"Six million!" shouted Mr. Black and laughed.
"Going once. Going twice. And done," Mrs. Stone said.
"A hundred and ninety one million!" shouted Mr. Black. Two men in suits appeared next to him and as the crowd watched, gently maneuvered him out.
Mr. Stone came striding down off the stage, holding out his hand to me. As we swept out of the room I heard Mrs. Stone nervously clear her throat again and start to introduce the next bachelor.
We walked through the ballroom, Mr. Stone holding my hand firmly in his grasp and up the staircase. Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen. We rushed down the corridor and out the front door where Mi-oh was waiting with the car. As we walked out however, Mr. Black spoke up from the grass beside the driveway.
"Hey, I bought you for a hundred ninety one mil," he said.
Jackson guided me into the car and then turned around. "You need to go home," he said to his business partner.
"And you need ... you need to go to fucking Swaziland!" Mr. Black shouted back at him and then laughed like a hyena.
"Sleep it off," Mr. Stone said and got into the car beside me. Mi-oh floored it and we took off, leaving Mr. Black shouting at us in the distance.
*
We drove for ten minutes in silence, Mr. Stone holding my hand and looking out the window. I was nervously chewing my lip unsure of what I was meant to do here. Make a joke about how I bought him? Talk about his mother? Comment about his drunken business partner?
"He wasn't always like that," Mr. Stone said.
"Do you mean drunk?"
He nodded and sighed before taking out his phone. He tapped on it and then turned so we could both see.
"This is us, age twenty," he said, showing me a picture of him and Mr. Black. They were dressed in business suits and both looked shockingly young. "We started working together when we were just sixteen. Did you know that?"
I shook my head. I'd done my research on Stone-Black but the official records only went so far back.
"I used to call him my brother. We were rivals but when it came down to it, we'd always choose each other over any woman, any business. Nothing could come between us. By the time both us of were twenty we'd already made our first million. Then one day I was visiting a supplier overseas. They were taking me on a tour and then I went my own direction through the wrong door. There were kids sleeping on the floor next to this massive machine. It practically ran twenty-four hours a day. He denied that he knew about it but it wasn't the truth. He always pushed on the edge of the law and now we were tied up in this contract with a company using children for workers."
I squeezed his hand and silently prayed for Mi-oh to slow down so this spell wouldn't be broken.
"I told him I needed some time and went to Swaziland. Built mud-brick houses. Met a girl."
He stopped as a wash of pain went across him.
"I was going to stay there forever. Then one day he turns up. I was so happy to see him. He joined us. Build mud-brick houses too."
He flicked his thumb across the surface of the phone and showed me two photos. In the first he had a shaved head, up to his knees in mud, helping build a mud-brick home. The next was him laughing, his arm around the waist of a stunning black girl.
"Did you love her?" I could barely hear my own voice over the rushing sound of my heart thumping.
He looked down at the photo and for an instant I saw the twenty-year-old appear. Unbroken. Softer.
"I did. But that was a lifetime ago. That kid ... he's dead and gone. Black seduced her and she left me. Made her promises of giving her a mansion to live in, jewels, more money than she could imagine."
I held my breath, questions piling up but I didn't want to speak and have him close down.
"I came home. Build a red mud-brick replica in the garden and let plants grow over it."
I remembered seeing it in the garden - it was right after Mr. Stone had asked me to be his slave and I'd refused.
"He came back too, without her. We knew it had happened but like all good families we pretended the giant problem didn't exist. My father's business was failing then and ours was thriving. We made an offer which he rejected. He could never give up control. Then he passed away four months later and the board accepted our offer. Suddenly we were in control of an organization on the brink of bankruptcy and had to work to save it. We split it up and he was the one who looked after Stone Pharma."
We were nearly at his mansion and I knew time was running short.
"I found contracts today. They had your name on them..."
"You don't trust me." He voice was low and hard.
We pulled up in front of his mansion and Mr. Stone turned to me. "Come with me. Now."
I followed him out of the car and up the front steps, my stomach churning. He took me by the hand and pulled me inside and up the stairs, heading for his study. We stopped in there and he suddenly turned and grabbed the leather collar around my throat.
"You need to be punished for your lack of trust," he said.
I felt the strength of his body close to mine and trembled at the tone in his voice. Why had I said that? He'd opened himself to me and my response was that I found contracts with his name on them? I could have said anything and I blundered in with that?
Mr. Stone opened the door to his sex dungeon and pushed me inside ahead of him, never letting go of my collar.
We stopped in the middle of the room and I saw the bench he'd tied me to before going down on me with a mouth full of hot tea.
"Take off your clothes," he said in my ear.
I complied, slipping out of my dress and stepping down from my high heels. Without any warning Mr. Stone smacked me on the ass, the crack of his hand echoing through the room. I squealed and tried to turn away but he had hold of my collar.
"You will answer yes, sir."
"Yes, sir," I said quickly and wiped away a tear.
"I said to take off your clothes," he said.
"Yes, sir," I said and unclipped my bra before slipping my underwear off. He kicked my pile of clothes to the side and continued to stand behind me, holding my collar. I could hear his breathing, low and fast and despite the sting on my skin, or maybe because of it, I felt myself getting wet.
"Over here," he said and pushed me towards an angled padded bench. At first I had no idea how you were meant to use it and then I saw the padded shelf at knee height. I stepped forward and knelt. My body went over the top of the bench, my hands hanging down either side. In this position my ass was sticking out and I knew that soon, Mr. Stone would punish me.