The Billionaire Game (4 page)

“—all in university
together,” Grant was explaining to Lacey. “Brody and I
played on the polo team together, and Asher was his roommate. Lacey,
Kate—Brody and Asher. If I’d taken either of their advice
back at college, I’d have made my fortune a lot sooner. Asher
and Brody, Lacey and Kate. They keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Pleasure to meet you,”
Brody said to us.

Asher took Lacey’s hand and
kissed it. “Delighted.”

Lacey’s eyebrows climbed so high
they could have formed their own airline.

Asher took my mine. “Del—”

“We’ve met,” I said
shortly, pulling my hand away.

“Asher, did you forget your
manners again?” Grant asked. “He likes to put on the
whole Prince Charming act now, but when I first met him, he couldn’t
speak two words to girls that weren’t ‘move, you’re
blocking the Lord of the Rings trilogy.’”

“Grant, please,” Asher
said, starting to look embarrassed.

“This one time,” Grant
started, a wicked grin blooming on his face, “he didn’t
know his crush from the debate team was in the lobby, and he was
racing down the stairs, skinny arms flailing in the wind—you
should have seen him before he got into body-building, a toothpick
could have taken him in a boxing match—”

“Don’t go digging up my
tragic past, man,” Asher said with a laugh, giving Grant a
friendly punch in the shoulder. His face took on a mischievous cast,
and his slightly awkward smile widened. “Unless you want me to
bring up that incident with you, the sorority, the whipped cream, and
the fire department.”

Grant shot a fake-panicked look at
Lacey, who rolled her eyes. “Another tale of your misspent
youth? I’ve probably heard worse.”

“I think I’ll play it
safe,” Grant said, “and change the subject. Where’s
your lovely date, Asher? Have you met her, Kate?”

I was about to say I had, when suddenly
a blonde woman who was ten pounds too thin and six inches too short
to be Dove Steele shot out of the crowd and wrapped herself around
him, nestling her head onto his shoulder and letting out a contented
little murmur. He had another girl already? Or in addition? This guy
gave ‘player’ such a new name they were going to have to
add another page to the entry in the encyclopedia.

“Oh, there you are, sweetums!”
she simpered like a little lost kitten. “Ugh, this charity ball
is such a drag! And oh my God, books, like, what are poor kids even
going to do with books? Can they even, like, read? Aren’t they
all on crack?”

Everyone froze for a second. You could
see the thoughts slowly travel across their faces as they wondered if
they had really heard what they thought they had just heard, and if
so, whether they should laugh, yell, or cry.

Asher looked like he sincerely hoped
the ground would open up beneath him and he would be kidnapped by
Mole People before he had to figure out how to respond.

“Excuse me,” I said as
straight-faced as I could. “I think I see something over there.
Yes. A thing. That I should go—see. Bye!” And I fled
behind the band’s stage where no one could see me.

And then I laughed until I was very
nearly sick.

#

When I had recovered, I poked my head
back out and surveyed the scene. The coast was clear; Asher and his…I
wanted to say ‘date,’ but ‘disaster’ seemed
so much more accurate…seemed to have fled. Brody was nowhere
to be seen either, but Lacey and Grant were still lounging hand in
hand where I had seen them last.

I paused for a moment before going to
rejoin them, just watching them, so in love and so unselfconscious.
Grant teasing Lacey by holding a chocolate-dipped strawberry just too
high for her to grab, and then kissing her gently before feeding it
to her himself. Lacey laughing and relaxing into his arms, her eyes
closing in delighted contentment.

Lacey had her man and her job, and she
loved them both beyond reason. It was the whole package.

And sometimes I couldn’t help but
wonder if my whole package had gotten lost in the mail.

I set my shoulders and told myself to
stop wallowing. I had more important things to focus on. It didn’t
matter if achieving my dream took years or even decades; I had set my
mind and heart on it, and I was going to do it.

And hey, in the meantime, there was
always champagne. I snagged a glass off a passing waiter’s
tray, and he turned to me with a grin like electricity. Oh, hello,
cute waiter from before. Still looking twice as delicious and
intoxicating as the champagne he was carrying.

