll be in the way if I stay through the whole auction. By the time I enter, a throng of women have pushed themselves to the front, and bidding has reached fifteen hundred dollars.

“Fifteen hundred dollars for a couple of hours with my brother?” Shay asks, stepping up beside me. The lone Jackson sister is dressed like me tonight—little black dress, her dark hair pulled up. “Damn. Maybe he should leave the fire department behind and be a male escort.”

I laugh, shaking my head as the women talk over each other with their bids. Carter is smoking hot, and if he weren’t a friend, I’m pretty sure I’d happily empty my bank account for a night of looking at that face and getting to feel his body pressed to mine.

“Two thousand dollars to the woman in the pretty red dress,” Molly says.

Carter struts across the stage and stops by Molly, who’s updating the bids as fast as her mouth can say the words. He scans the crowd and then stops when his gaze lands on me.

“Excuse me,” he says into the microphone. His sexy baritone reverberates throughout the room, and the women at the front lose their shit, throwing their arms up and surging toward the stage like he’s some sort of rock star.

“Marry me, Carter Jackson!” someone shrieks from the mass of bodies.

Carter chuckles into the microphone and gently takes it from Molly’s hand. “Hey, everybody.”

More screams of adoration. More desperate shrieks proclaiming love.

“There are no words for this level of insanity,” Shay says.

I grin. “No kidding.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt the bidding, Molly,” Carter says with a bashful grin toward the banquet’s emcee. “I have something I need to do.”

“Four thousand dollars,” someone shouts, and the crowd laughs.

Carter draws in a deep breath. “Wow. Ladies, I’m humbled. I truly am. But I’m going to ask if we can do something a little unconventional tonight.”

“What is he doing?” Shay asks.

“I have no idea,” I mutter, even as dread curls in my stomach. Is he going to call in that favor now?

“When I agreed to do this bachelor auction, I was a single man looking to meet a beautiful woman, but a lot has changed since I signed up to stand on this stage tonight.” The crowd laughs. “I started seeing someone. We’ve kept it a secret until tonight, but I have to confess, in the past two months, I’ve fallen in love.”

“He’s what?” Shay says as the crowd reacts with a chorus of aww and a few gasps of protest.

“Would the beautiful Teagan Chopra come on stage, please?”

He didn’t.

Shay snaps her head to me, her eyes wide. “You’re seeing Carter?”

“I . . .”

One by one, the members of the crowd turn away from the stage with whispers of “Who is she?” “Where?” “He has a girlfriend?” “I thought this was a singles auction?”

“Teagan?” He crooks a finger at me and flashes that lopsided smile that makes even my knees go a little weak.

My cheeks blaze. To all the world, Carter is smiling at his girlfriend, but I know him well enough to see the truth in his eyes. “You owe me,” that smile says. “Don’t let me down.”

My journey from the back of the room to the stage is miserable. Thousands of eyes are on me—judging, speculating, criticizing—and the whispers feel like razor blades to my flimsy confidence. If this is Carter’s way of calling in a favor, I’ll be sure to never ask anything of him again.

When I step onto the stage, he takes my hand and grins. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he asks the crowd, and he’s treated to agreeable, if reluctant, applause.

I lift onto my toes so I can whisper in his ear. “I’m gonna kill you.”

He gives me that signature Carter Jackson cocky grin, and I’m sure the whole damn crowd thinks I whispered some dirty promise. He brings the mic back up. “Since I wouldn’t feel right letting someone bid on me when there’s only one woman I want to spend my night with, I’m going to bid on myself.”

I snort, and he flashes me a look.

“Molly, I’m proud to donate five thousand dollars to the Shoe Bus in exchange for spending my evening dancing with the woman I love.” He squeezes my hand tighter, as if he’s afraid I’m going to run away. To be fair, if I weren’t so paralyzed by shock, I might. He pauses dramatically and turns to face me, and the crowd is really into it now and cheers loudly. I spot a few angry faces pushing toward the exits, but he’s laying it on thick enough that most people are smiling. “What do you say, Teagan?” he asks so softly that the mic almost doesn’t pick it up. “Would you spend your night with the man who can’t keep his eyes off you?”

“You’re killing me,” I say, and the mic picks it up, making the crowd laugh.

Grinning, he passes the mic back to Molly and pulls me into his arms. I have no choice but to let him. Okay, I do have a choice. I could snatch that mic out of Molly’s hands and tell everyone that he’s a big, fat liar who is, in fact, single as a Pringle. But if I do that, tonight’s fundraiser might go all to hell, and as irritated as I am with Carter right now, I like him too much to sacrifice him to an angry mob of lust-crazed women.

And you do owe him, the little voice in my brain chides.

Fine. One very public night with Carter Jackson in exchange for him pretending he was my boyfriend for five minutes last year. Totally fair.

The band smoothly transitions into Etta James’s “At Last,” and Carter leads me into a dance onstage. I’m well aware of the heat of his body against mine. The smell of his aftershave fills my head and makes me forget this is Carter, my friend, not some guy who’s going to take me home and ravish me.

“Thank you for the incredibly generous donation, Carter,” Molly says as the song plays. “And thank you everyone for coming tonight, and of course a huge thanks to our sponsor, Jackson Brews. Don’t fret, ladies. Carter’s only the first of many bachelors ready to wine and dine you tonight. Stick around for your chance to bid on more men from the Jackson Harbor Fire Department, followed by dinner, dancing, and door prizes!”

“I cannot believe you used me to get out of this,” I growl in his ear. “Who knew you’d be so afraid of some handsy women?”

He chuckles and runs his big palms down the sides of my sexiest little black dress. A hot shiver races up my spine. “I thought it was genius. Thank you for playing along.”

I pull back enough to scowl at him. “You owe me so big.”

“How do you figure? You were returning a favor, remember?”

“I had to get onstage in front of hundreds of people.”