Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 629(@200wpm)___ 503(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
I turned to face her fully, folding my arms over my chest. “I thought you’d shoot me down.”
She shrugged, glancing at me quickly before looking down again. “I need the commission.”
Those words felt like little rocks pelted at my head. They stung, both because I hated the thought that she only considered putting up with me because of the money she could get out of me buying a house through her, and because I hated that she needed money enough that she had no choice but to agree to work with me when I knew damn well she didn’t want to.
My stomach was a churning sea from the whole interaction. She was the last person I expected to see this morning, and yet now that I had seen her, I had this unrelenting desire to do whatever I could to see her again.
“Sounds like we’re in business, then.”
She nodded, but her brows knitted together like she’d just sold her soul to the devil.
I scrubbed my hand over my mouth, looking around the stupid house before walking the few steps that separated us. “Not this one,” I said.
“You haven’t even made it past the foyer.”
“I don’t need to.”
She opened her mouth, then sighed and closed it again. Finally, I saw a bit of her fire emerge, saw her eyes harden and her lips purse together.
“Perhaps we should discuss what it is you’re looking for before we see any other houses,” she clipped, turning on her heels and walking toward the front door. “That way neither of us wastes our time.”
“Is that your subtle way of telling me I wasted yours?”
“You’re a big boy. Figure it out.”
“There she is,” I said on a laugh, and I caught up to her in four long strides. Then, I blocked her from taking another step.
She halted before she ran right into me, her eyes widening a fraction as they climbed up my chest to meet my gaze.
“I thought I lost you there,” I teased. “All that looking at your shoes shit isn’t the Madelyn I used to know.”
Her chest rose on a long, slow inhale, her throat constricting with a swallow. Then, her eyes fell to my chest, losing focus, like she was on another planet instead of less than a foot away from me.
“The Madelyn you used to know no longer exists.”
With the finality of those words, she slid past me, contorting her body so she didn’t so much as brush against me as she did.
Madelyn
I came to my senses once I’d driven about ten miles from the property, my breaths ragged and shallow as I chugged every last drop of water in the bottle I had in my car.
There was absolutely no way I could take on Kyle Robbins as a client.
I was firm in that decision, ready to text him and tell him so, and then immediately block his number. Maybe I’d give him a reference to someone else, as a last gesture of good will.
But when I pulled into my driveway and threw my car in park, my thumbs hovered over the keyboard on my phone screen, unable to touch down.
Because the commission I could make would be enough to change my life.
I’d been an agent for five years now, and I’d been getting by just fine. The first couple of years were the hardest, but it picked up after that, and I was making enough to do what I needed to do.
I paid my bills.
I saved every dime I could.
And most importantly, I took care of Sebastian.
I let my head fall back against the headrest at the thought of my six-year-old son, of the relentless drive I had to do anything and everything I could to protect him and make sure he was cared for.
The best way for me to do both of those things was to move him across the country, as far away from his father as I could.
But to do that, I needed more than I had saved now. Way more.
I didn’t know how it happened, but somewhere in my real estate journey, I found a sort of niche — helping single mothers find homes for them and their children.
Maybe it was a way for me to protect others the way I wished someone would protect me.
But in that effort, my commissions had suffered. I was lucky to take home twelve-thousand dollars when I sold a house, and with how crazy the market had become, and how many realtors were fighting for business, I was closing maybe one house every two months.
It was decent money. I could get by. I could afford our house, our bills, and to scrape together a bit of a savings.
But if I helped Kyle buy a house, I would make close to two-hundred-thousand dollars when he closed.
That was life-changing money.
That was sell the house, pack our shit, and move across the country right now money.