Buying My Broke Crush

Dump Knox. Name your price, I'll pay it.

That was the first thing out of her mouth. A girl I'd never met, marching into my caf, dropping a designer bag on my table like she was posting bail.

Funny thing. Knox and I aren't even together. We're each other's least favorite person. But the whole city thinks we're a couple, and I'd long since gotten tired of correcting them.

So I opened my mouth to explain. And that was when I saw the guy standing behind her.

Tall. Shoulders for days. A face I'd spent three years of high school pretending not to stare at.

Dorian Mercer.

My mouth went dry. My brain filed the explanation under "later."

I looked her dead in the eye.

"You're serious? You'll give me anything?"

A slow smile.

"Then I'll take him."

Chapter 1

Here's the part that wrecked me for a solid week.

Dorian Mercer, the guy every girl at our school quietly lost her mind over, had lost the family fortune. All of it. And now he was some rich woman's kept man.

I cried about it. Twice. In private, with the good tissues.

Not because he was broke. Please. Because it wasn't me keeping him.

Same job posting, and somehow the universe hired someone else. Was I not trying hard enough? I was livid.

And then, that afternoon, the universe walked a rsum right up to my table.

I was out on the patio of my own caf, sunning myself, sulking into a latte, tragically unaware that my luck was about to arrive in person.

"You're Cleo?"

I looked up. Some doe-eyed girl stood over me, arms crossed, giving me a once-over like she was appraising a knockoff.

"Eh. Nothing special," she said. "Paler skin. Smaller waist, I guess."

I'd eaten grilled chicken and misery for a solid month to get that waist. My smile didn't budge.

"Aw. Thank you. You've got a great figure too."

"Don't butter me up. I'm here for one thing." She leaned in. "Dump Knox. Whatever you want, name it. It's yours."

Knox. Again.

I have explained this to the greater metropolitan area more times than I can count. Knox and I are not dating. My working theory is that he lets people assume it so he can dodge every other girl in this city, and I am the human shield.

But denying it too hard just makes me look guilty, so.

"Okay, sweetheart. One, Knox and I are not a couple, and I don't even like him. Two, congratulations, may you both be very happy. Three, I don't need anything, so you can keep your"

I stopped.

Because a guy had started toward us from behind her.

I've seen a lot of men. My pulse doesn't move for just anyone.

It moved.

My eyes traveled up. Reached his face.

And I forgot the rest of my sentence.

Dorian.

What was he doing here?

A few years, and he'd gotten worse. Better. Crueler to look at. The kind of face that makes cold women smile against their own will.

He gave me one flat glance. Nothing behind it.

Rude, frankly, for a former classmate. But that was Dorian. He looked down on everyone, equally, always had.

His attention was all on the girl. "Sloane. Please. Go home."

"Move. This doesn't concern you."

Huh. I had never once seen Dorian beg for anything.

So this Sloane had to be the rich woman keeping him.

No wonder she'd swanned in here like she held the deed to the block. Repeat offender.

Lucky little brat.

That is Dorian. Certified unclimbable, never dated a soul in his life, and here he was playing lapdog for her.

Suddenly I wasn't the one being told to dump somebody. I wanted to tell her to dump him.

Sloane shrugged off his hand on her shoulder, dragged out the chair across from me, and sat down like she planned to stay until closing.

"Cleo. I've met a hundred girls like you. Swear up and down you're not interested, then throw yourself at him the second no one's looking. You think Knox actually likes you? He said yes because you wouldn't leave him alone. Take the win and walk away before you embarrass yourself."

I caught maybe half of it.

The rest of me was still on Dorian.

She was talking. Something about quitting while I was ahead.

I wasn't listening.

I was already working out how to make him mine.

Chapter 2

Whatever Sloane was actually saying, here's what reached my ears:

Hey. I brought you a man. Want him?

Yes.

Obviously yes.

I reached out and pinched her chattering little mouth shut between two fingers.

"Zip it. One question. If I dump Knox, I get whatever I want. Yes or no?"

She smacked my hand away and scoffed. "Go on. Name your price."

I shook my head, smiling. "I've got money coming out of my ears. I want him."

I pointed at Dorian.

I did not blink.

"Excuse me?" Sloane shot up out of her chair. "You want him? Do you have any idea who he is?"

"Yep. The man of my dreams."

