He Played Broke. I Played Dirtier.

"Two million dollars and Sullivan both fall in the water. Which one do you save?" His best friend was holding out the check.

I didn't need a second. "The two million." In fairness, my boyfriend had just taken this man's advice and shown up faking broke to test me.

And I had just made the man himself the father of an imaginary baby.

Which is when my boyfriend walked in and lost his mind, demanding to know why his best friend was coaching him to play poor and buying his girl at the same time.

I stepped in fast. "Don't wreck a friendship that's older than I am. Not over me." "I can support you with his money.

You'll just have to swallow your pride and be my side piece." Chapter 1 Saturday. I was catching up on sleep in my rental on the north end of Seattle.

Sullivan Reid turned up at my door hauling two enormous checkered laundry bags. His whole face was doing shame. There was something unsteady in his voice. "Baby.

My family threw me out because of you. They killed every card I have. I don't have a dollar to my name. You're not going to break up with me now, are you?

You wouldn't leave me like this?" I looked at the two crumpled bags in his hands and genuinely wanted to tell him he was overplaying it.

Sullivan and I had been together a little over a year. Nothing enormous. But something. And he'd only been thrown out. His family hadn't actually gone under.

The main thing was he'd done it all for our love, allegedly. By any decent measure I shouldn't have turned on him.

Except a few days earlier I'd overheard his best friend, Roman Devereaux, coaching him to fake broke and test me. After which I didn't feel guilty about a single thing.

I put a hand on my back and, out of habit, patted a stomach that had not finished digesting. Then I opened my mouth and started lying. "Oh, I forgot to mention.

Your best friend Roman just came at me with two million dollars." "He told me love follows the money.

Which, honestly, tracks." "So we don't confuse him going forward, you should probably start calling me sisinlaw." That was too much information at once.

Sullivan bluescreened on the spot. His face went through several colors. His eyes drifted to my stomach. Not on purpose, probably. Excuse me. Am I not allowed a little bloat?

I stuck it out at him on principle. Before he could ask anything, I shut the door in his face. He knocked. He pleaded. I did not care.

Pretty soon there was a sound out there like a kettle coming to a boil. I didn't want to bother the neighbors, so I had building management escort him out. He wanted to explain?

Go get your best friend to explain it. Sullivan and I met online. I hadn't wanted to date anybody. I was working every side job I could find and had no hours left to spend on a man.

That stretch of my life was heavy. He kept sending me pictures of food to get my attention. He's young. He runs wild. He has never in his life known when to stop.

If he was in a good mood, he'd insist on showing me things. There was nowhere he wouldn't. He'd take requests, too. But what mattered was that when I needed help most.

He sent me forty thousand dollars without asking a single question. My grandmother raised me. It was the two of us and nobody else.

That year she went in for emergency heart surgery. I was still in school. I borrowed from every relative I had and it wasn't close.

That was the only time I ever asked him for money. I was wrecked with gratitude. I said yes to him that same week.

Until a few days ago, when I was helping my boss host a client and walked past the private room next to ours and found him in there with Roman Devereaux.

The bottle he'd opened without looking at it ran sixty thousand dollars. That night they went through five of them.

I stood in that doorway with a pitcher of water in my hands, the one I'd been pouring for the client. So when exactly had he started telling me he had no money?

Chapter 2 That's when I learned that the forty thousand I'd borrowed didn't cover the rounding error on one of his months.

To his best friend, though, it was hard proof that I was a golddigger with a plan. Roman disliked me from the first minute of the first time we met.

Any opening he got, he used it to run me down to Sullivan. I told Sullivan more than once that I didn't think his friend liked me.

Every time, he told me I was reading into it and asked me to try harder with him. And then, gently: "Ro's a good guy. We got taken when we were kids.

He took a knife for me." After a line like that, one more complaint out of me and I'd be the one coming between them. So I kept my distance from Roman, to save Sullivan the trouble.

That night, Roman was pouring drinks and telling Sullivan to end it with me. Sullivan had a hand around his throat over it. "Say it.

Say you wish us a long and happy life together." Roman went white and gave ground the smart way. "Vivian Cho is in it for your money. Don't believe me? Fake broke and test her.

I guarantee she'll be screaming for a breakup inside a day." Sullivan was sitting back in the dark. I couldn't read his face. I didn't think much about it.

A year of him had made me confident. I filed it under never happened. Until today, when he showed up at my door with two Balenciaga versions of those bags asking to be taken in.

Up until today I'd been scraping together forty thousand dollars to pay him back. Which is why I ate instant ramen at every meal. He thought I ate it because I liked it. Hilarious.

His friend wanted to test how I felt about him? Then let's find out what that friendship is actually made of. Roman called while I was still stretching out of my nap. Rested. Alert.

Perfect condition for war. I picked up and the first thing on the line was a man sobbing. "How is there a baby of mine inside you?" What baby?

