A Million Dollar Deal

CHAPTER 1

Sophia

“Stars Don't Wear Off-Brand Cotton”

“So… what do you think?”

I stood at the door, still vibrating from the bumpy ride back from my afternoon deliveries.

Daphne was standing in the center of the room, looking less like my sister and more like a model on a Parisian runway.

She was draped in a dark green, crocodile-skin leather mini skirt that shimmered with the kind of glossy arrogance usually reserved for billionaire ex-wives.

Above it sat an ivory oversized sweater that looked softer than the clouds, but the real star were the boots.

Red. Leather. Thigh-high.

They looked like they’d been dipped in the blood of my bank account.

“Good,” I managed.

“Just good?” Daphne’s lips curled. She did a slow, practiced pirouette, her platinum-blonde hair catching the dim light like a halo.

If I'm being honest my opinion doesn't matter.

“Honestly, Soph, you’ve spent so much time talking to corn stalks that you’ve forgotten what art looks like.”

I didn't snap back. I didn't have the energy.

“Okay, it looks new?”

“You're such a sweetheart to notice, even if you look like you haven’t slept since the last harvest.” She grinned.

She was right.

I was a walking advertisement for rural exhaustion: muddied denim dungarees, a red plaid shirt that had seen too many wash cycles, and a low bun that was currently shedding strands like a dying willow and mud-caked boots.

There was literal Kansas topsoil under my fingernails and my body felt every bit of thirty.

Daphne was a high-fashion glitch in our crumbling farmhouse.

I felt like a sturdy, reliable tugboat parked next to a sleek, glass-bottomed yacht.

“And… it looks expensive,”

She drifted closer, the scent of her French perfume whose name I can't even pronounce hit me like a physical wall, clashing violently with the damp earth and diesel fumes clinging to my denim dungarees.

“Naturally. I'm going to be a star, Sophie. And stars don’t wear off-brand cotton or live in the dirt.”

She said as she tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“But really, sis? Next time I’m out shopping, I’ll sprint to a Victoria’s Secret and find you a bra that actually fits. You’re sagging a bit. It's depressing for both of us.”

It's not sagging, I just have bigger boobs than you.

Yet again, I ignored the jab, my eyes fixed on the skirt.

“Is this the ‘emergency’?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Duh, yes.”

“Are you trying to tell me that I left my work, skipped my lunch, and drove like a maniac because you said it was a life-or-death situation. So it was just you playing dress-up?”

“It's an investment in my future,” she snapped, her blue eyes flashing.

“I have a meeting with the Vanguard agent today,” she said, admiring her own jawline.

“Do you know who'll be featured in the fashion show?”

“No.”

“It's Ezra Wilde. My celebrity crush. Can you imagine the two of us? The ‘Farm Girl Turned Icon' and the world's biggest hearth-throb. We'll be the new power couple. The internet will literally collapse.”

Huh? Ezra who?

I thought she had a crush on Andrew Ashford?

​I took a breath, trying to keep the vertigo that always lurked at the edges of my vision from taking hold.

“It's a beautiful dream. But help me with the math. Those boots, that skirt, the five-thousand-dollar deposit for this ‘gig’... where did the money come from?”

Daphne didn't even look at me as she tugged at the zipper of a red boot.

“Oh, I got it from your room.”

The world stuttered.

“What did you say?”

“Has all that tractor noise finally turned your brain to mush?”

She stood up checking her teeth for lipstick.

“I needed it for the portfolio. It was just sitting there in that ceramic rooster like it was waiting for something important to happen.”

“That was ten thousand dollars!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.

“That was the property tax! That was the bank installment! Daphne, call that man. Call the agent. Tell him there was a mistake. Tell him you're a thief and you need the money back right now!”

“I most certainly will not,” she huffed.

“You didn't sign any legal documents...This is obviously a scam!”

Daphne actually laughed—a bright, mocking sound.

“A scam? You're so provincial, it's actually cute. I'll prove it to you. I'll call Mr Vance right now and confirm the Saturday fitting just to shut you up.”

She hit the speakerphone with a flourish of her manicured thumb.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

No answer.

She tried again. Nothing.

Suddenly her phone lit up with a call from her best friend, Dani.

Daphne smirked at me.

“See? This is probably Dani calling to coordinate our hair appointments for the show.”

She answered the call.

“Hey, babe! You ready for Saturday—”

“Daphne, tell me you haven't sent them the money yet,”

Dani's voice came through the speaker, high-pitched and breathless.

“Why?”

“The agency, the gig—it’s all a sham. Half the girls in town are at the police station right now. And Ezra Wilde just went on I*******m Live, he looked totally confused.

He said he's never heard of ‘Elite Vanguard' and he doesn't even have a runway show on his schedule. The agency website just vanished. It never existed!”

The world began to blur.

A sudden, violent wave of vertigo washed over me—like a nauseating merry-go-round.

My knees buckled. I reached out blindly for the arm of the chair to steady myself.

I was falling, my vision blurring into streaks of red and green, but as I lunged for the seat, Daphne let out a sharp, panicked gasp.

She didn't reach for my arm. She didn't try to catch me.

Instead, she snatched her Chanel purse off the chair with a frantic jerk, pulling it back against her chest so I wouldn't collapse on it.

“Watch it! This is calfskin, Sophia! If you get farm-grime on this, I will actually die.” She shrieked.

I hit the chair hard, the room spinning as I zoned out of Daphne's ensuing meltdown.

I couldn't hear her anymore—I was busy calculating the math of our ruin.

Ten thousand dollars. Gone.

The bank installment in three days. Gone.

The property taxes. Gone.

Twelve years of sweat and calluses evaporated because of a fake promise from a ghost agent.

Daphne wasn't looking at me.

Instead, she started throwing a literal tantrum, pacing the room in those ridiculous red boots that were currently stepping over my dignity.

“This can't be happening! Do you know how much work I put in to get that slot for my Saturday aesthetic? My meeting with Ezra! My career! It's all ruined! I have nothing to wear to the club tonight now that my mood is totally trashed!”

She wasn't sorry.

She wasn't aware I was there or the fact that we're on the brink of homelessness.

She was busy mourning a Saturday night while I was mourning our home.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with trembling fingers.

It was a text from Andrew Ashford, my employer.

‘Sophia, Noah is asking for you. Also, bring the extra crate of strawberries. We need to talk. I have an… unusual proposition for you.’

I stared at the screen.

A “proposition” from a man who had more money in his watch than I had in my entire lineage.

I looked at Daphne, who was currently stomping her feet and crying over a lost I*******m opportunity, and then back at the phone.

I didn't have a choice.

I was a farm girl with a debt, and Andrew Ashford was a man who might have a million-dollar solution.