AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I look up and she holds up a hand. “Not that I’m expecting you to cough up. I’m just sayin’…. Didn’t we have a conversation about a month ago about how you might have to eat crow and go to your dad for money? How you found that idea the most abhorrent thing ever? I mean you haven’t spoken to him since you were thirteen when he walked out on you and your mom. Not even when he presented you with that fat trust fund on your eighteenth birthday—”
I flinch. “I don’t need his fucking guilt money.”
Sam’s face grows completely stone serious. “Maddy, quit lying to yourself. You do need that money. Sometime in the next month, you are going to have to pick up that phone and call daddy dearest and sweetly ask him for the trust fund money that you so vehemently rejected five years ago.”
Hell. No. That will never happen.
Sam stares at me for a few moments longer. “Or you can take this”—she taps the top of the closed laptop—“as the windfall that it is. A convenient and pleasant setup that you can enjoy. And maybe it’s been a long time and you need some reminding, but sex is fun and very enjoyable with the right partner—”
I wave her off. “Quit talking to me like I’m some blushing virgin before my wedding night. I had a boyfriend all through high school and part of college.”
She leans forward. “Mads, listen to yourself. You’ve only been with one guy—ever—a callous little shit who dumped you because he was threatened by your brilliance.”
Sucking in air as if she had just punched me in the stomach, I lean away from her. “Wow, that was low.”
“Is it not the truth?”
I look away but refuse to tell her that she’s right. Jason had, indeed, been extremely jealous of my full ride scholarship to Caltech when the best he could do was the local state school. He’d put on the brave face temporarily but had hooked up with someone else within weeks of me leaving town. I’d had no idea until I got home for Christmas break and found out he was marrying her because he’d gotten her pregnant.
“But Mads…you are brilliant! Just own that. You are at the top of your class. And I know you think a lot of guys are intimidated by that and that’s why they stay away but others avoid you because you give off the ‘don’t even ask’ vibes. But score another one for Evan Kohl because though you are brilliant, well, he’s in a whole other league, right? There’s probably no chance he’s going to feel intimidated by you. Probably exactly the opposite.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m saying that in spite of him interviewing the most gorgeous models and starlets that SoCal has to offer—he wants you. He knows you are smart. He’s attracted to your brains as well as your looks. Maybe he’s not just in this for the physical part of things.”
I scoff at her, remembering Kohl’s own words to me. I want to fuck you, Madeline. Two bodies coming together in the most primal way… It is all about the physical. I fan my face as it flames with renewed heat at those words, which scorch me clear down to the core. Yeah, I’m turned on by the memory of it, of him in the garden. I’m sinfully attracted to him…but did I really want it to be like this?
“Why doesn’t he just want to date, though? Why the weird contract?”
Sam shrugs. “He did say this was a jumping-off point. Maybe you should ask him.”
I glare at her for a long moment before reaching out my hand, asking for the laptop back. I spend the next couple hours reading and re-reading the so-called mistress contract until I’m so tired, I can’t see straight.
I quickly change into yoga pants and a tank top and brush my teeth. When I peek into Sam’s room, she is still hunched over her computer, typing away furiously.
“You going to sleep?” I ask.
“Yeah, in a sec. I just need to finish this email.”
She’s half smiling, biting her bottom lip as her fingers fly over the keys. I’m instantly suspicious. Sam only bites her lip when she’s flirting.
I scurry over to Sam’s bed. But she’s quicker than I am, and snaps her laptop closed before I can catch a glimpse of her screen.
“Who are you emailing?” I ask in a singsong voice.
“No one,” she says quickly, but she can’t keep the smile off her face.
“It’s a guy! I knew it. Who is he?” I snap my fingers. “I bet it’s that cute little undergrad who follows you around all the time.”
“It’s no one.” She shoves me off her bed, and I plop back down onto my own mattress. “I was just emailing my professor, geez!”
“Oh! The really hot one?”
“Oh my God, Maddy.” She laughs. “His hotness is completely irrelevant.”
“Since when is hotness ever irrelevant?”
“Since it was my advisor.” She laughs. “He’s off limits.”
