Stalker Problems - Chapter 22 - Tanner Rhodes
I stared at my phone in disbelief. Ryder’s picture should have popped up. Where the hell was it?!
Chastity and Madison both gave me a skeptical look.
“I swear I met him,” I said. “It must just be a weird glitch.” He is real, right? Or had all the stress about my new job made me hallucinate meeting my stalker? I had certainly imagined meeting him before, but it had never felt real like this.
“But…” I was going to plead my case further when someone knocked on the door.
Chastity unlocked it and let the rest of the team in.
“All set for the presentation?” asked Bee.
Chastity nodded. “We are.”
“I knew you could do it. Good job.” She took a seat near the front of the room.
Her husband, Mason Caldwell, walked in a moment later.
Yes, Caldwell. He was Matthew Caldwell’s older brother.
And he looked so much like his younger brother.
It gave me the heebie-jeebies. Not because he was ugly.
In fact, he was scorching. But him looking so similar to Matthew reminded me of the incident .
Luckily for me, though, I’d never set Mason’s dick on fire.
Oh my God, don’t think about the incident at a time like this!
Mason gave us a nod and then pecked Bee on the cheek before sitting down beside her.
I began to wonder if Matt had told Mason what had happened. Hell, he might have even told Bee. How many people knew about the incident ?! I stared at the glass windows that encircled the whole conference room. I should just fling myself out of one…
But then Mr. Rhodes and his posse arrived.
A fit woman in a pencil skirt came in first, then a few guys.
And then someone who could only be Tanner Rhodes took a seat at the head of the table.
Chastity was right. He was super-hot with his glasses and five o’clock shadow and longish hair pushed to one side with the sides buzzed.
He was almost as hot as my stalker. In fact, he looked a lot like my stalker.
Like…a lot a lot. Wait a second. I blinked and it felt like my throat was closing up.
He was my stalker. I immediately ducked to hide behind the table.
The glass table. Again. Fuck my life. Why was I even hiding?
It wasn’t like I had just thrown a blueberry pie in his face.
I tossed my pen on the ground and pretended like I was crouching down to pick it up. I snuck a glance at him through the glass table. Had he noticed me yet?
As I stood up, I accidentally bumped my head on the table. No, bumped wasn’t the right word. Slammed. Because everything went black.
I woke up a second later with the most handsome man in the world cradling my head. His deep brown eyes stared at me through his glasses.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I…” What the hell just happened?
He looked at one of his assistants. “We need an ice pack.” Then he turned back to me. “Do you remember your name?”
“Ash. Ashley Cooper.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ashley. You hit your head against the table and knocked yourself out.”
Then it all came flooding back to me. My new job.
The presentation. My stalker walking in pretending to be named Tanner Rhodes instead of Ryder Storm.
Me hiding behind ANOTHER glass table and then knocking myself out like a total idiot.
God, why did I always have to be so embarrassing?
I could feel my face turning red. Everyone in the room was gathered around staring at me.
I laughed awkwardly. “I’m fine. I meant to do that. ”
“You meant to knock yourself out?” asked Tanner. He looked confused. And very concerned.
I nodded. Then, just loud enough for him to hear, I whispered, “I wanted to snuggle with you again. Last night ended too soon.” I added a saucy wink for good measure.
And he gave me the most puzzled look in the world.
It was like I was speaking another language.
Oh no. Had I started talking in German? One time I read about an Italian guy who hit his head and then only knew how to talk in French.
Or was that a weird sex dream I had? I mean…
it is kind of sexy to think about. An Italian stallion with a French accent? Yes please.
Tanner handed me the bag of frozen peas that his assistant had fetched. “Here, this should help. You should still probably see a doctor, though.”
“Am I going to die?”
He laughed. “No, but you may have a nasty bruise.”
Chastity knelt down next to me. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rhodes. I’ll look after her tonight.” She brushed his arm and gave him her best seductive smile.
Hey, slut! That’s my man! I needed to separate them ASAP. “You know what? I feel all better. Let’s just get on with the presentation.” So that everyone can stop staring at me.
“Are you sure?” asked Tanner. “We can always postpone it for another day.”
“Really, I’m fine.” I pulled myself to my feet and plopped unceremoniously into my chair before I fell over. The room was the thing spinning, not me. Or was it me? Am I spinning right now?
Chastity began the presentation as the room settled around me.
I kept sneaking glances at my stalker, but he seemed to be focused on the presentation.
Or maybe he was just focused on Chastity.
As always, she looked amazing. I had never competed with Chastity for a man before, but I hated the thought of it.
There was no way I stood a chance against her showstopping beauty and world-class flirting skills.
After the presentation I’d tell her that Tanner Rhodes was actually my stalker and that I’d called dibs.
