"No, that's not what I mean," Madeline refuted. "I don't need any luxury car, and I don't understand why you would give me an expensive gift."
Lance frowned. He didn't seem to like her answer just now. "What do you mean? I can't spoil my own girlfriend?"
"I'm just your contractual girlfriend."
"You're still my girlfriend, nonetheless," Lance insisted. "You need to have all the standards I want, including your transportation, housing, and other miscellaneous things."
"You—"Madeline forgot that she was talking with a man who probably had never stepped on a dirty street his whole life. He was extremely rich and lived on a whole different planet than her. "Look, I'm thankful for your gift. But I cannot accept that luxury car."
"Why?"
"Because I live in a normal neighborhood! It will attract people's attention, including the bad ones!" Madeline huffed. "We live in an entirely different world, okay? You won't understand."
Lance's face soured. "Then why didn't you tell me? I have a beachside villa in Los Angeles. You can stay there."
Madeline has a headache dealing with this rich kid. The more she talked with him, the more she realized he wouldn't understand.
"Look, I won't be able to move out for now. I also have a little brother whose life I can't just uproot from his neighborhood," Madeline said. "I won't take the car, but thank you for your thoughtfulness."
Lance didn't expect Madeline to simply reject his gifts like that. He had prepared so many things for her because she would be a part of him for a while. So it was natural for him to spoil her.
"Alright, if you don't want any of that, you should at least accept this."
Lance took a black card out of his wallet and put it on the coffee table.
Madeline stared at it in confusion. "And this is…"
"A black card."
"Well, duh, I know that," Madeline rolled her eyes. "I mean, why are you whipping out that black card?"
"It's a supplementary credit card that I issued for you," Lance replied. "It has no limit, so you can use it for whatever you want."
Madeline was speechless.
Again, what this man did was completely outside of her expectations. It seemed there was no boundary to how much money he could pull out of his ass.
She never expected to be given a black card. Hell, this was her first time seeing the real thing in front of her eyes.
"What? You don't want that black card?" Lance asked. "Come on, man, you don't want the car or villa, and now you don't want my card, too? You're far more frustrating than I thought, Madeline."
"I just… I don't understand why you would give me your credit card. Aren't you afraid that I'll splurge all of your money?"
Madeline had a trust issue regarding money, especially money in a bank account.
Her father spent it all like nothing in Vegas, so she didn't believe this man could be so stupid as giving a no-limit credit card to a random girl, right?
Lance still didn't understand what the fuss was about. It was just a black card because he wanted to spoil his new girlfriend. He saw nothing wrong with that.
"Don't make it difficult for me. Just take it, and spend it all you want. You can buy anything with it, even cars or apartments," Lance said.
"If you insist…" Madeline was scared of how trusting Lance was. But she knew they were getting nowhere with this argument, so she requested, "At least tell me the limit I can spend in a month."
"A limit? Uh… a million dollars a month?" Lance said, unsure if he was being too cruel and cheap to Madeline. "But if you want to buy more—"
"—One million it is," Madeline stated firmly as she snatched the black card and put it in her bag. "This is the only thing I will accept from you. Got it? No need to buy me gifts and such. I will buy them myself with this card."
Lance shrugged lightly, "Let's just see if I'm in the mood to buy you something. But why are you limiting yourself to only one million?"
"That's an enormous amount of money for me," Madeline said honestly. "You're just too rich to understand."
"One million will be nothing for you soon. You'll be a mega star in Hollywood," Lance said. "And you shouldn't act like this in front of my family. I don't want my father to think that I'm bullying my girlfriend."
Madeline didn't know what kind of family he was raised in, but she knew damn well they must've shit gold.
"So, do you want to ask something else?"
"No, I'm going to read the contract first, then sign it," Madeline said. She picked up the contract and started skimming it, making sure that she didn't get scammed.
Lance waited patiently as Madeline kept on re-reading it. Her frown grew deeper because she literally didn't find anything suspicious in this contract.
Everything in this contract benefited her, which was highly suspicious because it seemed that Lance would get nothing for this contract.
She also checked the 'lover' contract, and it also benefited her.
"Why are you flipping it over and over? I thought the contract was already simple enough," Lance commented.
Madeline glanced at Lance, who was relaxed, and her eyes peered suspiciously, "The contract is too good to be true."
"And?"
"And it's not believable," Madeline said. "What do you get from this contract, Mr. Grant? It looks more like a giveaway than a contract."
Lance's smile faltered a bit, "I need a contractual girlfriend for my own interest. Monetary gain is unnecessary for me," he explained. "Do it now. I'm getting tired of waiting for you to sign it."
Madeline's suspicion rose, but she was already at rock bottom right now. No suspicion or fear was enough to stop her from signing it, anyway.
She was still wondering what this man truly wanted from her, but whatever that was, it was fine for her as long as she could have a stable life with her family.
'Oh well, here goes nothing.'
Thus, Madeline picked up the pen and signed the contract.