The Billionaire Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

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