The Highest Bidder
Description
Ethan's father needs emergency heart surgery. One hundred and eighty thousand dollars. No insurance, no savings, no options. Except one. He will auction his virginity online to the highest bidder. The idea is insane, but desperation makes people do desperate things, especially for family that never loved them back. There's just one problem. Ethan has never been with a man. He's spent twenty-six years burying that part of himself so deep he almost forgot it existed. Now he's about to sell his first time to a stranger, and the truth he's been running from is about to catch up with him. Ethan works at Apex Global, and he can't stop noticing his three gorgeous bosses. The Varkas brothers run a billion-dollar empire, and Ethan is nobody. Just an analyst. Just invisible. Until he isn't. Heated glances across the conference table. Fingers brushing his when he hands over reports. When the auction closes and Ethan discovers who placed the winning bid, he has a choice: walk away and let his abusive father die, or confront everything he's been hiding. Some secrets are worth more than money. Some prices are paid with the heart.
Chapter 1
Dec 31, 2025
Ethan's POV
"The projections are wrong, Hale. Again."
Hargrove's voice cuts through the open-plan office like a blade designed for maximum damage.
Twenty-three heads turn toward my cubicle, and I feel every single pair of eyes land on me like physical weight.
"Sir, I can explain—" I start, but he slams his palm against my desk, rattling the framed photo of my mother I keep beside my monitor.
"Explain what? That you're incapable of basic arithmetic? That I'm paying you to embarrass this department?"
His face reddens, the vein at his temple pulsing visibly.
"The Henderson account needed those figures yesterday, and you gave me numbers a middle schooler could've done better."
Don't react. Don't flinch. You know how this goes.
"The data from analytics came in late," I say, keeping my voice level, neutral. "I flagged the discrepancy in my email to you this morning, but—"
"Are you blaming me now?"
Hargrove leans closer, and I catch the stale coffee on his breath.
"Is that what's happening here, Hale? You're going to stand there with those soft little hands and tell me this is my fault?"
Nausea rises hot and bitter in my throat. Soft?
"No, sir."
The words come automatically, programmed by years of practice. My father's voice echoes beneath Hargrove's—you don't talk back, Ethan, you take it and you learn.
"I'll fix the projections tonight and have them on your desk by seven tomorrow morning."
"You'll have them by five."
He straightens, looking me up and down with undisguised contempt.
"Christ, Hale. Twenty-six years old and you still can't look a man in the eye when he's talking to you. No wonder your old man's always riding your ass—someone has to try to make a man out of you."
The words land exactly where he wants them to. I feel the heat crawl up my neck, the shame pooling low in my gut like something rotten.
He doesn't know. He can't know.
It's just words. Just the same words everyone uses.
"And fix your goddamn collar," he adds, already walking away. "You look like you just rolled out of someone's bed. Have some self-respect."
Scattered laughter ripples through the office—nervous, performative—and I want to disappear through the floor.
Someone coughs and the artificial rhythm resumes while I stand there, burning.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I stare at my screen without seeing it, counting backwards from ten the way the therapist I couldn't afford taught me.
My hands are steady on the keyboard—they always are—but the pressure behind my sternum builds until I can barely breathe.
Soft hands. Make a man out of you.
The words echo, finding every hidden crack in my armor, every secret I've buried so deep I sometimes forget it's there.
Does he see it? Do they all see it—the thing I've spent my whole life hiding, the wrongness my father tried to beat out of me before I even understood what it was?
Everyone at Apex Global knows the Varkas brothers—the three co-founders who built a mid-tier investment firm into a billion-dollar empire.
Asher runs operations as CEO with iron precision. Blaine handles client acquisitions as Chief Strategy Officer, his charm bordering on predatory. Cole oversees the humanitarian arm as Chief Impact Officer, the conscience of an otherwise ruthless machine.
I've never spoken to any of them. People at my level don't.
