Wicked Proposal

Chapter 3 Episode 3

Plus-ones are a status symbol, as much as a good suit and an expensive watch. And the man I’m meeting tonight, Baldwin, isexactly the kind of shallow bastard to care mostly about the arm candy I bring for him to gawk at.

If I show up alone, this deal’s as good as dead.

Meet me there with my date, I type quickly to Maksim.

But as I walk to my car, I realize the problem with that plan.

My car isn’t there anymore.

“What the—” My eyes fix on the bright orange sticker on the ground. A towing company’s details. “Blyat’.”

Furious, I type in the towing company’s number and call.

“You have my car,” I spit the second someone picks up.

An automated voice answers me. “You’ve reached Brownsville Towing Trucks. If you want to report a car, press⁠—”

“I want to talk to a f*****g human, goddammit.”

The robotic voice keeps blathering on. “ … To get your car back, please show up with your documentation between 9:00 A.M.and 6:00 P.M.”

I glance at my watch: 8:34 P.M.

“To go back to the menu, press⁠—”

I toss my phone across the street. It lands with a loud crack on the concrete, shards flying every which way.

I don’t need this s**t. Not today of all days. Not when the thing I’ve been chasing after for so long is finally within my reach.

A way to find my family’s killers—to get my revenge.

But it can’t happen without Baldwin’s alliance.

I pull out a spare phone. I’m about to type another text to Maksim…

… when I see her.

Messy purple scrubs. Ash brown hair, pulled up in a haphazard bun. Tired blue eyes, without a smudge of makeup. A beautymark just under her chin that draws my eyes like a target…

… and a s**t-eating grin like the cat who ate the canary.

All at once, I know what happened.

I stalk towards the woman. As I get closer, I realize how tiny she is—barely reaching my shoulder.

But if she thinks she’s getting my merciful side, she’d better think again.

That s**t does not exist.

“You.” I stop in front of her. “Did you get my f*****g car towed?”

She freezes. Then she turns with steel in her spine, her shoulders held up, chin raised in defiance.

For a tiny thing, she’s a spitfire.

“I did try to tell you.”

I can tell my closeness rattles her, but she hides it better than most. It’s a refreshing novelty. The way she holds my gaze. Theway she doesn’t back down, not even for a second.

It’s been years since anyone’s spoken to me like this—like I don’t f*****g scare them.

That can only mean one thing.

She doesn’t know who the f**k I am.

Just like that, I get an idea.

Whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea remains to be seen.

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 inyour 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. Catalogingbills 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 dareshow 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 w***e,” 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.

“Nothing illegal,” she blurts. “Nothing s****l. 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.

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

“I don’t give a s**t,” 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.

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 thefastest shower in history and ran back down in my third-hand Cavallini heels.

Cue the most awkward seven minutes and a half of my f*****g life.

Mr. Cheese Grater Abs is impatient.

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

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

But do you want to be his date?

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 payit all off for a month or two.

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’mMaksim.”

“Mia,” I blurt before remembering we weren’t supposed to be doing names. f**k. “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’stoo late to change my mind.

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.”

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 astranger 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, letalone 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 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.

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 getnaked next to someone else without accidental contact. Every near-brush with him makes my heart leap up into my throat.