He Paid a Million for One Night, and the Contract Was Signed by My Mother novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: A Million Dollars for One Night
On Sunday the river stood at its widest, a mile of brown water with the sun on it.
The THEODORA V pushed up it from the Convent landing with nothing ahead but open channel.
I stood in the pilothouse beside Soren, in my mother's plain ivory dress, with my hair down.
My hands were on the big wooden wheel.
He had shown me how to hold her.
He stood a little behind my shoulder with one hand on the throttle and the other resting on the small of my back.
"Feel that?" he said.
"She's pulling to the right."
"It's the current. Give her a little left."
I gave it.
The long steel hull answered under my hands, slow and enormous and obedient.
I laughed out loud.
"I'm steering a towboat," I said.
"You're steering the biggest thing on the river," he said.
"Don't tell my mother."
"She's on the foredeck," Soren said.
I looked down.
My mother stood at the rail in her good gray dress with a hand on her hat, small against the wide water.
Beside her sat Theodora in her wheelchair, with a rug over her knees and her cane across it.
The two of them were arguing about something.
I could tell from the set of their shoulders.
"They've been at it since the landing," Soren said.
"About what?"
"The hem of your dress."
I laughed until I had to hold the wheel with both hands.
Soren eased the throttle back.
The engines dropped their note, and the boat slowed.
The long wake behind us spread in a V and lapped against the willows.
He reached across me and set the brake.
The pilothouse went quiet.
I could hear the water and the gulls and the far hum of a bridge.
He turned me gently by the shoulders to face him.
His hands were not quite steady.
"I said I'd ask you properly," he said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Paid a Million for One Night, and the Contract Was Signed by My Mother are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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