Chapter 13
Olivia
Early in the morning on the first of November, Olivia rolled over in bed, yawned, and checked her bank account balance.
After some research she had opened an account at a local credit union.
One where Lance’s accounts weren’t connected and he couldn’t see the balance.
One she could check the status of at any time from her phone.
All her money from the hospital job had been transferred over, but it disappeared faster than she thought possible.
Without having to account for rent and utilities, she didn’t have many bills.
She paid off The Reaper years ago, so she only had her insurance to pay for.
Most of her money had gone to food and replacing items she’d left behind in her move.
Like a hairbrush, winter coat, and unfortunately, a laptop, since she had always used Lance’s.
After three weeks of spending, the number had dwindled to a single digit.
She didn’t have to worry about it for too long, because her new job paid monthly.
On the first. Connor had insisted they create a formal contract for her employment.
He had a member of his staff draw it up.
His agent? Manager? Some person who handled all the business stuff for him.
Olivia tried to read through it, but the document filled over a hundred pages, and half the jargon she didn’t understand.
She trusted Connor, so she read the official job description and signed on the dotted line.
From her understanding, her technical title was “personal assistant.” She would do his grocery shopping, retrieve his dry-cleaning, and prepare five meals per week.
While he recovered, she would help him with any daily tasks he might struggle with and play chauffeur to his various doctor’s appointments and practices.
The pay rate was ten dollars an hour more than the hospital billing position had paid.
From what she could tell, Connor would pay her directly.
The team wasn’t involved at all. She debated arguing, but needed the money and knew she would lose.
The contract lasted through March and could be renegotiated or renewed then if needed.
It all seemed well-thought-out, detailed, and reasonable.
Which is why the number staring back at her from her credit union app didn’t compute.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and squinted at the bright screen.
When the number didn’t change, she bolted upright, her boob falling out of her tank top in the process.
She yanked her shirt over her tits and climbed out of bed.
“Connor!” she yelled, knowing full-well he would still be dead asleep.
Olivia barged into his room and climbed right into his bed next to him. She shook his shoulder. “Connor! Wake. Up. Right. Now.”
He groaned and covered his head with a pillow. She pulled it away from him.
“Livy, it’s like five in the morning. Let me sleep,” he whined.
“It’s seven-thirty, and I need to talk to you.”
“Ugh,” he rubbed his eyes and propped himself on the thirteen pillows taking up the majority of the bed. “What is so wrong that you had to ruin my sleep?”
She thrust her phone in his face. He squinted at the screen, and a sleepy grin spread across his face. “Hey, you got paid! I worried it wouldn’t go through.”
“You overpaid me. By a lot. Aren’t you worried about all that money?”
Connor frowned. “I don’t think my accountant would have overpaid. He’s pretty stingy about this stuff.”
Her mouth popped open. “In what universe is this correct? It’s almost thirty thousand dollars!”
“I can text him, but he doesn’t usually make mistakes.” He grabbed his phone from his nightstand and fired off a message.
“Thank you!” Olivia said, her elevated heart rate slowing to a manageable pace.
The relief didn’t last long. His phone dinged, and Connor said, “He says it’s correct, and he emailed you a pay stub.”
Olivia checked her email, and sure enough, right there on top sat her pay stub.
She opened it and almost choked. They’d already accounted for taxes.
The gross pay outpaced her highest-ever yearly salary.
“This says you’re paying me twenty-four hours a day.
And you paid a signing bonus. I never asked for a signing bonus. ”
“Was it in your contract?”
She stared at him, deciphering whether he was serious. “I don’t think so.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he slipped a pair of athletic shorts over his boxers. He made a buzzer noise like she’d gotten a question wrong on a game show. “Trick question. It’s in your contract. You didn’t read your contract.”
“I didn’t expect to be quizzed on it later!”
“I love you, but I’m tired, and I gotta piss. You should read your contract.” He hobbled into the bathroom and locked the door behind him, leaving her staring after him from his mountain of pillows.
She spent the next day and a half poring over the contract in her free time. All hundred-plus pages of it. She read through it line by line, researching terms she didn’t understand. As she read, she grew angrier and angrier.
The stupid agreement was the most lopsided thing she’d ever read. In her favor, but it pissed her off that Connor would be so reckless with his legal obligations. She hated to think what other idiotic contracts he had out there.
Near the end of the document she found a list of contacts she could call for questions, including the manager who drafted the agreement and the accountant responsible for ensuring she got paid.
After two hour-long phone calls with each of them asking them to be reasonable and renegotiate a fairer contract, she’d gotten nowhere.
And Connor was no help. Every time she brought it up, he said, “You’d have to ask my team. ”
Finally, after multiple days of stressing about having too much money—the opposite of her normal worries—Olivia went to someone Connor wouldn’t be able to ignore.
Christina didn’t let the phone go unanswered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mom!” she infused her voice with enthusiasm.
“Honey, how are you?”
She closed the door to avoid being overheard. Connor would be annoyed if he found out she tattled. “I’m doing a lot better than last time we talked.”
“Oh, thank heavens. How’s Connor doing? He doesn’t tell me anything.”
“He’s about as good as you could expect. He hates being cooped up.” Olivia sat on the edge of her bed and pulled one knee up, letting her other foot dangle.
“He always has. Can’t sit still for more than two minutes.”
“Nope, he can’t. Anyway, I’m calling because your son is an idiot.”
Christina snorted. “I won’t argue with you, but what did he do now?”
Olivia explained the whole contract situation. The overpaying. How he insisted on paying twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The various bonuses outlined, and the impossible circles she’d gone in trying to sort it out.
All the while, Christina listened, humming along in the appropriate places.
When she finished talking, Christina stayed quiet for several long beats.
A screeching sound came over the line, and Olivia pulled the phone away from her ear.
She could imagine the scrape of the oak dining room chair across the tile kitchen floor and the way Christina would rub the bridge of her nose.
“Honey, I know you think this isn’t fair on Connor’s end, but you should take the money and keep your mouth shut.”
Olivia blinked, confused. Christina was a fair woman. A reasonable woman. “What?” she asked, certain she’d misheard.
“You should keep the money.”
“It’s over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars by the end of the agreement.”
Christina sighed. “That sounds like a lot, but to Connor it’s a drop in the bucket. For you it’s life-changing money.”
Her face got hot, her nose stuffy. “I’m not a charity case. I should work for what I have.”
“Nobody is questioning your work ethic. But think about the financial snafu your ex put you in. Every woman should have a fuck-you fund. That’s what jewelry used to be for, but the tradition has gone out of fashion.”
“A fuck-you fund?” She’d never heard the term.
“A savings account separate from your partner where you ideally save enough money to leave whatever crappy situation you might find yourself in. Whether that be a toxic job, or a relationship, or a living situation. Enough money to say ‘fuck you,’ and walk away.”
“You have a secret account Mark doesn’t know about?” Their marriage had always seemed perfect. Olivia couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Christina left him.
“He knows about it, but yes, I have one. He’s funded it over the years.”
She hated feeling like she was being handed the world.
But Christina had a point. Lance had screwed her over.
Having some savings and a back-up plan didn’t sound like a bad idea.
And the money Connor paid her paled in comparison to his salary.
He wouldn’t notice the cost, but she would gain the freedom.
In this one instance, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to swallow her pride and let a friend help her out.
“How do I start one?” she asked.
Christina spent an hour explaining a bunch of different personal finance concepts to Olivia. She helped her open a high-yield savings account and offered to help her build a budget when she was ready to find an apartment of her own.
When Olivia finally hung up, she felt more in control of her life than she ever had before.