I'll say it with my whole chest. I've wanted Dorian since high school. And the day I heard some rich woman had him on a leash, I wanted him more. You have not lived until you've watched a face that expensive get taken down a peg.

I walked past Sloane's scandalized face and stopped in front of him.

"Dorian. I know things have been hard since your family lost everything. You can stop white-knuckling it now." I smiled. "Your sugar mommy has arrived."

"Lost everything?"

He said it slowly. Like the words were brand new to him. Like he was hearing the news for the very first time.

The blank on his face tipped into something else, something like disbelief, and I watched him rifle through his memory for whatever file he had on me.

Right. That tracked.

Because the last time he saw me, high-school me went red and bolted if he so much as said hi.

And here I was a few years later, not just offering to keep him but running my mouth like I'd done this a hundred times.

Of course he was thrown.

But the curl of distaste at the corner of his mouth. What was that about?

Too proud to be kept by an old classmate? Somebody hadn't gone hungry enough yet.

"No pressure," I said. "We can start as friends. I would never force you." I leaned in. "And I overpay."

He didn't move a muscle.

Playing hard to get. Cute.

My pride cracked. I started to pull my hand back. He caught it.

"No need," he said. "Let's skip to the paperwork."

I didn't say another word after that. I just drove.

The commute usually takes forty minutes.

I made it in twenty.

The second we were through my door, the act was over.

I hooked an arm around his neck and hauled him toward the bedroom. One of his hands found the small of my back. The other cupped the back of my head, so I wouldn't crack it on the wall in my enthusiasm.

Considerate. I filed that away too.

"Miss Sinclair. Isn't this a little fast?"

"Hush. You're killing the mood."

"But it's still daylight"

God, the admin on this man. My patience was going.

"Fine. You're pretty, so I'll spoil you this once."

He went still. Close enough that I caught the exact second his breath changed, the pulse ticking hard at his throat, his eyes dropping to my mouth and staying there.

My own mouth had gone dry.

I spun around and yanked the floor-to-ceiling curtains shut. The room went dark.

I turned back and gave him my sweetest smile.

"There. Now it's night."

His smile froze on his face.

Oh, honey.

You didn't actually think I'd let you off that easy?

Chapter 3

The excuses stopped working, so Dorian stopped bothering with them.

"Miss Sinclair. You said you wouldn't force me."

"I said I wouldn't force you. I never said I wouldn't want you." I stepped in and caught his chin between my fingers. "Come on. Call me baby. Let's hear it."

Something like shyness flickered behind his eyes. He couldn't hold out against me. He turned his head and said it, low.

"Baby."

"Weak. Again, with feeling."

He set his jaw and did it again. And again. The blankness in his eyes sharpened into something with teeth.

Good boy.

So this is what it feels like to run the show. All those years I wasted on the straight and narrow.

Say what you want about the fall from grace, it looked good on him. The old Dorian was untouchable, all frost and no smile, the kind of boy you admired from a safe distance. This one had abs you could count and a waistline that belonged in a lawsuit, and he was mine to boss around.

I was having the time of my life.

Then I looked down and saw the crease pulling tight between his brows. Eyes shut. Jaw locked.

And just like that, I wasn't having fun anymore.

I felt like exactly the thing I'd sworn I would never be. A person taking advantage.

When I went still, he cracked one eye open.

"What's wrong?"

"Forget it." I climbed off him.

"Forget it. What does that mean?" He sounded like he genuinely couldn't process it.

"There's no point forcing something. Force it and it's never any good."

"And how would you know it's no good if you never let it happen?"

I stared at him.

I'd stopped. I wasn't making him do a single thing. Wasn't this the part where he looked relieved?

So why did he look like I'd taken something from him?

"Is it because I'm dirty to you? I'm sorry. I'll go"

Oh, he'd gotten the wrong idea entirely.

He stood and started gathering his clothes off the floor. It took him a solid ten minutes and he still wasn't dressed. It was painful to watch.

"You know," I said, "it's late enough that the tie is really optional."

His head snapped up. "You're throwing me out?"

The audacity.

They say you shouldn't coddle a man. Coddle him too much and he starts drafting demands. But a body like that made it very hard not to coddle him.

I sighed and crossed the room to stop him.

"Okay. Enough. Use your words. Quit reaching for your clothes every two seconds." I softened it. "I'm not disgusted by you. I was worried you didn't want this, so I wanted to take it slow."

