Page 5 of Mid-Thirties Slightly Hot Mess Female Seeking Billionaire

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Sarah

Dear Diary,

Isabel thinks I should have a stripper name. She thinks that’s the way to reel men in on my now-defunct dating profile. I reminded her that I’m thirty-four and not twenty-one. I’m not going to start calling myself Flexible Barbie or Sexy Kitten. For one, I don’t look like Barbie and secondly, I’m not that flexible. Plus, no one would believe I’m a stripper.

Trust me, I once attempted to audition at a private club. I was laughed off the stage, but that’s a story for another time.

Sarah

"So, there she was, on this yacht being fed grapes by this man, and she sits up, and she says, ‘Do you or don’t you have a billion dollars?’" My coworker Ginger is eagerly recapping some reality TV show she watched the evening before, and even though I’ve never watched it before, I feel like I know all the stars of the show like family.

"Wasn’t she just sucking his toes the night before?" I ask, trying to remember what she’d said happened in the last episode. "Shouldn’t she have asked him about his bank account before that?"

"Well, the problem was she thought he was related to some A-list actor, at first, but then he told her that he was actually—" Ginger pauses and jumps up abruptly, giving me whiplash at her sudden change of attitude. "So, Sarah. I will need the copy for the Monsoon account by the end of the day." Her tone is high and nervous, and I blink in confusion. Monsoon, who? What on earth is she talking about?

"Huh?" I blink at her. "What about Bridget or Janelle or whatever her name was and the billion-dollar question?"

"Now is not the time."

"That’s what she should have said to him before she decided she was going to suck on his cheesy—" I pause as I realize I can smell a distinct male cologne and look up. I freeze as I see Ethan Rosser and Jackson Pruitt standing at the front of our department, looking around. My heart races as I watch the two handsome men who run the company. Both are super rich, super handsome, and out of my league. I look down at my desk, pull my keyboard toward me, and start typing. I now understand why Ginger is acting so weirdly. I only hope our voices didn’t carry across the small room. I hear footsteps approaching my desk, and I take a deep breath and look up. If Ethan Rosser heard Ginger and I talking about toe-sucking, I would die.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Rosser." Dave, another coworker, jumps up. He is normally engaged in the shows that Ginger recaps every morning, as well, but he’d wanted to check his stats in some game he was playing online. "Good afternoon, Mr. Pruitt. How can we help you today?" Dave is grinning like he’s an exemplary employee, not someone who sings show tunes all day while eating Cheetos and doughnuts.

"Is Mr. Wayne around?" Jackson speaks up, and I peer at him from behind my glasses. He’s so hot that he could be a Hollywood movie star. He looks around the room, and I feel his eyes on me briefly. He nods slightly but continues looking around. I can’t take my eyes off of him though. He’s wearing a navy suit with a white shirt and an emerald-green tie that matches the color of his eyes. You can tell that he did it on purpose. He knows he’s gorgeous.

"He just popped out to grab a sandwich," Dave answers, and heads over to the two men. "Can I help you?"

"We need to talk to him about creating a jingle for Lord Chambers’ new gold dome pendant light designs," Ethan Rosser says sharply. I can tell that he’s not happy that Todd Wayne is not in the office. Little does he know, but Todd is barely in the office. He started dating a nurse that works at night and likes to spend his days with her; even though she sleeps most of the time. He says it’s worth it because she loves to make love every time she wakes up. I’m sure Mr. Rosser doesn’t want that information though.

"A jingle?" Dave asks, a questioning expression on his overeager face. Dave is very much like a puppy dog, and anytime anyone brings up anything vaguely related to music, he gets excited. He initially moved to New York with the idea that he would make it big on Broadway or be discovered at a karaoke night and made into a pop star. Neither of which happened because the simple fact of the matter is that he can’t sing to save his life. Not that I or Ginger would ever tell him that. Sometimes, it’s nice for people to live in their own worlds. Plus, as someone who would love to be a songwriter, I don’t want to burst his bubble. It feels like karma would fire right back at me and tell me I won’t make it, either.

