CATCHING THE BILLIONAIRE

Chapter 1

"Hello! I’m Niel Thompson, calling from St. Mary's Foundation—”

Click.

“Hello! I’m Niel Thompson, calling from St. Mary’s Foundation—”

Click.

“Hello! I’m Niel Thompson, calling from St. Mary's Foundation—”

Click.

Oh fuck it. I knew it! I shouldn't have agreed with Beny when he told me to volunteer tonight.

I was supposed to be doing this  fund-raiser thing where we called up wealthy persons who were originally from here, to enticed them to help their hometown.

But to be honest, I wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate for the role. I had no fucking clue how I was going to work “and how would you feel about giving us some penny to help the orphans and whatnot” into a casual conversation with a complete stranger.

My best friend Beny was originally the one who’d signed up, but he’d come down with a flu. A total nasty one, where he's bedridden and all. Which meant his friends ended up asking me instead.

I knew as soon as they gave me what was supposed to be two days of training in ten minutes that it was going to be awful.

And a quick glance around the only slightly dank basement confirmed my worst fears: the rest of the volunteers were all engaged in life-enriching conversations with opera singers, human rights lawyers, and well known surgeons. Whereas for me, I don't have a fucking clue how to have a very productive speech.

I dialed the next number. They’d told me you could hear the smile in someone’s voice, so I made sure I was grinning even though I wanted to smash the phone in tiny bits and run away, far away from here.

“HelloImNielThompsoncallingfromSt.Mary’sFoundationpleasedonthanguponme.”

Silence.

Then a second pass, “How did you get this number?”

“God, I don’t know. It was just on the list they gave me. I’m just one of the volunteer…” My mind blanked out. Something about that implacable voice shook me to the core. “…for this fund raiser thingy.”

“Huh???”

“The St. Mary's Annual Foundation. Um, you heard about it, right?”

“Isn’t that why I’m on your list?”

“Oh yeah.” I decided to pretend my utter incompetence was funny. “Good point. But there was a letter. You should have gotten a letter.”

“I don’t have time to read letters.”

“Well, no wonder you miss stuff.”

A laugh, quiet but totally sexy, ghosted down the phone to me, and I felt it like fingers caressing against my spine. “I assume that if the message is important, the sender will find a more efficient way to deliver it.”

“Efficiency isn’t always better, though.”

“Under what circumstances is being effective at achieving what you set out to achieve less good than the alternative?”

I knew the answer to that. They have informed me about it. But for the love of God, I'd completely forgotten all of the ideas they crammed in my head. So I did what I always do—improvised, and prayed that he won't ask more because I really don't have any idea on what we were talking about. “Only if what you want to achieve is communicating something as simply, directly, and immediately as possible.”