Page 13 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

The gothically arrogant chemist has come down from the castle and uttered the wordInstagram. Does he even have an internet connection?

I kind of want to look back over at him just to ensure those words were actually being formed by his lips and not a practical joker in the office with mad ventriloquist skills.

I don’t.

There’s a long silence.

Behold, I think,the sound of five minds boggling.

“Opinions?” Sasha says. She wants everyone else to go first, so that she can monitor Mr. Drummond’s expressions when people say their answers and figure out what answer he’ll hate the least. Unfortunately, that’s everybody’s plan.

Bert the intern takes the plunge. “That’s something we should definitely be looking intovis-à-visthe Locke Foundation partnership,” he says, which loosely translates into,I want to say something relevant that won’t get me fired. Please don’t fire me!

I’m staring at Sasha’s desk thinking of the travesty of Instagram for Vossameer, considering we can’t mention the wordfamiliesor show people.

What exactly is this guy imagining? Photos of bandages on a dirty sidewalk next to some dirty pebbles?

I think wistfully of the Instagram feed from my bakery. People loved coming in and doing goofy shots of the random-occasion frosted cookies I’d sell. Every day was a different theme.

One of the design guys agrees it’s something to look into. He suggests we “go to school” on the competition.

I feel the attention turn to me.

I turn my vacant eyes to Mr. Drummond’s nose, channeling gummy bears. I act like I’m pondering his nose. Like it’s so amazing, I can’t wrap my mind around it. “Excellent idea. We should look into it and make a proposal. Could be amazing.”

Something changes in his expression. I’m only looking at his nose but I can totally tell. Is he surprised? I direct my gaze of daffy admiration to the far wall. Like the wall is so impressive.

If he’s looking for traces of annoyance, he won’t find any. If he’s looking for that woman who has ideas of her own and thinks he’s the biggest jerk ever, he won’t find her.

She’s gone. Hidden.

I stare and stare at the wall. Take that!

Sasha proposes a timeline.

I look over at Sasha, nodding my head at everything she says. Like I’m hanging on her every word.

Eventually Mr. Drummond’s gaze is on Sasha, too. Sasha thinks his Instagram idea is amazing, too. We all think it’s amazing, because Mr. Drummond is amazing and every word from his lips is a diamond.

Four

Theo

I havea love-hate relationship with uncompleted puzzles. Unanswered questions. Unsolved problems. I find them compelling, yet utterly tormenting.

People say I’m a brilliant chemist, but honestly, I just can’t stand when problems that clearly have solutions go unsolved.

I happen to be working on the most important problem of my career: how to create a dehydrated hemostatic agent with vascular repair properties or, in layperson’s terms, a dehydrated version of my original Vossameer gel, which helps stave off blood loss. I know it’s technically possible. It has to be.

This new formula could save a lot of lives. It would be light and portable, perfect for small first-aid kits. It could be issued to soldiers. Shared with aid workers. Kept in remote villages where medical transport can take days.

It would be my most important breakthrough ever. And with Locke’s reach into nongovernmental and refugee organizations around the world, it would instantly go where it’s needed the most.

Meanwhile, people die from car crashes, gunshots, farm accidents when they might have been saved by the ready availability of the new formula.

It torments me that I can’t work faster, and really, how has nobody else figured this out? The chemistry of it should be so doable. I can feel it right there in the air, waiting for somebody to pluck it out.

But nobody has. So I have to.

---