The Billionaire's Bid (Mercury Billionaires Book 2) Read online

  Finally, after a good twenty minutes, we reached an intersection and took a different road leading into a more residential part of town. I literally gave out a sigh of relief when I saw some houses. We were back in civilization.

  “Stop right here,” she suddenly told me right as we got a few blocks into the next neighborhood. “I live just right here, thank you.”

  I stopped the car and took a look around. The house she was dropping off at didn’t look like a place such an uptight woman would stay in. Actually, it looked kind of abandoned. My suspicions grew even more with each passing moment but I decided to keep quiet and let her go.

  “Thanks,” she told me right before she shut the door.

  Wow. She’s stone-cold.

  I waited for her to just keep walking and when she turned a curve I quickly hopped out of my car and, as silently as I could, sneaked around and followed her. She didn’t head into the house she said she lived in and instead went on for another two blocks before entering a decent-looking apartment building.

  Why would she lie about where she lived? The only immediate logical reason I could think of was that I was a complete stranger but come on! She asked me to pay for the towing services and I drove her home. Plus we weren’t total strangers. We did meet in the hospital a few months back. That had to count, right?

  I took note of where she lived and headed back to the car. As I drove my way home, all I could think of was Lyla Bishop and how mysterious of a woman she truly was.

  Lyla

  There was nothing on my mind but crashing on my bed to sleep and rest. I took a moment to peer outside the window. When I saw Preston hadn’t followed me, I felt a little easier and took a long, hot shower to really calm my nerves down.

  When I was done and dressed in a cute little pink nightgown Mikaela bought for my birthday, I took my purse and looked for my wallet. I lied to Preston – I did have my wallet with me. I just didn’t want him to know I was broke. As I rummaged through my purse, I found something stuffed inside.

  “Damn it, Mikaela,” I whispered when I saw she had inserted that auction brochure. I took it and gave it one more read through.

  Girls could auction themselves to the richest men in the city. Virgins would get a higher starting bid and would get other benefits as well, including a bonus just for joining and a one-month VIP entrance for some of the best gentleman’s clubs around.

  All of that sounded appealing but I was still disgusted and disappointed. In the end, it still meant selling my virginity and my body to some random stranger.

  “This is fucking ridiculous,” I told myself, resolving not to fall for something like this. I wasn’t a slut. I wasn’t a whore.

  Still unsure on what to do, I turned off the lights, threw the brochure to the floor and went to bed.

  ***

  The next morning I couldn’t even afford a proper breakfast. One cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich was all I could eat. Fuck, this was getting depressing and I needed to get a job somewhere.

  I looked at my phone one last time. There was still one more person I could approach.

  “Dad, I’m coming over real quick,” I texted. “I’ll take a while. I’ve got to take the bus. My car broke down.”

  There was no time to wait and I quickly got dressed, settling for a pair of jeans and a pink shirt, and headed out of the house. Fortunately for me, there was a bus stop just a block away and a ride did come by just a few minutes in.

  As I sat in the bus, my mind blanked out. Maybe I was just too tired or desperate for cash. For the longest while I just stared out the window and watched the houses and trees blur by.

  When I got off and walked over to my dad’s house, I found him in the living room packing things in a box. I was genuinely shocked to see him clearing out his home – our home. I grew up in this house and it was disheartening to see so much of it packed away.

  “H-hey, what are you doing?” I asked him.

  He looked up at me and gave a weak smile. “Oh, just putting all this away. How about you? What brought you here?”

  I felt my heart sink. Clearly he had some issue that he wasn’t telling me. My next words stumbled out but I swallowed my pride and pushed forward, “Dad… I’m broke. I’m weeks behind my bills and my debt is just growing. I also… uh… had my car towed last night. It broke down in the middle of the road.”

  My father looked at me long and hard. I could see the gears of his mind rotating in action as he tried to think of a solution. After a moment of silence, he sighed and said, “I’d love to help you, baby, but to be honest I’m not doing so well either. They sent me an eviction notice.”