“So,” he said with a
Louisiana drawl that had me contemplating how that voice might sound
coming from between my thighs, “what’s a pretty lady like
you doing in a place like this?”

Well, if he was going to flirt with me
first, I definitely wasn’t going to cling to any reservations
about flirting with him.

“Oh, nothing much,” I
answered back, coming forward and letting my hand rest lightly on his
arm. “Just…admiring the scenery.”

Dreams were hard things to achieve. It
was a good thing life was stocked with so many pleasant distractions.

“Hold, please!”

I tried my best to keep my voice
chipper as I transferred the call, massaging my temples and wincing
as the last pangs of my hangover headache shot through my brain. Ow
ow fuckity ow ow. Sometimes distractions are just not worth it.

The waiter hadn’t been much
better than the champagne. We’d barely started to get our flirt
on when his girlfriend appeared out of nowhere. It turned out she was
a waiter at this event too. What was with all the two-timing guys
lately?

And so here I was, manning the phones
on reception, trying not to die of boredom and second-hand
entitlement from all the asshats who thought that ‘receptionist’
was an archaic English word for ‘person put on Earth to cater
to my every whim and whom it is appropriate to scream at if she does
not immediately divine my exact wishes through telepathy.’

I could see one of those asshats
approaching, and it was with considerable relief that I saw one of
the phones light up. I grabbed at it like a lifeline.

“Devlin Media Corp., front desk,
how can I help you?”

“Hey, Kate, it’s Lacey,
time to gossip?”

“Sure thing, ma’am, I’ll
walk you through that right now, it should only take about an hour,”
I said sweetly. Asshat made an annoyed face, but moved off looking
for someone with a more open schedule to harass.

“That scare them off?”
Lacey asked. “I still don’t know how you do that job. I
had just one jerk yelling at me all day in my old position, and that
practically had me running for the hills.”

“Like you ever ran for the hills
in your life,” I said. “I bet you don’t even know
where the hills are. Anyway, yeah, the hyena’s headed out in
search of different prey. What’s up, girl?”

“I cannot believe Grant talked me
into a business trip right after the party,” she complained.
“I’m so hungover and jetlagged I can’t even get
excited about being in London yet. Thank goodness I have the week—I’m
going to make time around the meetings to see the Globe Theatre, and
Picadilly Square, and at least a few museums.”

“You going to hang around the BBC
headquarters at all?” I asked. “Maybe see some of those
old spy-fi show stars you love?”

“I wish,” Lacey said with a
sigh. “They tore down the old headquarters awhile back,
though.”

We chatted some more about her travel
plans, with me occasionally going into fake professional-speak when
someone walked by, or putting her on hold when someone came up with
an issue that actually fell in my job description.

Meanwhile I occupied my hands by
sketching some new designs, mostly things I was toying with for
Lacey’s trousseau. I didn’t usually work with leather,
but I know Lacey had a thing for the spy team of Steed and Mrs. Peel,
and I thought I could put together a sort of homage to one of Mrs.
Peel’s kinky leather catsuits. The trick would be to find
leather that had been tanned and cured until it was soft as
velvet—maybe I could line it with real velvet as well…I
would have to cut it just right, so that it gripped and defined
without chafing…

An instant message popped up, from a
lingerie client, an actress named Maura. SAT OK 4 U? LOVED IT LAST
TIME. SO HOT!!!

“Ahem.”

I looked up, automatically closing the
message as I did so, though I wasn’t sure if the speaker had
already seen it. Her face didn’t give me any clue either. It
was my manager Sarah, a middle-aged woman whose expression always
suggested that she was sucking on a lemon while trying desperately
not to let on how much she wanted to spit it out. There were two HR
flunkies behind her; I hoped they didn’t have two different
requests, or I could be stuck helping them for awhile.

“Yes?” I asked. “Can
I help you with something?”

“Just come with me,” she
said. Her voice sounded a little nervous, the way a rookie cop’s
might as he collared his first suspect. What the what?

