I could affirm with certainty that I loathed these events.
I didn’t have the slightest idea why on earth I accepted to come here. Everyone pretended to be here for charity, but most of them couldn’t care less—just like the Clemontes, they were here to reduce their taxes.
The golden gala was just the coronation of elite families and future world changers. Families like mine. All of that circus served with silver platters, exceptional service, and bespoke tailors.
“Ajax, I’m glad you came. We haven’t seen you in forever.” My younger brother, Archibald, drew me into an expressive hug, one I had no choice but to comply with.
And here was my reason for my appearance—his constant whining about reconnecting the family years later.
“Being the black sheep of the family has its privileges.” One being to not attend these events.
My brother was the golden boy of the Clemontes, a talented surgeon with a brilliant career ahead, Mom’s piercing blue eyes, and Father’s money and support.
“It’s about time we make amends, don’t you think?” Archibald grabbed a flute of champagne, displaying a seductive smile to the servers. He hadn’t changed a bit. “Father misses you.”
“By that, you mean that he’s intrigued that his failure of a son managed to somehow earn more money than him in something as meaningless as art,” I deadpanned, and we sank into the heart of the event, taking a seat in the far back for whatever was planned to begin.
No one in my family knew I was Spectre, apart from my mother. They certainly thought, like everyone else who would search for my name online, that I had a little art gallery with Isaac. For my father, everything linked to art wasn’t a career. I took my pocket watch out of my suit for a moment. I had only been there for five minutes. The evening was going to be long.
“Probably, but winning Father’s respect is hard.” Archibald’s jaw clenched. “Since you left us, I graduated top of my class, did the best internships, and it’s still not enough for him.”
“I had no choice.” That was a fact. I had left my brother in the mouth of the crocodile, at his mercy. The same one who’d named us both with the letter A because it was the first one of the alphabet.
“It’s okay, I’m better than him now. Look at what I’ve become.” He opened his arms as if I was supposed to see something new behind his sharky grin. “What made you change your mind about coming here?”
“You actually did,” I said, analyzing a crowd I hadn’t seen in forever. They looked at me as if the Clemontes’ son had been resurrected from the dead.
“Hi, everyone,” the blonde lady on the microphone said in a frail voice, rubbing her fingers together. “Thank you for coming here today to support hospitalized children and the foundation L’espoir. To start the charity event, we have the pleasure of announcing to you that this morning, we received a signed shirt from the football player Darek Smither and two unique pieces of art to be auctioned. One from BDB and the latest piece by Spectre.”
Some people in the crowd gasped. The charity event had officially begun. I wasn’t opposed to giving to charity, even one sponsored by my father. Not that I had many paintings to give. Most of them were thrown into the trash or remained as blank as I was.
“If Father were here, he’d cringe,” Archi gossiped.
“How so?”
“He hates Spectre’s artwork. He says he’s mocking us, that he’s a disgrace.” That made me smile. This wasn’t surprising. “Mom, on the contrary, adores him.”
“What about you?” I asked, focusing my attention on BDB’s piece that was getting auctioned at the moment.
“I—”
Archi was interrupted by an old man’s voice leaping above everyone else. “Twenty thousand!”
The blonde lady tapped once, twice, and BDB’s art piece was sold for that price. I adjusted my tie. I had to do better.
“And now the latest piece by Spectre,” she continued with way too much enthusiasm for something as boring as this auction. Truth was, the piece that was displayed at this moment was an unfinished one, dating from a year ago, and was called Disillusion—as Aurore would say, pretty morose. “A 40×30 cm linen canvas, made in oil painting.”
“Five thousand!” a woman screamed.
“As I was saying, when have I ever been entitled to have an opinion different from Father’s?” Archi finally finished his sentence, smoothing his tie.
“Certainly not since you touched your trust fund money,” I implied.
“I didn’t. I don’t need his money, Ajax.” He drew another of his sharp smiles. “That said, I’ve learned a lot from Father. I understand why he was such a ruthless bastard to us.”
“Twenty thousand!” someone else yelled, which had just matched the bid for BDB.
“Looks like he’s making you his own puppet,” I said. “Do you even like medicine?”
“I’m not doing this for him, and you’ll thank me when I’m saving your old ass later in life.”
The battle continued for the painting before being sold at thirty-five thousand.
