The Billionaire Paid For My Face Chapter 1

I was Hudson’s paid lookalike. His contracted distraction.

While he used my body to kill time, I lay beneath him and thought of someone else.

Right up until the day Hudson supposedly flew out of state to comfort his untouchable first love.

I logged into my burner account and saw a message from a guy I only knew by his screen name, Nomad:

[I want to see you.]

I took a breath, steeled my nerves, and agreed to meet him. I was ready to finally sever my ties to the past.

But when I pulled open my front door at the exact time we'd agreed upon...

Standing on the other side of the threshold was Hudson—the man who was supposed to be halfway across the country.

He arched an eyebrow at me, a dark, playful smirk playing on his lips.

"What's wrong?" he murmured. "Waiting for your internet crush, but got me instead?"

* * *

My relationship with Hudson was, at its core, painfully simple: he wanted my face, and I wanted his money.

As for why my face specifically caught the attention of a New York tech billionaire?

It’s the oldest cliché in the book. Hudson was haunted by the ghost of a girl he couldn't have. Margot. Hollywood’s current A-list darling.

And I happen to look a good seventy percent like her. I even used to be her body double on set.

But Margot had a high school sweetheart she’d been dating for eight solid years; they were Hollywood’s golden couple, completely impenetrable. So, Hudson had to settle for the next best thing. He plucked me out of absolute obscurity.

When he formally offered to make me his "kept woman," his lawyer slid a non-disclosure and lifestyle agreement across the mahogany table that was thicker than my college thesis.

But boiled down, it really only had three rules:

One, don't ask questions.

Two, be available whenever he calls.

Three, never cling.

I followed them religiously. Not because I had some profound sense of professional integrity as a sugar baby, but mainly because my heart was already occupied.

Nomad.

A guy I met on an anonymous forum.

At the time, Hudson had just hired me. My pride was in tatters, the brutal reality of the contract sitting heavy on my chest. I had bowed to the almighty dollar, and I felt suffocated by it.

Late one night, scrolling mindlessly through Reddit, I stumbled upon a post Nomad had written about traveling to Iceland alone to see the Northern Lights. His prose was breathtakingly good. He wrote about isolation with a tenderness that made my chest ache.

Like a ghost guiding my hand, I sent him a private message: [You write beautifully.]

He replied almost instantly: [Thanks. That cat in your profile picture is pretty chunky.]

I couldn't help but brag: [He's a rescue. I adopted him.]

And just like that, we started talking.

Hudson kept me for over two years, and I talked to Nomad for over two years.

I sent Nomad texts about my 3:00 AM insomnia. I sent him pictures of the incredible greasy diner downstairs, and the oak tree outside my window that budded in the spring and went stark bald in the winter.

He never sent a photo of himself.

He only ever sent one sixty-second audio clip.

When I pressed play, it was just the roaring, crackling sound of howling wind.

"The wind in Iceland," his voice murmured through the static.

I played that goddamn audio clip thirty-seven times on a loop.