Chapter 1: Dusk Deals: The Contract Sealed With a Kiss
The air in The Gilded Handle was thick with the smell of spilled craft beer and desperation. Blake Crawford leaned against the polished mahogany bar, swirling an expensive scotch he wasn’t tasting. Across the room, near the dartboard, his ex-girlfriend Anya threw her head back and laughed at something a guy in a rugby shirt said. The sound, which used to feel like a prize, now grated against his nerves. She’d been doing a lot of laughing since she dumped him two weeks ago.
He’d tried flowers. He’d tried apologizing for things he wasn’t even sure he’d done. He’d even, in a moment of profound weakness, written a poem. Nothing worked. Anya moved through the world like a sleek yacht, and he was just choppy water in her wake.
His eyes scanned the room, looking for a distraction, a different face to focus on. That’s when he saw her. She was sitting alone at a small high-top, textbooks spread open next to a half-finished club soda. She was studying, actually studying, in the middle of a Thursday night bar crawl. It was so incongruent it was fascinating. She had a focused intensity, her brow slightly furrowed, one hand twisting a dreadlock around her finger. She wore a worn, soft-looking sweater that might have been nice three years ago. Everything about her screamed real in a room full of carefully curated personas.
Blake didn’t plan it. He just moved, abandoning his scotch, weaving through the crowd until he was beside her table. Up close, she was even more striking. Sharp, intelligent eyes, skin the color of rich coffee, and a mouth set in a line of mild irritation—probably at the noise.
“This seat taken?” he asked, his voice adopting its practiced, easy charm.
She glanced up, didn’t smile. “By my biochem textbook, yeah. It’s a pretty possessive date.”
“I can be persuasive.” He slid into the seat anyway. “Blake Crawford.”
“Imani Jones.” She didn’t offer a hand. She just looked at him, a quiet assessment that made him feel unexpectedly transparent. “You’re in my lit seminar. You sit in the back and look out the window.”
He was surprised she’d noticed. “Guilty. It’s all metaphors about daffodils and death. Hard to keep up.”
“It’s about the tension between individual experience and universal truth, actually,” she said, closing her book. “But I guess you have to be looking at the professor to catch that.”
A direct hit. He smiled, genuinely this time. “Ouch. So, Imani Jones, why are you doing homework in a bar on a Thursday?”
“The library closed for a pipe burst. This was the only place with light and a seat. The irony of being surrounded by people actively avoiding thought while I try to concentrate is not lost on me.” Her gaze flickered over his shoulder. “And I think your reason for being here is about to walk past.”
He followed her look. Anya was heading for the restroom, her path taking her directly by their table. Panic, hot and immediate, flooded his veins. He couldn’t be seen sitting here, alone, getting schooled by a girl with textbooks. He’d look pathetic. He had to look occupied. Desirable.
In a split-second decision fueled by pure, unadulterated panic, he stood up, effectively cornering Imani against the ivy-covered brick wall beside their table. He moved into her space, close enough that the clean, citrus scent of her cut through the bar funk. He could see the gold flecks in her brown eyes, wide now with surprise and a warning.
“What are you—?” she started, her voice low.
He dipped his head, his lips near her ear, his voice a rushed, hot whisper. “Name your price.”
She stiffened. He could feel the confusion and offense radiating from her. Anya was three steps away.
Then, something shifted in Imani’s eyes. The surprise crystallized into a sharp, calculating understanding. She looked past his shoulder, saw Anya’s approach, and connected the dots with frightening speed.
Anya’s perfume hit the air a second before she did.
Without hesitation, Imani’s hands came up. But instead of pushing him away, one slid to the back of his neck, the other cupped his jaw. Her grip was firm, decisive. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.
It wasn’t a soft, tentative kiss. It was an performance, a statement. Her lips moved against his with a convincing, practiced urgency that sent a jolt straight through him. His hands, hovering awkwardly, finally found the wall on either side of her head. His knees actually felt weak, a visceral reaction to the sheer, unexpected force of her. The world—the blaring music, Anya’s stunned pause beside them, the entire bar—narrowed to the pressure of her mouth and the deft, clever angle of her head.
Just as suddenly, she broke away, leaving him breathless. Anya was gone, a flash of blonde hair disappearing toward the hallway.
Imani’s eyes were dark and clear, inches from his. Her voice was a low, steady murmur meant only for him, still close enough that her breath warmed his lips.
“Ten grand a week.”
He blinked, his brain struggling to reboot. “What?”
“My price. Ten thousand dollars. Per week.” Her words were clinical, cutting through the haze she’d just created. “You get a believable, bespoke girlfriend. I get tuition and my mother’s medical bills. You will follow my lead. You will not touch me unless it’s for show. And you will not, under any circumstances, actually fall for me. This is a transaction.”
She paused, letting the astronomical sum hang in the air between them. A faint, ruthless smile touched her lips.
“I own you until she’s begging to have you back. Do we have a deal, Blake Crawford?”
He stared at her, this scholarship student with her biochem textbooks and her impossible demand. He saw the steel in her gaze, the absolute lack of玩笑. This wasn’t a hookup. This was a contract. And she’d just written the first clause with a kiss that had short-circuited his entire system.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the part that was used to getting what he wanted, the part that was currently bleeding from Anya’s rejection, screamed that this was insane. Another part, a newer, more desperate part, saw the ruthless efficiency in Imani’s plan. She wasn’t offering comfort. She was offering a weapon.
Anya’s laugh echoed from across the room again.
He looked at Imani’s waiting, expressionless face.
“Deal,” he said, the word leaving his mouth before he could truly weigh the cost.