He tightens his jaw as I snatch up an extra bag.
I’m keeping him off-balance. I feel like I’m really nailing his system today. I head right for him, all the way around his desk, holding his gaze, because that’s what you do to show a dog that you’re in charge.
It hits me here that holding a man’s gaze and walking steadily toward him, never looking away, is also an incredibly sexy thing to do. Every inch of my skin feels alive with excitement.
He swivels away from his desk as I near, facing me with that strangely serious expression. His shirt cuffs are rolled partway up his muscular forearms. His hands rest on his hard thighs, fingers relaxed. Nails trimmed short. Pianist-short. Some habits die hard.
And those thick thumbs. They’re the same thumbs he stuck in his belt loops while he sang with all of that sweet goofiness during that lost summer. Though science tells us that the cells of the body replace themselves over time—nine years for an entirely new body. So he really is a different person in every way.
But god, the way he’d sing to me.
Even when there was a full auditorium, it was as if he was singing to me and me alone, gaze dancing under that floppy hat, red bandana around his neck. And he’d make these jerky motions, pointing this way and that, singing about how the farm animals will scurry when he gets a surrey with a fringe on top to drive me around in.
The song was about young, hopeful love. It’s how I felt that summer.
It meant nothing to him. A dalliance of proximity. The second we were back at school, he went back to his cold and cynical mode. Too cool for me.
Quizzically, he tilts his head. “Mia?”
Have I been standing there weirdly long?
If you feel your control slipping, simply give her another reward for something.
“And as a reward for extra predictable behavior…” I toss one bag onto his desk and pull open the other one with a loud crinkle-snap that splits the air.
His eyes flare.
I remove one puff from the bag and hold it out to him. “Open,” I whisper, pulse racing. “Open for your prize.”
He watches me sternly. Opening for his prize is the last thing he’s going to do. Nobody pushes Max Hilton around.
The book doesn’t have instructions for outright rebellion. The book doesn’t say how sexy that might be. How a person’s beauty can squeeze deep into your belly. How you might really want to kiss him. To straddle him. To sink into him and make him remember. Make him come back.
I’ve wrested control away from him, but I don’t seem to have it, either. Like I flung it out the window. Fly! Be free!
I swallow. “That’s not open.” I nudge his lower lip with the cheese puff. “Do better,” I say.
He grabs my wrist, encircling it snugly and completely with his big, warm hand.
My breath quickens.
His challenging gaze deepens, like he can see right into me.
The bright orange cheese puff falls from my fingers.
Slowly, he pulls my hand toward him, pinning me with his eyes.
I swallow, mouth dry. “Are you going to eat my fingers instead?” I whisper.
He brushes his lips over my knuckle, soft and warm and smooth as velvet.
More shivers. I’m a fireworks show of shivers.
“Somebody thinks he’s quite the operator,” I gasp out. “Somebody thinks his robot moves are all that.”
A chunk of brown hair has fallen over his eyes, and it’s unbearably sexy. He kisses my next knuckle, still watching me.
I stifle a gasp.
Is Max Hilton seducing me? Yes.
My knees tremble.
I steel my resolve. Max doesn’t get to think he’s actually seducing me. No way. Not him.
But his lips are hovering over my pinky knuckle, and everything between us is electric.
God, I need to get control back. I try to think of the book, but I’m in a canoe heading over a sparkles waterfall, and control is soaring over the treetops. Control doesn’t remember me. It will not come when I call.
Max’s eyes are bluer than blue, and his breath is a wisp of silk on my skin. And suddenly I’m imagining his mouth over other parts of me.
Behind those blue eyes I think he’s thinking it too. I ball the hand that he doesn’t have hold of, tightening it against the overwhelming urge to shove it into his hair, to pull his face to my chest. Or maybe just straddle him.
He looks down at our joined hands and adjusts his hold, making my hand all the more his. We’re holding hands. I nearly collapse from the unexpectedness of it. The jaw-dropping sexiness.
