Highest Bidder (Salacious Players’ Club)

Daisy

Stepping foot back in Ronan’s apartment feels like coming home from one vacation and immediately starting another. Somewhere in the parking garage below the building is a white van in desperate need of a cleaning, packed to the brim with belongings I don’t ever want to see again. Everything I need is in this raggedy old backpack.

I’m staring out the large window, overlooking the city, when I feel a pair of arms wrap around me from behind.

“Are you okay?” he whispers in my ear.

I nod. I’m better than okay, really. I’m in this luxurious apartment with a man who is crazy about me and a journal full of songs I’ve written. Life is good.

So why do I feel unsettled? As if my feet have touched down, but I haven’t fully landed.

“I’m fine,” I reply, wincing as I flex my neck from side to side. “Just a little tired.” I slept plenty on the plane, but I can’t shake this run-down feeling that’s starting to creep up on me.

“Why don’t you go lie down for a little while?” he suggests.

“We’re going to the club tonight, right?” I reply eagerly.

“No. We’re taking the night off, Daisy. Now, go rest.”

“What if I don’t want to?” I say with a coy smile.

“Then I’ll put you over my knee.” He growls in my ear.

“Promises, promises.”

“Go, baby,” he says, this time with a tone of sincerity.

“Okay, okay, I’m going.” Reluctantly, I pull myself away from his warm embrace and walk toward the bedroom—his bedroom.

I feel pathetic for not having a room of my own. Or a home of my own. Does he think I’m pathetic? If he’s not sick of having to take care of me now, when will he be?

Trying to shove the thoughts away, I shut the door behind me as I stumble toward his bed. Sitting on the edge, I realize a moment too late that my sudden onslaught of weakness and overall raggedness is due to the fact that while I slept on the plane—and enjoyed two orgasms—I didn’t eat anything except for a buttery chocolate croissant before we took off. I was so caught up with the conversation we were having and his expert fingers, I didn’t even think about it.

To be honest, I’m actually a little relieved. I’d rather it be my cursed low blood sugar than something more serious. So, instead of lying down, I stand from the bed and start toward the door.

“Ronan,” I call, ready to explain—and that’s when it hits me.

I stood up too fast. Ears ringing, vision tunneling, head spinning, I go down fast.

Trying my best to break my fall, I reach for the dresser, but only manage to knock nearly everything on it down to the floor in a deafening shatter. It all feels so far away to me as the room diminishes to a tiny circle, until I’m completely swallowed in darkness.

When I peel my eyes open again, there are voices around me. I’m still on the floor of Ronan’s bedroom, my head burning from where I must have landed against the rug. My vision is blurry, as if my eyes are filled with water. But I can hear a familiar, frantic voice.

“I don’t know. I just found her on the floor. She passed out.”

Ronan. God, he sounds terrified.

“Is she all right?”

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” There’s a light being shone in my eyes, and I squint against it, murmuring to the person standing above me.

“I’m fine.”

“Do you remember what happened?” he asks. “Ma’am, did you take anything?”

Take anything? Who is this? It feels like I’ve been out for hours. My head is throbbing so badly that I can hear it hammering in my ears.

“Blood sugar,” I mumble, but my words are slurred, and moving my lips feels impossible.

“Blood sugar?” the man asks. “Are you diabetic?”

I shake my head, which makes it pound more. This is the worst I’ve ever felt after one of my fainting episodes. I must have hit my head pretty hard.

“I have…low…blood sugar,” I stammer. I’m so weak I can barely finish a sentence. My voice feels heavy. Everything feels heavy.

My eyes find Ronan standing behind the man in blue. I’m sorry, I try to say with just the expression on my face, but the way his jaw clenches and his eyes narrow, I can tell he’s mad.

I must have really scared him. Just thinking about him finding me like this makes my throat sting and my eyes water.

The paramedic rattles off some more questions while I lie there and hate myself. That pathetic feeling from earlier only intensifies, adding both shame and embarrassment to it. I’m so bad at taking care of myself; I can barely keep myself alive. Eating is the most basic of human needs, and I can’t even handle that.

“She needs to go to the hospital,” Ronan says angrily.

“No,” I force out from the floor, “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Daisy.”

“I just need to…”

“Daisy.” His voice is stern, and he speaks my name with a bite to it. When I look up at him, I feel the tears brimming, and with one blink, they slide down the sides of my face and onto the floor.

Feeling defeated, I just nod.

A moment later, my limp body is being hoisted on a stretcher, and I have to drape my arm over my eyes to hide the fact that I can’t keep the tears in anymore.

I knew the dream ended in Paris. I just didn’t realize it would end this abruptly.

There are no billionaire connections or VIP treatment at the hospital. I’m wheeled into the overcrowded ER, shoved into a tiny curtained area, and situated with an IV that must be pumping glucose into my veins because, within minutes, I’m feeling human again.

The entire time, Ronan hovers, but he won’t speak to me.

I want to send him home, but part of me is terrified that if I let him out of my sight, then I’ll be living in my van again. No more weekends in Paris. No more poetry. No more him.

I’m too young. Too irresponsible. Too sick and sad and broken for a man like him.

“Daisy,” he whispers, when he notices me silently crying on the hospital bed.

“I’m sorry,” I reply, without letting him finish.

“Do you have any idea how fucking scared I was? I found you on the floor. You looked—” His words stop as he turns away, and all I can see is the click of his jaw as he clenches his molars.

“I said I was sorry,” I reply with a quiver in my voice.

He lets out a heavy sigh. “I want to take care of you, Daisy. But I need you to take care of yourself too. I need to know you can.”

“I’m not a child, Ronan,” I reply with force. “It was a mistake. It happens all the time.”

I’ve never seen him look so angry, and for a moment, I think it’s over. He’s realizing at this very moment that he’s too old to be taking care of an irresponsible woman, who can’t even remember to eat.

So when he rushes toward me, I’m taken by surprise. His strong hands grip my face as he forces me to look at him.

“You’re not going to let that happen again, you understand me? You’re going to eat better. Three square meals a day. Are we clear?”

“I will. I promise,” I choke out.

“I can’t…” Whatever he was about to say is lost, his words trailing off as he presses his lips together. After he looks away for a moment, like he’s composing himself, he turns back toward me with a stern expression on his face. It looks as if he’s about to say something, but just then, the curtain opens and the doctor walks in.

She talks fast and goes over my test results in a rush. She talks more to Ronan than me, and I get a little irritated. I don’t know if she thinks he’s my dad or if she’s checking him out—not that I would blame her. Even in these hospital lights, he looks gorgeous. But I want to yell at her that it’s my health. My fault. My issue to fix.

I don’t, of course.

Basically, she says I’m fine. No sign of diabetes or a concussion. I just had a major blood sugar crash, and I need to learn to eat better. Stress and travel can throw off my system—it’s all the same things I’ve heard many times before.

It’s another hour before we’re finally going through the discharge process and climbing into Ronan’s car to go home. I can’t tell if he’s still mad at me, but when he pulls me into his arms in the back seat, I take it as a good sign. But there are still traces of anger there—I can tell.

There has to be some way for me to make it up to him. He can’t stay mad at me forever.