Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
She used her fingers as quotation marks, her lower lip curled in a barely contained pout.
This again.
Hadn’t Mom realized blind dates didn’t work after Plan N?
I burrowed my fingertips into my eyelids, massaging the area with a heavy sigh. “What’s the woman’s name?”
Natalie scrunched her nose. “Electra? Exotica, maybe?”
“Eileen.”
My mother would dine on a bowl of eyeballs before trying to match me with a woman named Exotica.
“Yeah. Something like that. Very bland name if you ask me.”
Good thing I didn’t.
“When am I expecting her?”
“Three o’clock.”
Might as well make an effort with Eileen to please my mother. Even if I felt like dying before doing it.
“That’s fine. Let her in when she arrives. I’ll take care of it.”
“Really? You never accept anyone unannounced.”
I did not answer Natalie.
She shook her head, huffing. “Every woman in this zip code would die to have your attention, and you only have eyes for your mother. What a travesty.”
“Watch your mouth, Miss Mikaylov, unless you’re eager to lose your job.”
Natalie remained standing in the middle of the room like an out-of-place piece of furniture you had to keep because a close relative had gifted it to you.
There seemed to be more she wanted to say, but the idea that I was paying her an hourly rate to try to convince me to marry her instead of spending the money on something more useful—like dry cleaning or getting Oliver’s Cane Corso’s anal glands expressed—rubbed me the wrong way.
I plucked a translucent sliver of budo ebi from the sashimi plate, bringing it to my lips.
Too warm.
“Will that be all, Miss Mikaylov?”
For a reason unfathomable to me, I nursed the foolish hope that she’d tell me Farrow had tried to set the house on fire, auction my entire art collection, or otherwise commit a heinous crime on my property.
Something to give me an excuse to seek Miss Ballantine out and breathe fire at her blizzard existence.
But Natalie merely exhaled again, head bowed.
“No, sir, that will be all.”
She retreated with the cart, leaving me with a surprise date I did not want and a low-security dating agency server to hack into.
Ollie vB:
Dinner tonight?
Zach Sun:
Busy. Pass.
Zach Sun:
Especially if you plan on showing up in the same shirt as last time…
Ollie vB:
What? Ashamed to walk beside me as I rock my wife pleaser?
Romeo Costa:
Wife pleaser?
Ollie vB:
It’s a wife beater but rebranded with better PR.
Zach Sun:
It should be burned.
Zach Sun:
No man this side of the Jersey Shore wears a tank top outside of the gym.
The news of my surprise blind date ruined the cadence of my schedule.
On a normal day, I’d be midway into the selection process for a hostile takeover.
Eileen Yang had just saved a company at the expense of my mood.
The doorbell chimed at exactly three o’clock.
At the very least, she’d arrived on time.
I valued punctuality. It showed character. Well, the bare minimum, anyway.
I strode to my window, passing my uneaten lunch. A white Bentley parked beside my fountain, sparkling from a recent wash.
A fine choice. Nothing too offensive or gaudy. No bright-pink Range Rovers or neon-green Lamborghinis.
Stuffing my hands into my front pockets, I strolled out the office and down the staircase to greet my blind date.
To be fair, this could hardly be considered a blind date. Not when I’d cruised by a measly layer of security to get to Eileen’s file from the dating agency.
Eileen Yang.
Thirty-three.
Indeed, a neurologist based out of Manhattan.
Three degrees from two Ivy Leagues. Multiple Doctors Without Borders stints. The author of a popular A.P. Bio study guide.
Last year, she’d drained her royalties to pay off the 12-million-dollar mortgage for a condo on the Upper East side.
It seemed Mom had found the perfect girl for her. Which, of course, meant she’d found the perfect girl for me.
Now all I had to do was not fuck this up.
Easier said than done.
When it came to humans, I had more expertise in fucking up than succeeding. Women, specifically, found my entire existence a personal slight.
I never paid any real attention to them.
But when I did, it usually came in the form of brutal honesty, informing them that I found their conversation to be as mind-numbing as sorting grains of sand by size.
You literally know how to split atoms, Zach.
Surely, you can make this girl not hate you.
I moseyed down the hallway, descending the stairs, noting that the house looked particularly pristine today.
I was a little disappointed Farrow had yet to try anything fishy. I’d been under the impression we’d battle it out as soon as she arrived.
Perhaps she had something up her sleeve for me for later.
No part of me believed she would lay down and take it. Accept me as her boss and behave herself.
When I opened the front door, I found my mother’s ideal woman. Tall and slender with glossy dark tresses that reached her shoulders and a sage-green Burberry suit.