A Billion Little Clues Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  The Bloody Billionaire

  Samantha Westlake

  Copyright © 2014 Samantha Westlake

  All rights reserved.

  NOTE: ALL CHARACTERS APPEARING IN THIS WORK ARE FICTITIOUS.

  ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

  For coffee, the lifeblood that fueled this novel

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  I just knew that my life was going to turn around and start getting better. It had to. There was no other way to go but up.

  At least, that's what I told myself as I crawled out of bed, my arm still jerking around as I tried to find the snooze button on top of my insistently beeping alarm clock. It probably would have helped if I opened my eyes, but I was resolute in my determination not to do so for as long as possible. It was barely after five in the morning, for heaven's sake! Human beings were not meant to be awake at this hour, unless they were perhaps just getting in from a night out!

  Finally, my grasping fingers felt the rubber coating on my clock and located the proper button. That rubber coating was important; my last three alarm clocks had all been broken when I drowsily swept them off of my end table and they smacked down upon my wooden floor. This one's rubber coating was already scuffed and scratched, but it was still holding up.

  Speaking of that wooden floor... I turned my body as I sat up in bed, lowering my feet down to hang an inch above the ground. I took a deep breath, braced myself-

  -and then slid down, out of bed, until my feet hit on the floor.

  The shock of the ice-cold floor did what the alarm clock could not - it yanked my eyes wide open. "Oh my god, oh my god," I gasped out aloud as I hopped from one foot to the other, searching in vain for a warm spot.

  For probably the fiftieth time, I told myself that I really needed to get a rug for my bedroom. Just something to spread out in front of my bed. Maybe something in green or turquoise, a nice soothing color, with those little shag piles that felt so nice beneath my bare toes.

  Now up and on my feet, I staggered forward before my treacherous mind could convince me to climb back into the warmth of my bedsheets. I headed for the bathroom, mostly feeling my way along in the darkness. Five in the damn morning. This was absolutely wretched.

  I rounded the corner into the hallway. Okay, good progress. The bathroom was just a dozen feet down, a straight line from here. No way to miss it now. Nothing to possibly run into. Whoop!

  That was the approximate sound that emanated from my mouth as I suddenly felt one foot go shooting out from underneath me. I barely managed to catch my balance, my heart rate accelerated up to somewhere around a million beats per minute.

  I reached down, feeling on the dark ground for what had nearly brought me crashing down. My fingers found a piece of smooth and silky cloth, barely big enough to count as a bikini top. Rachel.

  "Rachel, I've told you a million times to stop just taking off all your clothes and leaving them around!" I fumed out loud. I knew that my roommate was surely lost in the sleep of the dead right now, so I was free to yell at her.

  I spun around and chucked the piece of clothing down towards my roommate's mostly-closed door. Knowing Rachel, she probably had some guy in there with her right now, both of them draped up in each other in a sexy, naked tangle of limbs. Somehow, Rachel never had trouble with her love life.

  That was another nasty mental avenue I didn't want to venture down. I tried not to think about how long it had last been since I'd even flirted with a guy. Sure, the nice fellow at the coffee shop nearest my office now had my order memorized, but he had also been there on the day when tampons had spilled out of my purse while I was digging for loose change. So he wasn't an option any longer.

  My life had to get better from this point. Seriously, any day now.

  I staggered the rest of the way to the bathroom, flicking on the light and flinching as the bright fluorescent viciously attacked my eyes. After I managed to open my eyes again in the harsh light, I examined myself in the mirror.

  Melinda Gaines, age twenty-eight, a hundred and something pounds. The bathroom scale was right beside me, but I refused to make eye contact. The number it would reveal would only depress me.

  My red hair was all in a massive tangle, big and bushy from my tossing and turning in bed. I pulled my brush from the little shelf behind the mirror and did my best to run it through my hair a few times. The brushing lowered the amount of frizz, but I wasn't sure how much better it really made me look. Now that my hair was less obvious, the bags under my eyes were even more apparent.

  I fussed about with makeup for a while before eventually giving up and deciding to just swipe on some mascara and call it good enough. I couldn't resist one last glance in the mirror, however, just to torture myself. Sigh. It wasn't that I looked bad, exactly. Rachel always reassured me that I was totally attractive. But I could never seem to totally lose that tired look in my eyes.

  I glanced at the clock as I hurried back to my bedroom. It wasn't even six in the morning yet, and I was already late! A startled little "eep" slipped out of my mouth as I hurried to find some outfit that looked sufficiently businesslike and didn't have any stains or uncomfortable wrinkles in it from lying on my frozen floor.

  Keys. Purse. Folders. Wrinkled twenty dollar bill that will hopefully transform into lunch, if I have time for lunch today. Shoes. Bus pass. Fancy microchip-embedded building security access card pass thing. Do I have my keys?

