The Billion Dollar Contract: Proposals Read Online Free PDF Page B

three years out of college and her résumé looked like she went into a career buffet and sampled a bit of everything before realizing she was either allergic or not into Salmonella. In truth, I’m stuck in temp hell. A hell she really wanted to escape, but had no idea how.
    Jackson-Cole was her first chance in many months to get out of her paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. It didn’t help that she had over forty thousand dollars in student loans breathing down her neck, or that dietary restrictions meant buying food she could barely afford, or that…
    I need a job so badly. A steady one, where she knew how much she was getting every month – Thirty bucks an hour! – and even had insurance so she could go to the doctor for the first time in a year.
    “You guys know anyone with a sugar daddy?”
    Both Juan and Selena eased away from her on the couch. “Sugar daddy?” Selena asked. “You mean like some old rich guy paying your bills while you go out with him?”
    “That’s what it usually means, yeah.”
    “No. No we can’t say we know anyone,” Juan said.
    “Speak for yourself! Back in high school I had this friend who had a sugar daddy. Guy was a real creep. Only met him once, but I was so skeeved out I refused to be around him ever again. It was clear that he was using her for sex. But she wasn’t complaining because he bought her all sorts of nice stuff and paid for her first year of college. I don’t talk to her anymore though. No idea what happened.”
    “That’s intense.” Juan folded his arms behind his head. His legs spread out and took up most of the room, forcing Selena and Jasmine to shuffle to the farther ends. Thanks. “Seems like it would be more work than it’s worth finding some rich guy to pay for your crap. Getting a regular job would be easier.”
    “You might be surprised,” Jasmine mumbled. “I mean, you’d be surprised how forward some men can be.”
    The movie and beer night came to an end shortly after that. Selena picked up her brother and took him out into the cold, loud night where sirens continued to go off and an angry dog barked loud enough to send Blackbeard hissing under the couch. The only thing Jasmine could see was her cat’s giant, poufy black tail swishing against the moldy linoleum.
    “What in the world am I going to do?” Jasmine knew it was a hopeless question to ask the cosmos. And by the cosmos she meant the image of Neil deGrasse Tyson, who popped up on her TV as soon as she shut off the movie.
    Too bad I can’t just peace off of Earth. No, not by some terrible end. Jasmine wanted to get on a spaceship and go out into the universe, where she had a good reason to be single and jobless. I’m exploring space for the good of mankind. No need for a boyfriend or a job out there! The loneliness would probably destroy her, but it was better than sitting in this craphole of an apartment and… damn, who would feed the cat?
    “What do you think?” Blackbeard was now on her lap, purring and oozing himself all over the end of the couch. Jasmine patted him on the rump before glancing at the end table and seeing the wadded up paper Ethan Cole gave her earlier.
    She had meant to throw it out. In fact she thought that she had thrown it out somewhere in the office. But when she came home she realized it was still stuck in her fist, and instead of tossing it into the nearest trash can Jasmine left it on her end table. That was a bad idea. Now she stared at it, as if she were Superman and this piece of paper radiated Kryptonite. If I call him, I can make a million dollars. Two million dollars. It was almost tempting.
    Jasmine was in a dangerous place. For all she knew, this still was a prank of some sort. Still, as she stared at the number, written in Ethan Cole’s meticulous handwriting, she couldn’t help but think of the man who offered her the proposition of a lifetime. Handsome. Astute. Rich. He was the full package as far as ultimate fantasies were concerned. I still