I Cashed Out Before He Regretted It

After Alfie Lawson, the young heir of an elite family, is dumped by his sweet, innocent girlfriend, he develops selective mutism. His mother announces that whoever can get her son to speak will be rewarded with 100,000 dollars. I push my way through all the women trying to coax him out of his shell. "Hey, remember how you were calling me 'Mommy' in bed last night?" "I did not!" Alfie blurts out. Immediately, his mother wires 100,000 dollars to my account. I'm elated. From then on, I follow him around every day, teasing him and collecting my money. I rake in a fortune without even lifting a finger. Alfie won't speak, and he can't exactly hit me either. So whenever I push him too far, he resorts to shutting me up with his lips. Overnight, I go from being his study companion to his girlfriend. Every time I make a dirty joke, he makes sure I regret it by punishing me in bed until I'm too scared to say another word. Then, just before our wedding, Alfie's innocent old flame, Wendy Brown, returns after getting a taste of the real world. That night, he never comes home. I take the remaining half-box of condoms and the savings I've scraped together over the past decade, then drag my suitcase out of our marital home. I deliver the condoms to them. As for the savings, I use them to buy myself a ticket back home. Chapter 1 In all his life, Alfie Lawson had never met a woman like Wendy Brown, soft and sweet, yet without ever losing her backbone. She had worked her way through school to attend this prestigious academy in Vespera. No matter how powerful or wealthy the young men around her were, she never once bowed her head to them. For Alfie, that kind of stubborn resilience was devastatingly attractive. I thought about going after him myself and making him fall for me instead, but he had met too many society young ladies to be impressed by another one. There simply was no substitute for Wendy's particular brand of sweet-but-strong. I was broke too, but unlike Wendy, I had absolutely no resistance to money. Apparently, that was another thing he didn't like. As Alfie's study companion, I had a pretty sweet job. But with him an ocean away from his mother and now suffering from selective mutism, I could see my high-paying position slipping through my fingers. So, I took the initiative and befriended Wendy. As the only two poor students at the academy, she was much warmer toward me than she was toward the rich kids. But the moment I asked, "Could you just check on Alfie?" she threw her wine in my face. "I can't believe you're one of his lapdogs, too!" she spat out. "Phoebe, wealthy or not, you should protect your sacred integrity. Why would you debase yourself by sucking up to some spoiled rich kid?" I wiped the wine off my face without getting angry. I didn't have Wendy's backbone. I approached her in the first place because of money. After all these years of hustling for a living, I had gotten every kind of dirty look imaginable. What was some wine going to do? Unfortunately, Wendy wanted nothing to do with me after that. That was the problem. The society women who tried to win Alfie over with love couldn't catch his interest. Someone like me, who openly worshipped money, was even less appealing to him. When Mrs. Lawson said she would pay 100,000 dollars to whoever could get him to speak, she hadn't said anything about how we were supposed to do it. So, I decided to shock him into talking. "Hey, remember how you were calling me 'Mommy' in bed last night?" "I did not!" Everyone froze. Stunned, Alfie stared at me for a second before lowering his head. Luckily, I had recorded the whole thing. Mrs. Lawson called me right away. "Pheeb, I knew I was right about you. Sending you to Vespera with him was absolutely the right decision. "Keep it up. I'll give you 100,000 dollars for every additional sentence Alfie says. And if you can cure his selective mutism, I'll give you ten million dollars." My eyes lit up instantly. The moment I saw the extra 100,000 dollars in my account, I kissed my phone again and again. After my outrageous comment that got Alfie to speak, word quickly spread through our circle. Soon, wealthy families started coming to me for help. Whether their precious son was depressed or had selective mutism, they wanted me to come over and "treat" them. As it turned out, my method worked remarkably well. The moment I said something filthy, even the most withdrawn young heirs would blush and blurt out, "I did not!" So, I happily collected their parents' generous payments while enduring the stunned looks of everyone around me, the embarrassed faces of their parents, and the mortified expressions of their spoiled sons. Chapter 2 Still, none of those wealthy families paid nearly as much as Alfie's mother. After I had embarrassed Alfie in front of everyone that day, he stopped speaking altogether. I followed him around, waving the recording in his face and pestering him from every direction, but he refused to say another word—not even when the corners of his eyes turned red from holding it in. I sighed. "Looks like you really don't want me to earn another penny, huh? Good thing I still have other clients…" With that, I picked up a call from a new client. Alfie stopped in his tracks. The client was in a hurry and had offered me an extra 20% commission. Since Alfie showed no sign of speaking anytime soon, I turned around and hurried off to meet my new client. Then, I heard Alfie's voice behind me. I