  Forty minutes later, I was staggering up the steps to my office building, still struggling to get one foot to go all the way into the heel. My stockings hadn't shown any runs in the dim light in my bedroom, but they kept on bunching up around my heel. Finally, with one last stomp as I reached the threshold of the building, I managed to get the shoe all the way onto my foot.

  I straightened up, plastering a successful, confident, strong businesswoman smile on my face. I was here, I wasn't too late, and I was going to earn that promotion. Things were going to get better. I was sure of it.

  Three steps later, my heel snapped and I pitched forward.

  Thanks, universe. Glad to know that you're on my side.

  #

  Ten minutes later, I limped into my office. My shoe's heel was now inside my purse, mixing with the loose change and other assorted odds and ends in there. I really just wanted to get to my desk and sit down before anyone noticed. I'd have to get up and go out to lunch later, but that was something for me to worry about when it arrived. Perhaps one of my coworkers would have an extra pair of shoes that they didn't need and wanted to give to me as a gesture of thanks for all the hard work I do every day. That would be nice.

  I settled into my office chair, for once grateful that my desk was located up near the entrance to our division. "Marketing needs a bright, cheery face to greet any visitors as soon as they arrive," my boss, Keith, had told me.

  The unspoken implication in that sentence was that I was going to be the bright and cheery face. At least, I assume that's what Keith was going for. Although if he really wanted me to be as happy as all that, maybe he should stop getting so angry at me all the
time.

  Like all the desks in our Marketing department, mine had two wire baskets bolted onto the front corner; one of them was labeled with "In", and the other with "Out". Keith read about this technique in a magazine somewhere, and how it was super useful for boosting productivity by showing us workers how much we still had to do. Some reason like that. So the next day, he bought us all these wire baskets.

  A week later, after the baskets seemed to keep on mysteriously disappearing, he paid the maintenance workers to come in after work and to bolt them all down to our desks.

  I'm sure Keith meant well when he picked out these baskets, but I didn't exactly feel motivated when I looked at mine. My "In" box was piled high with papers, a tall and untidy stack that looked like it was about to go toppling over at any moment. It would probably fall down mainly into my "Out" box, which had almost nothing in it at all.

  Of course, when I did finish one of these papers and dropped it in the "Out" box, that just meant that it now belonged in someone else's "In" box. And when it got there, it would cause them more resentment. If I took care of all these papers, I wasn't lowering stress; I was simply transferring it over to someone else.

  Considering that, I felt that it was best for the papers to stay where they were now. At least then I wouldn't be burdening anyone else. It was really very noble and self-sacrificing of me, I felt. So instead of taking a look at the newest level of papers added to the strata of my wire baskets, I instead booted up my computer. After a second, the "Panther Worldwide" logo of our company flashed up on the screen slowly spinning around in a very pretty little display.

  I still felt a little surge of pride every time I saw that logo come up. I worked for Panther Worldwide! It was one of the year's hottest companies, had its finger in everything, agreed by all the industry experts on those news channels I never watched to be the best stock to buy and hold in a portfolio. And I was at the heart of the company!

  Well, maybe not the heart. But definitely the liver, or some other important organ.

  I'd been hired about six months ago, and had started as nothing more than a lowly secretary. My responsibilities had mainly consisted of getting coffee and biscuits for my bosses, and making sure that letters got taken down to the mail room. But then I got promoted, and we got a mail boy, so I didn't have to take care of letters any more. I still fetched coffee and snacks, of course, but that was just a little way to help out in addition to my other duties. And I was certain that I'd be up for a promotion any day now!

  With my computer booted up, I clicked on the little mail button at the bottom of the screen. My email opened up, and I sighed as I watched new email after new email appear at the top. Most of them from Keith, demanding that I send him on this-or-that file, needing updates on some project that I hadn't even heard of, or asking why the coffee didn't taste the same as it had last week.

  As I watched, a new email from him arrived at the top of this huge stack right then. A little hesitantly, I moved my mouse up and opened it.

  The first paragraph was all in uppercase. The man had probably broken his shift key again from slamming his fist down on the keyboard. I decided to skip that part of the email. It looked like mostly curse words anyway.

  The next paragraph looked more interesting. As I read it, my eyes widened. The CEO of Panther Worldwide, the head man who ran the entire company, was throwing a dinner party tonight! Paul explained how he would be attending, and how he didn't want any screw-ups at all in the next work day so that there wouldn't be any bad press going around about the Marketing division. This was his chance to impress on the CEO how good of a job they were doing, and how Paul totally deserved his most recent raise.

  I leaned back from the computer, thinking about this. Roman Wayland, the CEO himself! I had never met the man, of course - none of us had - but we all knew about him. He had been brought in by Panther Worldwide a little over half a decade ago, when the company was old and struggling to even stay afloat.

  In under three years, Roman Wayland had turned the entire company around, completely rebranding it and sending the profits soaring. He axed old brands that were no longer profitable, ordered a huge marketing campaign for the top products, and kept Panther Worldwide splashed across the headlines every week for months.

