Chapter 2 Twenty-Four Hours to Pay
YARA
“I hope whoever it is doesn't think having an expensive emblem on your hood gives them the right to park like an idiot on a blind curve.” My voice shook slightly, but I kept it flat and shoved my car door open.
White smoke curled from beneath my crumpled hood, filling the night air with the smell of burning fluids and melted rubber.
My sedan's front end was smashed against the side of a sleek sports car that looked more expensive than anything I could afford in three lifetimes. I stepped onto the gravel, my hands trembling against my jeans.
Adrenaline pounded through my veins, but I refused to let the panic show. I pulled my phone from my purse to photograph the accident. The screen flashed a single red battery bar before going black.
Across the wreckage, the luxury car's driver's door swung open with a quiet hiss. A young guy stepped out, moving with an unbothered grace that made my temper flare.
He was terrifyingly handsome, with sharp cheekbones, messy dark hair, and an expensive jacket thrown carelessly over his shoulders. He didn't look injured or even angry. Instead, he examined the dent in his passenger door as though it were a minor inconvenience.
“Are you out of your mind?” I shouted, taking three steps toward him until the smoking wreckage was the only thing separating us.
The guy raised his eyebrows, his dark eyes shifting toward me. A faint, arrogant smirk touched his lips. He looked like someone who had never been yelled at in his entire life.
“You ran into me, lady,” he murmured, his voice surprisingly deep and completely calm, sliding his hands into his pocket.
“My car wasn't even moving.”
“Your car was parked horizontally across a public perimeter curve with absolutely no hazard lights on, completely blocking both lanes on a dark hill,” I snapped, pointing a finger at his front tires.
My mind raced through the legal facts before he could twist the blame. “According to city traffic regulations, stopping a vehicle on a blind curve without immediate emergency markers constitutes negligence. My brakes failed completely as I came down the slope, which means your wrong parking job turned a mechanical issue into a major multi-vehicle accident. You are entirely at fault for creating a deadly hazard on a public road.”
His smirk vanished. He stared at me in silence, his mouth parting slightly before he snapped it shut again.
For several seconds, the only sound was my dying radiator hissing. He was clearly accustomed to people bowing to his name or stuttering in his presence. My response had caught him off guard. His eyes narrowed as he studied me.
“Do you have any idea what kind of car this is?”
“I don't care if it’s a spaceship,” I countered, crossing my arms over my chest to hide the lingering tremor in my muscles.
“It’s a hazard, and you’re a reckless driver.” He let out a short, dry laugh, shaking his head as he walked around the front of his vehicle to inspect the damage closer.
“Look, it’s fine. It’s just an irrelevant mistake. Nobody needs to call the cops or get insurance involved. I’ll just have my family’s assistant call a flatbed and handle it. You can just take a cab home and forget about it.”
My pride flared. His casual dismissal felt like a slap, as though his family's money could erase the accident and make me grateful for his generosity.
“I am not forgetting anything,” I stated, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper.
“And I certainly don't need your charity.” He stopped walking, turning his head to look at me with a genuinely puzzled expression.
“I’m literally letting you off the hook. Your car is worth less than my front bumper, and you just wrecked a custom carbon-fiber body panel. If we call the police, you’re the one who’s going to be paying for this for the rest of your life.”
“Then I will pay for it,” I insisted, standing tall and refusing to let his immense wealth intimidate me for a single second. I grabbed a notepad and a pen from my purse, stepping right up to the dented hood of his car.
“I don't walk away from my responsibilities, and I won't let you look down on me. Pull out your phone right now.” He didn't move, his dark eyes tracking my movements with a mixture of confusion and growing irritation.
“For what?”
“To take down my details,” I ordered, tapping the pen against the paper.
“My name is Yara Jenkins. My license plate number is on the back of my sedan. I work as a teacher at Kensington-Lyle Academy. You will have your insurance company send an invoice to my address, and I will pay back every single cent through bank installments. We are going to handle this legally, properly, and as absolute equals.”
The word equals seemed to catch his attention. He slowly drew a sleek smartphone from his pocket and typed in the information I dictated.
His gaze never left my face. He watched my clenched jaw and the way I refused to look away.
“Kensington-Lyle,” he repeated, his voice taking on a strange, smooth texture. A cold breeze swept across the perimeter road, rustling the leaves above us, but neither of us moved.
He finished typing, sliding the phone into his jacket pocket with slow motion.
I wrote down his license plate number, tore the sheet from my notepad, and shoved it into my bag.
“Expect the first payment as soon as the bank processes the claim. Have a good night, Mr. Nameless driver.”
I turned on my heel, intending to walk back toward the main road to find a spot with cell service, but a shadow suddenly blocked the moonlight.
The scent of mint and black pepper reached me as he stepped into my path. His broad shoulders blocked my view of the road behind him.
I lifted my eyes to meet his. Up close, his dark gaze held an unsettling fascination that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“The name is Rames,” he murmured, his deep voice vibrating right through my skin, sending a sudden chill down my spine. He paused, a low smile spreading across his sharp features as he tilted his head.
“And you have exactly twenty-four hours to figure out how to pay off a half-million dollar repair bill, Yara, because I’m coming to collect.”
