The Billionaire Game by Lila Monroe Page A

seduction scheme in the first place. He didn’t
think my business could succeed the way I wanted it to. He hadn’t
even been interested in listening to my strategy—he’d
just leapt in and steamrollered all over it.
    I opened up my briefcase and spread my
samples over the bed. The pale violet brassiere with the velvet
lining, the cobalt blue teddy with lace fringe, the sheer babydoll
sewn from silk so fine you could have pulled it through a wedding
ring—they still seemed beautiful to my eyes. They still seemed
like a worthwhile dream.
    So why couldn’t I convince anyone
else?
    Maybe I was never going to succeed.
Maybe I didn’t really have what it took. Maybe all my designs
were uninspired trash and my clients were gullible fools and I was
just deluding myself with thinking that I’d ever made a
difference in the confidence and self-esteem of the women who came to
me. Maybe it was just underwear.
    I looked out the window into the
sculpted hedges as a tear rolled down my cheek. I’d wanted to
believe so much that I wasn’t just doing what I loved, but that
I was doing good, too. Inspiring self-confidence wasn’t exactly
world peace, but it had been something.
    And now it was nothing.
    Another tear rolled down my cheek, and
I felt a sob catch in my throat as I hugged myself against the sudden
chill of self-doubt and despair.
    And then Asher, with some truly
impeccable sense of timing, knocked on the door.
    He didn’t actually wait for me to
open the door—probably that would have violated the bylaws of
Overreaching Douchebags International—but barged right on in.
“Are you calmed down now? I thought we could discuss—”
    “There is nothing to discuss!”
I interrupted, my voice harsh as my sadness flared into rage. “You’re
not even interested in discussing; you didn’t listen to a
single thing I said. You just want to talk at me and talk at me until
I’m buried under a huge pile of logic and cost-benefit ratios
and I give up my integrity and do things your way!”
    “Because my way makes sense,”
he said, starting to get hot around the collar. He took a step back,
pulling his phone from his pocket and waving it in the air like a
light saber. “Look at these projections!”
    I crossed my arms and gave him the
stink eye.
    Asher took a deep breath, visibly
reining himself in, and then held out the phone tentatively, like
peace offering. “We’re talking a 150% return rate on
investment here,” in a voice so carefully neutral it could have
come from Switzerland. “I don’t see what the issue is.
You could be sipping martinis on a beach this time next year, not a
care in a world.”
    “But I want to have cares in this
world!” I protested, pushing the phone back at him. How did he
not get this? Had he already forgotten what it was like for the part
of the world that didn’t have their own private helicopters?
“Cares in the world get me out of bed in the morning. Having
cares in this world is what makes life actually interesting! “
    “That’s something that
people say to cheer themselves up when they’re stressed out
because they’re stuck running in circles in their little lives,
never accomplishing anything!” Asher snapped in frustration.
“Why would you choose to struggle when you don’t have to?
There are so many interesting things in life that aren’t a
struggle! Helicopter rides over canyons, movie premieres where you
meet the stars you’ve idolized since childhood, exotic beaches
where you can go swimming with dolphins and manta rays!” He ran
a hand through his hair in bewilderment and aggravation. “I
could shortcut you to success and I don’t understand why you
won’t let me!
    “Because you and I have different
definitions of success,” I said, striding forward to snarl into
his face. He disgusted me, with his get-rich-quick attitude and his
oblivious condescension and his gorgeous lips—whoa, back up
there, subconscious. Get back to the yelling. “The only part