Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(32)

“Oh,” Rollins says.

“Antonio, stop being funny.”

“Pah! You wish me to hide my love. I will not. I had no beauty coming up on the streets of Roma, you know.” He turns to a wide-eyed Rollins. “I sold myself, I hurt people. The blade was my friend. I am not proud. But everything I went through is worth it…”

“Okay…” I say. “But do you remember our discussion?”

Rollins is busying himself with the condiments box.

Antonio glances significantly over my shoulder, then back at me, and he turns a thousand-watt smile on me.

“I ask you,” he says, tilting his head, which adds hot-guy dimension to the smile. “Who is that dog over there who thinks he can look at you? I will cut out his heart as easily as I’d plunge a knife into a ripe tomato. Your body is not for men to feast their eyes on.”

He’s spotted Max. I pull out my phone and put it on selfie-mode. My breath catches as I see that familiar pair of shoulders behind me.

I gaze up at Antonio, who looks down at me besotted. Beatific, even, like a monk, having endured years of darkness for this one chance to gaze upon the divine. “All my problems disappear when I set my eyes upon you,” he whispers. “All of them!”

I smile back at him. Now I’m turning on the drama. “You really are amazing,” I say.

“I know I am,” he says.

“I appreciate it, I do.” I’m also relieved that there was no weird confrontation.

“Well, all the lessons you have given me. You have taught me so much.” Acting, he means.

“You’ve been putting in the work.”

Antonio sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Gone?” I ask.

“Gone, cara.”

I lower my voice. “You think he even saw?”

“I don’t know. He seemed…absorbed in thought.”

“Do I get to check off the box if he didn’t see?”

Antonio looks at me sadly.

Rollins stands behind him, fussing with a cart, a look of alarm etched upon his features.



* * *



I execute my deliveries for Maximillion Plaza at peak efficiency, getting peak tips. I never looked forward to my route this much before.

Blade, the guy on the twentieth floor who really loves that movie, is excited about the whitefish I recommended. He’s been talking me up on the floor and it’s suddenly my most lucrative floor. He asks me whether I’m appearing in any shows coming up and I tell him about my upcoming audition for Anything Goes. He’s sure I’ll get it.

By the elevators on Blade’s floor, there’s a pair of enlarged photos of Max.

In one of them, he’s looking bored in a fabulous suit, sprawled on a kingly piece of furniture. A woman stands behind him with her hand in his hair.

My belly grinds at the sight. Which just goes to show the devastating power of prize-positioning. Max has many flaws, but ignorance was never one of them.

I only wish he’d seen Antonio admiring me, so that I could be prize-positioned, too.

What did all of that maneuvering get me instead? Rollins thinks I’m dating my murderous gigolo cousin.

But I really want to be able to X off a golden-rule box today. I’m thinking about the Do Something Outrageous one. My gaze falls to the twelve bags of cheesy puffs still in my cart. A plan starts to form.

On the twenty-second floor I start giving the cheesy puffs away. “You get an extra free one!” I say to my excited customers. I’ll have to settle up with the Meow Squad powers that be, but who cares about obstacles like that when you’re on the do-something-outrageous warpath?

I strategically work it out as only a delivery cat can so that I have precisely one bag left when I get into the elevator going up to his floor. One of the willowy, statuesque receptionists is riding with me; I’d hoped to have privacy for this part of my plan, but then again, it’s not like people sit around staring at each other in elevators, right? Elevators are a zone of ignoring each other.

I retreat to the back of the elevator and pull open the last cheesy puff bag and stuff a handful into my mouth, allowing bright orange crumbs to cascade down my shirt. I stifle a grin, imagining Max’s face after I tell him I’m out of cheesy puffs and he specifically sees them all over my front.

I shove another bunch in, kind of smashing them into my mouth, so that they get into my hair a little bit.

It’s right about here that I realize the statuesque beauty is watching me in the reflection of one of the slim, highly polished panels. She quickly looks away.

My pulse races. I think about saying something, but what? There are some instances when explaining an awkward thing will only make it more awkward.

Finally the elevator arrives at the top floor. She gets out first and walks off—eager, perhaps, to tell her willowy, statuesque co-workers the cautionary tale of the lunch-cart girl.

I keep Kelsey’s faith in me in mind as I knock on Max’s door wearing a cat suit full of orange cheesy puffs. “Meow Squad.”

There’s a largish puff right on the center of my chest, a bright orange badge of outrageousness. I’m so X-ing off that box.

“Come,” he says.

I push in. “When did people stop saying come in? I don’t know how I feel about come, just on its own.”