Page 77 of The Billionaire's Wake-up-call Girl

My ideal person is a serious, quiet type who has a demanding job or a significant other who has their own apartment. I want to do the best for Mia.

I find myself wondering whether Mr. Drummond has close friends like Mia. He feels alone when people put him in the hero box. Or was that just bullshit?

I go to bed a few hours later, but I don’t get much sleep. I keep thinking about that enforcer. If he was a regular person, I’d explain and try to work out a compromise. But he has a gun, which tends to be the accessory of choice for the man who isn’t up for working out a compromise.

The later it gets—or earlier, technically—the more worried and scared I feel. Loan sharks hurt people. It’s a thing. A thing doesn’t become a thing without there being some basis to it.

I’m wide awake when 4:20 rolls around. I watch the time feeling sad and angry; 4:20 comes and goes, then 4:30.

The phone rings at 4:43.

I nearly jump out of my skin. It’s him. Did I accidentally unblock his number? Did that motherfucker get around my block?

I’m outraged, but some stupid little part of me is happy. Excited.

And I have to crush that part. I answer. “Go fuck yourself,” I say.

I want to hang up, but it’s not dramatic enough. So I throw the phone across the room. It bounces off the wall, clatters across the floor, and comes to a stop. I can still hear his voice, rumbling urgently. I don’t know what he’s saying, and I don’t care. That’s what I’m telling that happy-he-called part of myself.

The phone is a hunk of metal and glass making noise on the hardwood floor, and I want nothing to do with it.

Nothing!

I get out of bed and shove my feet into my cowboy boots as he rumbles on. I go over and bring a wicked cowboy heel down onto the thing. The crunch is incredibly satisfying.

I catch something that sounds likeHello? Are you okay?

Seriously? Do phones only break when you don’t want them to?

I bring my boot down on it again and again, really hard, smashing it into little bits, severing our connection for good. Eventually the voice is gone.

So done with him!

He can never call me again.

I can never call anybody again, either, but never mind.

It felt amazing.

Twenty-Two

Theo

Willow flings open her door.She’s wearing her bathrobe and an angry look. “It’s six in the morning.”

“It’s 6:10,” I say, handing her a mocha cappuccino. I walk into her place.

“What’s going on? Did you confront the woman in marketing?”

“It wasn’t her. We need a plan B.”

“You were so sure.”

“What can I say? It wasn’t her.”

She narrows her eyes. “You seem happy about it.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now.”

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