Book Review: Highest Bidder

Title: Highest Bidder
Author: Charlotte Byrd
Genre: Romance, Crime, Fiction

What It’s About: June Devlin works at a Law Firm in Boston, and one night her coworker and friend, Callie takes her to an audition at a very fancy mansion, which turns out to be a Museum. During the auction, they meet Camille, a model, who tells them that she makes a ton of money in the second auction at the Museum and it makes her enough money to live without working for the rest of the year. After a bit more chatting, June decides to go for it because it would help her pay off her student loans and then help her start her own business—leaving her law firm to do a photography business, because she went into law thinking it would be glamorous and rich.

At the auction, Anderson West talks to his friend Tag, who wants to leave. Tag notices the woman in nude and goes to talk to her, while Anderson notices June. He keeps himself hidden as he gets closer to her, and overhears her telling the woman in nude that she will do the auction. He knows what auction she speaks of as he’s been invited in the past but this is the first time he is truly interested in it. He follows them after getting rid of Tag.

June is taken in by a man named Cesar, and given the number Six. He shows her the auction as Camille struts her way around and makes 600K in a night. Then he returns her to the main office and she signs the line not using anything but an X as it is all anonymous. Then it’s her turn, and the bidding goes up all the way to almost $400K, by a man named East for anonymity. Once the auction is done, and she speaks to Camille quickly, who continues to assure her, June is taken to her room where she has ten minutes to get ready and get naked in bed. The man comes and starts asking her questions including one about whether or not she has a pet. She tells him that she had a dog, and in the conversation he asks her why she lied to him, before revealing that he’s Anderson West, the boy who bullied her in school where she was attending because she received a scholarship. Anderson doesn’t want to admit to her that as a teenager he had a massive crush on her and he didn’t know how to express that to her. He uses her anger and ire at him to get her to stick around, and ultimately orders breakfast for them, where they tentatively talk about various things. June is a little surprised because he’s not exactly as she remembers, but she still can’t get over the fact that he bullied her. After he stacks the dishes from feeding her, he keeps busying himself with the cart, so June decides to take a chance and makes a move—they end up having sex all night and it’s one of the best ones that she’s ever had. The next morning, she wakes up and Anderson is gone. She meets up with Cesar, and he takes her to a driver after explaining how to get her money, and tells her that she can be taken anywhere she wants to be, so she asks to go home. She changes and goes to her office where she continues working, knowing that her money will be in her account in three business days.

Three days go by, and still no money, so upon Callie’s behest, June gives it another two days before calling the House to ask about it, but they do not know which auction she is talking about. Eventually, June walks over to Anderson’s office, where she walks in on him having a conversation with other lawyers. He tells them that he will reschedule as emergencies come up, and then they talk, where she tells him that she still hasn’t received her money, which is a drop in a bucket for him but everything to her. He finds out that his bank has had his account frozen, and it takes a few minutes for him to convince June that he’s not making this up, but he promises her that he will fix it and then they call her, so they exchange numbers. She leaves him, while he calls his bank, which sends him over to various bankers before one finally reveals to him that his personal accounts have been attached to the company accounts, and that the CFO of the company controls them all; that he has a limit of $20K that he can spend. So Anderson goes to the CFO, who doesn’t like him, and the CFO tells him that he’s done it on the orders of his father. So Anderson goes to see his father, who tells him that he has been irresponsible with his funds and that he needs to be more responsible so that his clients can trust him. Once again, his father brings up him settling down and bringing his girlfriend to supper—Anderson had met with his father at a restaurant after the auction, and when his father brought this up, he made up a story that he’s been dating June Devlin, and it’s serious. But then he realized his mistake that his father will want him to introduce the girl.

June goes out to a bar with Callie, after wallowing all day in her apartment, and it’s a lawyer’s bar where only lawyers come. There is one guy who hits on her, but very quickly creeps her out with his language, so she goes outside where she gets a message from Anderson. He comes over dressed casually, and then they talk, where he explains the situation. June believes him, because he seems sincere and it does not seem to be an elaborate answer. He then gives her the idea where she is his fiancée and they go to Sunday dinner with his family. She agrees, and they go through preparing for that. The day of the dinner, he meets with her in his car and then gives her a ring with purple stones—when June asks why the purple, he tells her that it’s the birth stone for June, as if she should have known. She starts laughing and tells him that her birthday is August 8th, not June, and when asked she says that she’s named for her grandmother. He tells her that he’s named for Anderson, a city in Indiana where his parents met. They go to his parent’s place in Boston, and his mom opens up the door, and starts introducing June to everyone. At some point, his dad wants to speak to June alone, and takes her aside while Anderson’s mom asks him for help in the Kitchen. June and Elliot West (his dad) speak and she does stand up to him, saying that she wants Anderson to be a partner, not someone who is always working and never present, taking slight digs at Elliot never being around when Anderson was a child, as June sees that Anderson gets his warmth from his mom. Anderson comes in and realizes that it seems like they’re getting along just fine. So, they go out for the Dance—a tradition that comes from his mom’s side of the family, but that they do every time the family gets together—and they dance. Both of them realize that they are content with each other, though Anderson wonders if June wants to be here with him. When the band takes a break, he tells her that he wants to show her a place in the house—the library. He explains to her that his father and grandfather were very much distant men who always berated him, while his grandmother and to an extent his mother were much more about kindness—and this is where the library is split by non-fiction from his grandfather, and fiction from his grandmother. He realized early on that it was the only place where he could hide and read things like Harry Potter and The Hardy Boys without his father getting angry, as any time he saw those books, he would say they’re a waste of time. Anderson explains that it was the only way that he could related as his role model was his dad and how he acted, so he didn’t know how to act towards his crush for her as a teenager without being a bully. June forgives him, realizing that it was the circumstances around how he was raised that had him doing that, but that he really liked her. They end up having sex in the library—twice—and after the second time, his father walks in on them from the other side of the library (there were two doors, and Anderson locked only one). He tells Anderson that they’ve missed dinner but to please try to make it to dessert for his mother. They clean up and they go into the dessert, which turns out to be this cake that Anderson’s mother had flown in from Paris. She explains to June that after Anderson had missed out on his trip to Paris with his friends, she took him on their own, but he was so sick that he ended up only being able to go out the last day of the trip, and she took him to the patisserie in Paris where he fell in love with this dessert. She’s tried to replicate it, but she has not been able to do so, which is why she had it flown in.

