Yet here I was.

My hands shook. The ability to breathe was stolen from my lungs.

My loans were my Achilles heel.

I was only slightly ashamed of myself for not immediately thinking his offer was preposterous. Why wasn’t I kicking him out or telling him to go eat shit? Why wasn’t I laughing at his idea? Or telling him to get the hell out because he couldn’t buy me? He hadn’t treated me well. He didn’t deserve for me to do him a ‘favor’, and put my life on the line for him.

Clenching my hands at my sides, I let the sensation of being overwhelmed wash over me. He was offering to pay off this thing that weighed on my soul like a cement block in a pool. Who did that?

Better yet, who said no to an offer like that? I liked to think I made wise decisions; that I did what was the best for me, or would be the best for me in the long run. But $150,000.00? Holy shit.

“I’m willing to compromise,” Aiden offered, his eyes even, his voice steady, which didn’t help any.

I sputtered.

Shut up, Van, I told myself. Shut up, shut up, shut up and just say yes, you idiot. Don’t talk him out of this. Don’t be that dumb. You can get over anything for that much money. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, even if he hurt your feelings, even though it’s stupid and illegal, and doesn’t make any sense because there are a million other women in the world who would do it for less.

But I couldn’t shut up. I just couldn’t. It was that nagging little part of my personality that I’d had to hone over the years—the one that didn’t know how to keep quiet sometimes.

I lifted my eyes and looked at the bearded man standing in my apartment offering me a lifeline, an opportunity. A felony, I made myself remember. He was asking me to do something that was essentially illegal. This man that had never given two single shits about me until now that he needed something, and he had no one else to ask. “Aiden….”

The most muscular man I’d ever known took a step forward, and dropped his hands to his sides, pinning me in place with his gaze alone. “It has to be you. I’ve thought about it. No one understands my schedule the way you do. You don’t get on my nerves, and you’re…” He shook his head and crucified me on the spot. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Tell me what you want and you’ll have it. Anything.”

The headache that had been hanging around my temples from hunger suddenly intensified.

Tell him no, the smart part of my brain said. I could pay off my loans eventually. I still had time.

But the other part of my brain, the logical one, told me it would be dumb to waste this opportunity. All I had to do was marry the guy, right? Sign a piece of paper? Save a fortune worth of interest?

Oh, hell. I couldn’t seriously be changing my tune from one minute to the next. I’d just been telling him how we weren’t friends and how much he’d hurt my feelings, and how dumb he was being for even bringing it up… and now I was thinking about his offer all in a matter of a few minutes. Then again, over a hundred thousand dollars was riding on this offer. This wasn’t nothing.

It was when my hand started shaking worse than before that I had my temporary answer, and even then, simply wanting to consider the option made me feel like a prostitute.

I might be thinking of myself as being a prostitute, but at least I’d be a prostitute free from debt, wouldn’t I?

His gaze was totally fixed on me standing there, in my tiny kitchen in baggy Dr. Pepper pajama pants and a spaghetti strap tank with no bra. This incredibly handsome and intimidating man wanted…

There was something wrong with me. There was something seriously wrong with me.

Tell him to screw off. Tell him to screw off.

I didn’t.

“Let me think about it,” I said, my voice breaking, unsure.

He didn’t cry victory at me not immediately telling him to go to hell, which was surprising. Instead, Aiden said very calmly, “That’s fine.” He hesitated for a second, rocking from one foot to another. “I am sorry I messed up.”

A knot formed in my throat at the expression on his features.

“I’m used to being on my own, Vanessa. Nothing that I did or said had anything to do with you. I want you to understand that.”

Without another word, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg let himself out. The only sound signaling his departure was the door slamming shut behind him.

I was going to think about it. Going to think about marrying a guy for money when I’d walked out on him a month ago for not defending me to his manager, for not upholding the tiny bit of a bond I thought we shared. What the hell was I doing?

Being smart, that logical part of my brain whispered.

I didn’t get any sleep the next two nights, and that wasn’t exactly surprising. How the hell was I supposed to sleep when all I thought about was if I was really considering committing fraud—marriage fraud it was called—to make a lot of money? Was this what thieves went through?

I felt guilty, and I hadn’t even done anything.

I felt slightly cheap too, for not saying “hell no” right off the bat, but I didn’t feel that cheap.

Getting my loans paid off—and the possibility of having a house bought for me—enticed me a lot more than my morals would have ever expected. Then again, morals didn’t exactly mean much when you were shelving out what was a mortgage worth on loans each month. I lived in an apartment that would horrify my foster parents if they knew what it was like. My car was twelve years old. I kept my expenses to the absolute minimum, just to spend my money the way I needed to.

And then I started thinking to myself… if I did this, I would have to get divorced one day. I would have to tell my future husband—if there was one—that I’d been married once, and I would never, ever be able to tell him the truth as to why I’d done it. It wasn’t like I could lie and pretend it had never happened, even if it would be fake and in word only.

Was that cool? Was that fair? Maybe it was because my mom never married while I was young, but I’d always envisioned it as being this ultra-serious, special thing that not everyone got to do. A union of two people who decided they were going to tackle the world together—so you should be picky with whom you chose as your partner. ‘Til death do you part and all that stuff, otherwise you would just be wasting your life. Right?

When I wasn’t contemplating all that stuff, I asked myself what in the world I would tell the people in my life. They would know I was up to my neck in shit if I suddenly said I was marrying Aiden. I would have to bring up the loans if I told them the complete truth, and I would rather stick my hand in a boiling pot of water than do that.

It was all too much. Way too much.

And so, I finally picked up the phone and called the only person who I wouldn’t be able to fool with my lies. I couldn’t live with it any longer. I was tired, grumpier than ever, and I wasn’t focusing because I was too distracted. I needed to make a decision.

“Diana, would you marry someone for money?” I asked her out of the blue one afternoon when I called her during her lunch break.

Without missing a beat, she made a contemplative noise. “It depends. How much money?”

It was right then that I knew I’d called the wrong person. I should have dialed Oscar, my slightly younger brother, instead. He was the levelheaded one in my life, the basketball player studying mechanical engineering. He’d always been wise beyond his years. Diana… not so much.