Page 33 of Dirty Damage

The family I’ve always craved without the messy emotional baggage.

Motherhood without the inevitable heartbreak of “true love.”

He must sense my resolve weakening because he slides the contract toward me, then produces a crisp white slip of paper that he places beside it.

“A check.” My name is written in sharp, even handwriting in the center.

The number printed on the thick paper makes my vision blur.

I pick it up, counting the zeroes. Six of them. One million dollars. “What the hell is this?”

“Compensation.” He rolls the word around his mouth like fine wine. “If you agree to sign the contract, the money is yours, free and clear. Regardless of what happens after.”

I glance between him and the contract, pulse hammering. “What will happen after?”

His smile is all predator.

“That remains to be seen. The contract covers all the different possibilities. My intention is not to force or trap you, Sutton. If you agree to my terms, I intend on being more than fair.”

He takes the document and places it in my hands with deliberate care. “Take it. Have a lawyer look through it for your own protection. You have three days to get back to me with an answer.”

“Three days?”

I could mull this over for three lifetimes and still have no fucking idea what to do.

He smiles. The sight sends a flutter coursing through me. It settles between my legs.

“Three days. And if you decide you don’t want this, then you can walk away. No harm done.”

“Just like that?” I search his face for deception. “I can walk away and you’ll just… let me go?”

“Consider it a promise.”

I dig my nails into my thigh. If I’m dreaming, now would be the time to wake up. But the pain is sharp, real.

The weight of the contract in my hands is real, too.

This isn’t a dream.

This isn’t a joke.

This is a choice.

And I have three days to make it.

10

SUTTON

Maybe I do believe in fairytales after all.

Oleg Pavlov is on the surly end of the Prince Charming spectrum, but the money, the yacht, the personal driver behind the wheel of a Maybach—it points to a world where magical things happen.

Just not to me.

The waxed black car rolls to a stop in front of my armpit stain of an apartment. I barely get the door closed before the car is pulling away, like the driver is afraid his luxury car will devolve into a copy of my rusted-out Ford if he spends more than a minute on this block.

Oh, shit.

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