How to Hook a Hottie Read Online Free Page B

to be saving for my future.”
    “And I'm not?”
    Man, I hated it when he was right. And when my face acknowledged it without my permission. I had no choice but to cave. “Fine.”
    He studied me. “You backed down too easily, Kate. It's not like you to throw around money.”
    “What can I say? It looks like an Ideal Opportunity.”
    He grinned. I knew he wasn't laughing
at
me exactly, more like with me. He'd heard me use that phrase once or twice or a hundred times in the past year. Usually as in
looking for
the Ideal Opportunity.
    “Well, then,” he said, and seemed to swallow his grin, “if this is an Ideal Opportunity, how can I refuse? But one question: what happens if you end up short at graduation?”
    “I figure you'll give it back to me.” He didn't laugh, so I did. “No, look, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it
right
. And for that, I need your help,” I said, and sort of held my breath.
    “Okay, but I'm keeping whatever you pay me.”
    “Only fair,” I said, feeling a smile creep to my lips. I'd just passed a test in Business 101. I'd assessed the problems, acknowledged my limitations, found a supplier, and successfully negotiated the contract. “There's enough money out there for both of us.”
    He stopped at the fork in the path. “Okay, then, I guess I've got a job to do. And you do, too,” he said, and nodded toward the science wing. “Go break his heart, baby doll.”
    I gave him the eye roll he deserved, then walked away, dollar signs still filling my head.
    I had more than just the usual hunger for cold, hard cash. At the beginning of the school year, I had talked my parents into signing an unusual agreement: if I raised Five Thousand Big Ones by my graduation and showed them a senior report card with nothing but As, they would—despite what they admitted were the strongest reservations—hand over the balance of my college savings account. Which at last peek was over ten grand.
    I knew they'd only scribbled their names to shut me up. They figured I'd fall short financially, and the good grades would help get me into a good college. But more likely, they would learn that they'd underestimated me. Because I didn't do anything halfway, and I didn't take on anything I didn't think I could win.
    I would get that money and use it as start-up capital on whatever venture struck me at the time. I'd enter the real world and blaze my own trail, get a jump start on others who'd be wasting four years in college.
    Not that I had anything against college. There were obviously worlds of knowledge to be acquired there, connections to be made, good opportunities to take advantage of. But college wasn't the only way.
    Look at my dad. With nothing more than a high school diploma, he'd parlayed his plumbing skills into a company so successful that he actually turned work down. And I was my dad's daughter, right?
    Besides, I was off to a good start at meeting my end of the deal. My grades were high, and I had about $2,400 in a shoe box under my bed. Paychecks from the Hoppenfeffers would get me to $4,000 by June. I could factor in interest after I brought myself to deposit the cash in a savings account, but right now I was having too much fun looking at it, counting it, playing with it.
    The last grand would have to come from somewhere—but I told myself not to worry. I'd earn it. Somehow. I had to. I
could
and I
would
be a player. ASAP.
    A hand reached out and grabbed me outside my chem class. I turned to see Chelsea, a look of relief on her face. “Here,” she said, and pushed a fistful of bills into the pocket of my coat.
    “I thought we'd talk more about this later,” I said, but involuntarily, my hand slipped into my pocket and closed around the cash.
    “Just make it work, Kate. Seriously.”
    And she was off into the crowd before I could say another word, leaving me with nothing but fifty bucks and a lingering reluctance to go face my
other
problem.
    When I walked into the chem lab,