Breaking the Billionaire’s Rules

by Annika Martin

“That’s not my question,” I say. “It’s more like, why is this thing even here?”

  Lizzie smiles at Kelsey. “Because plans.”

  “Did you ever actually read this thing?” Lizzie asks.

  “Hell no,” I say. “Who would read it?”

  “Not me.” Lizzie rips the back cover off the book, pulls an old dartboard from behind the couch, and tacks the picture on. Kelsey clears the wall of our mementos, my fun cross stitches and even the picture of my dream shoes, Louboutin Solibria pumps in starshine pink.

  “You got me a game of darts.”

  “On Max Hilton’s face,” she says, handing me the darts, which Kelsey has finally liberated.

  “You shouldn’t have,” I say.

  “Go, go, go!” Kelsey claps. “Dart therapy!” Her pretty dimples are in full flare.

  I feel a little weird about it, but I throw. I get his cheek. My galpals clap. My next hits the board, wide of the picture. I still get applause. “I don’t know, you guys.”

  I sink back down onto the couch. My friends take their turns, then it’s time for more beer. We leave the darts on his face. It was a sweet thought.

  “It’s a good look on him,” Kelsey says.

  “Doomed to serve my nemesis every day of my life for the foreseeable future,” I say. “Isn’t that one of the punishments they give Greek gods? I would honestly rather roll a boulder up a mountain or have birds tear at my flesh.”

  “It really is as if he wants to punish you,” Kelsey muses. “And he’s found the most stunningly effective way to do it.”

  “If you’re trying to cheer me up, it’s not working.”

  Kelsey snorts and picks up Max’s book. “Over a million copies sold,” she reads. “A million suckers.” She starts flipping through. “Newsflash, losers: Max Hilton picks up girls because he looks like Max Hilton. Not because he has some golden rules.”

  “I was thinking,” Lizzie says, “if you were truly insignificant to him, why would he bother making you deliver sandwiches? What if he needs you to do the delivery because you’re not insignificant?”

  Such a weird idea. My chest buzzes with the strangeness of it.

  “You never know,” she says.

  “Spoken by a woman newly in love.” Lizzie is enjoying living with her man now. And she owns her own cookie bakery, so to say that she’s seeing the bright side of things is an understatement. She’s looking through a kaleidoscope of hearts and sugar frosting.

  Kelsey’s unusually quiet. Her nose is buried in the book.

  Lizzie informs me that today is National Square Dance Day. She describes how hard it was to make a cookie to commemorate that. Her cookie bakery specializes in cookies that are frosted to ironically commemorate holidays. “I ended up doing a woman with a really big skirt. I thought about an accordion, because chocolate—”

  “Wait one minute,” Kelsey says. “No. No freaking way.”

  “What?” I ask.

  Her jaw is set hard. “Nathan used one of these pickup techniques on me. He worked Max’s system on me, and I fell for it.”

  Lizzie’s eyes widen. She knows all about Kelsey’s cheating ex.

  “Maybe it’s a coincidence,” I try.

  “You were there! It was last fall at the Chiron Club. Remember how he wore the hat? And he told the funny, sweet story about the strange dog that got in his house?”

  I sit up, not liking this. “The dog story was fake? It’s the only thing I liked about him.”

  “It’s a script from this book! There are all these scripts of funny stories for men to tell in the back.”

  Lizzie looks stunned. “Who does that?”

  “Nathan did. And these rules. What the hell? Okay, get this—” Kelsey holds up a finger and begins to read. “‘Pick a girl, any girl. Go ahead and pick out a hot one—if you learn my system properly, you can have her. Get everyone laughing, but ignore the hot girl.’” She looks up. “Remember how he was all friendly and funny to all of you and ignoring me? It’s a little technique called reverse-chasing.”

  “No,” I say. Nathan broke her heart into pieces and stomped on it. It was all Max’s book? My throat feels thick.

  “Okay, now I hate him on three levels,” Lizzie says.

  Kelsey continues to read. “‘Act annoyed if she tries to get your attention.’” She looks up. “Remember? Nathan was totally doing that! His story was funny and sweet, and then I asked him a question, just joining in on the fun, and I touched his arm because it seemed like he wasn’t hearing me and he’s like, ‘hey, stop pawing the goods.’”

