5

YULIAN

My offer has her head spinning.

I’ll tell you what I need and why you’re perfect for it, and when you tell me yes, I’m going to put a large amount of cash in your hand, and you’re going to thank me for the easiest money you’ve ever made in your life.

Her face goes through all the colors of the rainbow. I can practically see the gears in her brain working overtime. Cataloging bills to be paid. Clothes to be bought. Dreaming of a vacation, maybe, for once in her overworked life.

It’s like everything she is has been splayed out before me. I can taste her despairing midnight tears, the ones she doesn’t dare show anyone. I can feel the heartbroken clench of her fists as the world frustrates her again and again.

She’s been beaten down by it.

This is a leg up she taught herself long ago never to expect.

“I need a plus-one,” I tell her succinctly. “My date is… indisposed, on short notice. You’ll take her place.”

“I’m not a whore,” she hisses, cheeks bright red.

“And I don’t pay for sex.” I send my location pin to Maksim so he comes to collect me and my new date here. “Ten thousand. That’s my final offer.”

Her blue eyes go wide. “T-ten…?!”

“Ten thousand dollars. For one night of your time. You’d be stupid not to accept.”

I can see more emotions clashing in her eyes. Pride versus practicality.

It’s easy to see which will win.

“I have conditions,” she says carefully.

“Name them.”

“Nothing illegal,” she blurts. “Nothing sexual. And no names.”

Her boundaries amuse me. As if she has any idea what real danger looks like.

By stepping into my world for even one night, she’s already in deeper than she realizes.

But it costs me nothing to humor her. To pretend her little boundaries mean anything at all.

“Sure thing, Nurse Winters.”

Her gaze darts to her nametag. I find myself enjoying the blush creeping higher and higher along her cheeks. Can’t help but wonder if the skin beneath her collarbone has the same delicious scarlet hue.

“Look—”

“I don’t give a shit,” I interrupt. “You have fifteen minutes to make yourself presentable. Go, or the deal’s off.”

I can tell she wants to mouth off some more, but she must realize how badly she’s rushing against the clock.

With a final glare at me, she rushes back upstairs.

The second she does, I pick my phone back up.

“Maks. It’s me. Run a full background check on a ‘Nurse Winters’ living in Brownsville, right near the pin I just sent you.”

I adjust my cufflinks and feel a smile slowly widening on my face. Muscles I rarely use, now warming up again.

That nurse’s attitude, her utter refusal to bend the knee…

It makes me want to see how far I can push her before she breaks.

5

MIA

My heel taps nervously against the sidewalk.

I’m still processing the craziness of the past half-hour. I couldn’t even explain myself properly to Kallie and Eli. I just took the fastest shower in history and ran back down in my third-hand Cavallini heels.

Cue the most awkward seven minutes and a half of my fucking life.

Mr. Cheese Grater Abs is impatient.

Very impatient.

He keeps checking his phone, snarling at passing cars, going through the five stages of pissed off and then starting over again at the beginning.

Whoever’s keeping him waiting, I wouldn’t want to be them.

But do you want to be his date?

In short: fuck no.

He’s right about one thing, though: I do need the money.

Upstairs, my kid has a pair of basketball shoes filled with holes that I can replace if I do this. My bills, my loans—I could pay it all off for a month or two.

I could breathe.

I just need to get through tonight.

The purr of an engine snaps me out of my thoughts. A sleek black limo rolls up, stopping right in front of us.

“Yo, Yulian!” A big guy with facial tattoos and a wicked grin waves from the driver’s seat. “How’s it hanging, new girl? I’m Maksim.”

“Mia,” I blurt before remembering we weren’t supposed to be doing names. Fuck. “I mean⁠—”

“Get in.” The man—Yulian, apparently—throws the car door open. “Now.”

It’s the least gentlemanly way anyone’s ever held a door open for me, to say the least. Someone ought to teach him what “please” means or what a “smile” is.

But a payday’s a payday, so I grit my teeth and slide into the limo.

Yulian doesn’t sit in the front. Instead, to my mounting horror, he sits right next to me.

“Drive,” he barks to Maksim.

The car merges back into traffic. I stare wistfully at my beaten-up Honda as she disappears into the distance, wondering if it’s too late to change my mind.

“Put this on.”

I startle at the item in Yulian’s hands. “What’s this?”

“Your dress.” His gray eyes rake over my midnight blue A-line. “One that doesn’t come from a thrift store.”

“Hey! It’s pre-loved.”

“It’s a disaster. Change.”

I gawk in confusion at the opaque garment bag he thrusts in my hands.

Conflict twists my chest. I may need this money, but no one ever said anything about having to strip naked in a car with a stranger to get it.

In fact, I was pretty clear on this not happening.

But Yulian is still staring at me, gray eyes cold as stone, fingers drumming impatiently on his thigh. “Put it on, Ms. Winters. Unless you’d like to back out of our deal.”

With a swallow, I unzip the bag. “Fine. But you’re turning around. And—oh.”

The words die in my throat.

Cool, pale blue silk shimmers in my hands, spilling through my fingers like water. I’ve never seen anything this beautiful, let alone touched it.

The fabric, the handiwork—it’s exquisite. A far cry from any “pre-loved” dress I’ve ever owned.

This piece has never been loved before.

I’m its first.

“And?”

I startle back to the present. “What?”

“You said ‘and.’” A faint smirk paints Yulian’s lips. He’s having the time of his life watching me squirm. “I’m turning around, and…?”

Pettiness flares inside me. “And I’m keeping the dress,” I snap. “Now, do your part, Bright Eyes. Sit and spin.”

With that smug smirk still firmly in place, Yulian obliges.

Yulian.

I roll his name on my tongue as I strip.

It sounds way sweeter than the man it belongs to.

My hands fumble every step of the way. The limo may be big, but it isn’t that big. No car is big enough for someone to get naked next to someone else without accidental contact. Every near-brush with him makes my heart leap up into my throat.

I swallow my nerves and do the only thing I can think of to make this bearable: conversation.

“So, uhh… you do this often?”

It’s a lame joke at best, but Yulian doesn’t even pretend to play along. “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

“Bribe women into being your date,” I bite back acidly. “Is that a typical Friday night for you, or do you sometimes score without the help of your thick, fat wallet?”

I could swear I detect the faintest hint of a laugh dancing on the edge of his voice. “Nothing about this is typical. Well, that’s not quite true. You’re far from the first woman to strip naked in my car. But you are the first one who’s in it because you got my car towed.”

My face heats up. I said nothing sexual, but we’re thirty minutes into this absurd scenario and I’m naked, he’s talking about all the women he sleeps with, and we’re both probably picturing things we definitely shouldn’t be.

“To be fair,” I mumble, “you deserved it.”

“I thought nurses weren’t supposed to cause harm?”

“I’m sure your car is perfectly fine. And no one at NYU told me that cars fell under the Hippocratic Oath.”

“So that’s where you got your degree,” he muses. “NYU.”