Phoebe shrugged as she hung the jacket back up gently. “Why? So I can beg him for money?”
Charlotte choked on her wine, and Phoebe turned around to glare at her.
“Oh no, I know what you want me to do,” she hissed. “You want me to be a gold digger!”
“I never said that,” Charlotte said as she sipped her wine. “I never said that at all.”
Phoebe shook her head as she grabbed her wine and shot it back. Then she poured another glass and chugged that too, as her friend watched, wide-eyed and worried. “I can’t do that, Charlotte, I can’t! I haven’t even…you know…”
“You’re a virgin still? Jesus, Phoebe, how long are you going to hold out! You’re almost twenty-five!”
“Yeah, well, the right guy just hasn’t come along.”
“The right guy. You’ll be waiting forever. Listen, I’m not saying you have to have sex with the guy right off the bat, but just look at this.” Charlotte went back to the kitchen, pulled her laptop out of her bag and made Phoebe sit down next to her on the couch. It took a second for her to pull up the website, but then she set the laptop in Phoebe’s lap and took her wine glass. “Here. I found this the other day and thought about doing it myself, but right now, I think you need this more than I do.”
“Billionaire Future Husbands…seriously? What the hell is this site?”
“Basically, the richest of the rich put up their profiles to find the love of their lives, or something that looks like love. Whatever. The point is it’s a dating website strictly for rich men. Super rich men. Men that could afford to pay for your mom’s surgery.”
Phoebe started to scroll through the pictures of available men. Most of them weren’t too bad looking, and she started to read through their profiles until a message popped up on the screen saying she had to create one of her own first. “Oh no, I can’t sign up for this. What if someone finds out?”
“Like who? Your neighbor whose been hitting on you for years? Come on, Phoebe, what do you have to lose? Find a rich guy, get married, then divorce him once your mom’s surgery is paid for.”
“That’s horrible. I can’t do that.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures, Phoebe. I’ll help you get it set up, then we’ll start hunting you down a man. Just make up an alias if you’re that worried. You can always tell the guy your real name later.”
Red flags were popping up one after the other inside Phoebe’s mind as she started to fill out the required fields, using her middle name as her first and her mother’s maiden name as her last. Technically it wasn’t wrong…technically. She did it, trying not to overthink what she was doing. This was just morally wrong. She was not a gold digger. She worked for her money, worked hard to get where she was. Having someone take care of her and pay for things? She wasn’t used to that. She’d wanted to find love, settle down with a guy who knew what it meant to work, too, and live that hard life. Not someone who’d been spoiled since they were born into daddy’s rich world.
But then again… She finished filling out her profile, but when it came time to attach a picture, she skipped that step and clicked enter. Once she’d set it up, it let her start looking again. “Oh, my God,” she muttered. “Do you see who’s on here?”
There, smiling as if he was the best thing in the world, was Phoebe’s boss. “I know you hate him, but he is a bit of a looker.”
Phoebe bit off a laugh. “William Yancey? He’s an asshole and he’s like twenty years older than me. Treats everyone beneath him like shit. That, and I found some weird files on my desk the other day. Asked him about them and he sort of started to freak out…think he’s a bit on the crazy side. No wonder he’s on here. He’s got a new bimbo every other week!”
“Careful. You’re on this site now,” Charlotte teased. “Someone might think you’re just a bimbo, too.”
That stopped Phoebe’s hand on the mousepad. “I can’t do this. It’s going to make me look horrible! I mean really, Charlotte, do I have to sink this low?”
Charlotte told her to hold that thought and went back to the small kitchen. She came back with two shot glasses and the bottle of tequila. “Do you want your mom to get her surgery or not? This is the only way for you to get that money, Phoebe. As your friend, I’m telling you this is the only legal way to get it and get it fast.”