“And now, these are our five single women and men who agreed to participate in the auction. The highest bid will win a date with his/her chosen one at the L’espoir foundation. Don’t be shy with the money; it’s for a good cause, and who knows, perhaps you’ll meet your soulmate. Let’s begin with the ladies!” The blonde presenter was probably the most excited person in the whole crowd, desperately trying to sell her things.
Speaking of desperate. How desperate did you have to be to agree to be auctioned in the middle of—
“Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me,” I roared out loud, my eyes stuck on one of those five single women.
It didn’t surprise me that she’d gotten herself involved in this mess.
“What’s wrong?” Archi asked, having not the slightest idea that Aurore, my muse, was standing on the podium.
She had a mars-black dress on, one short enough to display her legs and accentuate her curves. Yet she didn’t wear one from her collection of dresses she was talking to me about. She wore scarlet-red lipstick and heels that very much made my hardness pulsate in my trousers, her hair pulled back in an elegant ponytail.
That woman would be the chaotic death of me.
I had the sudden urge to jump on this fucking podium, put her on top of my shoulder like a caveman, and get us both the fuck out of all of this. But instead, I swallowed that lethal urge and pained to remain in my self-control.
She seemed lost, talking to the old lady next to her, who must have been nearly ninety years old. She could barely walk and had her hand locked inside Aurore’s. The woman pointed her other finger at Aurore’s hairpin, and a second later, my muse was arguing with her, which made the old lady pout, snapping her eyes at Aurore, offended. Then, my muse took out her hairpin and gave it to the drunk old lady with a grimace plastered on her face because she couldn’t say no to save her life. The woman grinned in victory, and Aurore tapped her foot on the ground so fast I feared she’d make a hole and plummet herself right off the stage and—
“Ajax?” Archi called again. “Did someone catch your eye?”
“No.” I didn’t leave a place for hesitation.
“The first lady is Miss Jenkins. She’s the oldest lady here. She knows how to cook, and she has the best sense of humor. Miss Jenkins, everyone!”
Aurore helped the old lady walk onto the podium, curving her back so she’d put herself at her height. Despite myself, a ghost of a smile stretched my lips. In the middle of the catwalk, she took off her heels, probably having too much difficulty walking with them and taking care of Miss Jenkins at the same time. Arriving at the end of the podium, Jenkins gave a dismissive gesture of her hand at my muse, wanting the spotlight all for herself. Aurore let her go and ran back to her place, a hand clutching her dress so it wouldn’t lift.
To others, she might have been out of place.
But to me, that girl was butterflies and rainbows in a rainy, cloudy town.
“Damn, she is nice, don’t you think?”
Something hot spiked in my veins, a raging feeling spreading in my core at my brother’s comment.
“I wasn’t in the mood to give away money, but perhaps I should reconsider. I rented a room, and I have to admit, coming back with that pair of legs and mouth wrapped—”
“Shut up, Arch,” I snapped at him. “Don’t speak of her like that, or I’ll have no choice but redo your portrait that even surgery couldn’t arrange your face afterwards.”
“I knew it.” The bastard laughed darkly. “This promises to be fun. Well done, brother. You’re finally ending your solitary reign.”
“You’re a jerk,” I hissed between clenched teeth. “You don’t date either.”
“But it’s not about me, is it? Just a thought though—it’s weird your lady is about to get auctioned by some creepy dudes.”
“She’s not mine.” That felt bitter on my tongue.
“But you wish her to be?” Archi didn’t drop the case.
“A hundred euros for Miss Jenkins? Someone?” The blonde lady’s smile dropped, and the old lady curved inward, the realization no one wanted to bet on her clouding her features.
“One thousand euros!” Archi screamed, attracting all the attention to him. “I’ll take that beautiful woman.”
My brother for once did a charitable thing at my expense when Aurore’s eyes doubled in size and snapped to me, looking rather murderous. She became crimson red before blazing her eyes at the blonde presenter. Do they know each other?
The old lady winked at Archi, who turned to me with his flirtatious grin on. “I always had a way with women, compared to you and your austere vibe.”
“And here I thought you didn’t have a heart,” I deadpanned.
“And here I thought you weren’t capable of emotions.”
He won this round.
“The second lady of the night is Aurore Bardot.” At just the sound of her name, my cock pulsed in my trousers as if I was a horny teenager. Pitiful. “She’s a writer with thousands of stories to tell, a real sunshine.”
