Page 74 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

We chat all through dinner. It’s nice enough. Even so, I can’t imagine kissing her.

Our waiter is showing the dessert tray to the next table over. There’s cake and pie, some sort of custard, and a small group of unfrosted cookies. I tip my head at it. “What do you think about that situation over there?”

“The dessert tray?”

“Those cookies?”

“Probably shortbread.” She shrugs. “Meh. I’m not a dessert person.”

I sit back. What? Not a dessert person?

She looks back at me and smiles.

“So tell me,” I say, “what’s your favorite movie?”

“Gone with the Wind.What’s yours?”

My pulse races. “How about your favorite musical?”

“Why?”

“Just…need to know.”

“I don’t know. I suppose I likeGrease.”

My blood races. “Greaseis your favorite musical?”

She searches my face. “You have something againstGrease?”

“You’re not her.”

She looks like a deer in the headlights. “I like all kinds of movies. What I like at any one time is dependent on my mood.”

I put my napkin on my food. “Why are you pretending to be her?”

“What on earth are you talking about? You think I’m pretending?”

I give her a look. “You’re not her.”

She’s white as a sheet.

“Why would you pretend? Who is she? I need to know.”

She puts her napkin on her food. “Okay, fine. Cards on the table. I’m worried about you. You invited a wake-up-call girl you never met to dinner.”

“And you impersonated her. Look, just give me her contact information—the real contact information—and we’ll go back to how things were. No harm, no foul.”

She gazes across the restaurant—hurt. Maybe even angry. She did go to an extreme length to get a date with me, and now I’m rejecting her.

“You’re a beautiful, charming woman.”

“Save it,” she snaps.

“Why create the fake front in the first place? Please tell me, is Operator Seven somebody you know?”

Still she doesn’t look at me, but her expression is harder. Her eyes are shinier.

“The information,” I say. “I want it.”

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