Somewhere in my head, Sullivan's greenish face turned toward my stomach again. I opened my mouth to answer and noticed how quiet it was on his end.

So I softened my voice, let my mouth curve, and went innocent as a nun. "Weren't you the one who said you'd give me and the baby a home?" "You can't expect our child to call some other man dad." There was a struggling sound on the other end.

Like somebody had both hands around his throat. Then a wail with no hope left in it. "Woman, that's defamation. That is DEFAMATION.

I have never touched anybody in my life!" Anyone can say that. Anyone can also go get a doctor to put it in writing. If you're so confident, go get a doctor's note.

I raised the stakes. "Baby's father, you sound strange today. Is somebody threatening you?" "Don't worry. You said it yourself.

Love follows the money, and what you feel for me is the real thing." "Sullivan won't spend a dime on me. Clearly he takes relationships very lightly.

I'd never pick a man like that." "Baby, that's not what happened, let me explain, he's the one who—" Sullivan got about that far, in tears, before Roman cut him off. "Sully, don't let this woman play you.

You and I go back decades!" Still going, are we. I pitched my voice up into something small and wounded. "You're right, it's all my fault.

Please, please don't hit my baby's father." "A child shouldn't come into this world without a dad." The next sound out of that phone was Roman screaming like something being slaughtered.

Followed by the sound of a man beating his best friend with both fists.

Chapter 3 "You're supposed to be my brother and you got my wife pregnant!" "No wonder you never had a good word for Viv. You've been trying to break us up this whole time!" Go on.

Get into it. Nothing beats watching two men go at each other's hair. I'd just gotten the popcorn going and settled in for the rest. Then the call cut out. Rude.

Like I couldn't spare the data. Half an hour later Sullivan tried to make peace about six times. I blocked all of it. Not one useful offer in the bunch. All he does is cry.

He's going to cry all his luck away. I'd barely hung up when Roman started a video call. Sullivan had put him past his limit.

He was flat on a hospital bed with his face in several colors. He talked through his teeth. "You calculating— This whole circus is about money.

Obviously." "Two million's not happening. I'll give you a hundred thousand.

You go tell my friend the truth." Honestly, a hundred thousand for one year of feelings would have been a fine trade. Sullivan isn't exactly a prize either.

But Roman said it the way you'd wave off a stray dog. And that I did not appreciate. You people put away two hundred thousand in liquor in one night.

And you're insulting me with this. So I agreed. Then I immediately sent the screenshot of that hundredthousand transfer to my ex. [He says it's a gift for meeting his parents.

Oh, would you be a groomsman at the wedding?] Sullivan went silent for over an hour. Roman's messages came in for over an hour. [What did I ever do to you.

What is this.] [My best friend has nearly killed me. Are you happy now?] [Let me be clear.

He can beat me to death and I will still never claim that baby.] An hour in, his messages stopped. At the same moment, a wire cleared into my account. Two million dollars.

I left the ground. Then I counted the zeros. Repeatedly. I have never in my life seen that many zeros.

The memo line: [Sisinlaw, Ro got a little excited and he's dead now.] [I have money. I can be the baby's father.] I didn't move on it.

For all I knew the two of them were running a fresh con on me. They are famously close, after all.

But out of respect for two million dollars, I unblocked him. [Didn't your family throw you out?

Where's this money from?] [Don't tell me Ro was right and you've been faking broke this whole time.] [No wonder he wanted me away from you.

So this is who you are.] [typing…] And there he went. Back and forth, back and forth. Sullivan couldn't bring himself to admit he'd faked it.

Admitting it now would hand me straight to his best friend. I didn't give them time to get their stories straight. I called him on video.

The second he saw me his eyes went red and he started talking too fast. "Baby, I know he's the one who got to you. I'm going home to apologize right now.

I'll take you to meet my parents today." He likes playing poor? Then he can keep playing poor. I cut him off, deeply concerned. "Stop lying to me.

Ro told me things are bad with your family because of me. Your parents aren't going to forgive you for a year, maybe more.

I'm not good enough for you and now I've dragged you into this." "That two million is his, isn't it. You were right about him, he's a good man.

He's taking such good care of me for you. It's only fair the baby calls him dad." Chapter 4 I let it look like I'd realized my mistake and hung up in a hurry.

Fill in the blanks, sweetheart. Roman wouldn't claim the baby? That's fine. Somebody will. I patted the hot wings, the skewers, and the boba I'd put away an hour earlier.

I was so happy I was going into a carb coma. Inside thirty minutes Sullivan had nearly melted my phone. I silenced it and went to shower.

In the middle of the night, Roman's messages came back from the dead. "Vivian. You wait. Do not let me get my hands on you." "You're finished. I'm telling you right now.

You're FINISHED." I screenshotted it, put one line of text on it, and posted it. [Even flat on his back, he still finds time to tell the baby a story.] [He's going to be such a good dad, right?] And with that, Roman went very, very quiet.

Obviously I wasn't going to sit around and wait for him to show up at my door