The Billionaire’s Wake Up Call Girl is a contemporary romance by Annika Martin. This isn’t a book review but an actual summary of what happens in the story so keep in mind there will be spoilers ahead. The author describes the book as an enemies to lovers’ romantic comedy.
- Book Title: The Billionaire’s Wake Up Call Girl
- Author: Annika Martin
- Publication Date: July 9, 2018
- Category: Contemporary Romance
- Print Length: 330 Pages
The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call-girl is a dual POV workplace romance. It opens with Lizzie at her semi-new job, where she is the social media manager for Vossameer Inc. Her direct boss, Sasha, is unhappy with her despite her great engagement on their new Facebook page.
Before Lizzie started they barely had an online presence at all, because the founder and CEO, Theo Drummond, believes the focus should be only on their work. Theo is an asshole, but he saves lives as a chemist, so employees put up with an incredibly restrictive workplace. Theo has only agreed to social media because we want to work with Henry Locke to get his medical innovations to regions that need them desperately.
Lizzie used to own a bakery called Cookie Madness, but it shut down when her ex, Mason, committed fraud by stealing, hiding eviction notices, opening credit cards in her name, and borrowing from loan sharks, and then vanished. He was already a known scammer to the police, but she has no recourse. She lost her business and only got this job because Cookie Monster’s social media presence was excellent.
Lizzie and Sasha go to present the strategy to Theo. Thinking he’s gone, Lizzie makes a sarcastic comment that he hears and can’t stop thinking about.
He hates the presentation but keeps noticing her. Basically, he wants them to humanize the company without including any actual humans. Afterward, Sasha is disappointed in her and writes her up for being dressed inappropriately for the workplace—this is clearly an excuse because she’s upset over Theo noticing Lizzie. Consequently, Lizzie and her best friend/roommate, Mia, go to buy the most shapeless dresses they can find. Lizzie practices looking distant and dull so she can’t be accused of talking back to Theo, unlike the obsequious staff.
Because of the loan sharks, Lizzie needs this job. One already threatened her with a gun and now she has to pay 14k, which the 12k bonus for keeping the job for a month will allow her to do. She will also have to move back in with her parents in the Midwest to repair her credit.
The next day, Theo calls the marketing team together on a flimsy excuse of talking about Instagram. In reality, he spent all night thinking about Lizzie and is surprised by her shapeless dress and how vacant she seems. He asks Sasha to set up a new wake-up call service for him, because another one quit. Sasha has Lizzie do it. She hires a Canadian company, but they sound sketchy, so she orders a call for herself too.
The next morning, they don’t call, so Lizzie starts panicking around four am. Mia pretends to call Theo, so Lizzie does a joking version of the rudest wake-up call ever where she insults him. After he speaks she realizes it’s a real call and she’s just been insulting her boss for a full minute. Luckily, she has an untraceable burner phone because of Mason and she hasn’t taken her allergy medicine yet, so her voice is husky. When she goes to work she’s panicking, certain she’ll be fired, but after a few questions about who she hired Theo tells Sasha to keep the company. Mia says Lizzie needs to keep calling.
The next morning, Lizzie purposefully does everything she can to get mad before calling at 4:30. When she does, he’s ready for her and is an asshole back. She points out she’s good at her job because he is definitely awake and that normal people can use alarm clocks. She also threatens to fire him as a client, so he backs down. After, Lizzie realizes the call turned her on.
When Lizzie gets to work, Sasha tells her Theo asked for another call at 9:20 am. She can’t figure out how to safely do it at work, so she emails back to say that Operator Seven is booked up. Sasha reports back to Theo and is pretending to have done Lizzie’s work to the point where she uses her lines almost word-for-word.
Theo can’t focus at all and is obsessed with knowing if this is how she talks to all of her clients. The next morning, he asks what Operator Seven is wearing and, to Lizzie’s surprise, it works for her. He says he wants to know so he can imagine himself ripping it off. He’s never actually done this before, but she makes him want to be dominant. She starts to masturbate to his instructions, until he says that she’s his and he would take what he wants. At that point, Lizzie gets upset and ends the call. Theo wants to call back, but she never takes his calls. All he knows is that she’s in NYC from caller ID.