spun around in a panic. "What did you just say?" He stared at me with his lower lip clenched between his teeth, the corners of his eyes pinkish. No matter how many times I asked him, though, he never answered. I was just about to stop the recording when he suddenly spoke. His voice was quiet but clear. "You can't…" I instantly sent the recording to Mrs. Lawson. "Pay up, please." Alfie turned around and walked away. I struck while the iron was hot and hurried after him, spouting more nonsense. "Hey, babe. What did you just say? I didn't quite hear you. Can you say it again? Just like you did last night, when you were crying in my arms." The people around us stared in shock. He quickened his pace. "Babe, slow down, or I won't let you cry in my arms tonight!" Alfie nearly tripped. When had he ever had to endure being the center of attention like this, with everyone's eyes burning into him? Tension rose. Embarrassment overwhelmed him. Seeing that I was still holding up my phone and talking his ear off, he walked up to me and crashed his lips against mine, silencing me. … This time, I was the one speechless. I couldn't get a word out. Even after Alfie let me go, I was still too stunned to speak. He was the one who spoke, albeit in a stammer. "Do you… say the same things… to the other guys… too?" I slowly raised my camera. "Are you jealous?" "Stop recording!" he exclaimed, pushing my phone down. "How much… did they… pay you?" I opened my mouth, unsure whether I should reveal a trade secret. He pulled out a Black card and pressed it into my hand. "I have… money… too." It had been so long since Alfie had spoken, so his words came slower than they used to. Mrs. Lawson was over the moon, though. She instantly transferred me a million dollars. "Keep it up, Pheeb. If you can get him back to his old debater self, I'll pay you even more." I was thrilled, but it wasn't long before Alfie served me a reality check. After giving me the Black card, he never spoke again. He had only given me one final warning. "You're only allowed… to say those things… to me." Oh. Basically, he had bought the exclusive rights to my dirty talk. In the end, I never got to earn the ten million dollars from his mother. On the brighter side, Alfie's Black card had no spending limit. After Mrs. Lawson saw the video of him kissing me, she doubled my monthly allowance from 50,000 dollars to 100,000 dollars. In the long run, I wasn't exactly losing out. On graduation day, I ran into Wendy again. She was clutching her résumé and making the rounds at one job fair after another. The rich kids from our prestigious academy had family businesses waiting for them the moment they graduated. Only she had to go around making connections and fighting for herself just to land a well-paying job. Wendy glanced at the luxury shopping bags hanging from my hands and sneered. "I heard you became a mistress of that spoiled brat." I didn't answer. I simply turned to leave. "Hey, Phoebe Spencer!" she called after me, jaw clenched. "You think a rich heir from a family like that will ever treat you like a real person? Put nicely, you're his girlfriend. Put bluntly, you've gone from being his companion to his glorified maid!" Chapter 3 I turned to Wendy. "Oh, I'm aware." Wendy stomped her foot. "Aren't you looking for a job? Want me to put in a good word for you? Great pay, low effort, three days off a week, and extra benefits!" "No, thank you!" She shot me a look of pure frustration. "I'm not like you, a woman who's willing to sell her dignity! I'll pave my own way!" With that, she left me standing there. I touched my face. Where else was I supposed to find a job where I got to sleep with a tall, handsome man with a model's body while making 100,000 dollars a month? Of course, I wanted to make money with dignity, but not everyone had that luxury. Wendy could call me a status whore for all she wanted, but at least I never had to worry about my next meal. If Alfie ever got tired of me, at least I would have enough money to stay full for the rest of my life. In a way, I was pretty damn impressive for what I had achieved so far! What I never expected was for Alfie to keep me around all the way to the altar. When he slipped the engagement ring onto my finger, I honestly thought I was dreaming. He was still a man of few words. The doctors said his selective mutism might be permanent. The few words I had managed to coax out of him were already a miracle. It turned out Alfie had simply traded all the things he wanted to say for the effort he put in every night in bed with me. It turned out he had been confessing his love through his actions for ten years. I held the roses in my arms. I thought, maybe I had gotten ridiculously lucky in this life and somehow stumbled into true love. At a party sometime after our engagement, I ran into Wendy for the first time in years. The zipper on her dress was starting to come undone. Among the expensive custom gowns worn by the other guests, she looked painfully out of place. Apparently, the company she had worked so hard to get into was on the verge of bankruptcy. Over the decade, she had also dated several men. Every relationship had ultimately fallen apart because of money. This time, Wendy had pulled every connection she had to get an invitation to the Lawson Group business summit. The moment she spotted the engagement ring on my left hand, the corner of her mouth twitched. "You and Alfie, huh?" I nodded. One of her companions nudged her. "Do you