The clock in the corner of my monitor reads 6:47 p.m. when my phone vibrates.
I glance down, expecting another passive-aggressive email from Hargrove, but the caller ID makes my blood freeze.
St. Catherine's Hospital.
"Hello?" My voice doesn't sound like mine.
"Is this Ethan Hale?"
The woman on the other end speaks with practiced calm, the kind that only comes from delivering terrible news daily.
"I'm calling from the ICU regarding Richard Hale. Are you his emergency contact?"
"Yes." ICU. ICU. ICU. "What happened? Is he—"
"Your father suffered a massive coronary event approximately forty minutes ago. He's in critical condition, Mr. Hale. I need you to come to the hospital as soon as possible."
The glass in my chest doesn't crack—it shatters.
"I'm on my way," I hear myself say. "Please, just... keep him alive. Please."
I don't remember hanging up. I don't remember grabbing my jacket or shutting down my computer.
The elevator doors slide open and I rush inside, already reaching for the lobby button.
My vision tunneled so severely that I didn't see the man stepping out until I collided with him at full speed.
Hot coffee explodes between us—across his charcoal suit, down my white shirt, everywhere. The cup clatters to the marble floor.
"Jesus—" Strong hands catch my shoulders before I can stumble backward, steadying me with a grip that feels like it could hold up the entire building. "Are you alright?"
I look up into eyes the color of whiskey held to firelight, framed by dark lashes and darker brows.
The face they belong to is sharp-jawed and symmetrical in a way that feels almost aggressive, like beauty weaponized.
Blaine Varkas. I recognize him from the company newsletters, from the portraits in the executive lobby. Up close, he's devastating in ways photographs can't capture.
And I'm staring.
Stop. Stop it. What the hell is wrong with you?
"I-I'm sorry," I manage, my voice cracking embarrassingly on the second word. "I didn't see you, I need to— I have to go."
"You look like someone just died."
His grip doesn't loosen. Those amber eyes sweep across my face, cataloging my panic with unsettling precision, and something in my chest seizes—not just fear, but a pull I've spent years learning to bury.
He's touching you.
A man is touching you and you don't want him to stop.
"My father, sir," I hear myself whisper, and I don't know why I'm telling this stranger anything, don't know why his hands on my shoulders feel like the first real thing I've felt all day. "The hospital called. He might... he's—"
"Blaine?" A voice behind him, deeper, colder. "Is there a problem?"
Two more men materialize in the elevator lobby—the other Varkas brothers.
Asher is taller than Blaine, pale hair catching fluorescent light, radiating authority the way the sun radiates heat.
Cole is leaner, sandy-haired, with pale green eyes that land on me and stay there, his brow furrowing for half a second, as if he's seen me before.
Three of them. Three men who look like they stepped out of a magazine editorial about power and wealth, standing in formation like dark gods surveying their domain.
And I'm between them, shaking, covered in coffee, falling apart—imagining and wanting things I have no right to.
"I'm sorry," I say again, pulling away from Blaine's grip—his hands release me reluctantly, or maybe I imagine that.
Maybe I want to imagine it because I'm sick and because Hargrove was right about me.
"No worries," Blaine says, but his eyes don't leave mine. "Just a collision."
"I'm really sorry about your suit. I'll pay for the cleaning. I just— I have to go."
I push past them, my shoulder brushing Asher's arm as I flee toward the lobby doors.
I feel all three gazes on my back—Blaine's curious, Asher's analytical, and Cole's... protective, somehow. Like he wants to follow me.
The December air hits me like a slap when I burst outside. I raise my hand for a cab, my arm trembling, and that's when I feel it.
The phantom pressure of Blaine's grip still burns through my jacket, warm against my shoulders like he's still holding me.
Critical condition. Massive coronary. Please keep him alive.
A yellow cab pulls to the curb and I wrench the door open, throwing myself inside.
"St. Catherine's Hospital," I tell the driver. "Fast. Please."
The Highest Bidder
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