Page 53 of Wicked Proposal

“Your abdomen?”

“Belly button,” he specifies. “Then it zigzags all the way down, right here, under my?—”

“Okay!” I push him gently back down on the cot. “Make a fist with your right hand for me, yeah? Real tight, like we always do.”

“Should I turn away?” he asks with an edge of panic. “M-my brother always faints when he’s doing this. I heard it can be hereditary. I read an article saying?—”

“All done,” I interrupt before he works himself into a hypochondriac frenzy. I pat Mr. Konrad on the back. “I’ll send these to the lab while we wait for your consults.”

“Already?” He glances in disbelief to the gauze on his arm. “Wow. I didn’t feel a thing! You’ve really got the touch of an angel, Nurse Winters.”

I can’t help but preen a little. Gratification in this job doesn’t come cheap—I’ll take what I can get. Even if it’s from Hypochondriac Kevin.

“Why, thank you.”

“Also, I think you should take the sugar baby job.”

“Me, too,” Kallie joins in. “Then I can becomeyoursugar baby.”

“Haha. Very funny.”

“Hey! He’s hot, rich, and willing. I say go for it. What do you have to lose?”

Hotis an understatement.

Rich,even more so.

But…

“I don’t know.” I wince. My heart flutters with a thousand conflicting feelings. “He didn’t strike me as the most reliable person on the planet. Or the most considerate.”

Flashes from that diner keep overlapping with his coldness on my doorstep. The way he ordered me coffee, made me smile, brought me back to myself. The way hetook careof me. Those are all good things.

Then there’s the way he dismissed me like a cheap hooker.

It’s been three weeks since he left that ultimatum on my doorstep. Three weeks of his contract burning a hole in my kitchen drawer, right next to the knives and just as sharp.

Today, at midnight, the offer will expire.

“I’m with Mia on this,” Reese offers. “Sorry, but it sounds like a serial killer podcast waiting to happen. No one pays that much money for a girl, let alone a fake girl. No offense.”

I sigh deeply and sit at the foot of Mr. Konrad’s cot. “You’re right. It’s madness.”

But without Yulian, how am I going to afford Eli’s school?

I keep swinging back and forth on that. One second, I’m crying myself to sleep, thinking of all the ways I’ve failed him since he was born.

The next, I look at my son’s smiling face and feel like we’re gonna be okay, fancy school or not.

And then there’s the whole Yulian situation. His smirk, so rare and sharp I could cut myself on it. His million-dollar clothes, million-dollar cologne.

Million-dollar abs,my horny mind supplies.

No. Nuh-uh. I’m not gonna fall for it. I’m not gonna let myself get tangled up into some entitled billionaire’s power schemes, whatever they may be.

I’ve already seen the damage it can do.

“Break time, is it?” a sneering voice interrupts.