Chapter 3 Three

Tessa

Something was pounding inside my skull.

I groaned and pressed my face into a pillow softer than anything I had ever owned. Warm light spilled across my closed eyelids, and a cool breeze brushed my bare shoulder.

Wait. Breeze?

My eyes cracked open.

White curtains drifted back and forth in front of tall French doors, thrown wide to a balcony and a bright morning sky. The ceiling above me was high and smooth. The sheets under my fingers felt like silk.

This wasn't my apartment.

My apartment had a water stain on the ceiling and a window that never fully closed.

I sat up too fast, and the room swayed. My head screamed in protest.

"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. Think."

The memories came in slowly, then all at once.

The bar. The red cocktail. Mark's hand around my waist, dragging me toward the door. Julian's voice, cold as ice. The long ride in the dark.

My cheek against his chest. His heartbeat.

Heat crawled up my neck.

There was more. The fog in my head had started to lift after we arrived. A glass of water pressed into my hands. His quiet voice asking, again and again, if I knew where I was. If I was sure I wanted him to stay.

I had been sure. That was the worst part.

I remembered his hands, careful at first. Then not so careful. I remembered pulling him closer by his collar, and the way his breath caught, and how the whole world had narrowed down to him and the dark and the sound of my own pulse.

"Oh no," I breathed.

My face was on fire now.

Slowly, I turned my head.

A man lay beside me, one arm flung over his head, the sheet low on his waist. Dark hair falling over his forehead. A sharp jaw, relaxed in sleep. Broad shoulders that I definitely remembered gripping.

Julian Sinclair.

The CEO of Sinclair Global. The man who nearly ran me over. The man who threw money at me.

And the man who would be signing Jordan's paychecks in a few days.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I clapped a hand over my mouth.

What had I done?

'Calm down. Breathe. Just get out before he wakes up.'

I slid out of the bed an inch at a time, holding my breath. The floor was cool under my bare feet. My black dress lay in a crumpled heap near the armchair, and my heels sat by the door like they were running away without me.

Where was my underwear?

I crept across the room, scanning the carpet. A strap by the bed. No, that was the dress. Under the chair? Nope.

There. Half hidden beneath a pillow on the floor.

I bent down to grab it.

"Leaving already?"

I froze.

The voice was rough with sleep, but there was nothing sleepy about it. Slowly, I turned my head.

Julian was sitting up in bed, watching me.

His eyes were dark and completely awake. His expression? Cold. As cold as it had been in the car outside the restaurant, when he looked at me like I was something that had crawled out of a gutter.

All the warmth from last night had vanished.

"I, um." I clutched the underwear against my chest. "I was just..."

He didn't let me finish. He threw back the sheet and stood without a trace of embarrassment, reaching for his trousers on the chair. I spun around fast, face blazing.

Behind me, fabric rustled. A belt buckle clicked. The sound of a shirt being buttoned, one careful button at a time.

Not a single word. Not even a glance.

I hurried to pull my clothes on, fingers clumsy. The silence in the room stretched so long it started to ring in my ears.

Finally, I heard a soft thump.

When I turned around, he was fully dressed, standing by the dresser with his wallet open. He pulled out a thick wad of bills, folded it once, and held it out to me.

"Take it."

I stared at the money.

Then at him.

"What is that?"

"What does it look like?" His voice was perfectly flat. "Last night was a one-time arrangement. Take it, and we both go on with our lives."

Arrangement.

The word sank into my chest like a stone.

"You think I'm a-" I couldn't even finish. "Do you honestly think I'm a prostitute?"

Julian shrugged. Just a lazy lift of one shoulder, like it didn't matter either way.

"I don't care what you are."

The cruelty of it took my breath away.

"In my experience," he went on, "women who spend the night with me always expect something in the morning. It saves time to pay up front."

"That's disgusting."

"It's realistic." His gaze drifted over me, unbothered. "Last night, you played the proud girl who didn't want my money. 'I'd rather wear mud.' Very dramatic. But you let me buy the dress. The shoes. The drinks. Funny how your pride faded after that."

My hands curled into fists.

"I never asked you to pay for anything!"

"And yet you accepted it."

"Because you said it was compensation for nearly killing me!" My voice cracked. "That's not the same as selling myself!"

"Then why the offended face?" His eyebrow rose. "Do you want more?"

I wanted to throw the nearest lamp at his head.

I really, truly did.

Instead, I stood there shaking, a hot lump swelling in my throat. Because the worst part wasn't what he'd said. It was that, for one night, in the dark, I had thought he was kind.

I had been so, so wrong.

"Keep your money," I said, hating how small my voice sounded. "I don't want it."

He looked at me for a long moment. Something unreadable passed over his face, gone before I could name it.

Then he tucked the bills back into his wallet as if I had refused a stick of gum, and went back to adjusting his cuffs.

Just like that. Done.

He didn't argue. Didn't apologize. Didn't even seem to care.

"Next time," he said, without looking up, "don't accept drinks from strangers."