"Yes." Ethan nods but doesn’t elaborate on what he means. Most probably because we’re mere peons, and he doesn’t even know who we are. Though, maybe I am being unfair to him. Maybe he does know us. Maybe he’s heard great things about what we’ve done on the Jerry Catnip campaign. Maybe I’m too self-analytical and down on myself. I need to have more confidence. That’s what Ella and Isabel always say. I push my chair back and stand up. I am going to be a part of this conversation. I am going to be assertive. Especially as I am the creator of most of the work in the department. Even if Todd pretends it is him.

Ethan turns to Jackson and lowers his voice. "What do you think? Do we wait a few moments to see if—"

"We can help," I say, though my voice is little more than a pip from a squeaky toy. I need to take an assertiveness class or something because this is ridiculous. My brothers wouldn’t believe how shy and quiet I am at this moment, since they considered me loud and annoying for all of our childhood. Though, that’s because they’re my brothers, not two very handsome billionaires that every woman in the world wanted to date.

I mean, aside from me. I couldn’t care less about dating either one of them.

Neither man looks at me as I approach, but that doesn’t surprise me. They most probably didn’t even hear me talking. I make my way over to them, hoping they will both turn to me with huge smiles of awe, but they’re too engaged in their conversation. I play my this or that game, something I’ve been doing since childhood. Basically, I have to choose in my mind which option I would take. Often, the game is about items or possibilities that would never actually exist to me, but I don’t care. I once spent a good hour debating with myself whether I would go with a black sports Range Rover or a white Tesla Model 3. After going through all the options, I went with the Range Rover; it just looked like a cooler car. I didn’t care that I could barely pay my bills that month and that the Range Rover dealership would laugh me out of town if I went in to purchase one.

Now I’m debating which one between Ethan and Jackson I would choose if I had to give them a rose onBachelor in Paradise. Both men are more attractive than is fair. Both are rich. Both have bodies that look muscular. Jackson seems friendlier and more open to flirting, but Ethan has that dark, brooding look in his eyes that drives women like me crazy. And when I say women like me, I mean women who fall for emotionally unavailable men. I am the bane of my existence. Constantly lusting over and dating the wrong men.

"We can…" I am louder this time, though I pause as Ethan looks at me, his blue eyes keen as he glances at me. I can feel myself flush as I am finally acknowledged by the big boss. I swallow hard and plaster on my best, most winning smile. For some reason, I push my shoulders back and my breasts forward and start to play with my hair. "I was just saying that we can—"

"Jackson, I have to take this." Ethan pulls his phone out of his pocket, glances at the screen, and heads out of the office without a single word to me, Dave, or Ginger. I’m mortified, embarrassed, and annoyed. Suddenly, I remember why I do not like him. He is a jerk. I stand there and look at Dave for a few moments before looking over at Jackson.

"I was just going to say that we can help you. We do most of the work in the office, anyway," I say to Jackson, who smiles at me in a way that tells me he’s being nice but not trying to get into my pants. I know it’s the glasses, the bun, and the fact that I have no makeup on, but still, it burns a bit. I’ve heard he’s a huge flirt, normally.

"Oh, don’t mind Ethan." Jackson chuckles. "His mind is all over the place. He’s in a bad mood because an article has come out about him and now, he’ll be the focal point of every woman’s eyes for the next two months."

"Oh, the most eligible bachelor in New York article?" I ask, silently chiding myself for admitting I know of its existence.

"Yes." Jackson’s eyes are alight with glee. "He hates when newspapers and magazines feature him in this way, but I sure notice that he hasn’t given them my name and address so they can feature me instead." He cocks his head to the side and smirks slightly. "I don’t think I’d mind so much being bachelor of the year."

"I’m surprised they haven’t asked you," I say honestly. Jackson Pruitt is just as eligible of a bachelor as Ethan is, as he’s the heir to the Pruitt fortune. He’s old money, and sometimes there’s talk in the tabloids that he’s going to leave Rosser International and take over his family business, The Pruitt Company; however, the rumor at the office says that that’s unlikely to happen as there’s a reason that he doesn’t work there in the first place. Though, no one knows what that reason is.

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