  “Oh shit,” I exclaimed. “What are you going to do?”

  He shrugged, “I don’t know. I only have a month to get the cash or I’ll have to move out. I think I can move into the mobile park.”

  I shook my head and put a hand on his shoulder, “Dad, don’t you worry. I promise, we’ll get by somehow. We’ll find a way to solve all these problems.”

  “I love you,” he told me. He then pointed to the back, to the kitchen. “You hungry? I got some apples in the back and leftover pizza.”

  “No need to tell me twice, I’m starving!” I answered and headed to the kitchen. However, as I opened the fridge I realized there was a stack of papers on the counter. I took a moment to read them and quickly learned they were the bills my father had to pay. He wasn’t just late with paying the mortgage. He was also behind utility bills, credit cards and a loan.

  Quickly I checked if he was looking my way. When I was sure he wasn’t, I took his bills and stuffed them into my purse.

  “Don’t worry, dad,” I whispered. “I’ll find a way.”

  Preston

  “See you later, man,” Marcus bid me farewell when we departed from the restaurant. I had dragged him in along with me to help me work on the papers regarding the recent company acquisition. He was a professional banker and it was his expertise that guaranteed we wouldn’t make mistakes. I trusted him more than our company’s bookkeeping department.

  I waved him goodbye and pondered for a moment where I could go next. As I sat in my car, I instantly thought about Lyla.

  With a weird knot growing in my gut, I decided to just visit the auto mechanic shop. When I got there, I saw that the vehicle was already fixed but it was still there. The owner, Emilio, told me Lyla didn’t even check on her car despite them leaving her a few voice messages.

  “Wait, she never came by to even look at it?” I was bewildered and confused.

  “Yeah, she won’t even answer our calls,” Emilio answered. “We need to charge her card soon or the bill is going to go up. We only have enough space here, you know, and there are customers coming in everyday.”

  That was understandable. “Let me look at her bill,” I suggested and Emilio complied. When I got a hold of the bill I discovered it was well over two thousand dollars. Lyla’s car required a lot of part replacements to get back up in shape.

  “I’ll pay it,” I told Emilio as I pulled out my wallet. “You guys prefer cash or credit?”

  “Credit,” he said with a smile. “It’s just easier nowadays.”

  Emilio took my card, ran it and came back to me a few minutes later once the payment had been confirmed. I put my card back in my wallet and then told him, “Could you get it delivered back to her?”

  “Sure, you know the address?”

  I wrote it down and bid him farewell.

  Lyla

  “Who the hell paid for this?” I demanded.

  The poor guy who brought my car back from the mechanic shop just looked at me with a broken expression of melancholy, as if I stepped on a kid’s favorite toy. He looked confused too, unsure of what to say.

  “Look, just tell me and I won’t let anyone know you did,” I tried to be calm.

  “I hope you mean it,” he replied and then pulled up his folder of papers. He looked through for a bit and then said, “It was billed to a Mr. Preston Max
well… wait – that was Preston Maxwell?”

  “You know him?”

  He looked at me like I was the idiot this time around. “Everyone knows Mr. Maxwell. He’s one of the richest billionaires this side of the planet. Well, his company really got into the spotlight lately after acquiring Montgomery Universal Banks and now they just acquired Emerald Corner too.”

  That was interesting. It was too bad all that money went to waste since Preston was a perverted asshole and a narcissist to boot. If he thought this was a good way of making it up to me, he was dead wrong. The next time I see him I’m just going to flat out and say how dumb he is. I mean, seriously, he just paid for a random woman’s car repairs! Who does something like that?

  “Well, thanks for telling me and thanks for bringing in my car,” I told the driver and closed the door.

  I sat down on the couch and turned off my television. At least my car was working now. However, repairing my car wasn’t going to pay my dad’s mortgage or my rent. I needed more money. I needed a damn job.

