The Girl Who Stole My Boyfriend Is About to Marry a Billionaire, So I Stole the Billionaire novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: Lunch on the Roof

Fired in front of her office, Valeria gets onto Lucian's private roof, asks him to marry her, and freezes him with one name: Northgate Consulting.

By the time I went back to work on Monday, the video had six million views.

Nobody in the elevator said good morning.

A man from payroll turned his back to me and faced the wall for five floors.

When I stepped out onto the fifth floor, the whole open office went silent.

Somebody had printed a still of me with champagne on my face and taped it to my monitor.

Somebody else had drawn a speech bubble on it.

"JAKE COME BACK."

My manager was waiting at my desk with an empty banker's box.

He didn't lower his voice.

"Valeria, conference room. Now. Actually, you know what, let's just do it here."

Thirty people stopped pretending to type.

"Gordon Slattery called me at home on Saturday," my manager said. "At home. Do you know who Gordon Slattery is?"

"Our biggest client."

"Our biggest client. Whose daughter you stalked to a hotel room."

"I didn't stalk anyone. My boyfriend shared his location with me."

Someone near the printers snorted.

My manager set the box on my chair.

"You're terminated, effective now. Security will walk you out after you pack."

"I've been here five years. I closed the Brennan audit two weeks early."

"And now you're the woman in the hotel video." He shrugged. "Slattery Development is twelve percent of our revenue. You understand."

[This is where she cries in the stairwell for like three chapters.]

[Honestly relatable.]

I looked at the gold words hovering over my manager's bald spot.

Then I picked up my plant, my mug, and my good stapler.

I didn't cry in the stairwell.

I stood on the sidewalk on Fifty-Second Street holding a banker's box and did math.

Rent was due in nine days.

I had four hundred and twelve dollars in checking.

Jake had my savings, my television and a new girlfriend with a trust fund.

Bianca Slattery had two weeks until she married a billionaire who'd go to prison for her.

And according to the air, I was going to prison too.

[Northgate Consulting. That's the fake company. Jake and Bianca bleed Pier 9 through it for the whole book.]

[Lucian doesn't find out until he's in handcuffs.]

"Okay," I said out loud.

A pigeon looked at me.

"Okay," I said again. "Then I'll take him."

[???]

[Take WHO]

[Oh my god. Is the cannon fodder going for the male lead?]

[She's a side character. Side characters can't do that.]

"Watch me," I said to the pigeon.

Graves Tower was eight blocks away.

It was sixty floors of black glass, and the lobby had turnstiles and two men at a desk.

"I'm here to see Lucian Graves."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No."

"Then you're not here to see Lucian Graves."

He looked at the banker's box. Then he looked closer at my face.

"Wait. Aren't you the hotel girl?"

I walked back out.

[He eats lunch alone on the roof garden. One p.m. every day. Nobody's allowed up.]

[How do you know that?]

[Chapter 9 of the book, when Bianca refuses to eat with him. Keep up.]

It was twelve-forty.

I went around the block to the loading dock on Fifty-Seventh.

A caterer's van was backed up to the bay, and a kid in a white jacket was struggling with a cart covered in silver domes.

"Is that going to the roof?" I asked.

"Top floor. Why?"

"Because you're doing it wrong and it's going to tip."

I set my banker's box on the bottom shelf of his cart and took one side.

He was too grateful to ask questions.

The freight elevator went straight to the roof.

The kid wheeled the cart through a steel door, and I stepped out into sunlight.

The roof garden was all small trees and gravel paths and wind.

There was one table.

Lucian Graves was sitting at it in his shirtsleeves, reading something on a tablet.

He looked up when the cart rattled.

Then he looked at me.

He didn't seem surprised.

"You brought your office," he said.

The caterer set down a covered plate and fled.

I stayed standing.

"I got fired this morning," I said. "Gordon Slattery called my boss."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm here to make you an offer."

He put the tablet down.

He waited.

"Don't marry Bianca Slattery," I said. "Marry me instead."

The wind moved the little trees.

He looked at me for a long moment.

[SHE SAID IT.]

[I'm screaming at my desk.]

"No," he said.

He picked up his fork.

"That's it?"

"You're upset and humiliated and I'm the nearest weapon," he said. "I understand. The answer's still no. I'll have someone see you out."

He reached for his phone.

I said the one thing I had that he didn't.

"Northgate Consulting."

His hand stopped over the phone.

The fork went down very slowly.

When he looked up, his eyes had gone flat and cold, and I understood why they called him the Devil.

"Who gave you that name?" he said.

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