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EDEN

“I need you, baby.”

George squirms under the covers, groping his way over to me. I’d roll my eyes at him, but I don’t even want to bother opening them. I’m barely awake—and not in the mood for my boyfriend’s shit.

“Mmhmm,” I grunt, turning onto my front and shoving both arms under my pillow. “You could’ve fooled me.”

I’m almost at the end of my tether. Last night, I made dinner and opened a bottle of wine for us to share. Then I drank it all while waiting for him to come home from his night out with his buddies—again. The last thing I remember is watching some terrible nineties movie and mindlessly scrolling eBay. I guess we’ll see if any tacky vintage lamps show up in the mail.

But it’s not just George’s late nights. It’s the way he expects me to be home from my art studio to wait on him hand and foot if he does show up.

“Ohhh,” George groans like he’s already inside me. He swings his leg over my thighs and straddles me, bracing a forearm by my head to lean down. “I’ve been waiting all night for you. Feel how much I need you?”

Pretty hard to miss the hard line of his cock between my ass cheeks. A half-hearted tingle runs down my spine and I sigh, closing my eyes as George rocks his body against mine.

At least I don’t have to do anything.

“It’s good—coming home to you,” George pants. He licks my shoulder and my neck with more enthusiasm than skill, but my body is starting to react. Despite my grumpiness, it does feel kind of nice to squeeze my thighs around George’s hard cock.

“Love you too,” I grumble under my breath.

George misses the annoyance. He just groans softly as he rocks into me, the tip of his cock waking all those sensitive nerve endings… and then he licks my ear.

I hate the wet feeling, and he knows it. It’s wet, warm, and completely unsexy. Just like that, my boner wilts.

“George!” I groan into the pillow, crinkling my nose. I turn my head to the side, trying to rub the pillow against my ear.

“Yeah,” George moans.

Of course he’s taking it as encouragement. Dumbass.

I crack my eyes open to shoot him an annoyed glare, but his eyes are still closed. He grabs me tighter than ever, his nails digging into my hips.

At least this part feels good. I like the slide of his hard shaft against my hole, between my sensitive thighs. If I get a hand under myself, I can get off at the same time?—

“Yeah, baby. Take it! I’m gonna cum all over you!”

Or not. “Yeah? Are you?” I halfheartedly play along as George humps me. His rhythm grows faster and faster in these frantic final moments.

At last, he lets go of my hip, and he’s jerking himself off above me. “Here… it… coooomes …!”

He sounds like a hockey announcer.

My hard-on wilts away. At least that saves me the trouble of taking care of myself, since George sure as hell won’t bother.

I should probably go back to sleep before I say anything I regret. It’s getting harder and harder to hold up my end of our deal. George has always made it clear that I give him what he wants—and George also gives George what he wants. Then he gives me what he thinks I need, and he gets to brag to everyone at his fancy parties about being a patron of the arts.

It’s all a pretty sweet deal, if you’re George. Nobody’s told him that being a middleman for Daddy’s money doesn’t make him a provider. But I’m living in a penthouse in downtown Vancouver, and my art studio is free—courtesy of his father’s property empire.

That’s worth a hell of a lot of I love you s and candlelit dinners, right?

Usually, George would be unconscious and snoring by now. But he elbows me. “Here, unlock your phone. I wanna take a photo.”

“For me to remember this by?” I quip.

George grins. “I know you miss me.”

It’s weird, though. George doesn’t usually want photo evidence. Or naughty videos, or even sexy texts in the middle of the day like most boyfriends.

Is he finally realizing that there’s more to life than the corporate grind? Getting tired of staying out all night with his damn buddies and his damn clients, acting like he works his ass off?

With a glimmer of hope, I open my eyes… but he’s shoving the phone in my face. “Jesus,” I grumble, swatting his hand away. “Use yours.”

“You know I can’t have that stuff in my cloud. Just tell me your password. Or here, let me use Face ID?—”

My sixth sense is tingling. Something’s up.