Anderson and June leave, but while waiting for the valet to bring the car, Anderson realizes that he had left his phone back in the house. June assures him that she will wait for him in the car, and so he goes in to grab his phone. While he’s up there, June waits, only to see a guy in a trench coat come up to her, and a van drive by—they kidnap her and take her somewhere to an underground bunker, where they tie her up, shine a bright light on her and eventually snap a photo of her, before a man and then a woman ask her questions about things. One of these questions trigger her and make her think of Claire, a girl from her summer camp who was bullied so severely that she ended up getting drowned in a malicious attack. June had been the only one who was kind to her, but the other kids were not, and the darkness of the underground reminds her of that.

Anderson comes out of the house, and doesn’t see June anywhere. Thinking that maybe she got impatient, he goes back upstairs to the family event, only to run into his brother who tells him that he’s joining the family firm after passing the Bar exam. He searches for June, but does not find her—only running into his cousin making out with someone in the library. He texted her, but there is no response, so he takes his time to go over to security, where the men pull up the video of her being kidnapped—the kidnappers knew where the cameras were, and they also took a van without license plates, so they are definitely professionals. Anderson gets a picture of June tied up and gagged in a chair from her cell phone, so he barges into his father’s office. His father is far too calm, telling him that June is fine —clearly she’s not being abused in anyway—but refuses to tell Anderson what has been going on and what else he has been dealing in besides law, but tells him to not call the police as that would then be out of their control. Anderson gets into his car, and drives around, only to get a text message saying to meet him near New York at Hells’ Gate Bridge. He goes home, packs a bag and then heads out to meet the kidnappers, even though he hadn’t slept in a day.

June in the meantime, gets taken out of her chair and brought upstairs to meet a man named Andre Moeller, who tells her that he knows that she is innocent and doesn’t know anything about the West Family, but reveals that it seems like he had been watching her for quite a while—at least since the auction night. He tells her that Elliot West owes him something, but does not provide to tell her any details, and tells her to go home and forget about Anderson. Her negotiation tactics do not even work on him. Eventually she falls asleep on a couch, and listens to Andre talking about things in Italian. She gets tied up and blindfolded, then walked down into the parking lot, where the man walking her shoves her into the trunk of the car, that is filled with blankets and pillows. She tries to get out, but only cuts her hand on a sharp object that she thinks may have been the lever to open up the trunk of the car. They drive for a while, and then she gets handed over to Anderson.

Anderson takes her home, and they spend a few days together tumbling in the sheets at her apartment. He comes up with a plan—tell his father that he’s been called for ransom that costs $400K, which would be the money he owes her. Eventually, his father calls him, and Anderson tells him that, to which his father tells him that he should just forget about June, she’s not worth it, and when Anderson says that he will do what he can to bring his father down and the firm down, Elliot tells him that he doesn’t think she’ll stick around if Anderson doesn’t make any money. Anderson tells June this, and June tells him that she is with him for him, not his money. She does return to work a couple days later, snaps at Madi, talks to Garrett, and then tells Callie the truth, making her promise to keep it all quiet. Anderson meets with his father at a restaurant, and Elliot tells him that he has to do something for him, to finally understand that not all they do is Entertainment law. So Anderson takes a ride with Elliott’s assistance, Moss, who is really a man who just gets his hands dirty on Elliot’s behalf. They go to a warehouse in New Jersey, where Moss speaks with another man, telling him that he needs to cough up the $250K, and then silently threatens the man with the life of his children, showing the photos in the file. Things seem to go well, until Anderson puts his hand in his pocket and the men see a gun, causing a shootout to happen, after which Moss kills all three of them. They return to the office, and Anderson tells Moss to get out while he speaks with his father. Elliot shows him the video of the whole exchange and says he’s the only one that has proof of this, showing that he may use this as leverage on Anderson in the future. In exchange, Elliot gives him the $400K in cash, and Anderson returns to June with the money. He doesn’t tell her anything—he can’t—but June still notices that he’s down. They end up having sex in the bedroom, and say their I love yous to each other. As Anderson is going to expand on his I love you to her, Elliot walks in, tells him that he must be in love with June if he wants to leave the family, and tells them that he’s here to pick up what is his—and takes a black bag.

My Thoughts: This was a really slow burn and there were points of the book—especially in the beginning where I did not want to continue reading it, or had a hard time getting into it. But once you get to about chapter 8 or so, where they are at the Charity, the story does come alive. I loved the growth of the relationship between Anderson and June—how they both held a candle for each other throughout all of these years, and slowly bits and pieces of their feelings and their history come to light to each other—though I wish that they could just be more clear with each other. One of the most annoying parts though of this book was that the formatting and sometimes even the grammar was off—using wreaking instead of reeking in a sentence, and one chapter had a header, but then another chapter was smushed at the end of it. There was chapter 42 that was titled as 44 two lines in. It is a bit irritating as these are basic errors that should’ve been caught before the book was published or an updated edition should’ve fixed it if the error was realized quickly, otherwise it’s sloppy. Still, the overall story is interesting and I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series.