Breaking the Billionaire's Rules(4)

“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.