Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of $10,000,000 Marriage Proposal by James Patterson, read by Sarah Mollo-Christensen.
Will you marry me for $10,000,000?
I am a creative, open-minded businessman with limited time and desire to play the field. This is a serious proposal.
A mysterious billboard intrigues three single women in LA. But who is this Mr. Right? And is he the perfect match for the lucky winner?
Release date:
October 4, 2016
Publisher:
Little, Brown and Company
Print pages:
144
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It was a Friday morning and Janey Ellis was running late. As usual. She prided herself on being so low maintenance that she could make it from bed to car in twelve minutes flat. The only problem was the getting-out-of-bed part. This morning she could barely drag herself to the shower, having spent the previous evening reading scripts until midnight. Flowerpot Studios had three new TV shows going to series this season, and she was expected to give notes on all of them today—if she made it to work in time for her first call.
Sebastian, her ex, used to call her a lane-change demon, and it was true: she would never let some boring gray Prius slow her down. Indeed, she was weaving west on Sunset so fast she would have missed the billboard if it hadn’t usurped the one for her show. The bright-yellow ad was wrapped around one whole side of a fifteen-story building that until yesterday had promoted the cop drama Loyal Blue. Loyal Blue was the only successful TV show that Janey had developed to date—the one that looked like it was going to secure her job for the next few years. But it had been cancelled. The finale had aired.
It wasn’t her fault. Shows got cancelled all the time, and shows ran for years with worse ratings than Loyal Blue. It was a crapshoot. Nonetheless, as Janey’s boss had put it, “Money is money and failure is failure.” The towering building that had once showcased her success now displayed two-foot-tall Crayola-green letters reading: WILL YOU MARRY ME FOR $10,000,000?
The message was so bold and unexpected that it distracted Janey from wallowing in the sad fate of Loyal Blue. This was quite a departure from the TV ads that rotated through this prime Hollywood ad real estate. Janey slowed to gawk. It had to be another reality dating show, right? She cursed herself for not having been the one to come up with it. But then she read the rest of the sign: CREATIVE, OPEN-MINDED BUSINESSMAN WITH LIMITED TIME AND DESIRE TO PLAY THE FIELD. THIS IS A SERIOUS PROPOSAL.
Janey chuckled to herself. It was just weird enough to be legit. Dude obviously had some cash—she’d seen the budget line for the lease on that billboard, and it wasn’t cheap. Cars started to honk, and Janey realized the light in front of her was green. She hit the gas a bit harder than she meant to and hurtled through the intersection.
The billboard vanished from Janey’s mind as she dashed across the studio lot and hurried into the Flowerpot offices, but not for long. Inside she was a bit surprised to see that everyone—executives and assistants alike—was gathered in her boss’s office. Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good. After dropping her bag in her office, Janey went to see what was going on.
The roomful of people was staring out the window. “You can see the back of the building, over to the right,” an assistant was saying.
“Check out the gridlock,” someone else said.
“What’s going on?” Janey whispered to her assistant, Elody.
“It’s an ad,” Elody said. “A ten-million-dollar marriage proposal. It went up this morning and has already gone viral. Gawker says it’s caused three fender benders so far.”
“I saw it on my way in,” Janey said, feeling briefly proud that, for once, she hadn’t been the one in the fender bender. “It’s got to be some kind of hoax.”
“Or a publicity stunt,” her colleague Marco said. “Some wannabe actor decided to go big or go home.”
“I think it’s romantic,” Elody said.
A voice boomed over the rest of them. “It’s a waste of time and money. This isn’t a watercooler, people. It’s my office. Out.”
Inwardly Janey kicked herself at her mistake. Her boss, J. Ferris White, had been known to can people for taking lunch breaks. Not long lunch breaks. Any lunch break at all. And after the collapse of Loyal Blue she needed to get back on his good side. She ducked out of the office with everyone else, feeling twelve years old.
Chapter 2
At 11:00 a.m. on the dot Suze Lee allowed herself her first coffee break of the day. Redfield Partners, though a small venture capital group based in LA, prided itself on offering all the benefits of a big Silicon Valley tech company. Pool and Ping-Pong tables, a half court for basketball, a fully stocked kitchen. The free coffee was supposed to stimulate them to work longer and later, but Suze was pretty sure the excuse for frequent breaks had cut her colleagues’ productivity in half. She therefore limited herself to two visits to the café every day, twenty minutes each. Just coffee, no snacking. Today something was different. The café was strangely quiet. The persistent ping-pong of the game that never seemed to cease was silent for once. Instead there was a cluster of people around one of the café tables, where Kevin sat with his laptop.
“I’m sure the guy is sixty years old and ugly as a dog, looking for arm candy,” Emily said.
“No! People in the comments are saying that he’s a tech billionaire. Too busy to waste time dating,” Kevin said. “I mean, for all we know, he’s upstairs now, watching the Tweets roll in.” The second floor of Redfield Partners was home to the executive suites, where the investing and operations teams of the firm had their offices (open concept, of course, but still a floor above everyone else). There they met with eager start-ups, counted their millions, and worked out daily in the on-site gym. It was easy to fit it all in when you knew you were set for life. Suze, Kevin, the ten other “entrepreneurs in residence,” and the support staff were always encouraged to use the gym, but none of them ever did. Who wanted the hyperfit, life-balance-obsessed partners to see them panting on a treadmill at a slow jog? Instead they took ownership of the in-house café, some of them subsisting solely on its PowerBars and caffeinated beverages.
“Suze—you should totally apply,” Meredith said.
Suze practically spat out her iced coffee. “What are you talking about? Why me?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Meredith said. “I have walked down the street with you. Every man we pass drools, and those are the ones who don’t even know that you’re brilliant.”
“And you’re nice. Mostly. A little uptight, but in a nice way,” Kevin chimed in.
“Thanks?” said Suze.
“You’re the hottest catch in LA,” said Jeff.
There was an awkward silence. Jeff, the o. . .
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