  “Stop pawing the goods?” Lizzie says.

  “And we thought it was funny,” I say, stunned. “Men flock to you like rabid magpies, and this guy was all, ‘stop hitting on me.’”

  “It’s a technique right from Max’s book. That worked on me.”

  I shake my head, remembering how Nathan seemed to defy the laws of dating physics—he was obviously straight and single and open to a hookup, but not interested in Kelsey.

  “Reverse-chasing,” she reads, “‘Act like you think she’s hitting on you. Rebuff her imaginary advances, but be playful about it.’”

  “And you ask him to dance, and he goes, ‘You think I’m easy? Just a piece of meat for you to parade around the dance floor?’ And then you’re staring at him in shock and he goes, ‘are you mentally undressing me?’”

  Through gritted teeth, she says, “A script.”

  Suddenly we’re all three reading the book. “He used a lot of these techniques to pick up the other women he was sleeping with, too,” Kelsey says. “This book was Nathan’s bible.”

  My face feels hot.

  “No way,” Lizzie says at one point, grabbing it from Kelsey. “This jungle kiss—I think somebody did it on Jada Herberger.” Jada’s an actress friend from the first floor of the building.

  Lizzie’s on the phone with Jada. “Tell me if this sounds familiar.” She begins to read instructions from Max’s book.

  Basically, the man is supposed to tell the woman that her perfume is intriguing, and then act surprised when she says the name of it, like he can’t quite believe it. He’s then supposed to gently brush the woman’s hair off her shoulder, taking another whiff, just to be sure.

  Lizzie continues to read, “‘Now memorize this line—There’s something about it. The way it mixes with your body chemistry that’s…hard to describe. Now pull away. Take your time. You’re not the pursuer here—she is. Say, scent is such an afterthought in our society—people don’t understand how deeply and intimately it links to the most primal part of our brain. That’s why you’ll see animals scenting each other before mating…’”

  Screaming on the other end.

  Lizzie winces and pulls the phone away from her ear until it stops. “No, I’m reading it in a book!” she says. “The Hilton Playbook. Get this—” She reads another passage where the man is to talk about how wild animals gently bite the scruffs of the animals they’re mating with, that this, too connects to the primal brain. Max’s instructions go on to instruct the man to run his hand up the back of her neck and pull gently on her hair and say, see?

  More screaming from the other end.

  Lizzie pulls the phone away from her ear. “Jada’s coming up.”

  “Tell her to bring beers,” Kelsey says.

  “Bring beers!” Lizzie says.

  Jada’s up with a six-pack of beer a few minutes later. She has bright blonde hair and pouty lips that are vampiric in a pretty way. She also has a love for bright patterns and all things shiny and sparkly. She’s a walking color explosion tonight, right down to her silver sparkle combat boots. “You’re telling me the guy was following a script?” she demands. “Is that the book?”

  “You want to hear the rest?” Lizzie asks.

  “No!” Jada hands over the beer and folds her arms in a huff. Then, “Yes.”

  Kelsey sets her up with a frosty glass as Lizzie reads on, this whole sexy thing about mammals and being hardw
ired to respond to being smelled and having their hair gently pulled…and even more, being lightly bitten on the neck.

  “Noooo.” Jada presses her palms to her forehead. “That was all the Hilton Playbook?”

  “More?” Lizzie says.

  “We’ve gone this far,” Jada says.

  Lizzie reads on. “‘She’ll be ready to kiss you, but don’t give her what she wants. Say, that’s why it’s such an intense sensation to be bitten on the neck. The lightest pressure with the teeth, right on the side of the neck, stimulates the basest of instincts. Not a lot of people understand this. Now touch the side of your own neck, showing her where you want her to bite you. Look into her eyes and say, It’s okay, you can. Act as if she’s been dying to do it. If you’ve been doing my system right, she’ll reach around and take the back of your hair and gently bite your neck.’”

  “This is so messed up,” I say. “Did you bite him, Jada?”

  “I feel so stupid,” Jada says, mortified.

