He Paid Her for Seven Days and Thought He Could Walk Away Until She Became the One Thing His Money Couldn’t Replace
“For five minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Close the laptop.”
He stared at it.
Then at her.
Then slowly shut it.
Naomi tossed him a bowl of cashews from the minibar.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You probably think caffeine is a vegetable.”
He ate a cashew.
She smiled.
“Good. Now tell me something that isn’t on your company biography.”
Charles frowned.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“That is deeply sad.”
They talked until nearly two in the morning.
Nothing happened that crossed Naomi’s rules.
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What surprised her was that Charles never tried.
The next morning, he ordered enough breakfast for six people.
Naomi stared at the table.
“Are more guests coming?”
“I didn’t know what you eat.”
“Food. I eat food.”
He was checking email again.
She stole his phone.
“Hey.”
“What did you want before money became your entire personality?”
Charles reached for the phone.
She pulled it away.
“Answer.”
“What did you want?”
“I asked first.”
He leaned back.
She sighed.
“Beauty.”
He looked confused.
“Beauty?”
“Makeup. Hair. Nails. My mother used to do hair out of our kitchen.”
Naomi’s voice softened.
“Women would come in exhausted before weddings, graduations, job interviews. Mom could choose the right color for somebody and somehow they’d stand straighter when they left.”
“Why didn’t you continue?”
“She got sick.”
Charles said nothing.
Naomi stared toward the windows.
“Money disappeared. Then she did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“After that, I stopped thinking about what I wanted. Wanting things is expensive when survival already costs everything.”
Charles was quiet for nearly a minute.
Then he said, “Stay seven days.”
Naomi looked at him.
“What?”
“I have dinners, meetings, a charity event, travel. Stay with me for one week.”
“Doing what?”
“Company. Events. Whatever we both agree to.”
“Why seven days?”
Charles answered immediately.
“Long enough to be useful. Short enough not to become complicated.”
Naomi laughed.
“You met me yesterday. I’m already complicated.”
“Then the schedule is accurate.”
She studied him.
“How much?”
“Seventy thousand dollars. Clothes and expenses included.”
Her laughter stopped.
Seventy thousand dollars could erase most of what her ex had left behind.
It could pay for beauty school.
Equipment.
A deposit on a tiny studio.
A beginning.
“At the end of seven days,” Charles continued, “we return to our lives.”
“No calls because you’re lonely.”
“Fine.”
“No sending friends after me.”
“Fine.”
“No acting like seventy thousand dollars buys any part of me I didn’t agree to sell.”
His expression changed.
“Agreed.”
“My no-kissing rule stays.”
“Agreed.”
“If I leave early because you break a rule, I get the full seventy.”
“That’s a penalty clause.”
“You like contracts.”
A reluctant smile appeared.
“You’ve been around me for twelve hours.”
“Long enough.”
He held out his hand.
“Seven days.”
Naomi shook it.
“Seven days.”
Charles thought business was simple.
He would discover that Naomi was right.
Business was simple.
People were not.
That afternoon, Charles gave her a card and sent her to a luxury boutique inside the hotel.
Naomi entered wearing the same brown dress and inexpensive sandals she had worn the day before.
The saleswoman looked at her once.
“We have more affordable stores nearby.”
“I haven’t told you what I want.”
“Our evening collection begins around five thousand dollars.”
“I heard you.”
Naomi reached toward an emerald gown.
“Please don’t touch that.”
Naomi slowly lowered her hand.
“Did you inspect the last customer’s bank account before letting her touch it?”
The woman stiffened.
“Perhaps you should return another time.”
Naomi left without buying anything.
When Charles returned, he looked surprised.
“Where are the clothes?”
“They didn’t want to sell them to me.”
“Did you show them my card?”
Naomi stared at him.
“That’s your solution?”
“It would have fixed it.”
“No. It would have proved I had access to your money.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that they should have treated me like a human being before they knew whose money I could spend.”
Charles opened his mouth.
Naomi stepped closer.
“The insult didn’t happen to you, so the fastest solution feels good to you. But quick solutions are comfortable when somebody else carries the humiliation.”
He looked toward the floor.
“They shouldn’t have treated you that way.”
“Say the whole thing.”
His jaw tightened.
“They shouldn’t have treated you as if your value depended on my card.”
Naomi nodded.
“Better.”
Charles took his jacket.
“Get dressed.”
“In what?”
“What you’re wearing.”
“Why?”
“We’re going shopping.”
They returned together.
This time, every employee moved quickly.
Champagne appeared.
A manager introduced herself.
Naomi almost laughed.
Five minutes earlier, she had been invisible.
Now she was important because Charles Rowan stood beside her.
Charles noticed.
For perhaps the first time in his life, he looked embarrassed by what his money could do.
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Naomi chose the emerald dress.
At dinner that evening, she met Walter Bennett, seventy-one, owner of Bennett Precision Manufacturing outside Detroit.