When Lizzie sees him in the office, she can’t help but stare and think about the call. Because of her outfits and vacant stare, plus Sasha saying she’s a moron, he doesn’t think much of her but is surprised he’s attracted to her. He thinks of her as Turnip Truck. Theo asks Sasha for the wake-up call service’s number, but she doesn’t have it because she pushed it onto Lizzie. She thinks of a convoluted excuse to send it later. Then Lizzie needs to make her own convoluted excuse for time to set up a company. She makes an email, Craigslist ad, and PayPal that redirects to a sea turtle charity. Theo emails her to ask to hire Operator Seven exclusively. Lizzie, enjoying the power, says no. Meanwhile, accounting has trouble with paying and asks for more information. Lizzie knows Theo is amazing at solving puzzles but doesn’t worry because she only needs to last two days for the bonus. When recounting the story to Mia, Lizzie decides she would never date Theo because he’s a control freak.
Theo is audible happy to get the next call. She tells him that he got her in trouble at work and that he needs to stop digging around. He isn’t thinking of anyone but himself when he does that. He actually apologizes, which surprises her and makes her like him more. Theo asks her out and she’s actually tempted. It starts to get steamy again, but she really needs to keep her job, so she can’t give in. She does reassure him that he’s the only one she talks to like this. She’s certain he only wants Operator Seven for the challenge. They have phone sex and both contribute to the fantasy of him ripping off her clothes while he’s wearing his lab coat. She wishes they could really do this, but she doesn’t want to risk giving a man power over her again after Mason. Theo says she has integrity and ambition—a surprise, because Mason always denigrated her bakery success—and asks why she’s doing this job. He says she can tell him if she feels unsafe. She says she feels safe, which is technically true in the moment. She feels like Theo actually sees her and that she’s a better version of herself with him. She does say that if he gets involved in her life, he’ll never hear from her again. He says he has a code and asks if she has a partner. She says no. Then they share some baby goat videos and facts about themselves, like if she could be doing anything she would bake cookies.
He scoffs and she asks if a cookie traumatized him and then apologizes. This is because of his well-known past. When he was fifteen, his parents died in a car accident. His sister, Willow, was adopted but he ended up in the system. He invented a product that may have saved his mom. He doesn’t like the twee story people make of it, because it makes him feel isolated and alone to be seen as a hero. She jokes with him that he’s an asshole. She hangs up when he pushes for her name.
Theo decides he needs to find her, despite what she said, because she makes him feel actually alive. Because of his focus on Operator Seven, when he gets to work he’s able to finally see where he’s going wrong with his equation and rework it. He asks his computer genius sister, Willow, to get any information on the company she can. Willow says he seems happy and reminds him that he is allowed to have things for himself. Then she discovers the email is coming from inside the building.
It must be Sasha because she found the company. It feels wrong, but the facts add up. He asks her to meet him for lunch, where she agrees with him too much and isn’t contrarian at all. He finally asks her outright about the phone sex and gives her enough information for her to know it’s Lizzie.
Sasha confronts Lizzie but promises she won’t fire her. She needs details and gets some intel about the set up and specific insults. Then she ends Lizzie’s probationary period. Lizzie wants to talk to Theo because she’s hurt by him sharing the details, but Sasha says he is disgusted and angry and threatens legal action. Lizzie leaves, sad about the loss of connection she thought they had. Plus, now she’s in a lot of danger from the loan shark.
Meanwhile, Theo bribes the perfect restaurant for Operator Seven so he can get a table. On their date, it still feels different. It doesn’t have the magic of the phone calls. He decides she must be nervous. Sasha steals Lizzie’s story and almost sells it, but cracks keep showing. She ruins it when she says she isn’t a dessert person. He asks her other questions he asked Operator Seven and she gets each wrong. HR-wise Theo is in a terrible spot, so even though he asks for Operator Seven’s real identity, he can’t force it.
The loan shark deadline is coming, so Lizzie and Mia are in danger. The next morning, Theo calls at 4:30 and Lizzie destroys her phone. Theo enlists Willow’s help again. They pay the PayPal account and see it goes to a sea turtle charity, so Theo checks which charities people recommended the company donate to. Lizzie is the only one who suggested this charity. Her being Operator Seven feels right. He finds she’s gone and that she left cursing the place. He goes to her address but just watches the building because he wants to do this right.
Lizzie is desperate for money. She gets a delivery from Vossameer. It’s a gorgeous Hepburn-esque dress that is an inside joke between them. Theo asks her to dinner. Mia and Lizzie return the dress for store credit and sell the gift card. She has around half of what she needs for the loan shark, but it isn’t enough to get more time.