  “Nothing to feel mortified about.” I sling an arm around her. “How were you supposed to know?”

  “Get this—Nathan, my ex? He was following this book,” Kelsey tells Jada. “And I lived with him for a year. While he cheated on me with techniques from it!”

  “Oh my god,” Jada says.

  I grit my teeth. I can’t believe Max’s book played such a hug role in Kelsey’s disaster of a relationship. And now Jada?

  Lizzie raises a finger in the air. “‘If she does not take the bait, do not smile. She needs a negative consequence. Find something more interesting to look at. Then turn back to her. Now she’s ready for your command. Look into her eyes. Go on. Bite me here.’”

  I shake my head. No words.

  The passage goes on. The man is to criticize her bite, and show her how to do it properly. He may give her “mild approval in the form of a lazy smile” when she gets it right. “‘Remember, you are the prize she is vying for. Eventually, she’ll get the bite right. At this point, finally, you should drop your gaze to her lips. She’s won the privilege of your kiss.’”

  We all scream.

  Jada grabs the book. “I can’t believe it was all an act from a book!” She frowns. “Written by that jackass who thinks he’s Gandy with his face plastered everywhere? I can’t believe I fell for it.”

  “I would’ve gone for it,” I say. “Who doesn’t want a guy with knowledge of erotic animal things? A little crazoo in bed, you know…”

  “And base primal instincts,” Lizzie says. “You want base primal instincts in a guy. Except when he’s driving. Or fixing a computer.”

  “Did he wear a weird hat?” I ask.

  “No, but he had a lot of cool bracelets and a really shiny shirt under his blazer,” Jada says. “And he was not primal or in any way crazoo in bed. Because it was all Max Hilton’s material. Why am I just finding out about this now? I need to read this whole book!”

  “Mia knows him,” Kelsey says. “They went to the Shiz together.”

  “Max Hilton went to the Shiz?” Jada says. “What was he studying, utter jackhole-ishness?”

  “Yes,” I say, heaving myself off the couch. “You could major in theater arts, classical music, or utter jackhole-ishness. Max was an A student in the latter.” I pull the darts off Max’s face. “And his name was Maxfield Miller. Not Max Hilton.”

  Jada just looks mystified. “The Shiz?”

  “Yup. Classical piano,” I add, because I know that’s going to be her next question. “A little bit jazz.”

  She looks at me like I’ve sprouted an extra head. “Piano? Max Hilton can play…piano?”

  “Dude,” Kelsey says from the couch. “He got into the Shiz.” She says it like that explains it, and it does explain it. The Shiz is one of the most elite performing arts high schools on the planet. “He comes from a classical music dynasty—don’t you know that? His father is some famous conductor, and his mother is Gloria Perez, the violinist. And he and Mia were high school rivals in a bitter feud.”

  “You hated each other?” Jada says.

  “Ninety-nine percent of the time.” I hand her the darts. “Go for it.”

  Jada lines up her shot, one eye closed.

  I watch her shoot, glad none of them thought to ask me to tell about the one percent where Max and I didn’t hate each other. That’s the part that hurts the most.

  Jada nails his face with scary precision, three times in a row—whop-whop-whop—much to Kelsey’s delight. She’s acting upbeat, but I can tell she’s hurt and angry, and I don’t blame her. Finding out that Nathan was following Max’s stupid book the entire time has opened old wounds—and even made them worse. Their whole relationship was even more fake than she thought.

  Jada turns back to me. “Max Hilton got into the Shiz for classical piano?”

  I nod. “Yup. But his true talent? Really dorky old-timey show tunes.”

  “No!” Jada says.

  “You should hear him sing songs from Oklahoma! playing the aw-shucks lovesick cowpoke, Curly McLain. Goofy comic songs. I’m telling you.”

  Jada claps a hand over her mouth. Kelsey’s jaw hangs open. “Definitely the last thing I can imagine out of Max Hilton.”

  Exactly.

  Because Max’s brand is all about ordering cocktails by the pool and careless jet set fun. And high-style shots of him on billboards and the sides of busses and the pages of magazines. And being surrounded by beautiful women on the society pages.

