Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(55)

“I don’t know if it does that, but it definitely teaches guys who are stupid jerks how to be smart jerks. And they go out and screw with women.”

I frown. What happened to her? Low and slow through grit teeth, I ask, “Did somebody mess with you?”

“Not with me, but my roommate Kelsey? Her boyfriend picked her up with your techniques. And they ended up living together and it turned out that the entire time, he was using your techniques to pick up a zillion other girls. While they were living together.”

“That is awful. It’s an awful thing to discover something like that.”

“She was devastated.”

I don’t know what to say. I stare out at the park, so many brown trees tipped with snow. “I have to say, though, he sounds like he would’ve been a bad boyfriend without the book.”

“Yeah, but you helped him seem like a good boyfriend. And my friend, Jada? She went to bed with a guy who did the jungle kissing move and it was like, false advertising. Those are two women I personally know.”

I frown, confused. “Are you holding me responsible for that?”

“Well, yeah. It teaches guys how to be jerky. The book sucks.”

“Ouch,” I say.

“I know you wrote it when you were twenty, but seriously?”

“Look,” I say, “if you went and got coaching on how to say the right thing in a job interview, is that wrong?”

“It would be wrong if the coach told me to pretend I was something I wasn’t. And meeting in a bar isn’t a job interview.”

“Meeting in a bar is exactly like a job interview,” I say. “And the company who hires you would be responsible for confirming what you told them. Maybe giving you a probation period.” She’s shaking her head. Is this our first fight? “The book was designed to inspire guys to have confidence. To be unique, let their personalities shine through.”

Mia’s cheeks are rosy from the steam. She looks cherubic, but she’s a cherub on the warpath. She was always fiercely loyal. She’d fight to the death for a friend. “You helped them pretend they have a personality that isn’t theirs.”

“It’s coaching,” I say.

“Really? What do you call the thing where you’re supposed to completely ignore the pretty girl and talk with everybody else? Emotional manipulation. Come on.”

“All performance is emotional manipulation. At the Shiz they talked all the time how to wring emotion out of music. Method acting is emotional manipulation. The key of D minor is emotional manipulation.”

“It’s different,” she says. “And the men are only supposed to choose girls they will never feel attached to, so that they can’t get hurt. What the hell is that?”

I think back on my state of mind when I wrote the book. The apartment above a grocer in Little Italy. “I was definitely cynical about…romance,” I say. What the hell was she doing reading that book? And then I get the real trouble here. Or part of it. “Does Kelsey have a problem with me?”

“A lot of my friends do. I’m honestly surprised you’re surprised. Like you never get any blowback?”

“I’ve never pay attention to my critics. You can’t get anywhere like that.”

“So basically, everybody you deal with is in awe of you. You’re surrounded by fans and yes-people and employees. Even in high school people were in awe of you.”

“Not everyone,” I say.

“Be serious. You’ve never had to deal with people who’d rather give your picture a magic marker moustache than wear Maximillion logo shit, but they’re out there.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I say.

She gives me a hard look. As though I’m being arrogant. I rub her foot, staring into the bubbly depths of the hot tub. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong, but it’s always possible I’m not seeing all the sides of this. “Let me look into it. If I feel like there’s a problem, I’ll make donation to something. The Harriet Tubman shelter, or…”

“You can’t just throw money at it, Max. This isn’t PR. This is real people in the real world.”

I frown. If nothing else, I’m thinking I need to look at that book again.

She narrows her eyes. “You better not be thinking of a Max Hilton line right now.”

“I’m not.”

“Who needs the real world when there’s hundred-year-old scotch? Or some shit like that? Is that what you were thinking.”

“Oh, baby, you gotta do better than that for a Max Hilton line,” I say.

She snorts, but my mind is whirring. I won’t be the boyfriend that all her friends hate. No way, that’s not acceptable.

We get take-out from the little Indian place down the street and I press her for more details on the way back. We spend the rest of the night sprawled on the couch, watching musicals on the big-screen TV and singing along, something I can do with exactly zero other people.

We begin with the serious warhorses, starting with HMS Pinafore. We sing along to every song. She’s such an amazing singer.

“How do you know all of this?” she asks me at one point. “I knew your family was musical, but god. I thought it was only classical.”

“It’s not my family. Not exactly.”