Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(35)

“So, what’s she up to?”

“I don’t know. It’s not as if I follow her on Facebook or anything.”

“You’re not catching up?”

“On the sandwich trends of Manhattan, maybe. She’s delivering lunch.”

“Right to you in your office,” he says.

I shrug. “Let’s have it. Where are we on the campaign?”

Parker spins through the media plan.

I sometimes fly Parker and some of my buddies out to Vegas to see mixed martial arts fights. Front-row seats. Ringside service. If you know the sport, you know that the fighter who is flat on his back can sometimes turn that position to his advantage. There are certain moves that can be downright deadly from the bottom.

Leave it to Mia to think she’s going to bring it from the bottom.

A lunch-cart girl. But what does Mia care? The world is her cocktail party. Back at the Shiz, wherever you heard laughter or gasps and whispers rising up from a group, you knew Mia was at the center of it.

Ah, Antonio.

Who the hell is he? A Wall Street guy? Hotshot exec? How does she even meet somebody like that?

No, she’s not with him—I know it. Mia’s gaze takes on a certain softness when she’s captured by something. And that’s not how she looked at Antonio. I saw her face only briefly, but it was enough.

Still. What was I seeing? He looked ready to haul her over his shoulder and carry her off.

Parker shows me another board. “The slate gray is pitch perfect,” he says. “And the look on your face. This is gonna kill. They will eat it up. Don’t you think?”

“Agreed,” I say. “Perfect.”

“Here’s our location for your shoot.” He flips to a backdrop. “Check out this gritty drama. Set you up here with Lana and a couple of the other girls.”

“Yeah, that works.” I look up at the image of me and Lana at the Maximillion fifth anniversary photo shoot that Mia keeps staring at. It’s a shot of me sitting with my old friend Lana, bag designer extraordinaire. Lana’s sister and one of the Max Hilton girls from that year, a jewelry designer, are gathered around us, laughing at something.

Two-point-five stars. I bite back a smile.

It was a good night at the top of Maximillion Plaza, all champagne fountains and A-list celebs and athletes. A whirlwind event where we raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity.

And not once did I look out over the rooftops and wonder what she was doing.

Not once did I sling my arm around a woman’s shoulders and think, you’re not her.





12




Only an idiot tells a woman what she wants to hear.

~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room





* * *



Max

The Maximillion Companies studio complex sits across the street from the main headquarters. It’s a creative workshop, a refuge from the demands of running the company. Doing a round through there is the high point of my day—I enjoy finding out about my employees’ projects on an informal basis. Hearing what’s on people’s minds.

I sometimes see Mia and her co-workers around the Meow Squad truck out on 8th, but she’s not there today. Which means I may not see her today at all—I have an interview and a lunch event across town.

I head in. The studio complex was an abandoned eyesore across the street when we first took over the tower. After an unexpectedly good quarter—and against the wishes of our accounting team—we bought it and had it gutted and made into an open, colorful creative space with large and small work rooms honeycombed around the edges.

I love to walk around there and get the fashion designers, industrial designers, and marketing creatives to pitch me big ideas. Sometimes I pitch them.

It took a long time to get them to stop treating me like an owner, or worse, a celeb. To understand that I’m just a collaborator with extra juice. It took a few rounds of championing wild ideas and handing out bonuses even when things crashed to get them to relax around me. And Maximillion Companies is all the better for it.

I check on the apparel design team, and then I’m up in the photography studio talking about shots. The studio has windows that overlook the street below.

It’s right before eleven when I see the Meow Squad truck pull into one of the fifteen-minute spaces.

Somebody is talking to me about a new series of images for the Maximillion body spray, but I can’t stop watching the truck, wondering what she’ll get up to today.

Eating my cheesy puffs. Letting the evidence of it sprinkle down her front. I’m sure she was laughing as she did it. Stuffing her face and laughing.

Did she deliberately place the one large puff right in front, hoping to draw my eye?

Yes, of course. Standing there trying to look serious. Mischief in her eyes; cheesy puff crumbs in her hair. In your room full of balloons, Mia is the one holding the needle, dancing around like a dervish, laughing her head off.

And the way she added all of that bling to her uniform.

It reminds me of the way she dressed when she first got to the Shiz—as though a magpie dressed her, all loud colors and mismatched metallics. Later, she made herself over, or maybe her friends did. A new casually-elegant style to go with her new casually-elegant accent.