He looks up and it’s a bolt through my belly.
Holding my gaze, he kisses my pinky knuckle, a brush of a kiss that sends shudders through me.
How is this happening? He’s taking me over and he hasn’t even gotten past my wrist!
He turns my hand so that his lips are over my thumb knuckle. How could I have forgotten about that one? He’s now going to kiss my thumb knuckle.
I wait, barely breathing. My entire world has collapsed to that thumb knuckle. It cries out for his lips.
And omigod, what will he kiss after that? Images of me stretched naked across his desk crowd through my mind. Flashes of his wicked lips hovering over my belly. Pressing to the space between my legs.
My mouth begins to form his name—Max. I’m not above begging if that gets us moving along.
It’s here I come to my senses. Begging? Moving along? What is happening to me? It comes to me that this is probably what he wanted when he set up these deliveries.
Maybe he even wagered on it with Parker—how long will it take? How many Meow Squad visits until I’m the main course?
I yank my hand away. “In your dreams, buddy. In your dreams.”
I spin around and get back over to my cart, awash in a sense of loss, but you can’t trust a man with no heart.
He turns back to his computer. “Are you going to bring my correct sandwich next time?”
“Doubtful,” I say.
9
The woman will scoff at your rewards and demerits but keep going. Doling out rewards and demerits positions you as the approval giver and her as the approval seeker.
~THE MAX HILTON PLAYBOOK: TEN GOLDEN RULES FOR LANDING THE HOTTEST GIRL IN THE ROOM
* * *
MIA
Kelsey’s there when I get home from work. I peel off my winter clothes, feeling like a fugitive. Am I running from Max? Or myself?
“So? How’d it go?”
Unbearably sexy comes to mind. Wild. Confusing. Knuckle kisses of wonder.
“I’m definitely getting his attention.” I grab the marker and put an X in the mete out rewards and demerits box. “He got three gold stars for his tower.”
Kelsey smiles. It’s nice to see her happy and excited like this. “All this time he thought it was such an impressive tower.”
“Such high hopes for his tower. And then I gave some supermodels in a photo with him two-point-five stars, and he got an extra bag of cheesy puffs when he behaved well.”
“Wow. You are going master-level on his system.”
This is the part where I should tell her about the knuckle kiss, but I don’t. I can’t. Maybe it’s cowardly.
That afternoon, I set out with my script teed up on my phone, off to wander the streets and memorize lines. And I’m a little bit avoiding Kelsey.
Though I really, really do need to work on my monologue.
On the first call with acting and singing auditions, you always go in with your own material, and for my monologue I’m doing something from Wicked.
In order to not look crazy, I wear an iPhone headset, like I’m talking on the phone. Though if people listen, they’ll definitely wonder about my sanity.
One of the best things about winter is that it gets dark earlier, and you can see in windows, so many windows like bright fishbowls.
I walk and I talk, watching the world around me. The way people move, the way they get int
o cabs or even wait for a light, all of that goes into my tool bag.
I people-watched a lot when I first arrived in the city as a freshman attending the Shiz.
I’d especially watch the elegant women. I remember how horrified I was when I realized how little grace I had compared to them. I flopped down on chairs instead of sitting. I slammed my beverages instead of sipping. And I didn’t talk, I spouted off. Worst of all, that brassy laugh.
I’m heading up Ninth Street, running through my piece enough that it’s in my bones. I try incorporating that tip-of-the-head movement that Max’s receptionist did, a slight twist of the spine and a tip. It’s not right in the piece, but it feels very chic. I like it.
I go along the edge of the park, just over a mile from our place. I re-tie my scarf against the wind coming across it and head back down 8th, which is a reasonable enough street to take back to our neighborhood, but it’s also where Maximillion Tower is.
I haven’t forgotten the seeming lie I overheard on the phone. I’ve thought about it on and off over the past weeks. A foundation thing after work on Tuesdays.
