Breaking the Billionaire's Rules
Annika Martin
“I absolutely love how wonderful Annika’s books make me feel. I start reading and lose track of everything. Funny, sexy and enjoyable!”
~Wickedly Sweet and Synful Book Blog
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Breaking the Billionaire’s Rules
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Max Hilton is my high school nemesis turned billionaire. And tomorrow I deliver his lunch order.
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In a cat costume.
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You know he’s going to love it. He’ll smile that smirky smile, sitting there all superior in his gleaming tower, the wealthiest and most notorious playboy in all of New York, the king of everything.
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Turns out it wasn’t curiosity that killed the cat—it was mortification.
* * *
I’m almost ready to quit my lunch delivery job, but then my roommate tosses me a copy of The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Picking up the Hottest Girl in the Room.
It’s the book that catapulted him to stardom. And it’s my new bible.
* * *
I’m going to use his own techniques against him. I’ll wrap him around my little finger, bring him to his knees, and crush his steely heart. Call it payback for all the single girls who had to endure legions of losers wielding his legendary tactics.
* * *
But seeing Max every day, I’m discovering a side of him I didn’t even know existed--he’s not the jerky guy I thought he was. He has this smile he shows only to me, and it melts my heart. His touch sends shivers down my spine. And those forbidden kisses are driving me wild.
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Falling for him was not in my plan.
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Am I breaking his rules or will his rules break me first?
1
Never ask a woman what she wants. Tell her what she wants.
~The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room
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Mia
My roommate Kelsey swings open the door to our apartment before I can finish unlocking it. “Oh my god, I nearly dropped my phone when you texted,” she says. “I can’t even imagine!”
“Right?” I throw my hat and scarf onto the couch. “Don’t bother to hide your horror, because it’ll be ten times worse than you think.”
“Uh!” She pulls me into a quick hug.
“I feel sick every time I imagine how it’ll be.”
Kelsey lets me go. “Who even does that?” Her fists are balled, her lips pursed into an angry little rosebud. She’s a dancer with awesome powers of emoting. “He just wants to crush you! He wants to demolish your dignity like a house of cards!”
“Okay, you can hide your horror a little.”
“No, I can’t hide it. I hate him so much on your behalf, I want to burst!”
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” she says.
“You guys, do I need to call the overacting drama police?” My friend and former roomie, Lizzie, comes in from the other room.
“Oh my god, Lizzie!” I give her a big squeeze.
“I called in the cavalry,” Kelsey says.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Lizzie tries.
I raise a brow. “This is a man who woke up one day and thought, ‘I’m rich and famous and I can have anything I want, and what I most want is for my old high school nemesis to be forced to deliver sandwiches to me in my office. In a friggin’ cat suit.’”
“You can’t be sure he requested you personally,” Lizzie says.
“The office said as much when I tried to switch. It was a specific request for me to be the one to handle that building. It’s that or I lose the job. And not just one time—no, no, no. Ongoing deliveries. You know it’s him.” I unbutton my coat. “It’ll be the worst ten-year high school reunion ever.”
Confession: I’ve spent a truly unhealthy amount of time imagining running-into-Max scenarios. They always involve me wearing an amazing gown; possibly a tiara. And our high school hostilities are so insignificant to me, I’m having trouble remembering them. I’m all, Max who? But in such a gracious way. My career is going so gangbusters that everything from high school is a dim footnote.
Unfortunately, ten years out from our graduation from The Soho High School for the Performing Arts (aka SHSPA, aka the Shiz) I don’t have much to show for my career.
“Well, pizza’s coming, so there’s that,” Lizzie says.
“Heart eyes.” I peel off my winter coat, stripping down to the Meow Squad cat suit I’m forced to wear on my lunch delivery route.
I look up and catch them staring at it, and I can tell they’re imagining it—what it will feel like. What is there to say to that?
Then Kelsey says the one thing you can say to that. “You’re not alone.”
I take a deep breath. My knotted shoulders relax a smidge. These girls are everything to me. Two best friends who are in it with me. “Thank you.”
I go to my room to change into my favorite sloth T-shirt and bright pink yoga pants, and then I go back out and curl up on the couch.
Kelsey gives me a beer. Her purple fingernails match perfectly with the purple streaks in her jet-black hair. “CLC,” she says. Carb-loving comfort.
Lizzie snuggles in next to me on the other side. “Were you just mortified?”
I retell the moment of discovery. One second I’m standing out at the Meow Squad truck, waiting for tomorrow’s delivery assignment, feeling pretty happy about my life. Sure, I have a job where I have to dress as a cat and deliver food-truck orders to office workers, but it’s a part-time job with insurance, the holy grail for up-and-coming actresses.
And then the next moment, I see Maximillion Plaza on the roster.
And the sun goes behind the clouds.
And shadows move across the land at terrifying speeds.