Page 11 of Charm Me Not

I knew exactly where he was going to say. The moment he signed his contract, I knew he wouldn’t get the result he wanted. Once again, I had to deal with love, and it got messy. The problem with this particular deal was that I went into it knowing more information than he did, which made the result not as he expected.

“The contract said to make sure your girlfriend didn’t go to the party in the woods a week ago. And I did that. She didn’t go,” I stated plainly, in a bored voice. We didn’t need to rehash the entire thing right here in the hallway. If he had an issue, he could message me like everyone else did. The in person thing was for signing initial contracts and payment only. After that, everything went digital.

His lips flapped open and shut. “But she—”

I shrugged and picked at my nails. A new manicure was overdue, and the outgrowth irked me. “What she did instead is none of my business.”

“She was supposed to come to my house and—”

Dropping my hands, I took one step closer to Louis and tilted my chin down, sneering my lip as I spoke. “Where she went instead of the party was not part of any contract. You didn’t want her there so she wouldn’t hook up with Eric, correct? You thought she was cheating on you. Guess what? She was. Still is. I made sure she didn’t go to the party. Just because she didn’t go to your house and went to his instead is not my problem. What you wanted and what you got were two different things, neither of which I care about.”

This was why I got paid in full at the start. If Louis stood here thinking I didn’t uphold my end, he would refuse to pay me. After the first few times, I got smart. He didn’t have his girlfriend like he thought he would, but I still had my money.

I stood back to full height and backed away, catching his eyes. I felt slightly bad for him—it was his girlfriend, after all. Anyone could see that he really liked her. Except his girlfriend it seemed.

“If I were you, Louis, I would dump her. She’s cheating on you. Why do you still care when she obviously doesn’t?”

His eyes widened, and he gulped. “I… I… I love her.”

A bubble of rare laughter escaped me.Love. What a troublesome emotion. “And look where that’s gotten you. Fighting with me in the hallway instead of confronting her for her wrongdoings. Honestly, no one has their priorities straight these days,” I said, flipping my braids over my shoulder and walking away from him, leaving him a blubbering mess.

Love had to be the worst emotion out there. I hated it more than I hated crying, and that was high on my list of things never to do as well.

A while back, I considered putting a ‘no love’ clause in my contracts. But I quickly realized I would lose a lot of business if I did that. While I hated playing matchmaker, and only did for Aria because I had ulterior motives on that, love made up a good chunk of my jobs.

“Swindling more students, are you?” Ali said as he caught up to me a moment later.

I huffed. “I don’tswindle.” The word offended me, but I didn’t let it show. Swindling was when you took someone’s money and didn’t provide results.

I fulfilled all my contracts, or they got their money back. Whether I did it to their satisfaction was a different thing. That’s why I had them sign it—they knew what they were getting into if they didn’t word their contractsexactlyright. I had students go over them with fine tooth combs, getting their friends’ opinions, and revising things three times before they thought they were right.

The simpler the task, the better results they got. But messing with people’s emotions or love lives? Those rarely turned out in their favor. So much so, I honestly couldn’t think of why people still came to me with the requests anymore. It wasn’t usuallymyfault, like in the case with Louis here.

They just didn’t like the results.

The only reason I figured was because love was a fickle thing. They didn’t want to mess with it. They didn’t want to get their hopes up, only to be brought crashing down. They didn’t want to get heartbroken by their own actions.

It was easier to get over the heartbreak when at the hand of someone else. I was the middleman. The scapegoat. The person to blame.

And it was fine with me. I didn’t mind being the one they all pointed fingers at. My wallet and I were perfectly alright. Because I held the truth behind every contract, no matter what light they tried to paint me in via rumors and gossip.

“Oh sure. You’re not called ‘Take the Money and Run Una’ for your good deeds,” Ali tried to remind me, but the wide grin on his face said he didn’t mean it.

I scoffed and socked him in the shoulder. “No one hasevercalled me that. I do what the contract says.”

Ali rubbed his arm where I hit him. He was one of the only people who could get away with talking to me like that and not get in trouble. But I had to put him in his place from time to time.

“Look who’s talking, Mister ‘My family got a deal from Hatem Enterprises and now we’re going to live like Kings.’ Like you aren’t swindling yourself.” I rolled my eyes just thinking about how Hatem Enterprises was taking over. Half the town either worked for or under the company. It was really the only way Teller survived, especially when next to uppity rich Fairview.

“Hey, nothing’s changed about Dad’s business. We just have solid financial backing now. It was a smart deal,” Ali said in defense. He gave me a look that said ‘back off,’ to which I obliged. I wasn’t in the game to hurt anyone’s feelings, and genuinely was excited about the opportunity his dad had been given. Ali was a great friend, a good guy, and deserved it all.

“That’s all I’m doing. Making business deals. I’m a good businesswoman, you know.”

Ali started jabbering on about something or another, but my attention had been diverted.

Aria stood across the hallway we turned into. Once she saw me with Ali, her eyes widened, a tiny smile crossing her lips. She clutched her hands together in front of her chest and bounced on her toes a little.

She wanted to date my best friend, and I wanted to keep him as far away from her as possible.

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