Chapter 5: Fifty Thousand Reasons

ELARA.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off my girlfriend.” Kyle’s voice sliced through the music like it had been waiting for the exact right second to ruin someone’s night. 

Mason’s face contracted. His fingers were still locked around my wrist, tight enough that the bones ached. He looked at Kyle like the idea of letting go was personally offensive.

“What are you gonna do if I don’t?”

I winced and tried to twist free but the pressure only increased. My skin burned under his grip. 

People had stopped dancing near us and phones were already up. The air felt thinner, like the whole room was holding its breath to see who would swing first.

Kyle scoffed. The sound was soft and almost bored. Then he shifted his weight, shoulder rolling forward like he was about to throw a real punch. 

Mason flinched so hard he took two full steps back. My wrist was suddenly empty and the absence of pressure almost hurt worse.

“Motherfucker,” Kyle said, voice low. “You’re all bark and no bite.”

Mason’s jaw flexed, color climbed up his neck. “I’ll fuck you up.”

Kyle stepped in until their chests were almost touching. The height difference wasn’t dramatic, but the presence was. 

Kyle carried himself like someone who had never once lost a fight. “I don’t think that’s something you wanna say to your captain.”

He reached out, grabbed the front of Mason’s shirt with both hands, and gave it two sharp little tugs like he was brushing imaginary dirt off. 

The gesture was deliberately disrespectful. Then he turned, closed his hand around mine, and started walking without checking if I was ready.

“I’m coming back for my car.” I threw the words over my shoulder because I needed them out of my mouth. 

Kyle kept pulling me through the crowd, past staring faces and lifted phones, straight out the back entrance into the cold night air. 

The second the heavy door shut behind us the music dropped to a distant, muffled thump. My ears rang in the sudden quiet.

I ripped my hand free and stopped walking.

“What the fuck was that?”

I had to tip my head all the way back just to meet his eyes. 

Jesus Christ. 

Why is he so damn fucking tall? The top of my head barely cleared his shoulder. Up close he looked even bigger—broad across the chest, still carrying the residual heat of whatever workout he’d done earlier. 

The same face that had stared down at me two mornings ago with pure disgust.

He looked down at me like the height difference was the least interesting part of this conversation.

“I was just trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” A short, ugly laugh left my throat. “Since when? I don’t even know you.”

“You know enough.” His voice stayed even, almost conversational. “I need this. You have to play the part of my girlfriend or my reputation never recovers.”

“I don’t give a shit about your reputation.”

He studied my face for a long second.  “What if I offered you thirty thousand dollars a month?”

The number hit me like a physical blow. My debt flashed behind my eyes so hard I almost staggered—the doubled principal, the seven-day clock, the smooth voice on the phone that already owned pieces of my future. 

Every skipped meal, every double shift, every risk I’d taken for a car that was currently spinning around Mason’s finger like a trophy. I couldn’t quite believe I’d heard him right.

“What did you say?”

Kyle’s mouth twitched at the corner. “Not enough? Fine. Fifty thousand a month. And a new car.”

My eyes went wide. The cold night air suddenly felt thinner in my lungs. 

Fifty thousand every single month. That money could shut the loan sharks up permanently and maybe even let me breathe again without calculating every grocery receipt.

“This isn’t a joke, right?”

“It isn’t.” He said softly. “You say yes, I draft the paperwork tonight. You sign, I make the first deposit before you leave my place.”

I stared at him. The party noise still pulsed faintly through the walls behind us. 

Somewhere inside that house Mason was probably already spinning a new story for the phones. Bianca was probably still attached to his side and I was standing in a parking lot in a dress that barely covered my ass, being offered more money than I’d ever seen in one place by a guy who had looked at me like garbage two days ago.

“Wow,” I said slowly. “You should’ve led the conversation with that.”

A small, humorless smile touched his mouth. “So at the end it all comes down to money.”