  Roman's methods were extreme, but he had accomplished all he wanted and more. When I had first heard of Panther Worldwide, it was just another crappy company that was on its way out. Now, I inspired oohs and aahs every time I announced where I worked. It was quite exhilarating.

  And now Roman Wayland, the man himself, was going to be throwing a party!

  I wished that I could find a way to get into that party. Unfortunately, they probably already had someone in place to serve the coffee and pastries. And I wasn't exactly the head of a division. I wouldn't have anything to offer as advice to someone like Roman.

  After giving myself a few more minutes to fantasize about somehow becoming a top Panther executive by the end of the work day, I returned my attention back to the email. It had been sent out to the entire office, so it was mostly just general comments about making sure that everything stayed shipshape until after the meeting was over and threats about what would happen if one of us messed this up for Keith.

  I sighed and deleted the email. I didn't think that I even had enough influence to mess something up. The worst that I could manage was to spill coffee on someone's lap.

  So instead, I busied myself scrolling through the rest of the emails, trying to clear out as many as possible before the inevitable loss of interest. I even responded to a few of them, mainly reassuring their senders that I was totally focusing my attention on their projects (false), that their work was nearly complete (also false), and that I totally had everything well in hand and it would all be done by their incredibly unreasonable deadlines (completely, totally false). Even though most of these responses were little massagings of the truth, I felt good about saying them. It meant less stress for everyone, right?

  About three hours later, just as I was feeling totally pooped and like I needed to take a break, I heard my phone buzz inside the depths of my purse. I reached in, feeling around past the broken heel of my shoe, and pulled out my phone.

  Rachel was texting me. Apparently, she had just woken up, and had given the guy she had met last night one more ride before sending him off and on her way. "Currently on the couch totally naked," she sent me. "That food show with the one guy is on!"

  I didn't know which show she was trying to indicate. "Well, I'm stuck at work," I sent back enviously. "Heel broke. Not a good day."

  "Aww. Hugs," came back the rapid-fire response. "It will be better! Keep your head up! Smile! Look for opportunity!"

  I nodded as I tucked my phone away. I should smile! I was a proud, independent businesswoman, earning her way up the corporate ladder at a high-profile company. I should be celebrating the work I had to do, how much of an impact I made on so many people's lives-

  "Hey! Melinda! We're out of coffee!"

  My smile vanished. "Coming, coming," I called back as I hobbled up out of my chair. Duty called.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  It was five minutes until five-o'clock PM, and I was totally exhausted.

  Seriously. I might be the one who helps keep the rest of the department caffeinated and full of liquid energy, but my personal reserves were running low. No, scratch that - they were totally empty. Barely a drop left. If I wasn't careful, I would probably pass out at my desk and do a face plant forward into my full "In" box.

  Aside from my broken heel in the morning, the rest of my day hadn't gone too badly. Of course, it hadn't gone amazingly either, but I was determined to stay on the bright side of things. Keep your head up! I told myself. And in that respect, things were going well!

  Sure, I still had an inbox totally full of angry emails from Keith, mainly over things he hadn't received, or full of complaints about things he had received that he didn't like as much as he felt that he should
. But at least he hadn't been over to yell at me in person! That was a plus. I really hated when he made an effort to walk over and yell at me in person.

  I glanced up at Keith's office. Given how bushed I was, I probably ought to just leave to go home right now, I told myself. If I stay later, I'm just going to end up making more errors because of my cloudy mental state, and that will cost the company even more time to fix them! If the company wants me to stay late and continue to perform at my usual high standard, they really ought to install a nap room around here somewhere.

  Keith's office, however, wasn't open. The door, usually propped open so he could angrily yell out at the employees, was closed. And when I raised my eyes up to the glass windows above the door, I could see that the fluorescent lights inside were turned off.

  Was my boss playing hooky? If so, he wasn't doing a good job, considering how many emails he'd sent me and how fast he replied with fresh criticisms to any of my responses.

  Keith also wasn't a big believer in working from home. I'd sat through the meetings where he insisted, usually at the top of his lungs, that anyone working from home was working with one arm tied behind their back. "Working from home just means you'll be distracted by everything at home," he had thundered down the meeting table at us, one hand clenched in a fist for emphasis. Or perhaps he was going to punch out the first person who tried to protest against him. I was never quite sure.

  Given all of that, it would be pretty hypocritical of him to work from home himself, wouldn't it?

  I considered asking him whether he was working from home over an email. What's the worst he could do? He could yell at me in an email reply, of course, but I could just delete that. I wouldn't even have to read it all.

  I still didn't want to risk getting yelled at.

  A minute later, however, my tired brain had another brilliant solution. Ask for his signature! "Hey Keith," I typed into a new email. "I've got a file here that needs your approval. Could you swing by my desk and give me a quick signature? Thanks a million, Melinda."