Highest Bidder

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt – then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother’s words – “Simply to endure is to triumph” – and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision – will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

She thought this was a game. She thought she could walk away. She thought wrong. I’ve lived a cold, unforgiving life. I’ve seen things, I’ve done things, that would break a man. If they didn’t kill him first. With my past behind me, I have nothing. No way to atone for my sins and nothing to lift me from the depths of despair I’ve come from. And no one to give me the control that I so desperately desire. But as soon as I saw Lilly walk through the halls of Club X, something inside my cold heart flickered. With her large, blue eyes, and her seductive curves, I wanted her. Lilly, my flower. There’s a sweet innocence about her that steals the breath from my lungs. She brings my darkness to the surface, and what’s more… she craves it just as much as I do. The danger is what lured her to me. But she didn't realize how intense this would be when she signed that contract. She thought it was all fantasy and make-believe. But I'm not a knight in shining armor. I'm not a hero from a romance novel. I'm the villain. And now she wants to leave? I won’t allow it. I own her. And I’m not letting her go.

Everything has a price ... and I'm willing to pay. I own her for now. She's mine for an entire month. But a month isn't long enough for what I want to do with her. I don't care what the contract says. I bought her and now she's mine. Includes all four, full-length, stand-alone romances in the Highest Bidder series: Bought, Sold, Owned and Given. Featuring demanding, rich, and powerful men all with happily ever afters and no cliffhangers.