  Then it hit me. A light bulb just clicked in my head.

  I ran to the bedroom and scoured through the trash on my floor. There were a lot of papers, clothes and junk everywhere but I did manage to find the one piece of paper that I needed: the billionaire auction brochure that Mikaela stuffed into my purse.

  With the way things were going, I needed to take desperate measures. I needed to sell my virginity to the highest bidder.

  10

  Preston

  “Good evening, Mr. Maxwell,” the old butler ushered me in.

  It felt good to be back here, right in the home of the Oldtown Gentleman’s Club. Sure, most of these guys in this private resort were pompous billionaires but then again I was too. This was my crowd but I wouldn’t necessarily call them friends. Trevor and Marcus, they were my friends. These idiots here with too much money in their pockets were just… business associates and elites I needed to be seen interacting with.

  To be completely honest, I didn’t really give a shit about any of these guys. I was here for the main event, the bidding that would take place. I had a particular prize in sight: a girl named Elena.

  Yes, this was an auction for young girls. It was a glorified prostitution bid and the men around were always willing to shell out cash for the best pussy money can buy. I didn’t need every girl in the world. I just wanted Elena right now. The mere thought of her soft skin and her beautiful bubble butt that got me so freaking hard. I want to plow my cock through her pussy from behind and give that big ass a slap or two.

  The auction room was also quite unique. It was a circular room and the girls would prance around in the middle, flaunting their bodies for us to see. The bidders would be in private stalls equipped with one-way windows. This would ensure we could see the girls but they couldn’t see us.

  I didn’t register for this evening of bidding but I did see my old friend Thomas. He owned a boating company in Georgia.

  “You bidding tonight?” I asked him.

  “Yep,” he told me. “I got my eyes on a girl from Vietnam.”

  “Could you bid for me? I didn’t register in time for the auction. I’ll just pay you back,” I asked. He always asked me for favors so I figured this would be a fitting way for him to repay me.

  Fortunately for me, Thomas agreed. It was just in time too because the lights went out for the auction to begin. A spotlight shone down on the center of the room and we all waited for the first girl to walk into our sights.

  “Coming in from Tallahassee, Florida we have a former model standing five-feet-six-inches,” the announcer stated over the PA system. “With beautiful blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, feast yourselves on the glorious and ever-so-lovely Janine Hunt!”

  The girl was lovely and she walked with pride as she entered the center of the room despite wearing nothing but a see-through nightgown and a lacey white thong.

  She wasn’t my type and neither did she get Thomas’ attention. Others bid for her though and she eventually went to IT specialist and college billionaire, Rupert Blackthorne, for a good fifteen thousand dollars.

  A few more girls came and went but none of them were interesting to me. They were all hot and one of them was a virgin too but I wanted Elena.

  After a good thirty minutes the announcer said something that truly shook me with confusion and bewilderment.

  “We have a special girl coming up next,” he stated. “Standing at just five-feet-flat, petite and so sexy she’d be a porn industry superstar overnight and best of all she’s a certified virgin. With gorgeous black hair and a succulent body, our next item is Ms. Lyla Bishop.”

  My jaw dropped in surprise. What the fuck was a stuck-up bitch like her doing in a place like this? I then remembered she lied about her wallet when we called the towing company and she didn’t pay for her car repairs. It then dawned on me that she was here because she had no money.

  “Bid on her,” I frantically told Thomas in a hurry.

  He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “I thought you wanted Elena?”

  “I want her,” I said as I pointed to Lyla who had just walked to the center of the auction room. She was absolutely stunning, wearing black lingerie that fully exposed her tits and her ass. It was amusing to see her wearing something so uncharacteristic of her.

  “Just look at her,” I told Thomas. “She’s so tight, so firm… and a virgin too. You know, I met her once at the hospital. She’s a nurse but she ain’t like any nurse I’ve met. Most of them are flirty sluts but this girl’s a fucking stuck-up.”