She stepped in, still blazing her eyes at the presenter, and whispered something to her. The blonde lady opened her eyes even more in return and gave her a head nod toward the catwalk. Aurore continued her model walk, her heels still in her hands. I couldn’t be more thankful to not be standing in the first row, or else no doubt she’d have thrown them at me, and I’d have bet she wasn’t the kind to miss her target. She fired her stare between me and someone in the front row and stopped at the end of the podium, a hand poised on her hips and a frigid fake smile on.
“One hundred euros, anyone?”
Someone raised a hand. I shifted my head to peer at whoever the fuck the man in the front row was. All I could tell from where I was standing was that he was blond. Aurore smiled at him. What the—
“Two hundred.” Another man of a certain age, judging by his grayish hair perceptible from the back, raised a hand.
“Three hundred,” the annoying blond man outbid him.
My lips were twitching backward. She gave him weird puppy eyes full of hope as if he was some fucking knight in a shining pearl-white suit. My fist balled.
I was supposed to be discreet. One of my paintings was here—I couldn’t risk attracting the attention on me, especially since everyone here potentially knew I was the son of Léon Clemonte, and on top of that, Bernard was here. I couldn’t do anything stupid or irrational.
“One thousand!” the older guy continued to bet on my muse.
The blond one hesitated, exchanging a glance with Aurore, who was gunning her eyes to him in a way that meant “don’t you dare let me hang in there, idiot.”
“One thousand five hundred!”
The prices rose higher until her chivalrous knight had a win for three thousand, and the old guy retracted.
“Three thousand? Once, tw—”
“Five thousand,” I lashed out without thinking, and Aurore’s eyes widened even more like a sociopath about to murder me.
I was supposed to observe, not act. I didn’t even know if it’d be safe to have a date with her, to get closer to her, just like I had no idea why I had kissed her. She created an impulse in me. For my sanity, I needed to remain far away. Yet, here we were, unable to step back. I couldn’t let her be at the mercy of one of those assholes.
All eyes of the crowd were on me, and Archi didn’t help, showing his dimples with an asshole grin similar to Father’s—the one that showed he was living only for the quest of money, financial investment, and emotional detachment. Not that I would blame him.
My muscles stiffened, and I blazed my eyes at Aurore’s knight, who gulped his feelings away. He would not win this round. That was the perk of having money.
“Five thousand two hundred,” he nevertheless continued, smiling at me with determination.
I’d annihilate him. “Seven thousand.”
He hesitated, glancing back at Aurore, who was imploring him with a look. She wishes. “Eight thousand.”
I was tired of this game, a nerve flickering in my jaw. I readjusted my cuffs, my tie, and I spoke loud enough for all of them to hear and for silence to own the room. “Twenty thousand.”
The crowd gasped, and the blond man snapped his mouth shut, returning back to his chair in defeat.
“And to think that I could have missed this.” Archi was still having a blast.
The blonde presenter had a huge smile plastered on her face when she looked over at me, which made me frown doubtfully. “And Miss Bardot goes to Aja—” She cleared her throat. Interesting. She knew my name, and by the way Aurore shut her eyes as if she was about to combust, I deduced she was probably one of her friends. So she had talked about me, which made me feel idiotic. “The man in the gray suit in the back.”
I readjusted my lamp-black, not gray, suit, waiting for Aurore to come to me with heavy stomps.
“I have a question on my mind though. How did you do it, to be able to afford this?” Archi became serious. “All those years ago, you left basically homeless. Léon had disinherited you.”
“I worked, Arch.” I had no interest in continuing this discussion, focusing on Aurore walking like a firecracker toward me with flames ravaging her eyes.
When she arrived, she snapped her finger in my direction. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I cracked my knuckles. “I could ask you the same. I didn’t know one of your hobbies was to be occasionally auctioned.”
“Just like I didn’t know you liked to buy ladies in your free time.”
“You mean rescuing you. It’s a full-time job of mine.”
“I didn’t need rescuing. I had someone betting for me, and he should have won.” Now I was truly burning up with a need to smash something. That was unfamiliar. “You spent twenty thousand euros on me. Why on earth!”
