บททั้งหมดของ I'm Done Bidding for His Time: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

The second I left the system, Yves Zeller called."Cancel the request."His voice was perfectly even, as if I'd submitted a report with the wrong numbers.I held Lucy Zeller tighter and looked down at the bruised needle marks covering the back of her hand. "I can't.""IT can restore your account. Register again. Don't hold everyone up because of this."A laugh escaped me.Our daughter was scheduled for her pre-op evaluation first thing tomorrow morning, yet he hadn't asked a single question about her condition. All he cared about was losing one bidder from his precious auction."Yves, Lucy's having surgery tomorrow."There was a two-second silence. "I know.""The doctor needs both parents there to sign the paperwork. Come home tonight.""I'll be there before nine tomorrow morning. Yvette just moved, and she's having a rough time. I'll come back after I finish helping her unpack."I checked the time. It was 11:40 p.m."Doesn't she have family?"His voice turned cold. "Jenna Langford, yo

I sent Yves a screenshot of the final bid.[This is what you call fair?]His answer came almost immediately.[Yvette bid more.][With what money? She took $800,000 from Lucy's surgery fund, and now she's bidding with money you gave her.][The money became hers the moment I gave it to her. Keep bidding if you want. Don't start questioning the rules just because you lost.]I had $2000 left in the account.There was nothing more to say.Yves didn't show up for the pre-op meeting the next morning.The doctor explained that they still needed a detailed medical history from Yves's side of the family, and because Lucy's surgery was high-risk, both parents needed to review the consent forms. I photographed every page and sent them to him one by one.He read them all.Half an hour passed without a reply. Then a picture arrived from Yvette instead.Yves was at her studio in a paint-spattered white shirt, rolling blue paint onto the wall.[Stop bothering him, Jenna. Yves promised he'd stay until

Diana Zeller arrived at the hospital that night. She didn't ask about the shares first. Instead, she stood at the observation window for a long time, watching Lucy on the other side."Where's Yves?""With Yvette."Her expression hardened as she took out her phone. Yves answered almost immediately."Mom? What's wrong?""Your daughter is in surgery. Where are you?""Yvette couldn't breathe. I'll come over as soon as I get her settled.""Get your ass back here. Now."Diana hung up and turned to me. "Jenna, transfer the shares back to the family. I'll deal with Yves, but leaving him with nothing in the divorce isn't realistic."I slid the documents across the table. "I own twenty-seven percent of Zeller Group. Seven years ago, when the company ran into a cash crisis, my father put everything he had into saving it. Those shares belonged to the Langford family in the first place."I trusted Yves, so I never exercised my voting rights."I pulled up the bidding records, bank statements, and ho

The day the board voted, Yves was suspended from every position he held at Zeller Group, and the bidding system he'd created was shut down at the same time.Before taking it offline, Diana released the admin logs to everyone who'd had access to the system. For all Yves's talk about fairness, there had only ever been one rule that mattered, buried where no one else could see it:[Account: Yvette Xavier. Override all other bids without exception.]Yvette hadn't only displaced me. She'd overridden Diana, Caleb Mercer, and even several executives who'd placed substantial bids for meeting time with Yves. Caleb terminated their partnership on the spot, while several of the executives jointly demanded an audit.Yvette responded by taking the fight online. She claimed Yves's wife was persecuting her and insisted that every cent she'd received had been given to her willingly. Then she posted an audio recording of Yves saying, "Jenna won't leave. She'll make a fuss, then she'll come back like sh

Yvette eventually admitted to falsifying the medical opinion, deliberately manipulating the bidding system, and returned everything she'd improperly received.As part of the investigation, she turned over extensive chat logs. They documented exactly how Yves had leaked my account balance to her and given her permanent priority over every other bidder. It took only three pages of evidence to reduce his denials to silence.The first was an admin message he'd sent on the day of Lucy's Parents' Day:[She can bid $2,000 at most. Bid $6,000. She needs to learn that my time doesn't come free with the marriage.]The second was the transaction record from after Lucy's diagnosis. Yves had added $20,000 to Yvette's account, then told her to bid $15,000.The third was an admin instruction from the night before Lucy's surgery:[No matter how much Jenna Langford bids, Yvette Xavier wins.]When the judge asked whether he disputed any of the evidence, Yves sat at the defense table, his face ashen."N