"No need to go slow." He cut me off, fast.

The look on his face now had nothing in common with the tortured martyr from thirty seconds ago. It was pure appetite.

Then, like he'd caught himself, he glanced away, embarrassed. "I do have some professional standards, you know. Please. Continue."

And to prove he meant it, he took my hand and set it back on him.

He'd switched faces so fast I was the one who felt cornered.

Don't do anything, and he thinks I'm repulsed by him. Do something, and I'm bulldozing a man who just lost everything and might be one bad day from a breakdown.

I was still stuck between the two when the doorbell rang.

I bolted for the excuse to breathe.

The universe did not grant me the breather.

The bell kept going. And going. Something about the sound made me feel like a woman about to get caught cheating. Rumors really do ruin lives.

Dorian watched me from the doorway, buttoning his collar, unhurried.

"Who is it," he said. "Why are you so jumpy?"

"Building management. Ignore it."

He didn't look like he believed me for a second.

Chapter 4

When nobody opened up, Knox started hollering through the door.

"Cleo! Open up! I need to talk to you!"

Then, "I know you're in there. What, you got a man in there you're hiding?"

How did he know that?

Did Sloane tell him?

I gnawed on my thumbnail.

My eyes met Dorian's by accident. He was watching me with the ghost of a smile.

"Building management?"

Okay. The excuse was weak. Sue me. The priority was getting rid of Knox. If Knox found out Dorian existed, he'd go running straight to my parents to tattle, because that is what Knox has done since we were children.

The one time in high school I worked up the nerve to ask Dorian to a movie, Knox tattled, and I never made it.

Not that Dorian necessarily would have shown.

"Want me to go get rid of him for you?" Dorian said, reaching for the door with all the authority of a man of the house.

That scared the life out of me. I threw myself in front of him.

"You cannot open that door. He can't see us like this or there's no explaining it."

I pointed at the lipstick print blazing on his half-open collar.

Dorian didn't say anything. He let me push him back toward the bedroom, expression flat.

And then, right in the middle of my meltdown, he said, "So. I'm the one who has to stay out of sight."

There was a whole world of mockery and hurt in it.

I shook my head, hard. "You can't be seen. That's all."

My parents are so aggressively wholesome it loops back around to unhinged. If they found out I was keeping a man, my whole trust-fund life was over.

He held my gaze. There was something wrecked behind his eyes, there and gone before I could put a name to it.

"Dorian. You don't think you're my boyfriend, do you?"

"Of course not." Flat denial. Instant.

My mouth twitched down. A little let down.

Boyfriend wouldn't be the worst thing.

But this was cleaner. This way, when it ended, it would end quick.

Dorian studied the door. "Your boyfriend doesn't know your door code?"

"He's my boyfriend, not my husband."

That startled a bitter laugh out of him. "You haven't changed at all, Cleo. Still keeping one on the hook while you shop around."

Which made me sound like a cheater. The kind who'd cheated on him, specifically.

I wasn't taking that. I went off.

"Okay. I admit I liked you in high school. But I was very restrained about it. I asked you to exactly one movie. How does that make me a player? And, correct me if I'm wrong, you didn't show either."

"I" He started to argue. Then something crossed his face and he looked away, jaw tight.

"So this whole arrangement," he said. "You're not worried it blows up on you?"

"Nope. I've got a lot of houses. Worst case, we move."

I thought that was a solid plan. Saves a lot of unnecessary drama.

Dorian did not think so. "I'm not something you relocate when it's convenient."

I gave him a face full of question marks. "So are we continuing, or?"

"Is that really the only thing in your head?"

"What else would be?"

Was the point of keeping a man not obvious enough?

For the record, half of why I took Dorian in was that I'd wanted him for years. The other half was that my skin had been a disaster, my cramps had been apocalyptic, and the internet told me to get a boyfriend. I am a woman who takes advice. What were a few strangers going to do, steer me wrong. I was fresh out of candidates, and then Dorian dropped into my lap.

He looked at me like I'd disappointed him on a cellular level.

"So if it weren't me, you'd have just kept some other guy."

"Pretty much."

Chapter 5

Women have suffered for centuries. We've earned a little something. Life's good now, so what if I keep a man? I'm asking. So what?

And it's consensual. Mutually. Is that really grounds to talk about me like I'm morally bankrupt?

Dorian's face had gone the color of a burnt pan.

