Page 59 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

“Their cute little faces are exactly about survival. Baby animals all have large eyes and big foreheads because adult mammals are hardwired to consider it cute and feed them. It’s pure, vicious survival. Survival of the fittest. Practically mercenary.”

“Oh my god, are you ruining baby goat videos for me?”

“I’m telling you what we’re looking at. Over time, adult goats were more likely to nurture babies who fit the look you see here and the goats with those traits were more likely to survive to adulthood to reproduce.”

“Wait, how about this.” I send him a cat and a duck who make friends. He seems to like that one—I maybe hear him sniff-snort. And then I send him a cat riding a robot vacuum cleaner. I hear him chuckle softly. It makes me feel good in a way I can’t describe.

“Okay,” he says finally. “I think I did my time. Tell me the one thing you’d do today.”

“Bake,” I say. The truth. “I’d bake cookies. That’s what I’d do today if I could do anything.”

“Cookies.” This like it’s the stupidest thing he ever heard.

“There’s nothing like the aroma of baking cookies,” I say, remembering his ridiculous work rules. I suddenly can’t think of anybody I’d more delight in making cookies for than Mr. Drummond. “I’m sensing you don’t like cookies,” I say. “What the hell is wrong with cookies, Drummond?”

Seventeen

Theo

I can hearthe smile in her voice. “What the hell is wrong with cookies, Drummond?”

I cross my legs and look out over the park.

I was glad she didn’t detect how relieved I was that she didn’t have a man. I thought a vein in my head might explode during the endless silence after I asked that question. I’ve never been the jealous type. And she’s just my wake-up-call girl.

“Who doesn’t like cookies?”

“They’re a useless food,” I say.

“It’s National Pug Dog Day,” she continues slyly. “Did you know that?”

I sip my bulletproof coffee, enjoying the rough sweet tone of her voice. Her smart, snappy cadence. Nobody talks to me like that. Except Willow, of course, but that doesn’t count.

“I would bake the cookies and frost them in honor of National Pug Dog Day. And get this—I would spend a lot of time on each cookie. Beautifully and meticulously frosting each for no reason whatsoever.”

I can hear the smile in her voice. Her smile makes me smile. It always does.

“A cookie that somebody would eat in a second for the most useless holiday,” she continues. “What do you think? What’s your opinion on that?”

“I think you’re taunting me,” I say. And I’m enjoying it. Far too much.

“Come on, tell me what you think.”

“What I think is that I can’t decide whether I want to shove you against the wall and kiss that smile right off your lips or move right into spanking you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says in a way that makes me think her smile just got wider. “I’ll be too busy baking useless cookies for that. And they will smell so amazing.”

I tighten my grip on the phone. I want her up close and personal.Needher up close and personal. I tell myself it’s just because I can’t have her. But it’s not that. It’s more.

“I would watch my favorite musical while I bake.Funny Face. Have you ever seen it? It’s a musical with Audrey Hepburn.”

“Musicals,” I groan. “You just don’t quit, do you?”

“I love musicals. The story goes along, and then they break into song and dance.” She lowers her voice like she does when she’s feeling mischievous. “For no reason whatsoever.”

She’s killing me. Some wake-up-call girl, probably in some tiny rented room in Queens or something, is finding all my buttons and pushing them like a pro.

“And she wears this red dress and sings on the steps of the Louvre. It’s the best,” she says. “And cookies are a valuable food.”

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