Page 133 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

What have I done?

I call Theo, but I get his voicemail. I take a look at the time—after six. He’s at his banquet. The eating part has already started. He wanted me there. So badly.

I call Mia.

She picks up on the first ring. “Lizzie? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, I’m just stuck in traffic. But I’m wondering, should I have listened to the tequila?”

“What?”

“Was I hasty? With leaving?”

“Well…”

“I’m thinking I was.”

She sucks in a breath. “Are you sure?”

I tell her my thoughts, ask her whether I’m being stupid.

“He’s not Mason,” she says.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did! I said exactly that! Before we found your storefront. Remember?”

She did, yeah. “Well, I’m coming back.”

“Oh my god.”

“But I need you to do something.”

Thirty-Seven

Lizzie

People always complainabout time flying by too quickly. They gripe that they wish they could slow it down.

Those people should try renting a U-Haul, double-parking it outside the massive Sturdyven Concert Hall in Midtown on a rainy Saturday night, and having people honk at them nonstop. Do that, and the minutes feel like hours.

I make the universalI’m sorrygesture to the drivers who pass by, hoping a cop doesn’t come.

Sleek cars pull up in front of me, one after another, and discharge glamorous people in eveningwear.

I hope I’m not too late. I want to be in the audience for him, to be the one person really with him.

A cop comes by and makes me move. I drive around the block and park again.

Finally there’s a knock at the passenger window. It’s Mia with the dress. She slides into the cab, and I undress and put the thing on, which is a combination contortionist and bra-exhibitionist show. She helps me fix my hair, then takes over the wheel.

“You good?”

“So good,” she says.

I jump out and run down the sidewalk with my purse, smoothing down my hair. I hit the red-carpet covered steps and pop up them, toward a pair of doormen who aren’t holding the doors open anymore. “Ticket,” one of them says.

“I’m a friend of Theo Drummond’s.” I point to the sign on the easel that proclaims him to be the winner of this year’s Locke Award. “I need to get in and see him. It’s very important.”

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