know Mrs. Lawson?" "I don't just know her," Wendy said, smiling and popping open a bottle of wine. "She is, after all, the woman who stole my boyfriend from me back then." The wine came pouring over my head, the icy liquid making my whole body shudder. Her companions stared in shock. "Wendy, what are you doing?" Wendy lifted her chin. "Alfie Lawson was my boyfriend first." "What?" She savored the sight of me standing there, drenched and humiliated. "You're pathetic, Phoebe." I wiped the wine from my face and picked up a bottle. It was still sealed. I brought it down on Wendy's head without hesitation. Glass shards mixed with red wine as they rained down from her hair. She clutched her bleeding head and screamed, "Are you insane?" I looked down at her. "I didn't hold it against you when you threw wine in my face back then because that was a personal grudge between the two of us. "But Alfie is now my fiance. Spread rumors about him in public, and you lose all right to me being nice to you." Wendy's face went deathly pale. That incident years ago, when she had thrown wine in my face, had given her a ridiculous amount of confidence. She had strutted around in front of me like she owned the place up until graduation. "Did you think you could do whatever you wanted just because you managed to get with my boyfriend?" Wendy taunted me, gritting her teeth. "You think you could have swooped in if I wasn't done with him?" She sneered with contempt. "You played the role of his glorified maid for ten years, and now, you actually convinced yourself you're some socialite?" The guests around us stopped and watched. My identity as Alfie's girlfriend had always been a subject of fascination in the circle, but he had never revealed a single detail about me. Some joked that I was the daughter of some mysterious tycoon abroad, while others speculated that I was the long-lost heiress of some powerful family. Chapter 4 However, Wendy's use of "glorified maid" shattered everyone's assumptions about me. Just when things were getting awkward, Alfie appeared. He took my hand, the matching diamond band on his ring finger sparkling brightly. That one gesture was enough to make it clear whose side he was on. Wendy's face went white. Just when everyone was about to start digging into my background, the notoriously tight-lipped Alfie finally spoke. "She is… my… fiancee." Not the most perfect delivery, but there was no hesitation in his tone. The guests immediately turned their disdain toward Wendy. "I know her. She's a mid-level manager at some company. Dated several guys, and none of them worked out. If you ask me, she's the one trying to become Mr. Lawson's maid." "Seriously. His fiancee has been with him for ten years. How does she have the nerve to call her a maid? Talk about not knowing her place." Wendy tried to argue, but her face had already gone red. In the end, Alfie took me home. To reward him, I cooked an entire tableful of dishes myself. He didn't touch his food. He kept staring at his phone. When I urged him to eat, he showed me some urgent documents from the company and then left. Little did he know, he had left his laptop on. Right there on the screen was his latest notification. "You and Wendy Brown are now friends." He had just accepted Wendy's friend request. … That day, Alfie hadn't come home at all. Normally, I wouldn't have cared, but today was our engagement anniversary. So, I called him. He didn't answer. Just as the clock was about to strike midnight, a friend sent me a video. In it, Wendy was clearly drunk, crying and screaming as she tried to throw herself into the raging river. Alfie was desperately holding her back. Through the wind and rain, he never stopped talking. It was the first time in ten years that I had heard him speak so fluently. I turned the volume all the way up and caught fragments of what he was saying. "What do you mean I abandoned you? You were the one who dumped me back then! Wendy, please don't jump! If you need money, I'll give it to you. If you need connections, I'll give you connections! "You don't have to throw your life away like this!" Not a single pause, not a single stammer. He was back to his old debater self. My future mother-in-law called me. "Pheeb, the arrangements for the business in Vespera are pretty much settled. You should come back home and start working here." I didn't refuse. Her meaning couldn't be any more obvious. She had agreed to let Alfie get engaged to me because he could only speak when I was around. Now that there was a woman who had managed to fully cure him, I was no longer useful. The high-paying job back home was her way of compensating me. My friend sent me the location of a hotel. She wanted me to get there immediately and stop them. I thought about it for a moment, then grabbed the half-box of condoms we had left. When I knocked on the hotel room door, Alfie hadn't even had time to change. His shirt was soaked through from the rain, clinging to his body and outlining his lean frame. Water was still dripping from the ends of his hair. Meanwhile, Wendy was already sitting on the couch in a dry silk nightgown, her hair half-dried. The towel she had used was clenched in his hand. "What are you doing here?" Alfie asked me, his voice smooth. I handed him the condoms. "They don't sell these at the hotel. I happened to be passing by." Wendy turned her head toward me, her expression dimming instantly. "What, you think I'm like you, selling my body the moment I see money?"