Two

Otis’s hair blows in the wind like silk as he runs around the yard, all thirty square feet of it. For now, he’s still at the age where he’s grateful for everything.

But that won’t last forever.

I was gonna call Conrad last night, but I don’t want to make out like I’m desperate. Even though I am.

It’s the definition of desperation.

To pay nanny fees, I’m gonna have to forfeit a few nonessentials on the grocery list until further notice, including butter.

After finishing the toast, I drink a gallon of water to cure my dry mouth, and take out the card again.

Barbed fucking wire.

Not like I should be surprised. The neighbors are nuts and hate kids with a passion. To them, Otis is a dog they don’t want anywhere near their property.

“What’s that, Mommy?” Otis leans over my shoulder and tries to read the card.

“Nothing, baby. Just work stuff.”

I slip it back into my pocket before his next question is about the silhouette of a busty woman displayed on the card.

Of course, I have Otis, but a two-year-old shouldn’t be receiving dagger-eyes from the neighbors every time he wants to let off some steam

I lock eyes with the lizard woman across the barbed wire, a dirty cigarette clamped between her lips. If she has a problem looking at my son and me, she should burn her eyes out with the blunt end of the cigarette.

That will fix the problem.

“Come on.” I grab Otis’s hand. “Time to go inside.”

I close the sliding door behind us and watch him play with the toy soldiers that have been strewn all over the carpet for days now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m doing a whole lot better than my own single-parent mother. Since I got pregnant with Otis, I haven’t stepped foot in a nightclub.

My own mother was a member in several different bars on the Strip. Several times a week, I’d get home from school and hear the clopping of her stiletto heels against the floorboards as she announced that she was “heading out.”

But just because I abstain from sex and alcohol, unlike my own mother, it doesn’t make me a good mom, or one that deserves respect.

They couldn’t pay me a billion dollars to settle down with a self-indulgent asshole like Carter Trescott, or any of the rest of his overpriced-online-course friends.

External circumstances aside, Otis is the only good thing I have left in this world.

I can’t lose him.

An Irishman approached me in an empty parking lot at midnight last night and told me that my dream life is well within reach.

When things sound magical, there’s usually a catch.

And the catch is that I’ll have to let a millionaire nobody have his way with me for one night. But in exchange for a financially free life, that sounds like a good deal.

“Hello?” A voice crackles over the receiving end. “Conrad O’Neill speaking.”

“Conrad, it’s Carmen.”

“Carmen? Have we met?”

“Ah, the grocery store worker.”

That’show he remembers me? How many other women are there?

Birth control? If the men are paying thousands for a night with a woman, they can afford to bring a condom.

Although, if these men are anything like Carter Trescott, they’re probably gonna tell me how wearing latex gives them anaphylactic shock.

I open the message that has just pinged through on my phone—the location of the event. Typing the address into my search engine, I contemplate how much gas I’m gonna have to put into the car tomorrow.

Vegas really is a shithole, full of criminals and shady businessmen trying to make money illegitimately. Even well-known establishments have something to hide.

This just goes to show that criminals really are all around us, hiding in plain sight—some better than others. Our scaly-skinned neighbors definitely have their own agenda.

Don’t even get me started on Conrad O’Neill.

As soon as I get my hands on this money, Otis and I are out of here.

That’sifI’m lucky enough to make it out of the auction.