“Who is he?” I sounded jealous and pathetic, a possessive need washing over me like a tide that couldn’t be tempered. I had no imagination for my next painting, but enough to imagine this man in question touching her, and that thought alone made all my muscles rigid. None were good enough for her. Not Augustus, not him. Not me. None.
“I don’t think that concerns you,” she had the audacity to reply, folding her arms.
Her gaze darted in the direction of the man in question, and she shook her head sideways to him, as if she was warning him of something. I reeled around to lock my eyes on the man, who continued to stare at her as if she was his. I remained stoic. What did that fool want? He got up and came toward us, and I was mentally ready to obliterate him from her field of vision.
“Oh fuck, no,” she sighed.
“Afraid to introduce me?” I teased.
Blond knight arrived at her side. “Is everything okay, Aurore?”
Blood pulsed in my veins. “Yes, Aurore. Won’t you introduce us?”
“I—humm.” She hesitated, swallowing. “This is Léo, Emma’s—I mean, my very close friend. We’re very close. Yep.” His stare stabbed her, and in reply, she took his arm before saying with a much less sweet tone, “This is Ajax, my former nemesis, and the one with a smug look on his face must be his brother. The family resemblance is quite visible.”
“It’s him?” Léo exclaimed, and Aurore’s nostrils flared. “I mean, you never mentioned him until now.”
She pinched her lips even more.
“Enchanted,” Archi said, taking pleasure in this messy situation. “But between us, I’m the more handsome brother.”
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s fine, Léo. I can handle him,” she assured him.
Blond guy nodded and offered me his hand. “It was a nice battle out there, but I couldn’t risk bluffing my way up there anymore. Thanks to you, you’ve made my girlfriend’s night, helping her raise tons of money.”
Girlfriend. Probably the blonde girl onstage. I accepted his hand, which displeased Aurore, making her frown. “Nice poker game. I fell for it.”
“I like him. Better to have him on your team than an enemy.” He pointed to Aurore and took his leave.
She was pouting with her mouth clamped.
“This wasn’t smart to try to make me jealous. Léo seems like a nice man. I would have hated to do him wrong,” I said.
“I didn’t try to make you jealous.” That smile gracing her lips was a big lie. “I agreed to go in there because Léo, my best friend’s boyfriend, agreed to bet on me so I wouldn’t find myself in an awkward situation again where I have to go on a date with a freak.”
I delivered a cunning line. “And here your plan failed again.”
“You’re right, because you just can’t help it.” She then turned to my brother. “How did you handle him as a child? He must have been infuriating!”
“What do you want? I’m a saint,” he answered in an all-business voice I wanted to tune out. “If you give me your number, I can tell you all the stories about that loner Ajax.”
“Hu-hum, I’d have to refuse. One Clemonte is more than I can deal with.” She crossed her arms. Good girl.
Archi jerked his head backward. “You’re right. He’s the better brother, and that’s why it pleases me to hear you give him such a hard time. I love it.”
“Don’t you have anywhere to go, Archi?” I implied.
“As a matter of fact, yes, I have a date with an old lady, after all.” His attention went back to me. “By the way, Father wants you to come to dinner to celebrate my newfound surgeon career, and Mother would love to have you back. If you don’t do it for me, do it for her. Her heart has been broken since you left. So please, come with Aurore.”
I was about to reply with a bland no when he cut in. “Think about it, okay? I’ll tell them you’ll come though, the both of you, so hopefully, you’ll do the right thing. Aurore, it was a pleasure.”
He left to mingle with the crowd, and Aurore’s eyes questioned me. “I believe if I were to ask you what’s the deal between you and your family, you’d switch the subject, correct?”
“Correct. Would you care to dance?” I asked her bluntly.
Her lips parted. “What? Why?”
“Because at this kind of event, you dance.” The auction was over, and music had started to rise in the back, couples already forming.
“You want to dance with me?” She still pretended to not understand.
“Yes.”
“Like right now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she admitted simply.
I gave her my hand, and we stepped into the middle. I ignored all the gossip around us, my stare fixed on her. I laid a hand on her lower back and brought her closer to me, something tingling in my fingers. I didn’t like proximity and physical touch, and yet I had invited her to dance. Especially since I was certain that I hated dancing. A waltz played, and we had no choice but to spin.
“I didn’t know you knew how to dance,” she mumbled in the middle of a turn. “But then again, I barely know a thing about you.”
She collided with my chest, and I heard the frenetic beats of her heartbeat. “You know more about me than I’ve ever told other people.”