And thanks to Single Girl Rule #31 (A girl who calls dibs has 2 weeks to close the deal), she’d be forced to back off. I snuck another glance at him. Mine!
Something didn’t feel right, though. Why was he dressed so differently than usual?
When he stalked me, he was always wearing colorful suits and had his hair up in a bun type thing.
But today he was dressed in a crisp black suit and his hair was pushed to one side.
And he was wearing glasses. I could easily explain away the glasses by telling myself that he wore contacts during stalking because stalking was difficult work and no one needed their glasses falling off their face while they were perched in a tree outside your window.
But the change in suit preference hardly made sense.
He was a freaking billionaire. He could wear whatever the hell he wanted and no one would say a word.
He could have shown up to the meeting in a pair of his stupid Crocs and a man thong and no one would have flinched.
He’d be able to pull that combo off way better than Brett Favre had in that sext.
I pictured it in my head. My stalker, not Brett Favre.
I couldn’t decide if it was a good look or not.
I mean, on one hand, his package looked amazing.
It was like someone had stuffed an anaconda into a spandex sock.
Sorry, bad analogy. But you get the point.
His junk looked great. The Crocs were kind of throwing me off though.
I mean, why was he wearing them? Was he an old lady gardening or a little boy on the beach?
Someone shook me.
“Ash?” asked Chastity.
I snapped my head around to pretend like I hadn’t been staring directly at my stalker for the past five minutes.
“Huh? What? Sorry, still a little dazed from hitting my head.” Please don’t make me talk in front of all these people.
What the hell was she thinking? She knew public speaking was my 5 th biggest fear.
“I was hoping you could elaborate on this slide about our Facebook ad strategy?”
“I uh, sure.” I stood up and started stumbling through the slide.
Tanner chimed in halfway through. “I’ve heard enough.”
Shit. Was me talking for two seconds really bad enough to blow the whole deal?
“I think BIMG would be a great fit for us. We’re happy to sign the deal.” Tanner stood up to shake hands with Bee and Mason.
I let out a sigh of relief. I didn’t blow it after all.
I took a step toward Tanner as he disengaged from Mason.
Not only had we had the perfect night together, but now he’d saved me from public speaking.
I was in love. I waited for him to come congratulate me and whisper something sexy in my ear about meeting up later that night, but instead he just turned and left the conference room.
What the hell?
“Ah!” squealed Chastity. “We did it!”
“Well done,” said Bee. “I hate to ask this of you, but can you have copy and graphics for the Mills Winery campaign done by the end of the week? I really want to show Mr. Rhodes that he’s making the right choice.”
We agreed. Then Madison rushed over to me. She brushed her hand against where I hit my head. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t know you had so much game,” said Chastity. “Pretending to hurt yourself so that Tanner would get all worried about you. Clever.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing. I was hiding. He’s my stalker.”
Chastity shook her head. “Say what now? You can’t just get dibs on Tanner by claiming that he’s your stalker.”
“No, really. He is.”
“But you said your stalker wore colorful suits and had a man bun. Tanner only wears black suits. And I don’t even know if his hair is long enough to put up in a bun.”
“It’s definitely him.”
“And I thought you said his name was Ryder Storm?”
I knew what was going on here. Duh. “That’s his Society name. Kind of like how I’m Raven Black. He must want anonymity in the Society because he’s so well known. It’s him. It has to be him. It has to be. Why else would he have spared me from doing part of the presentation?”
“Uh…because I had already done such a kickass job?” suggested Chastity.
“Or maybe he felt bad for you because you just hit your head,” added Madison.
No. No! It had to be him. Otherwise… Oh God.
Why did I have to go and whisper that thing about last night and snuggling?
And had I winked at him? Saucily? Why did I keep acting so saucy recently?
I was out of control. Now Tanner’s look of utter confusion was seared in my brain.
It was so clear that he had no idea what I was saying.
Despite that, though…I still kind of thought it was him.
Just like I knew my stalker had been stalking me. I had a sixth sense about these things.
Oh! “Maybe he didn’t recognize me with my red hair. I was wearing a black wig last night.”
“Well,” said Chastity. “We need to sort this out immediately. Because if it is your stalker, that means you have dibs on him. But if he’s not, then we’ll have to find a different way to settle it.”
“And how do we figure it out?” I asked.
Chastity gave me a mischievous grin. “We stalk your stalker. Just like you’ve been doing for the past several months.”
I pressed my lips together. He’s stalking me .
But the particulars didn’t really matter right now.
I needed dibs on Tanner Rhodes. So if I had to stoop to his stalking levels, so be it.
Besides, I already knew a ton about him from my observations while I watched him stalk me.
And he’d told me a lot about himself last night too.
This was going to be so freaking easy. Move over, Chastity. He’s mine. Time to get my stalk on.