  “So why are you interested in her?” Thomas asked, maybe just out of pure curiosity.

  I laughed and just kept my gaze on Lyla and her firm, cute tits. “It’s the uptight bitches that fuck the best. She needs money too so I bet she’s willing to let go of all her restrictions just so I can give her the cash she needs. That’s like getting double vengeance in one hot package.”

  Thomas chuckled and as soon as the auction began, he put up a bid of eight thousand dollars.

  11

  Lyla

  This has got to be the dumbest idea I ever tried. It was too late though… I was already here, my body fully exposed to a bunch of rich perverts, so I might as well do whatever it takes to secure some cash.

  “Eight thousand dollars, I see eight thousand dollars from stall four!” the announcer stated over the speakers. “Eight thousand five hundred, coming from stall seven!”

  Holy shit. People were actually bidding that high for me? Was it because I was a virgin? Was I really that beautiful in their eyes? I blushed and for the first time in my life I actually felt a little pretty. I needed more than eight thousand five hundred dollars though so I had to make an effort to get these perverts to bid even higher.

  “You want my pussy?” I whispered, knowing they wouldn’t really be able to hear me. “You got to pay for it.”

  I walked around the room, trying my best not to show that I was nervous and blushing. I felt so ashamed of myself. I was literally selling my body out but I had to so I might as well do it well. I did my best to twirl a bit, bend down and tease them with my legs and ass.

  “She’s one heck of a looker,” the announcement said and I felt even more proud. I could already feel the nervousness begin to fade. “We have ten thousand dollars from stall twelve! Do we have ten thousand five hundred? Yes, we do have ten thousand five hundred from stall nine!”

  Stall four’s light glowed red again and a number lit on its LCD screen.

  “Fifteen thousand from stall four!” My jaw dropped in pure surprise. No other stall bid higher. “Going once, going twice… Lyla Bishop sold to stall four for fifteen thousand dollars!”

  Those words were like magic to my ears. I thought I was just going to get around six thousand and I’d be happy – well, as happy as I could be considering what’s at stake – but I got a lot more than that. I got more than twice that amount!

  I saw the light for the exit and walked down,
hoping I could get into stall four and meet my new benefactor.

  A guide helped out of the room and helped me to the counter. They gave me a check for seven thousand five hundred dollars. The other half would go to the organizers of the auction. I didn’t care how much percentage it was. This was more than enough money to help me and my dad start recovering from our debts.

  Once I had the check safely in my purse, which was kept in a locker along with my regular clothes, the guide helped me into stall four. However, inside I saw that the man who bid for me didn’t even look at me. Even when the door closed and it was just two of us, he simply motioned for me to come closer but not too close.

  “S-sir, I’m Lyla. You bought me.”

  “No, it was an anonymous bidder,” he explained. He then turned around and gave me a good, long look. “I’m Thomas, by the way.”

  He was cute, with boyish looks and a kind of charm that was hard to put into words. I just smiled at him like an idiot.

  “He said he’ll meet you in the Apollo Penthouse,” he then told me. “Just head to the reception desk and say you’re expected at the prime suite. You know where the Apollo is?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, go on then,” he gestured for me to leave. “I have a different girl to bid for and the real buyer is waiting for you. You better do a good job… you got a lot of money for this so you better spread those cute legs of yours.”

  I felt appalled at how he spoke to me but I figured he was right, after all. I didn’t waste any more time and left his stall right as they began the bidding for the next girl. I got into the dressing room, changed into a mini-skirt and backless top, took my purse and keys and drove to the Apollo Penthouse.

  The drive took less than ten minutes and I quickly entered the hotel. The bellboy helped me up the penthouse suite – which was a lot bigger than I expected – and left me standing in the hall as I rang the doorbell, hoping my buyer would at least be a little handsome. If I had to sleep with him to get more cash I could at least hope he’d turn me on.