The Arrangement: The Seduction (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Carly Phillips

Prologue
    Music blares through my headphones as I study for an exam in one of my advanced business courses. It’s my senior year in college, and I’m so close to the end I can taste it. Taste it. Hah. Considering I want nothing more than to be a chef one day, that’s the perfect line. One step at a time though. Finals first.
    I move my head to the beat of the music, letting the words on the page rhythmically enter my brain. I’m weird, but that’s how it works for me.
    Suddenly I think I hear my father’s yell. I rip off the headphones and listen.
    “Chloe, get yourself down here now!” He doesn’t sound happy, and I scramble off my bed, rushing to see what he wants. It’s never a good idea to keep either of my parents waiting.
    In the kitchen, my father paces back and forth while my mother stands, hands at her waist.
    “It’s about time,” Dad says.
    “I was studying.” I glance at my mother. Her face is pale, and my dad looks furious. My stomach flips, and I wonder what I did to upset them now.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask.
    “What’s wrong? Joseph, she wants to know what’s wrong.” My mom’s voice reaches a high, anxious pitch, and she gestures to the laptop on the counter. “What kind of trash allows herself to be caught on video having sex?”
    “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But my stomach roils, and I know I just might throw up.
    My boyfriend, Scott, and I recently started sleeping together. He’s my first, and taking that step was a big deal. I might be twenty-two, but I waited. He knows what it meant to me. He wouldn’t record something so personal. So special. Would he?
    “See for yourself!” My mother points to the laptop again. Steps over in her designer heels and clicks play.
    My face flashes quickly across the screen. I recognize the dress. As if in a dream, I see Scott untie the strap on my halter in a move I thought at the time was sweet. Images keep coming. Memories, my memories, flicker across the screen, raw and painful.
    I can’t bear to watch and I look away.
    “Oh no. If I have to see it, so do you,” Marion, my mother says.
    I fold my arms across my chest, pressing hard against the building pain, and glance at the screen. I try to turn numb as the awful movie continues, my body out there for anyone to see.
    “How?” I ask. “Who sent it to you?”
    “It’s gone viral,” my father grits out.
    My mother tucks her perfect blonde hair behind her ear. “Violet’s daughter showed her, and she thought I should know and be prepared.”
    What about me? Didn’t anyone think to break it to me gently?
    I glance at the screen. It’s more graphic than I can handle. Devastation and betrayal shoot through me. “Shut it off!” I cry, tears in my eyes.
    “Gladly.” My mother slams the computer top down, ending that part of my torment.
    “I didn’t know,” I whisper.
    “As if that matters. It’s a disgrace. Humiliating. How can your father show his face at work? At the country club? How can I?”
    I glance at my father. He won’t even look at me. My mother has no such problem and glares with utter disdain. I’ve always felt like a mistake they tolerated in life, and somehow I learned to cope, but this was beyond. Their reaction now held no compassion or sympathy. Just pure anger and disgust.
    “What should I do?” I ask, my voice breaking just like my heart.
    My father remains silent and unmoved.
    “Get out,” my mother says. “I can’t stand to look at you.”
    As I run from the room, fresh tears slip down my cheeks unchecked.

Chapter One
    Four Months Later
    I define my life by the main event. Before the sex tape and after it went viral. It’s ridiculous when you think about it. I’m not a household name. I don’t have big tits or a big ass. I’m not interesting to look at, yet I can’t go anywhere on campus without people staring or laughing. Guys wink and make lewd comments. Girls shake their heads and look down at me.
    Get a life, I