Half A Million For A Girlfriend, Both Men Belong To Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Invoice

Abby writes the terms with line items, Beckett loses the negotiation, and her mom's second mortgage explains the number; a text arrives from his older brother Rowan asking to meet.

By nine that night the leash video had thirty-one thousand views and Dell had printed me an invoice template.

She sat on the top bunk with a bag of popcorn and her round glasses pushed up into her hair.

"You asked a billionaire's son for half a million dollars," she said.

"He's a freight heir," I said. "It's a different kind of money."

"It's the same amount of money."

"It's slower money. It comes in on trucks."

Dell ate a piece of popcorn and thought about that.

"Fair," she said. "Start with the retainer."

I typed it out line by line, and I read each one aloud as I went.

Retainer, one fall semester as girlfriend: three hundred thousand dollars.

Correction of the leash story, which he started by pointing: one hundred thousand dollars.

Hazard pay for walking beside him, since people glare: fifty thousand dollars.

Sustained eye contact in public, on request: fifty thousand dollars.

"That adds up to five hundred thousand," Dell said. "I checked."

"It has to."

"What about the kissing?"

"Kissing is extra," I said. "A kiss in public is two hundred dollars. Holding hands is fifty. A hug is seventy-five."

"Why is a hug more than holding hands?"

"Because a hug uses both arms."

Dell nodded slowly and wrote it on her palm.

He was waiting for me at the all-night diner by the highway, because I had said the invoice could only be delivered in person.

He sat in the corner booth in the same gray hoodie, with a cup of coffee he hadn't touched.

I slid the pages across the table.

He read them once.

He read the retainer again.

"You can't charge me for eye contact," Beckett said.

"It's the cheapest thing on the list."

"Then take it off."

"Then it should be easy to pay for."

He set the page down, picked it back up, and read it a third time.

"I pointed at you," he said, "and now I'm paying hazard pay for being pointed at you."

"You pointed first. That's the hazard."

"Fifty thousand for a hug I haven't gotten?"

"A hug is seventy-five," I said. "The fifty thousand is for glaring."

He rubbed his face with both hands.

When he looked up, his eyes had gone gold under the diner lights, and he looked more curious than angry.

"Everyone in that room would have said yes," he said. "Why didn't you?"

"I'm not everyone," I said. "I send an invoice."

"Abby, nobody does this. Nobody turns me down and then charges me."

"Then you're getting a bargain. Nobody else is offering you a rate."

He laughed once, short and surprised.

The waitress came by and refilled his coffee, and he drank half of it before he spoke again.

"Why half a million?" he asked. "Why that number? It's not random."

I had meant to say something clever.

What came out was the truth, because it was nine at night and I had been awake since five.

"My mom owes the bank four hundred and ten thousand dollars on a house that isn't worth that much."

"She sells tea at a farmers market."

"The rest is my tuition and the cost of being left alone."

He didn't say anything for a while.

I watched him fold the invoice into a long strip and then unfold it again.

"The terms," he said at last. "Walk me through them."

"One. No feelings. Not yours, not mine."

"Mine are not the issue."

"Two. Everything in public is billed. Three. Nothing happens in private, because nobody's paying for it."

"And the contract ends?"

"At finals. I get paid, you get a quiet campus, and we never speak again."

He picked up the pen from the table, and for a second I thought he would negotiate.

He signed in two places.

"I'll have my brother wire the retainer," he said. "Rowan controls my trust until I'm twenty-five. He signs off on anything this size."

"Does he get an invoice too?"

"He gets everything. He's the kind of man who reads the receipt for the receipt."

"I like him already."

"Don't," Beckett said, and I couldn't tell if it was a joke.

He walked me out to the parking lot and stopped at the edge of the light.

I held out my hand, and he looked at it.

"That's seventy-five if it's a hug," I said. "A handshake is free."

He shook it.

His hand was warm and dry, and he let go first.

I walked back to campus through the cold with my heart perfectly steady.

I was proud of that.

My phone buzzed when I was almost at the dorm.

It was a number I didn't know.

"Abigail Curry. This is Rowan Ashworth. My brother cannot authorize this. I can. I'll find you at lunch tomorrow. Bring the invoice."

Nobody had ever called me Abigail except the DMV.

I stood under the lamp outside my dorm and read it twice.

He had known my full name before Beckett had finished signing.

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