Page 35 of The Grumpy Billionaire

That will never be me.

ChapterSeventeen

Stella

I’ve just settledonto the living room couch with a bowl of popcorn and a juicy true-crime documentary when Kelsey bursts out of her bedroom door, phone in hand.

I perk up—I was hoping she’d come out. “If you’re in the mood for buttery popcorn and a grisly murder in a quiet seaside town,” I begin, but I trail off.

She looks upset.

“What’s wrong?”

“I got a text from Lizzie. It’s intel about your mysterious job thing.”

“Lizzie got intel?” I hit pause. The grisly crime scene can wait.

“You want the good news or bad news first?” she asks.

“The bad news?”

She sits down. “I’m forwarding you a few texts. The screenshots are what you’re gonna need to see.”

I grab my phone.

I spot my name right away—it’s the header for an entry in some kind of forum. The next line is my address and former place of employment. And the centerpiece of it all: a PDF of a confidential letter of recommendation.

The next screenshot is the text of the letter.

“I’ve known Stella Woodward for years. She’s reckless, unruly, and refuses to follow orders. Completely incorrigible.”

Each and every word is a punch in the gut.

The identifying information is blurred out, but I know who wrote that.

Reckless. Unruly. Refuses to follow orders. These are classic Hugo things to say about me.

Other screenshots show bosses spilling the beans on employees for things like poor work habits, social issues, hygiene issues.

“Where is this website?” I ask her.

“Lizzie says it’s some kind of human resources chatroom, like for marketing and advertising businesses in the area,” Kelsey says.

“Like a secret forum.”

“Illegal and secret,” she says. “But I don’t really get what this letter is.”

“I know what the letter is,” I say, putting it all together. “Part of getting that job at Zevin Media was that I had to ask two or three people to send confidential letters of recommendation on my behalf—you know, those letters where they send them directly to whoever’s thinking of hiring you?”

“Right,” she says.

“Usually you ask old bosses or somebody important. And you have to be pretty sure they’re gonna say something nice about you.”

“Because you don’t ever get to read it?”

“Exactly. It’s confidential. The idea is that the person will tell the truth about you if they know you’ll never see it.”

“And you thought this person was gonna say something nice about you?”

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