“You must not have formed any bonds with other living things on this earth,” she replied with sarcasm.
“Indeed, I have not.” My hand cupped her waist, and I lifted her in the air so she’d whirl. “I’ve always been private.”
“You mean invisible.” Her stare defied me, and she arched her arm in something that looked like a crown. It’d have been a gracious ballet move if I hadn’t had to dodge her hand almost slamming me in its descent because of the momentum she took like a spinning top.
She, then, probably confused by the way I was trying to interpret how to match her moves, looked back at her feet for a moment, swallowing.
“Is it your ankle?”
“You remember.” Of course, I remembered her ballet story she told me about that night. “No, it doesn’t hurt. I just feel ridiculous.”
“You’re certainly not.”
“How do you do this, Ajax?” She called me Ajax. Not Spectre. “To make me confess every single thing about me so easily.”
“Perhaps because I see you.” I see you in a way you don’t see yourself.
We stepped, slid, and stepped, turning in circles, her body swaying in ways I’ve never seen anyone dance before. Her eyes backfired on me, and she unleashed moves I had to dodge, as I remained blank, unable to come up with something similar. Her dancing was atypical and somehow indescribable—a mix of the carefreeness of a child, waves with her arms like what I would picture an octopus seducing his mate would do, all of that thrown into some kind of Amerindians sacred ritual dancing style. But nevertheless, this was the first dance in my entire life I was tolerating—even if at this point, I was only standing watching her perform around me.
“What?” My fairy stopped her fairy dance and lifted her chin proudly. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I like looking at you.”
“That’s not how a dance works.”
“Perhaps I was having a better view from here,” I said, noticing only now my lips had stretched into a thin stupidious line all this time.
I came back to her, and my breath brushed over her nape. “How does this charity date usually work?”
“The bidder and his date usually go on a charity date where they do something fun for the kids. Last year, it was an animal charity, so I worked at the shelter for a day. Its goal is to sensibilize the rich and the coldhearted. You know, people like your kind.” She smiled, and we started dancing once more.
My hand traveled lower on her back, static electricity at my fingertips. “I want that date with you.”
“This doesn’t have to be a real date,” she mumbled.
“Go on this date with me.”
“I doubt it’ll be your scene.”
“You don’t know that.” Her back collided with my front after a spin, and I inched my mouth closer to her nape, a hand on her waist. I sensed the goose bumps on her skin, and my muscles stiffened at the feel of her.
“No.” She shook her head, parting away with another whirl that would have sent her hair straight into my face if I hadn’t had successfully avoided it. “You don’t strike me as the kind to go on dates.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Dating is a waste of time, and my expectations are described as too high.”
“Oh, I believe you. You must be impossible to please, wanting nothing but perfection.” She painted a mocking smile. “Must be so painful for you.”
“Perfection sounds about right.” My eyes dropped to hers as we continued to occupy the space.
“No one would be good enough for you. We’re imperfect and flawed.”
“It must be hard to look into a mirror,” I countered back. “You’re as exigent as I am.”
She lifted her brow. “So, we’re both meant to die alone and be the villains of our stories?”
“Me, perhaps. You, no.” I closed my fingers with hers. “I told you I was failing at being human, so teach me.”
She circled her arms again as if she had wings, not letting me take the lead this time. “On a date?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not ready for that. People have fun on dates. They laugh, they sometimes cry, and feel a lot.”
“Most dates are just about getting dinner with boring polite questions to hook up afterwards,” I was stoic, yet I did make her somehow laugh.
“You’re right. Romance is not what it used to be, but what matters is the emotional connection, the pounding of your heart when your fingers brush and—” Her stare dropped over my shoulder, and she furrowed her brows, the life that inhabited her leaving.
She parted her lips, but no sound came out. I shifted around to see what was causing her to stop sparkling and I caught a glimpse of Bernard making his way through the crowd with a satisfied smile on.
“I’m sorry, I need to go.” She stepped backward, the song fading away. “I’ll go on the date alone; you don’t have to worry. We don’t want to blur the lines, and I—I’ll see you soon.”
She pulled away from me for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. My self-control was escaping me. I couldn’t stay away from her.
And so I stayed like an idiot in the middle of the dancing scene, wondering what on earth had happened, and in what world she had propelled me with her.