What does he really have on Tuesday nights? What is he hiding? I can’t quite shake the feeling he’s hiding something.
It’s 6:30 PM and Max’s lights are still on. Most people would have gone home, but Max is there. He always was a hard worker—I saw that up close during the musical. He seemed to have come in with the songs pre-memorized, and he was so serious about getting the blocking right.
I huddle in a doorway across the street.
Is he working this late? Or maybe there’s a supermodel up there, and he’s saying Max Hilton things to her. You’re wearing far too many clothes, baby. Come on over here and let’s get nasty.
Or maybe he’s kissing her knuckles and melting her mind. And she hates how bad she wants him.
Standing out there, I’m thinking that I could just see where he goes. What if he’s learning to juggle? Attending a jazz-hands-to-the-oldies class? These are things I would need to know. Chances are good that he’ll have a driver pick him up and whisk him off somewhere, and it’s not like I’m going to jump into a cab and be all, follow that limo!
Probably.
In his book, Max talks about the practice of observation.
Guys are stupid and oblivious as a rule. You don’t have to do much to rise above the competition. You want a book about how to seduce the woman you want? It’s written on her face, in her clothes. She tells you with every word she speaks, with every smile. What does she like? What does she care about? Open your eyes. Start seeing what’s in front of your face. Use everything.
I wander up and down the long block, keeping an eye on his window, thinking I’ll just linger for a while.
I tell myself it’s not weird. I tell myself it’s all in that service of my girlfriends—the more ammunition the better, right?
But really, I just want to know. I can’t stop thinking about his half smile, how it feels like a secret smile that’s just for me.
Stupid.
His light goes off. I step back into the shadows. A few minutes later, he steps out of the building. No car tonight. He’s wearing an overcoat and winter hat with ear flaps, pulled low over his forehead. A long scarf slung around his chin.
In other words, a disguise. But I’d recognize that posture anywhere. The angle of his head as he looks around.
He turns right and heads along 8th.
Will he take the subway? Does somebody as rich as Max even take a subway?
If it’s an easy ride, I suppose he might, though following him all the way down and onto the train seems like a pretty big commitment. Hard not to be noticed if it’s not crowded. And if I’m not in the car he rides, it’ll be hard to get off at the stop he gets out at.
I channel every action and adventure movie I ever saw as I follow him at a discreet distance, telling myself I’ll decide when I decide.
After high school I’d keep my ears peeled at parties, curious where he was auditioning. I knew he wouldn’t go for traditional, more established orchestras or ensembles; that wasn’t Max. He’d go for something up-and-coming. The sleek and exciting dark horse trio. Something with the edge and cachet to make you go ooooh.
My friends and I were surprised when pianists other than Max turned up in those ooooh sorts of positions, whereas Max’s name was nowhere, not even sitting in for concerts.
He was so talented and connected. What was he up to?
Then The Max Hilton Playbook: Ten Golden Rules for Landing the Hottest Girl in the Room came out. And there was nothing in his bio about playing piano. Like he’d erased that whole part of himself.
We were all stunned, even more when his guide sold millions of copies, earning him more money in a month than the most musicians make in a lifetime. A lot of us thought he’d come back to music after that, but instead, he took his mad money and built a global men’s style empire.
Max had more talent in his little finger than most serious musicians and he’d cast it all aside.
Now he has his own jet.
And a secret about Tuesday nights.
Much to my delight, he passes the 50th Street station and keeps going. I pull out my phone and text Kelsey. I told her about my suspicions, and she as interested as I was.
Me: Remember Max’s secret Tuesday night liaison? Hot on the trail!
Kelsey: Wut? Girl!
Me: I was monologue walking and…shrug emoji
He takes a few turns, walks maybe a total of six blocks until he arrives at a not-very-special building with a Korean noodles place and a Starbucks on the bottom, and five unmemorable stories up top.
Me: Subject has arrived at destination.
I text her a map link.
Kelsey: Don’t recall a stalking component in Max’s book.