Theo waits at the restaurant, but leaves once he gets the notification the dress was returned. He goes back to watch her apartment and sees some of the enforcers watching her window. He knows some of her financial issues, but thinks she quit right before getting the bonus. Guys like that harassed his dad when he was a kid, so he is familiar with the type and talks to them. He has his PI pay off the rest of the loan.
In the interest of safety, Lizzie kicks Mia out. When Theo shows up instead of the loan sharks she is surprised and grateful. She tells him what actually happened and he says basically knew because no one could be her. They admit their feelings for each other and have sex, recreating some of their phone sex ideas. The next morning, Theo realizes he’s slept through the night for the first time in ages. Lizzie says no relationship, sex only and he agrees but still plans to meddle. They go out for breakfast and talk about his workplace failings, his medical research success, and Mason. When he mentions his PI, Lizzie gets upset and leaves.
The next morning, Theo calls to apologize and they meet up in a hotel. She’s willing to have some emotional intimacy, like telling him about her dream bakery space, but she keeps their sex from becoming sweet or genuine. She keeps doing the wake-up calls and they integrate into each other’s lives. One day, they accidentally cross the bridge where Theo’s parents died and he takes her down to the water. He tells her how his dad loved to drive drunk and force his family to come. When Theo was fifteen he was able to hide or take the keys sometimes, but he couldn’t convince his mom to leave. He got a job and wasn’t home to take the keys the night they died. He knew he was dooming his mom by being gone.
Lizzie sleeps over at his place for the first time. They feel like a couple, but she’s still scared. She forces him to buy pots and pans, because he has zero. Willow shows up and meets Lizzie. She says that Theo is getting a Locke Award. Lizzie is impressed but doesn’t agree to go to the reception.
Now that the formula isn’t the only thing in Theo’s life, he can see it more clearly and solves it. Lizzie and Mia find the perfect place for Cookie Madness at a percentage of net because the couple was a fan of the old one. She goes to Vossameer to tell Theo and is shocked they’re decorating and making it an actually nice workplace. She tells Theo she’s staying and that she wants to trust him and try a relationship. They have genuine sex with no games. On Lizzie’s way out, Sasha tells her Theo rented the space and Lizzie is just subleasing. Lizzie confronts Theo, upset about the deceit and being controlled by a man. Theo apologizes but Lizzie breaks up with him anyway.
Theo mopes, fires Sasha, talks it through with Willow, and completes the formula. Lizzie prepares to leave and says goodbye to the city. Mia talks her out of drunk dialing Theo and the next morning Lizzie decides she needs to leave, a week early, to avoid breaking down. In her U-Haul, Lizzie stares at the bridge and realizes they had a real emotional connection there and that Theo’s control issues are his dragons, but something they can face together. She turns around and Mia meets her at the reception with the dress, which Theo repurchased. The doormen turn Lizzie away, so she texts Willow. Willow, Vicky, and Smuckers get her in and she sits in Theo’s seat and listens to him give a heartfelt speech about why this work matters and his own process, clearly influenced by Lizzie. He’s thrilled to see her and they reconcile. Lizzie cancels her move.
In the epilogue, eight months later, they are getting married. The PI found Mason and he’s facing criminal charges. Theo is grateful to have been accepted by Lizzie’s family.
When my manager assigns me the task of finding a new wake up call service for our CEO, I think, how hard can this be?
Answer: practically impossible. It turns out that no wake-up call company in the world will take him on as a client. They’ve all had enough of his surly personality.
So in an effort not to lose my job, I secretly start making the calls myself, every day at 4:30 am sharp. OMG yes you read that right—four freaking thirty in the morning.
Confession: I’m not the nicest wake-up-call girl at that hour. Hello! Who wakes up before the roosters are even crowing? Luckily he doesn’t seem to mind my get-your-ass-out-of-bed attitude.
Day by day we’re becoming closer, and the calls start turning hot, like pay-by-the-minute hot and oh-so-wild. Snuggled under the covers with the moonlight streaming in the windows, we divulge our secrets to each other, but the one thing that he can never find out is that the sexy vixen who wakes him up every morning is just the lowly assistant who wears frumpy dresses. I can only imagine his disappointment.
Now he wants to take me out on a date and he’s scouring Manhattan to find me.
He’s an overachieving billionaire bent on a mission. How much longer can I keep up this charade?