  And those women? They become known as Max Hilton girls. That’s his power—the girls he dates actually lose their names. Because he has a million times the gravity of anyone else. He’s James Bond and David Gandy’s love child on steroids.

  The opposite of a goofy singing cowboy.

  “Is this something we can find on YouTube?” Jada asks. “Pretty please, please say yes?”

  “Do you think, with all of Max Hilton’s money and power, that he would allow a YouTube of him singing goofy to be out there?” I say. “That he and his people wouldn’t put the boot down on something like that so hard?”

  What I don’t say is that I’ve looked. Like there have been times I go back to it in my mind and I think it maybe never happened, and so I look. And it’s never there. And it crushes me anew every time.

  “How did you never tell any of us this bit of gossip?” Kelsey demands.

  I shrug. Lizzie knows about it, but in general, I don’t talk about it. Maybe that is weird that I’d store the memory in a little box inside me like a fragile keepsake. Especially considering it was all a cynical joke to Max.

  “But you witnessed it?” Jada says.

  “I was in the summer production with him. I sang opposite him. So yeah.”

  Jada blinks, newly baffled.

  I wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t been there.

  “And you were enemies,” Jada says.

  “We made careers out of humiliating each other. Max’s business partner Parker went there, too,” I say. “It’s just old Shiz week over there.”

  “And guess which Meow Squad delivery cat is going to have to deliver his lunch from now on? Starting tomorrow?” Kelsey says.

  Jada gasps. “No!” Then, “Not that it’s that bad.”

  “Don’t even,” I say. “I have to be a servile minion to my high school rival. Wearing a cat suit. And he’s a billionaire in a gleaming tower.”

  Lizzie gives me an exaggerated frown.

  “Would you be fired if you let your friend Jada poison his sandwich?” Jada asks.

  I smile.

  We spend the next hour reading the book to each other. Max’s ideas are diabolical. Creative genius. There are lots of lists of principles and things. Women are like dogs. They like to know you’re in charge. That one gets major groans.

  There’s a knock at the door at nine. I think it’s a neighbor, coming to complain about the noise, but it’s Antonio, my cousin from Italy, script in hand.

  “Oh my god!” I say. “Antonio, I complet
ely forgot.”

  Antonio’s a male model who did a lot of runway work in Milan, and now he’s here trying to break into acting. He doesn’t have a lot of stage experience, which is a nice way of saying he’s awful at acting. I’ve been trying to help him, but he has a serious over-acting problem that hasn’t been improved by his fascination with books on character motivation and method acting.

  Antonio’s smile is tentative—wary, even; I can’t tell whether he’s upset that I forgot about our practice date or whether he’s overwhelmed by the angry vibe in the room.

  “You guys remember my cousin Antonio, right? We were supposed to run lines.” I turn back to him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “We’ll all run lines with you.” Kelsey pulls him in and shoves the book into his hands. “First you have to tell the truth, though—do you recognize this book? Have you ever used it to pick up women?”

  Antonio reads the inside description, which guarantees success picking up nines and tens or you get your money back. “A pickup book? I’m a male model with an Italian accent, cara…”

  “True, he doesn’t need the book,” I confirm. “Unless it’s to drive off women by beating them over the head with it. He could use it for that.”

  Antonio sighs wistfully, flipping through the book, reading random pages. “Americans.” He shakes his head. Reads, “‘Never ask a woman what she wants—tell her what she wants. You are a capricious god and she is your subject.’”

  We all groan.

  He reads more, fascinated. To be fair, the book is fascinating.

  “Such stuff would work on men, too,” Antonio observes, shutting the book. “You could wrap a man around your little finger with these techniques.”

  “If you’re an awful person,” I say.

  Antonio shrugs in his European way. “But if you wanted to bring a man to his knees. Some of them would perhaps need to be adjusted but…” He lifts the book. “This is what I’m saying.”

  “Seriously?” Kelsey asks. “You honestly think these techniques could bring a guy to his knees?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  Kelsey stares at him a moment longer, then she’s grinning so wide, it squeezes my heart. It’s been a long time since I saw that look on her face, and it makes me want to smile, too.