I didn't have the bandwidth to soothe him, because Knox was calling.

That boy is stubborn to a fault. Leave him unchecked and he'll knock until sunrise. I hit accept, planning to invent a reason to send him off. The phone was gone from my hand.

Dorian had moved in close, his gaze dark and pinned to mine. "Weren't you just saying you wanted to continue?"

He was suddenly close enough that I tripped over my own words. "Knox is still out there. If he doesn't see me he'll get suspicious."

"Isn't that hotter? He can't get in anyway." A beat. "Or are you scared?"

The nerve on this man.

Wasn't the whiplash a little fast?

When I didn't bite, he changed tactics. The dark look melted into something wet and pleading.

"Don't go to him. I'll do it better than he does."

He'd gotten our whole relationship wrong again, still sure I'd toss him the second a boyfriend caught me.

Word was, after his family cratered, they'd taken on serious debt. Otherwise how does a man that proud end up a kept boy. Never mind this soft, wounded, hard-done-by act he'd suddenly learned to pull.

And just like that.

I couldn't hear Knox pounding anymore.

I caught Dorian's tie and gave it a slow tug. "You don't want me going out there? Bark for me. Bark nicely, and I'll stay."

Dorian didn't hesitate. "Woof."

Me: "..."

Knox, through the door: "Since when does Cleo have a dog?"

And Knox was gone.

He's been scared of dogs since we were kids.

Dorian wasn't lying. He really was good at it. And obedient. A natural.

I was thrilled.

So the next morning I woke up and wired him a hundred grand, no hesitation. He was scared I'd get rid of him. I was scared he'd bolt. Men who look this capable and turn out to be even more capable do not grow on trees.

Don't misread that. I mean he'd done the housework before leaving for the day.

You know I don't hand out compliments to men. He went to bed at an ungodly hour and still got up early to clean. And then went in to work on top of it. A hundred grand a month felt like a steal.

I picked up my phone to text him.

A message from Knox jumped up first. [Cleo. I'm standing outside a police station right now. Show yourself or I'm walking in to report you.]

[Knox. Is your brain okay?]

He called a second later. I answered, out of patience. "Spit it out."

"I heard Sloane came after you. You okay?"

"You pounded on my door for two hours over that?"

"So you did hear me. Why didn't you open up?"

"Because I open my door when I feel like it. Which, right now, I don't."

"Cleo, whatever you think is going on with me and Sloane, there's nothing. She won't leave me alone. I know you're mad, and that part's on me. But be fair. If you weren't perpetually single, nobody would keep confusing us. If you're not too picky, I could set you up with someone?"

Which told me Knox still had no idea Sloane had dropped a whole man on my doorstep.

For now.

A secret that size doesn't keep. Not in this city.

Chapter 6

Stop right there. I'm picky. I'm extremely picky.

That whole subject sets me off.

There was a stretch where the rumors got to me, and I made the mistake of listening to Knox and agreeing to meet a guy he wanted to set me up with. Knox himself is insufferable, but his friends are uniformly hot.

So I did my makeup for two hours, drove thirty minutes, full of hope.

And found Knox sitting in the caf with a bouquet, grinning at me like the cat that got the canary.

That's when I realized I'd been played.

"Cleo. You've stayed single this whole time. Is it because you're into me?"

"Absolutely not, and where the hell do you get the confidence. Knox, I'm going to say this one more time. I don't like you. Not now, not ever. Also, I have a boyfriend. Your concern is noted and unnecessary."

Knox wasn't about to eat that quietly. "Watch your tone with me. You think you're too good for me? I'm too good for you. Name one thing you've got going besides a pretty face. And don't invent a boyfriend to spite me. I'd know if you had a single man in your life."

I was tired. Too tired to hose him down.

"Believe whatever you want. Get lost."

I hung up and blocked him. Again.

I genuinely cannot stand him. How does a man get a mouth that vile?

Once that was handled, I switched faces and texted Dorian.

[My darling consort. How many surprises are you still keeping from your queen?]

Minutes later he wrote back. [You'll find out tonight. I'm off early today.]

I went red on the spot and typed, [You're a grown man saying things like that. Have you no shame? Is this how your parents raised you?]

[Sorry. Won't happen again.]

Sweet and filthy in one breath. He really knew how to work me.

Since my afternoon was open, I offered to come pick him up from work.