“I’m damn broke right now,” I said, there was no point pretending otherwise. “And since I have an opportunity to make money, I’m going to take it.”

“That’s fine.”

I held up a hand before he could say anything else. “Hold on a second. We don’t have to kiss or have sex or anything, right?”

“Not necessarily. Unless it’s actually necessary for the cameras.”

The way he said “necessary” made something low in my stomach twist but I ignored it.

“I hope it never comes to that.”

He looked at me for a beat longer than was comfortable. The streetlight caught the darker flecks in his eyes. “Well… we’ll see.”

I exhaled hard through my nose and turned slightly, already planning my escape route. “I’ve gotta go.”

I shoved my hands into the tiny pockets of the dress Iris had forced on me, searching for my house key. 

It was empty, asides the cracked phone and a lipstick that wasn’t even mine. Iris was probably somewhere in that house right now, drunk and balls-deep in some girl she met twenty minutes ago. 

She wouldn’t answer for hours. I was in no mood to stand out here in the cold waiting like an abandoned dog.

Kyle watched my face change. “What?”

“I lost my house keys.”

“Shit.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking briefly annoyed. “You can crash at mine. You’ve done it once, you can do it again.”

My eyebrows pulled together so hard it almost hurt. I stared up at him, suspicion very obvious through the raise of my eyebrows.

“Are you trying to fuck me?”

He actually looked offended. The expression sat strangely on a face that usually looked carved from indifference. “What the fuck is wrong with you and your trust issues?”

“I’ve trusted a guy before,” I said flatly, gesturing inside the house. “You know how that went.”

“I’m different.”

“Oh please. You’re probably worse.”

He turned without another word and started walking toward the line of cars parked along the side of the estate. 

After three long strides he glanced back over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

“Are you getting in or what?”

I hesitated for half a second, weighing the cold, the missing keys, the fifty thousand dollars, and the fact that I had nowhere else to go that didn’t involve begging. 

Then I muttered, “Fine. Fine,” and followed.

His car wasn’t just any car. It was a yellow Lamborghini that made the beat-down Benz I’d bought for Mason look like a fucking toy from a cereal box. 

The doors lifted upward like wings. The interior smelled like expensive leather and his cologne, maybe, or just money. The seats hugged my body like they had been designed for it.

I slid into the passenger side and the door shut with a soft click that somehow made the silence louder. 

How rich is this dude really? 

Fifty thousand a month was pocket change to him. I was selling my name and my face and whatever scraps of dignity I still had left for money that wouldn’t even dent his account. 

The thought should have made me feel powerful. Instead it just made me feel cheap in an expensive way.

He drove in silence. The city lights smeared past the window in long streaks of gold. I watched them without really seeing them, mind looping between the debt, the videos still floating around Gossip Hub, Mason’s voice calling me a puck bunny, and the ridiculous sum of money that was suddenly on the table. 

My wrist still throbbed where Mason had grabbed me. I pressed my thumb into the sore spot just to feel something other than the mess inside my head.

I must have dozed off somewhere between one streetlight and the next, because the next thing I knew my eyes were flinging open to a different ceiling.

The same room, the same half-closed blinds letting in thin slices of morning light. The same ridiculous bed that felt like it cost more than my entire tuition. The sheets were cool and expensive against my bare legs.

I looked down.

I was wearing one of his jerseys. The fabric was soft, oversized, and still carried the faint scent of his cologne.

My nipples were hard and pointed straight through the thin material, traitorous little bastards that didn’t care about the circumstances.

My dress from last night was nowhere in sight.

The bathroom door opened with a soft click.

Kyle stepped out in nothing but low-slung black sweatpants, hair damp from the shower, skin still carrying a faint sheen of water. 

A few drops trailed down the center of his chest. He stopped when he saw me sitting up, one hand already fisted in the sheets like I might need to fight my way out.

I yanked the hem of the jersey down as far as it would go and glared at him hard enough to set something on fire.

“What the fuck did you do to me?”