Page 25 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

At twenty minutes to go-time, I review scenes of men being jerks to me over the years. There are surprisingly a lot of them. I review how Mason always acted as if my bakery was only successful because of the location. I review how jerky Mr. Drummond was about the tagline. I pull up my PDF copy of the Vossameer handbook and reread the stupidly restrictive rules, and then I put in my earbuds and listen to Queen Latifah’s “Wrath of My Madness.”

Eventually I’m ready.

Heart pounding, I grab my phone and hit redial. Even though it’s scary, it’s kind of exciting. I’m weirdly looking forward to it. The phone rings just two times.

“Yeah?” he grumbles, sounding barely awake.

The mellow vibration of his voice warms something deep inside me.

But I have a job to do!

“Wake up, you stupid motherfucker. People are waiting for whatever annoying bullshit you have in store for them today.” I’m trying not to smile. I kind of like that he’s listening. “Your hapless minions await whatever stupid bullshit flows from your meteoric mind.”

A silence. “So that reallyisyour technique. It wasn’t a fluke.”

“You have a problem with it?”

“Not a problem, other than I just wanted to know.”

I frown as I register this. Is that why he wanted me to call back? “This is about curiosity?”

“Are you honestly surprised by that? ‘Wake up, you stupid motherfucker’?You’re literally the worst wake-up-call girl on the planet. I thought maybe it was a mistake, but no, it seems that this really is how you wake people up. Frankly, I don’t understand how you’re still employed. Because you shouldn’t be. You absolutely shouldn’t be.”

Fear shoots through me.Nowhe’ll get me fired.

“I tried to call back and ask yesterday,” he continues. “You wouldn’t pick up. You made me wait until now to get my question answered. I don’t appreciate it.”

What happened to unorthodox?“Well…” I don’t know what to say. Now he’s going to complain to Sasha, and she’ll freak out on me. And fire me. “Um…”

“Yes?” he asks in an imperious tone.

“But if you were calling me back,” I try, “it means you were awake, right? Which means my duty was completed successfully. And efficiently,” I add.

“No, it means you insulted and annoyed a client. Does your boss know you speak to people like that?”

Asshole, I think as tears cloud my eyes.

“Do you not understand how a wake-up call is supposed to go?” he continues. “Because whatever you think you’re doing here, it isn’t something I should be asked to pay for. You’re supposed to call the person and say good morning. Inform him as to the temperature outside and briefly tell him the forecast.”

Fucking Mr. Drummond. He’s such a control freak that it’s not enough for him to run his own company like Stalin on steroids, now he has to tell me how to do my imaginary job.

Inform him as to the temperature outside.

“Now let’s try it again,” he says. “Call me again and do it properly.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m trying to do you a favor.”

“You want me to do some role-play now? And then you’re going to get me into trouble with my boss?”

“At least you’ll know how to do a proper wake-up call in the future.”

“What do you even know about wake-up calls? Nothing.”

“I know a lot about wake-up calls,” he rumbles. “More than you might imagine.”

“No, you know nothing.” I turn over, conscious of the feel of the cool sheet sliding against my skin. “How do you know I’m not the best wake-up caller on the whole East Coast? Because guess what? You are totally awake. I bet you’re more awake after two minutes of my awesomeness than repeated calls from any other service. Come on, tell me. Has any other service gotten you to the level of alertness that I’ve gotten you to?”

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