The Pickup (Imperfect Love 1)

I stare at this woman for several seconds. I can’t believe she raised Nick. But then I remember, she didn’t. His nanny did.

“You are really something else—” But before I can say anything more, there’s a knock on my door. I open it, and Nick saunters in.

“You’re just in time. Your mom was just offering to pay off my home.” I laugh humorlessly. “Which by the way”—I turn back toward Victoria—“is actually worth four-point-two million. You underpriced it. If you’re going to be so generous and offer to pay off someone’s loan, you should at least look it up, so you know how much to offer.”

Her eyes are wide as saucers as she looks between Nick and me, knowing she’s been caught.

“You know how I know that? I own it,” I tell her. “And if you did your research, you would know that too.”

“You offered to pay her off like you did to Fiona?” Nick eyes his mother incredulously. “What the hell is wrong with you? First of all, Olivia is worth millions more than I am!” His mom gasps in shock. “And second of all, didn’t you learn your lesson from paying off Fiona?”

“Oh, it gets better…or I should say worse.” I grab the papers from the table and hand them to Nick. “Your mom not only used your charity to pay off Fiona, but she’s been siphoning money from the account to pay your parents’ bills.”

“I was going to put it all back!” she screeches. “Mind your own business!”

“What the fuck.” Nick takes the papers from me and scans through them.

“I contacted the accountant directly when Victoria refused to let me have access to anything. I thought something might be up when you mentioned she pushed you away from being actively involved. Since you gave him the go ahead, he sent these over to me. She paid off Fiona through the charity funds, and she’s been using the funds to pay several of their bills, including their mortgage and car payments, claiming them as business expenses directly related to your charity.”

“Nicholas,” his mom pleads. “A few of the investments your father made didn’t pan out. We were upside down and just needed a little bit of help to get through. With your new contract, we’ll be able to pay you back.”

“I’m done.” Nick throws the papers onto the table. “You and dad are dead to me. I’ve already told him he’s going to fix my contract or I’ll sue him. Get out of this house and out of my life.”

“You don’t mean that!” Victoria cries.

“Yeah, I do. You are so far gone, there’s no saving you. You aren’t my family, and you have no idea what it means to love someone. Now get out.” He swings the door open.

With tears streaming down her face, Victoria walks out. Once she’s gone, Nick closes the door and comes over to me. He pulls me into him, his arms enveloping me. “Thank you for not running, Liv,” he murmurs into my ear.

We have a seat on the sofa, and Nick takes my hands in his. “Remember when Celeste was at my place and I told you that was the part of the book where the evil witch had to be beaten?”

I try to hide my smile, but I can’t contain it. He’s just too fucking adorable. “Yes.”

“I guess it was actually my mom who was the evil witch. Talk about a plot twist.”

“I’m sorry, Nick.” I know he’s trying to turn this into a joke, but it’s only because he’s attempting to cover his hurt.

“It’s her loss. I never really had a mom to begin with. Unfortunately, though, this part of the story isn’t over yet. We still need to defeat the villain…like in Sleeping Beauty.”

“What happened?”

“Apparently, my mom wasn’t the only one fucking me over. My dad came by to see me before we took off on vacation and had me sign some papers. I didn’t look at them. I was busy with Reed, and I trusted him. Turns out he was having me sign a contract to play for Los Angeles for five years.”

My hands come up to my mouth. “Oh my God. You didn’t know?” That’s what his mom meant by convincing Nick to keep the contract as-is.

“Nope.” He shakes his head. “New York could only offer me half of what LA was offering, and my dad knew I would choose New York, which would mean less money in his pocket. He’s so money hungry, Liv. It’s insane. He can’t see anything besides the potential dollar bills in his pockets. But now it makes sense. If they spent too much money, they needed the percentage my contract would bring in to pull them back up.”

“How much was the offer for?”

“One hundred and sixty million.”

“Damn, that’s a lot of money.”