Page 16 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

“What’s a reasonable due date?” I stab the button again.

“It depends. I’m thinking we could work up a creative brief and strategy, but if you want the proposal to contain a budget, that might add time. We’d need a set of measurable goals and a timeframe to get the budget.”

My only measurable goal is me getting into the elevator alone.

But that won’t work, so I turn to her. “What would you recommend? How would you prefer to proceed?”

“Let’s do goals and strategy by the end of the month. Once that’s approved, we’ll establish a budget.”

Finally the doors open. “Make it so.” I step in. Then I slap my hand over the door. “One more assignment.”

She raises her brows. “Yes?”

“My receptionist is out today…”

Sasha brightens up. “I heard about that. She’ll be a grandmother.”

“Yes.” Not what I was getting at.

“You need someone…to office up there?”

“No, I’m fine.” Better than fine. I enjoy having the entire area to myself. No people. No cheerful greetings or questions or requests to put things on my calendar. “My wake-up-call service is no longer viable. Do you think you could arrange for a new one?” I pull out a card and write my bedside number. “This is not to be used for any other purpose. Have a wake-up call placed to me at 4:30 in the morning, every weekday morning, starting Monday. If I don’t answer, it’s to repeat. If I answer and hang up, it’s to repeat. They need to make sure I’m awake. You understand?”

She nods.

“Thank you.”

Five

Lizzie

Sasha appears at my cubicle,eyebrows in full anger mode. “Do you realize you didn’t make eye contact with Mr. Drummond once today? Do you think that’s polite?”

“Excuse me?”

“He was wondering why you wouldn’t even look at him,” she says. “What was that? Some kind of elusiveness game?”

Mr. Drummond said something to her? I grit my teeth. It’s like the manwantsme fired. “I was trying to be non-distracting.”

“You think that was non-distracting? To so pointedly ignore him when he was speaking to you? This is a workplace, not a forum for testing out strategies best left to singles bars.”

I nod obediently, clenching my fists under my desk. She has no idea how hard it was not to look him right in the eye and tell him to lay off the crack pipe, because, seriously? Instagram? Without nice images?

And what was Mr. Drummond even doing coming all the way down to the third floor to ask about Instagram? He doesn’t even like social media.

One of the books I got about forgiveness told me to write letters to people I was angry at. I start composing one to Mr. Drummond in my head.Dear asshole, please stop looking at me. You and your sizzling eyes and hot lips. Please never come down again. Uhhhh.

Also,singles bars?On the upside, Mia will think that’s funny.

When I look up, she’s still all angry eyebrows. I brace myself. Is she going to give me a third write-up? God, please no.

“I want you to attempt to write up a credible Instagram strategy. Let’s see what you’ve got. Propose a reasonable set of goals and a strategy to get there.”

I sigh, thinking of my bakery, of the fun shots I’d put up of the ironic cookies of the day. “Can we use stories of real-life people who were helped by the products? With the details changed, of course. But instead of people pictures, we could have images like a bicycle if they were a biker…”

The brows go full active. “And run afoul of medical-records privacy laws? Does that sound like the kind of marketing Mr. Drummond would appreciate?”

“Guess not,” I say glumly. “Wait, I have an idea,” I say. “We do two directions—one that’s on the passion of employees here, and maybe even a work-journal blog-type thing on a breakthrough. Even better—you know how Mr. Drummond’s working on that new thing? We could send a junior chemist up to take notes on his progress, and get shots of beakers and things, and it would be like an exciting race to find a cure. I bet Mr. Drummond would love that—he’s so focused on his formulas, right?”

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