I blinked. "What?"

"Mark Schaffer put something in your glass. If I hadn't been at the bar, you wouldn't be standing here complaining about my money." He shot me one cool glance. "You'd be somewhere much worse."

The words landed hard, because they were true.

I had seen it in Mark's eyes. I remembered his arm around my waist, the way my legs wouldn't move. If Julian hadn't stepped in...

My stomach turned.

I knew he had saved me. Part of me even wanted to say thank you.

But then I looked at his face, so smooth and cold and untouched, and the words died in my mouth. How could I thank a man who had just handed me cash like a receipt?

"You know what?" I said instead. "Everyone says you're heartless. I thought they were exaggerating."

He said nothing.

Not a word. He just kept fixing his sleeve.

My heart twisted. Somehow, his silence was worse than any insult.

Fine. If that was how he wanted to play it.

I pulled on my black dress and zipped it up with trembling fingers, then scooped my heels off the floor and marched to the door.

My hand closed around the handle.

I stopped, and turned back one last time.

"You can't throw money at everyone just because you feel guilty, Mr. Sinclair."

For the first time, his hand paused on his cuff.

I didn't wait to see what his face did.

I walked out and slammed the door behind me so hard the whole hallway shook.

The ride home felt endless. I sat on the bus in a crumpled black dress and bare feet, my heels dangling from my fingers, ignoring the stares of every person who passed. A teenager snickered. An old woman gave me a pitying look.

I stared out the window and said nothing.

When I finally pushed open the door to my apartment, the smell of damp walls and old carpet hit me. It had never felt so welcome.

I tore off the dress right there in the doorway and tossed it into the corner, along with the shoes. The silk landed in a shimmering pile.

It looked ridiculous in my tiny, beat-up living room. Like a fancy ghost.

"Good," I muttered. "Stay there."

I headed for the kitchen and opened the cupboard. Half a box of cereal. A jar of peanut butter scraped almost clean. That was it.

For a split second, I thought about the money in Julian's wallet.

Enough to pay a month of rent, probably. Maybe more.

My jaw tightened.

No.

I would rather eat dry cereal for a week than let that man believe I had slept with him for payment. I had nothing left in this world but my pride. I wasn't about to sell it.

My mind kept replaying the morning. His flat voice. That careless shrug. Jordan's smug face from yesterday, and Julian's face today, both of them looking at me like I was beneath them.

I banged the cereal box down on the counter.

"Men," I muttered. "Rich or poor, they're all the same."

I poured a bowl and added what little milk I had left, then stood there with a spoon in my hand, staring at it. My stomach growled, loud and angry.

'Eat. Forget it. Just eat and start again.'

I picked up the spoon.

My phone rang.

The sudden buzz made me jump. I grabbed it off the counter, heart thumping hard.

Jordan.

It had to be. He must have realized what a mistake he'd made. He was probably going to beg, to cry, to say he never meant any of it.

A tiny, stupid part of me waited for the name to appear.

Then I saw the screen. No contact name. Just a number I didn't know.

I frowned. A debt collector, maybe? Or my landlord, calling to remind me about my thirty days?

I almost let it ring.

At the last second, I swiped to answer.

"Hello?"

"Good morning. Is this Tessa?" The voice was warm and professional. "My name is Nancy Grace, calling from the Au Pair Agency."

The spoon slipped out of my fingers and clattered into the bowl.

"Sorry, what?"

"The Au Pair Agency," she repeated, with a smile in her voice. "You registered with us several months ago for nanny positions."

I had. I had signed up the same week I lost my last tutoring job. I had called, emailed, even stopped by in person twice. They had always told me the same thing.

"Nothing available right now. We'll contact you."

They never did.

After a while, I had stopped hoping.

"Yes," I said quickly, nearly dropping the phone. "Yes, this is Tessa. I'm here."

"Wonderful. We have an opening that matches your qualifications. It's a full-time, live-in position with a wealthy single father."

Live-in.

Those two words nearly made me cry. A place to live. A real salary. A way out of the hole I'd been drowning in.

"The pay is unusually high," Nancy continued, "which is why I'll be honest. There are several candidates interested. They'll all be interviewed this afternoon."

"This afternoon?"

"Two o'clock. Can you make it?"

I didn't even look at the clock. "Yes! Yes, of course. I'll be there."

"Good. Make a strong first impression, Tessa. The family is very particular."

"I will. Thank you so much, I really-wait, who's the family? What's the-"

Click.

The line went dead.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it.

"Hello?" I said to nobody.

A second later, the screen lit up with a text message. An address. A long one, in the wealthiest part of town, a street I had only ever seen in magazines.

No name. No details. Just a time and a place.

I slowly lowered myself onto the kitchen chair, the cereal forgotten.

A wealthy single father. A live-in position. Pay high enough to make an agency lady warn me about it.

Who on earth hired a nanny like that?

And why did a small, nervous voice at the back of my head whisper that I wasn't going to like the answer?