I drop it on the coffee table and press my palms against my eyes until I see stars.
Think, Kristen. Think.
Twelve thousand a month. For two months. That's twenty-four thousand dollars.
I could pay off some months of Lily's medical debt. I could build a savings cushion. I could breathe for the first time in years.
And after?
The Sartoris know people. That much is obvious. Rich people always know other rich people. If I do this job well. Meaning if I keep my head down and my mouth shut and manage their household without incident, they could recommend me to someone else.
Or they could get you killed.
I laugh out loud. It sounds hysterical in the empty apartment.
Killed. Like I matter enough to kill.
I'm nobody. A single mom from the South Side with a talent for CPR. Whatever the Sartoris are involved in, I'm not important enough to be a threat.
I just need to clean their house and manage their staff and not ask questions.
How hard can that be?
Or I could keep applying to restaurants and retail stores and hope someone takes a chance on a woman with gaps in her resume and a kid who needs health insurance.
But we both know I won't.
Because I'm out of options.
The Sartoris are offering me a lifeline.
All I have to do is grab it and not look too closely at what's attached.
I pick up the contract again. Read through every page twice. The salary is listed in clear black type. So is the health insurance. So is the transportation allowance.
This is either the smartest thing you've ever done or the dumbest.
Probably both.
I find a pen in the kitchen drawer and sign my name on the dotted line.
Kristen Thomas.
Two months.
I can survive anything for two months.
CHAPTER TEN
Kristen
The car sits at the curb.
It's 6:45 a.m., and the morning cold bites through my thin jacket. Lily's still asleep at my mother's apartment—another silent judgment when I dropped her off last night. But I couldn't exactly bring a four-year-old to my first day working.
The driver's door opens, and a man unfolds himself from the vehicle. Tall. Dark hair styled just so, with a few rebellious strands falling across his forehead. A thin scar through his left eyebrow that somehow makes him more attractive, not less.
Because of course the Sartoris would have male models for drivers.