“I’m sorry, ma’am,
I’ll have to call you back,” I said in my
I’m-definitely-talking-to-a-real-client-and-not-tying-up-a-work-line-to-gossip-with-my-BFF
voice. “Have a pleasant day, and thank you for doing business
with Devlin Media Corp.!” I looked back up at Sarah again, who
was fidgeting like someone had relocated an entire anthill to her
pants. “Seriously, what’s up? Is it performance review
time again? ‘Cause I have to say, I think you have been doing
an excellent job.”

Usually I can get a smile out of
anyone, even my bosses, with the way I rattle on, though okay,
Sarah’s smile usually looks a little nervous, like she thinks
the thought police are going to rappel down from the ceiling and
disappear her for having fun at work. This time, though, she didn’t
smile at all. Neither did the HR flunkies. Wait, were they all
together? Like, as a group? For me?

“Let’s just go have a
discussion in my office, Kate,” Sarah said.

“Uh, sure,” I replied. “But
I’m supposed to be manning the phones, and—”

“Lisa will do that,” Sarah
said, gesturing to a mousy little intern so short and unassuming that
I’d dismissed her as Sarah’s shadow. “If you’re
not in the middle of anything—”

Oh, just wasting company time
talking to my best friend and setting up appointments for my side
business
, I didn’t say.

Instead I stood up and held out my
wrists like a suspect being collared. “You got me, copper!”

Sarah’s lips thinned. “Please,
Kate, try to be professional.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I could
feel the eyes of the lobby on me—I probably shouldn’t
have pulled that stunt with the fake handcuffs. When was I going to
learn how far was too far to push a joke? I followed her, the HR
flunkies hanging back a second before swooping in behind me, like
security detail at the parade.

#

I sat down in the folding chair in
Sarah’s office, which was really a glorified cubicle, since she
only ranked about a head higher than me on the corporate totem pole.
Peeling inspirational posters peered down at me from the walls, and
the fluorescent light over her computer hissed and spat, blinking on
and off so rapidly it looked like it might be in Morse code. Sarah
sat down at the desk and nervously shuffled some papers, while the HR
cronies took up positions flanking her like bodyguards. I waited for
her to say something.

And waited.

And waited.

Damn, those pieces of paper were
getting really thoroughly shuffled.

“Look,” I said when I
couldn’t stand the suspense any longer—I am terrible at
movies, don’t ever take me—“What is this about? Is
it about that coffee spill on Dan from Accounting? Because first of
all, that was an accident, and second of all he was harassing me and
he had it coming—”

Sarah cut me off with a wave of her
hand, and hemmed before finally beginning to speak.

“As you know, we regularly
monitor company internet use—”

“What?” I blurted, too
startled to keep from interrupting her. “I didn’t know
that!”

Sarah heaved a sigh, and settled back
into her chair, seeming more comfortable. Ah, the familiar old ground
of having to explain something to me. “It was in your
employment contract.”

“Oh. Right.” So sue me, I
hadn’t read the employment contract. Yeah, yeah, I knew that
wasn’t smart, but give me a break, the thing was as thick as
seven Bibles and didn’t have half the human interest. I’d
figured I could pick up most of it as I went along, and so far, I’d
been right.

“As I was saying, we monitor
company internet use, and, well. There’s no easy way to say
this.” Sarah took a deep breath like she was about to plunge
into a deep and roiling ocean. “Kate,” she said in the
kind of portentous tone used by mystical prophets in cheesy movies
with bad CGI, “we
know
.” She took another deep
breath. “We know about the porn.”

What?

“Oh good,” I snarked, “I
was worried I was going to have to explain the birds and the bees to
you, and believe me, that is not a conversation I would be comfortable
having with my boss.” Then something about her previous
sentence jangled wrong in my brain.

Sarah said primly, and a touch
frostily, “I was referring to a specific instance of
pornography, or rather several specific instances, namely those that
you have been viewing on your computer.”

“What?” I exclaimed
indignantly. “I have never watched porn in my life!”

“Oh, no?” Sarah said,
fingering one of the pieces of paper in front of her.

“No ma’am,” I said.
“Cross my heart and hope to die. I
read
my porn, like a
classy person.”

“Well, I’m afraid the
evidence says otherwise,” Sarah said. She slapped several
pieces of paper down in front of me. “What do you call this?”