Free The Billionaire's STEP Surrogate by Nikki Wild

 
     
     
    The Billionaire’s STEP Surrogate
     
    Nicole frowned, staring at her bank account balance on her smartphone screen. That wasn’t right—it couldn’t be. She’d just made a deposit last week. How could her checking account possibly be so low?
     
    She paused, looking around at the other students in line to pick up their college materials. It was her third year, and she was so close to getting her bachelor’s in criminal investigations that she could almost taste it. Unfortunately, because of how much money her parents made, she’d never qualified for a scholarship or financial aid, and so she’d had to pay out of pocket for the university experience.
     
    But now, staring at her account balance, a coil of dread knotted in her stomach as she wondered just how long she could keep it up.
     
    It didn’t make any sense. She’d cashed out her trust fund when she’d turned eighteen and put almost all the money therein toward college-related expenses. Sure, she’d stashed a bit in savings, and some of it she’d used to buy clothes and a few nice dinners, and the rest had gone into renting an apartment with her boyfriend, Jude Wilkinson. Her parents had absolutely hated him in high school, which was why she couldn’t rely on them to finance her education—once she’d made it clear she was moving out to be with him, they’d cut her off.
     
    Or, more accurately, her mother had. Her stepfather had been much more sympathetic to her situation and less explosive in his disappointment. That was why they still spoke at least once a week while she and her mother remained largely estranged.
     
    Nicole was beginning to regret that now, mostly because she had a terrible feeling about the discrepancy in her account. Something seemed very, very wrong.
     
    She ducked out of line and quickly headed across campus to her car parked in the student lot. She hopped in and fastened her seatbelt, cold sweat beading on her palms as she shifted into reverse and backed out of the tight space. She didn’t want to think about the countless possibilities just yet, not when she couldn’t do a damn thing about them, and she certainly didn’t want to entertain the sneaking suspicion she had about what had really happened to all the money.
     
    A single word rose to the surface of her thoughts anyway: Jude.
     
    They’d been having some troubles lately. She supposed that was putting it mildly, but she couldn’t admit to herself just how frequent and intense their fighting had become. It wasn’t always like that between them, but in recent months, Jude’s attitude and lack of ambition had really begun to grate on her, and Nicole wasn’t the kind of girl who could sit there silently while she was being wronged.
     
    She tried to be sympathetic. She tried to give him time to figure out what, exactly, he wanted to do with his life. But after three years of waiting for him to figure himself out—and in the meantime, having to endure his self-pitying horseshit and disregard for their mutual finances—Nicole was just about at the end of her rope.
     
    I should’ve never given him access to that account, she thought, her heart racing as she made her way to the bank only a few streets down. That was so stupid. Christ, what was I thinking?
     
    The answer, of course, was that she wasn’t thinking. She’d acted out of love, out of desperation to make things between her and Jude work. After all, the alternative would be to admit that her mother was right and coming crawling back with her tail between her legs, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she could handle that.
     
    But could she handle being bankrupt? Was that was her stupid pride had wrought?
     
    She pulled hastily into the bank’s parking lot, almost missing the turn in her doom and gloom reverie, and rushed through the doors into the quiet lobby. It was so silent she was sure that everyone could hear her heart hammering in her chest, and she felt lightheaded as she approached