Page 11 of Wicked Proposal
It makes me want to see how far I can push her before she breaks.
5
MIA
My heel taps nervously against the sidewalk.
I’m still processing the craziness of the past half-hour. I couldn’t even explain myself properly to Kallie and Eli. I just took the fastest shower in history and ran back down in my third-hand Cavallini heels.
Cue the most awkward seven minutes and a half of my fucking life.
Mr. Cheese Grater Abs is impatient.
Veryimpatient.
He keeps checking his phone, snarling at passing cars, going through the five stages of pissed off and then starting over again at the beginning.
Whoever’s keeping him waiting, I wouldn’t want to be them.
But do you want to be his date?
In short: fuck no.
He’s right about one thing, though: I do need the money.
Upstairs, my kid has a pair of basketball shoes filled with holes that I can replace if I do this. My bills, my loans—I could pay it all off for a month or two.
I couldbreathe.
I just need to get through tonight.
The purr of an engine snaps me out of my thoughts. A sleek black limo rolls up, stopping right in front of us.
“Yo, Yulian!” A big guy with facial tattoos and a wicked grin waves from the driver’s seat. “How’s it hanging, new girl? I’m Maksim.”
“Mia,” I blurt before remembering we weren’t supposed to be doing names.Fuck.“I mean?—”
“Get in.” The man—Yulian,apparently—throws the car door open. “Now.”
It’s the least gentlemanly way anyone’s ever held a door open for me, to say the least. Someone ought to teach him what “please” means or what a “smile” is.
But a payday’s a payday, so I grit my teeth and slide into the limo.
Yulian doesn’t sit in the front. Instead, to my mounting horror, he sits right next to me.
“Drive,” he barks to Maksim.
The car merges back into traffic. I stare wistfully at my beaten-up Honda as she disappears into the distance, wondering if it’s too late to change my mind.
“Put this on.”
I startle at the item in Yulian’s hands. “What’s this?”
“Your dress.” His gray eyes rake over my midnight blue A-line. “One that doesn’t come from a thrift store.”
“Hey! It’s pre-loved.”
“It’s a disaster. Change.”