Me: It’s there. Know your quarry.
I slink back into a doorway, all the better to watch him. He’s in the doorway on his phone, texting, presumably. I snap a picture and text it to Kelsey.
Kelsey: That is no foundation meeting!
He looks up, then turns and leans back against the wall. Waiting? Is he picking somebody up? Going in? The lights in the building are all off except the fifth floor.
The door opens suddenly. A statuesque woman with bright blonde hair comes out. Max kisses her cheek. My stomach jackknifes as they disappear inside.
I fold my arms, laser gaze set on reduce-to-rubble.
Me: Some woman came out and let him in.
Kelsey: frown emoji
I wait, watching for movement or lights to show me where they went. Finally I get what I want—or don’t want—up on the top floor, a corner window lights up, but three nearby windows go dark.
And then I see her back to a window sill. Her hands are out on either side of herself, like she’s leaning back and talking to somebody in there.
I punch the address into Google and get a series of hits. Eye doctors on the second floor; accountants, fabric wholesaler on the fourth and then a hit on Suite 500, the fifth floor. It’s a yoga studio. Namaste Way. Sure enough, there’s a neon lotus on the farthest window. The whole half of this side of the top floor is a yoga studio.
Me: They went into a yoga studio and turned most of the lights off.
Kelsey: frown emoji
Me: Private yoga lessons? In secret?
Kelsey: But why??????
The woman moves away from the window. I wait a few minutes. Then the neon lotus goes out. Moments pass.
Me: No more movement. What are they doing?
Kelsey: Why does a man ever meet a woman in secret?
Me: Then why not a hotel?
Kelsey: Perhaps he is an exceptionally acrobatic lover?
Something clenches around my heart.
Kelsey: Naked yoga? Troll doll full-costume sex fetish films?
Me: Shit! I was watching the window and somebody else went in!
Kelsey: Did you see who?
Me: IDK could’ve been more than one perso
n.
Kelsey: Erp.
A few minutes later, somebody else emerges from the front door, all bundled up. The blonde. She turns and walks down the street.
Max doesn’t come out. And the corner window up there is still lit. I report back to Kelsey. Did those new people join him? I check the back of the building, but the yoga studio is the only lit-up area.
What does Max do in a yoga studio by himself that he has to lie about? He has a palatial apartment on Central Park; I’ve seen the photos. If he wanted a yoga studio, he’d have a yoga studio there.
I wait for a bit more, then I give up, cold and hungry. On the way home, I Google Namaste Way. The blonde is the owner, a former gymnast turned yoga teacher, which isn’t a big surprise in terms of career progression.
Kelsey and I eat cereal and discuss the new mystery. She’s wrangled another donation from another Max Hilton book victim. The woman wants me to know that I’m doing God’s work.
“Yeah, I don’t know about that.”
“You’re standing up to him, that’s what counts. He’s seeing what it feels like to have somebody work a system on him like he’s a piece of meat,” Kelsey says.
“I’m not going to overpromise,” I say. “Max is a man who is surrounded by gorgeous women. He probably has mysterious assignations all over the city, like a bee going from flower to flower.”
“And you’ll squish him,” Kelsey says.
“Well, bees are endangered, so…”
“Squish his overblown ego,” she amends.
I try to imagine that, but I can’t quite get past the feel of his fingers around my wrist. His lips pressed to my knuckles. And then it turns to him throwing the yoga teacher up against the wall in the dark stairwell and kissing her. Which is basically like a furious scribble in my mind. In unrelated news, I suggest that maybe it’s time for Antonio, and Kelsey’s texting him before I can even finish my admittedly weak rationale for my change of heart.
Fifteen minutes later, Antonio’s in our living room modeling a three-piece suit he plans to wear for his star turn, hair-that-shall-not-be-touched perfectly tousled.
It’s as if he lounges around his apartment looking like he stepped right off the pages of a men’s magazine.
Breaking the Billionaire’s Rules Page 9