Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(8)

“His grovelly knees,” Jada clarifies.

Kelsey is beaming at me. She’s convinced I can do it. I bite my lip, thinking back over the endless hours of holding her, comforting her as she sobbed over how bad Nathan screwed her over—using Max’s book as his guide. And then there’s Jada. And lord knows who else.

My friends need me.

I stand straight and tall, jam my fists into my hips with a confidence I don’t really feel. “Okay, then,” I say. “I’ll do it. I’m gonna bring Max Hilton to his grovelly knees.”

Kelsey hugs me. And Jada is clapping, and Antonio is insisting it can be done and Lizzie is finding pens and markers and then we open more beers.





2




You are the alpha. Adorn yourself with symbols of your superiority.

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





* * *



Mia

Two hours later, Max’s dart-porcupined face is a distant memory.

There is something new on the wall: a giant chart made up of taped-together sheets of butcher paper that Lizzie borrowed from an artist on the third floor. Across the top, in heavy blue magic marker, Kelsey has written Operation Bring Max Hilton to his grovelly knees!

There are ten checkboxes for his ten golden rules, which are more like techniques. The hot cold move. The power play. Pulling out the praise rug. Every time I do a technique on Max, I get a checkmark.

The idea is that I’m supposed to do at least one technique on him per visit. And at the end of ten visits, he’ll be on his knees. I don’t know if I can pull it off, but it means something to Kelsey and Jada that I’m fighting for them. And it makes me feel like less of a victim with these visits.

I point to the first box. Adorn yourself with symbols of your superiority. “This one is already a problem.”

Kelsey turns to the page with the rule and reads, “‘Demonstrate your alpha status by wearing standout clothes and otherwise adorning yourself with symbols of your utter superiority.’ Seems pretty straightforward.”

“I have to wear the cat outfit. You get fired if you cover it up or don’t wear it. Seriously, they’d fire me if I showed up in a gown or a tiara or something.”

Kelsey wants to see the employee handbook. I grab my laptop and find the PDF of it.

Jada reads over our shoulders. “It says that you can’t hide the ears or put other clothes over the cat suit, but what if you became the most fabulous cat? There’s nothing here forbidding you from jazzing up the outfit.”

“You guys, the fact that I’m a delivery girl who has to wear an embarrassing cat outfit is not a quality I want to play up.”

“Unless you work it!” Kelsey says. “You know how to work an outfit better than anyone.”

“I’m not working the Meow Squad delivery outfit.”

“I have a glue gun downstairs. And sequins and rhinestones—” Jada says.

“—that are staying downstairs,” I say.

“Yessss,” Lizzie says. “And you’ll need fake eyelashes.”

“Oh my god, no!”

“I have those silver go-go boots,” Kelsey says. “Go get your outfit, Mia. We’re going to make you the most fabulous delivery cat of all.”

“Don’t you want to bring him to his grovelly knees for all of womankind?” Jada asks. “While turning the tables on him? And then crush him under your sparkly silver heel?”

Lizzie is grinning. “This is going to be perfect!” She reads more from the alpha-signaling chapter.

Meanwhile, Kelsey grabs the magazine picture of the insanely expensive Louboutin Solibria pumps in starshine pink that I’ve been coveting.

I sigh when I see them, like I always do. They’re the ultimate fairy godmother shoes.

She waves it in the air. “If you do all ten of the golden rules to Max over the course of your deliveries, I’m putting one hundred dollars toward your Louboutins.” She tapes it at the far-right side of the Operation Bring Max Hilton to his grovelly knees! chart.

“I’m in for a hundred,” Jada says.

“Two hundred fifty!” Lizzie says.

Antonio shrugs, throws down some twenties. Just like that, we’re almost halfway to the shoes.

“Wow,” I say.

“As thanks,” Kelsey says.

Ten minutes later, we’re all hard at work on blinging up my cat delivery outfit while Antonio reads the book aloud. He’s discovered a concept called prize baiting where you’re supposed to go places with a really beautiful women on your arm, and ideally two. It’s all about seeming pursued by others while appearing unavailable to your target.

“I don’t know about going around with two beautiful women on my arm,” I say.

“What about two beautiful men?” Jada asks. And suddenly everyone is staring at Antonio.

“I do not share,” Antonio says. “Please. One of me is enough, no?”

We all groan, but we’re joke groaning, because one Antonio is worth two if not three or four normal hot guys.

“I’ll do it. I’ll be your suitor,” Antonio declares. “But I’ll need a good backstory.”

“No backstory,” I say. “It wouldn’t be a speaking part.”