“You don’t have to unlock it to take a photo, asshat.” I snatch my phone away from him—and roll onto my back.

“Eden!” George groans. “God, you’re so accident-prone. Now there’s a wet spot. On my side of the bed. Go get a cloth.”

He helpfully reaches out to take my phone out of my hand again. Instead, I scoot back against George’s pillows and sit up to thumb through my notifications.

“Eden!” George snaps, but I can’t miss the panicked tone in his voice. “You’re making a mess.”

There it is: a voice note from George, sent at four in the morning. I tap the play button. George freezes like a deer in the headlights as my phone blasts tinny music and laughter—and George’s most obnoxiously drunk voice.

“Bruuuuce! Hey, listen, bud, I need a favour.”

My heart sinks. It’s not even for me, is it?

“Wrong number. Sorry. I was just gonna save you the trouble and delete it—” George is trying his best smooth-talking businessman act, and I’m not fooled. The more he scrambles, the more I want to hear this.

“I’m gonna crash on your couch. Just long enough to sober up before I go home to… the old backup plan.”

Wait, what?

More laughter fills the air.

The voice note cuts off. All that’s left is the deafening silence in our bedroom… and the fire of humiliation in my cheeks. The slow, icy, creeping sickness that crawls into the pit of my stomach. I turn to look at George, but he’s suddenly very interested in the view out the bedroom window.

I’m not surprised.

And that’s the worst part: I always knew he was only ever half-in.

“You don’t understand.” George throws off the covers, standing up abruptly to stride back and forth across the bedroom floor.

“I understand everything I need to,” I tell him, my hands tightening around the covers to stop them from shaking.

George turns to look at me with that calculating look in his eye, like he’s trying to rescue a business negotiation that’s going south. “But?—”

“ George .” I point at the bedroom door. “Get the fuck out. We’re done.”

We just traded roles. A weight I didn’t even realize I was carrying lifts from my shoulders and settles onto his, right where it always belonged.

“You don’t mean?—”

“Oh, I do.”

“I’ve invested so much into you?—”

“ Invested ,” I echo, past the fury that tightens my chest. I’m just an acquisition. A pretty little artist for him to trot out at family dinners and office Christmas parties—which, for him, are the same thing.

It’s all clear now. And so is my path: freedom.

George shakes his head. “Think about it, Eden,” he tells me condescendingly. “I could find a trophy husband anywhere. This is your chance to succeed in life.”

“My chance to—” I don’t know how I can be laughing when I’m this furious, but it’s just so absurd. I’ve been clinging tighter and digging deeper, desperately searching for the real George under all these layers… and here he is, showing his whole ass.

Literally.

“My—” I try again, but my giggle turns to a snort, and then a full-on laugh.

George glowers at me. “I’m the best deal in town!” he snaps, turning on his heel to storm out of the bedroom and down the hallway.

My phone buzzes. Grateful for the distraction, I scramble to grab it. I don’t recognize the number, but I still answer it. “Hello?”

“Hi. I’m Rod. Owner of Dawn’s Embrace.”

“Oh, yeah, uh huh…” I stall, but my brain isn’t giving me a thing.

“You won the auction, man. Congrats! The other bidder gave up way too soon. She’s a real bargain.”

“I did?” I swallow hard. “Wow. I’ve got my very own… uh…” I pause, crossing my fingers.

“Yeah. Your very own houseboat.”

“…houseboat,” I echo weakly.

Shit. I got drunk and got into a bidding war on a houseboat .

But as I stare across the room at the open doorway, I can hear George banging around in the kitchen. Anything beats the humiliation of knowing how he thinks of me: the old backup plan.

“Yeah! Okay, great. You know what? I’ve gotta make some arrangements. I’ll call you back.”

I’m going to sell all my stuff and buy a houseboat. I just hope it’s the right move… because the universe doesn’t make mistakes, but I sure do.