Dorian sent back a voice memo, all hemming and hedging, clearly not wanting me there. Probably afraid his coworkers would get the wrong idea. Understandable.

I put my phone down.

And then something snagged.

Wasn't he a kept man at some members' club?

So why was he going in to work in broad daylight?

Was he... working two jobs?

My heart broke a little. Thank God our family never went under.

On that comforting note, I went back to bed with a clear conscience and took a nap.

After that, Dorian and I were together every single day.

We didn't leave the house except to eat. He came off aloof, but the man was clingy in practice. Practically surgically attached to me.

The strange part was I didn't get sick of it. I liked him stuck to me.

Those days were so good I didn't even have time to go feral on Instagram.

Which, long-term, my group of trust-fund friends noticed.

"Cee. You've been off lately. Confess. Did you land yourself a man?"

"Is he hot? How old?"

Keeping a kept man is not exactly breaking news in our circle. But Dorian was too high-quality. If word got out, someone would come poaching. There is always a higher bidder.

And Dorian was worth it. You have no idea how good he

Last night he

Never mind. I'll spare you. It wouldn't pass the censors.

I grabbed the first excuse I could find. "Nope. Just busy with work."

Chapter 7

"You've lost it. When have you ever worked a day in your life?"

Rookie mistake. I'd completely forgotten that detail.

My dad raised me on one principle. "Sweetheart, you never have to lift a finger in your life. Just promise me one thing. Never start a company. We've got enough to last you three lifetimes."

I'd patted my chest and sworn to him, "Don't worry, Dad. Coasting is the one thing I do know how to do."

He'd been so proud. Then, after a moment, a little anxious. "Sweetheart. You don't stalk celebrities online, do you? You wouldn't pile on somebody in the comments?"

"Never," I said. "I don't do gross little things like that."

Only then did he relax.

My friends are wonderful except for one flaw. Zero sense of boundaries. They picked a day when Dorian and I were tangled up together to come knocking.

The doorbell went off. I kicked Dorian off the bed on reflex.

"Quick. Find somewhere to hide. And clean up the evidence. I'll get the door."

Dorian froze for a second. Then he looked at me, wounded. "I thought after all this time, things were different between us. Turns out I still can't be seen."

I took a fast survey of the butler outfit he had on.

You tell me. Can he be seen?

"Enough. Stop saying things designed to put me on the spot."

I threw my clothes on and left the bedroom.

I didn't notice the rims of his eyes going red behind me.

I opened the door and discovered Knox had come too. If the place weren't already packed, I'd have thrown him out on sight.

"Cee. Took you forever to answer. And you swore you weren't hiding a man?"

"I'm not. Don't start."

"Look how flustered you are. Guilty conscience?"

"Enough. Knox is right here. Don't stir the pot between them."

I do not understand it. I have explained a hundred times that there is nothing between me and Knox, and somehow it never lands.

I was genuinely close to losing it. "The next person who puts me and Knox in the same sentence can leave."

"Okay, okay. Don't be mad. This one's on Knox, and we already handled him for you."

Great. All that breath, wasted.

Knox was standing in the entryway, staring at the men's dress shoes on the top shelf, lost in thought.

After a while he said, "Big feet on this guy."

...

By one in the morning I was dead on my feet and they showed no sign of leaving.

I wondered how Dorian was holding up. It was sixty-eight degrees and he had next to nothing on. Was he going to catch a cold?

I glanced anxiously toward the bedroom.

One of my friends clocked the necklace at my throat and gasped. "Cee, look at you. That piece just dropped and it's already sold out everywhere. Money can't even buy this one."

"It's fake," I said.

Dorian gave it to me. Along with a pile of bracelets and earrings. Fake, sure, but beautifully made, close enough to real that even I almost bought it. Doesn't matter. When you like someone, the things they give you don't have to be worth anything. I've got money. Anything I want, I buy myself. When you stop caring what it's worth, real and fake stop mattering.

"Please. That's real at a glance."

"We're all trust-fund kids here. You think we can't clock exactly what you're worth?"

Her family's in the jewelry business. She grew up around it. She doesn't misread stones.

But Dorian's family went bankrupt. So where does a broke kept man get his hands on a necklace money can't buy?

I was still turning that over when a sound came from the bedroom.

The whole loud, happy living room went silent at once.

Nobody moved.

Every head in the room turned toward the bedroom door.

I forgot how to breathe.

Chapter 8