Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(63)

With that he steps back.

The sound of the elevator doors shutting is a punch to my gut.





23




Never buy her a drink. That’s a move for losers.

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





* * *



Mia

Max is impossible to get to in the days that follow. It goes without saying that there are no more Meow Squad deliveries to the Maximillion tower. I can’t even get in.

I text and email him, but nothing comes back.

After work, I go to where he lives and stand outside. Two women from Canada are out there taking selfies in front of his building. They ask me to take one of them together. One of them wears an “I heart Max” hat.

I do it, thinking about how kind he always is about selfies. Was.

I head to Maximillion Plaza after work one day with a bag of cheesy puffs as a peace offering, or more, a prop to hopefully make him remember the fun we had. The security guard won’t let me in.

I trudge out and sit on the bench outside the building, letting the winter sun warm my face.

“Mia.” A familiar voice. I look up, shading my eyes.

“Parker,” I say. “Did Max tell you—”

He sinks down beside me. “What the hell?”

“How is he? Is he…okay?”

“Jesus, Mia, no. What were you guys thinking? Who even does that.”

“I thought he’d called me there to mock me or something!”

“Max would never mock you.”

“I know I screwed up. So bad.” I press my palms to my eyes. “Reconnecting with Max has been everything.”

“Well, he’s pretty angry now,” Parker says. “It’s partly my fault. I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I just always thought you two belonged together. You were enemies for so long, but nobody got him going like you.”

“We do belong together,” I say.

“Bring Max Hilton to his knees chart? Darts?”

“What can I do?”

He squints out at the scaffolding over the pizza place. The green and red slice showing through in parts. “Maybe another ten years.”

“No,” I say.





24




Believe in yourself. Shoot for the stars.

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





* * *



Mia

Meow Squad may be barred from the building, but I still have allies there.

I take the day off from work, and just before lunchtime, I buy him an amazing lobster roll sandwich. I put cheesy puffs in the bag along with it. I include a note. A picture of a heart. Underneath I write, I’m outside the building and I won’t leave until you come down. Because I love you.

I see a woman from the seventh floor I used to deliver to; she’s heading in with a coffee. I beg her to deliver my bag to Max’s assistant. She seems a little bit bewildered, but she agrees.

I wait outside on a bus bench. After a half an hour I’m shaking—not from the cold, but from the fear that he might not come out. I don’t even peek at my phone. I’m waiting for him. I want him to see that.

People come and sit by me, waiting for busses, and then they’re gone. Three hours into it, the same busses come by again. I wonder if the drivers recognize me. Some of the busses have Max’s face on them, ironically.

The sun goes behind the building at around four, and it gets cold. But still I sit there.

Kelsey comes at four thirty and brings me warm soup. I drink it right from the Thermos. She even puts on my hat and waits in my place while I pee at a nearby Starbucks. Not that the hat switch would fool Max, but we decide it’s like a placeholder for me.

“Guess what else I brought,” she says, when I come back. She pulls out my cross-stitch project.

“I’m not going to sit out here doing a cross stitch,” I say. “I want him to see that I’m focused on him.”

“He’s not going to come out,” she says after a while. “I saw his face. That chart. God, why did we leave it up?”

“And the darts,” I say.

“All this time he seemed like the kind of guy where everything rolls off his back,” she says. “You look at his pictures. It’s like nothing matters. But after what he confessed at The Wilder Club, it’s really the opposite, isn’t it?”

I stare up at the tower that I so impudently gave him three stars for. “He didn’t create the Max Hilton persona because nothing matters to him,” I say softly. “It’s because things matter too much.”

I tell Kelsey about Annette. His nanny who died in a crash after bringing sunshine and song into his life. Is that what he meant about history repeating itself? That sunshine comes, but it always goes?

Kelsey slides closer. “You don’t mind if I sit with you, right?”

“I’m glad you’re here.” I lay my head on her shoulder and tell her things I’ve observed about busses.

At around six, the lights in his twenty-fifth floor office blink off. We both sit up.

“Does he come out the front?” she asks.

“No, his car gets him below ground.”