The Billionaire Dating Game: A Romance Novel Read Online Free Page B

Magazine better’? I love all of his helpful suggestions. They’re so… helpful, you know? Except for when they’re not. Every single time.”
    “How is a clickbait article supposed to make me relevant ?” I asked. This wasn’t a new rant, but Jessica listened like it was. I loved her for that. “I want to write something important for women. This…this…”
    “It’s crap,” Jessica said, taking another sip.
    “It’s worse than crap!” I cried out, throwing my pen against the wall. It left a little mark on the wall next to all the other pen marks created from all of my boss’s helpful suggestions.
    “It’s sexist.”
    “It’s demeaning. How can people even read this?”
    “Lisa. Look,” Jessica said. I knew she was about to start in with one of her oh-so-reasonable explanations. “It’s Clarence’s job to sell magazines. Of course he’s going to lean towards article titles that are… sensationalist.”
    “Sensationally dumb.”
    “That doesn’t mean you have to write the whole article that way.”
    “This is impossible,” I moaned, my head falling onto the pile of papers on my desk.
    “Come on,” she said. “Nothing’s impossible. Let’s brainstorm. Why haven’t you found a boyfriend yet? Be honest.”
    “Because all men are immature assholes.”
    “That’s… okay, that’s probably too honest.”
    “Sorry for the brutal truth.” My mind flickered to the man in the mask. What he’d been saying—wasn’t that exactly what I’d been feeling all this time? Empty ?
    No. He wasn’t a real guy. He was a weirdo, someone I’d only met for a few minutes. No matter how much his words had resonated with me, that didn’t mean that he was mature, or intelligent, or anything at all. He was a good kisser, and that’s all I could say with certainty.
    “What’s another reason?” Jessica asked. She was ticking them off on her fingers.
    “Because my standards are too high,” I said. “And I’m a perfectionist. Well, that’s what Emma says.”
    “Your sister isn’t allowed to give you dating advice,” Jessica said, wagging her finger over the rim of the coffee cup. “Not after Joey.”
    “She doesn’t have the best taste in guys,” I allowed. “But she knows me better than I know myself.”
    “You’re so lucky to have a good sister. And an adorable niece.”
    I looked up at Jessica. Her eyes were focused far away, as though imagining the sister she never had. She was all sexiness, wearing an eggplant-colored pantsuit with a cream turtleneck sweater underneath. Her chunky turquoise necklace matched her teal pumps and her belt had brass and turquoise accents on the buckle. Her perfectly curled hair hung over her shoulders.
    I stared down at my own outfit: a black jacket over a white blouse and black pants. My hair was up in a frizzed-out half-ponytail; I hadn’t even bothered to brush it today before coming in. Of course she would be the one with the sexy boyfriend. I was dressed like an FBI agent from the eighties.
    Jessica was the fashion editor, the one with her column inside the front every week. She had a quarter-page spread whenever she went to a new fashion event. She was perfect. And yet, Jessica sighed with jealousy whenever I talked about Emma and Arlen.
    I shouldn’t be so hard on myself , I thought. I wasn’t in front of the cameras like Jessica was. On our website, she was ‘the face of Moi’ , and her videos brought in a ton of ad revenue. My own job at the magazine was a lot less exciting. I just made sure everything was running and filled in the gaps whenever somebody forgot to do their job. Apart from getting Clarence’s lattes, I wrote articles when we needed filler, made up surveys, and put together graphics most days when Tony was too hungover to finish his work. I didn’t have a degree, so I got stuck doing all the work nobody else wanted to do.
    If Jess was the face of Moi, I was the spandex that kept all the bumps from showing.
    “You’re so