It meant everything to her.

So today, she was going to buy it, no matter what it took!

Because her goal was so clear, she paid zero attention to the earlier auction items, waiting solely for the tiara.

In another private room, Felix was completely distracted, showing no interest in the bidding.

His mind was consumed with trying to figure out how Claire had managed to get an invitation to this elite auction.

And an exclusive VIP room, no less.

With her lack of connections and influence in Northcrest, getting her hands on an invitation like this should have been impossible.

Unless...

Wilbur had helped her.

Wilbur was one of the major shareholders of Apex Group; slipping her an invitation would have been effortless for him.

What infuriated Felix the most was that Claire would rather accept an invitation from Wilbur than the one he had tried to give her.

That realization made a bitter, twisted knot form in his gut.

He was just about to go look for Claire again when Madeline called him.

Feeling a spike of irritation, he answered and asked what she wanted.

Madeline asked, "Did you not see the message I sent you?"

"I haven't looked yet. What's going on?"

Madeline's fingers tightened around her phone.

She had sent that message almost an hour ago, and he hadn't even checked it.

He had never ignored her like this before.

Her mind raced, convincing herself that Claire must be seducing him, pulling his attention away from her.

Swallowing her frustration, Madeline feigned total innocence. "Oh, nothing, I was just checking in. You should really read the message, though."

Felix paused for a moment before saying, "Alright."

He could actually hear the disappointment in Madeline's voice, but he didn't offer any comfort, simply hanging up the phone.

He opened his messages, saw she wanted the tiara, and casually agreed to it.

To him, it was just another piece of jewelry.

She wanted it.

Her birthday was coming up.

He figured it would serve as compensation for not bringing her inside the auction.

Without a second thought, he instructed his proxy bidder to secure the tiara, explicitly telling him not to worry about the price.

With that brief interruption out of the way, Felix's thoughts drifted right back to Claire.

He suddenly felt a burning curiosity to know what she was trying to buy.

But Claire never told him what she wanted or what she liked.

She had never actively asked him for a single thing.

Most of the time, Felix felt like Claire didn't need him at all.

It was a realization that left him feeling deeply defeated.

Meanwhile, Claire had finally endured the wait for the tiara to hit the auction block, and she was the very first to place a bid.

But the room was full of people with an eye for luxury, and several paddles went up in quick succession.

The tiara, with a starting bid of three

hundred thousand dollars, was

quickly pushed to one and a half million after just the first round of bidding.

The competition thinned out noticeably in the second round, so Claire confidently called out a flat bid of two million dollars.

That immediately knocked out more than half of her rivals. The piece had a market value, and bidding past that point simply wasn't a sound investment.

Yet, one person refused to let it go, instantly raising the bid to three million.

Gritting her teeth, Claire raised it to four million.

Her palms were sweating profusely as she silently prayed the other bidder would back down.

Unfortunately, luck was not on her side.

Not only did the opponent keep bidding, but they drove the price straight up to six million dollars.

Desperate, Claire threw caution to the wind and pushed it to eight million, drawing a wave of shocked gasps from the crowd.

At this price point, the bid had completely eclipsed the item's actual value. It was an absurd premium.

Even Felix's proxy bidder thought it

out of hand. He turned

was getting?

archapRed M

back to Felix anchasked, Mr. Quigley,

should we keep bidding? The markup is already astronomical."

Felix replied coldly, "Bump it straight to twenty million."

He didn't want to waste any more time.

The proxy was internally stunned, but he followed his boss's orders and called out the number.

The moment the twenty million dollar bid echoed through the room, Claire's hand dropped in crushing defeat.

She had lost.