31. Chapter 28
Sloan
This time when I walk into Tanner’s office building there are people everywhere. Nelly makes eye contact with me as the elevator doors close, and a faint pink spreads across her chest and up her neck as she greets me.
“Hi, Sloan.” Her voice is timid. Of course it is. The last thing she wants is me making her extra curricular activities here in the office public.
“Hi, Nelly. Tell Tanner I’m on my way back,” I say not even bothering to wait for her to buzz him.
I need the surprise factor. Jax and I practiced this over and over as we drank a bottle of wine.
While the details of our conversation got clouded by the buzz of the wine and the heat growing between us, the plan remained the same.
I knock once on Tanner’s door before opening it.
He looks up at me from his desk and rolls his eyes, “Sloan, I have a busy day, and you aren’t supposed to be here. You—”
“Shut the fuck up, Tanner.” I walk in and close the door.
He continues to protest as I sit on the leather chair opposite his desk, but I ignore him.
I don’t say another word, I just hit play on my phone and turn the screen in his direction.
His face pales as he takes in the video of him and Nelly. I watch as his jaw tightens, as he wipes his hands on his suit jacket trying to get rid of the sweat building in his palms. His smug smirk disappears and is now set in a hard line.
I use his surprise as an opportunity to lay out the reality of the situation for him, as the video continues to play.
“First of all, I believe it’s important you understand I have copies of this stored in my dropbox, I’ve sent a copy to my email, and Jax is storing a copy as well.
Second, I’m positive your girlfriend would love to know it wasn’t just her.
It’s not that she had some magical pussy that made you love drunk and caused you to cheat on me.
You’re just a sick fuck. I’ll make damn sure she receives the message.
I also find it very interesting you are so cavalier with your career, given the strict fraternization policy Bay Production writes into every contract. ”
This makes him perk up and come out of his daze as he stares at the camera, clearly worried the video might walk off the screen and into someone’s hands.
Then his lips curl, and he begins to speak, “What do you want, Sloan?”
I lower the camera as the video finishes, and stare him straight in the eye.
“You want me to let you interview whoever you want? Done. You want control over your show? We can work something out. All I need is you to erase that video, and it’s all yours.”
He thinks he’s got me. He thinks I’ll cave.
“I want you to sign over my contract—to me.” I say flatly.
“No.”
“No?” I laugh. “I know what you’ve been doing Tanner. I know you’ve been trying to engineer situations where I break terms in the contract. You’re trying to take my settlement.”
He laughs, and it pisses me off, causing me to go rogue—again.
I pick up my phone and type out a text message.
A second later Tanner’s phone pings on his desk. His nostrils flare and then he picks it up. Again the color drains from his face.
I see the shock in his eyes when he realizes the video I just played has been sent in a group message between the two of us and Nelly.
“404-451-1879” I read off a number from my phone.
He looks at me with a questioning look. “Where did you get her number?” By her, he means the bitch he was screwing behind my back.
“She works weekends at Base & Bean, yeah?”
Aribelle is a gem, though he’ll never know that.
“She was giving it to some guy in line the other day,” I lie. “It was perfect timing.”
I start to type the number before his phone pings for the second time.
Me: Hi.
This time I create a group message between the three of us, and her response comes faster than I expect.
404-451-1879: Who is this?
I ignore the text, “You see Tanner, we can play this game all day until this video gets into the right hands and you leave here unemployed… or you can sign over my contract and we both go home and pretend nothing happened.”
I continue to ignore her text and open my email app and continue typing. I need to keep him on his toes, there’s no need to reply to her right now. I narrate the email as I type.
“Dear Bay Productions. I regret to inform you of a—”
“Stop,” he says, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, but still trying his hardest to play it cool. “Are you really going to send that? Ruin my career, because I’m trying to manipulate the situation so you lose your money?”
I quirk a brow. He doesn’t even realize what he just admitted.
“Sloan. You can cost me my job, but it doesn’t change the fact I own your contract.
If I lose. You lose. Only at the end of the day, I have video evidence of a story I didn’t approve of, making it a competing story.
The complaint has already been filed, and the investigation has already started.
Even if they fire me, they have to finish it.
” He offers me a smug smile. Technically he’s got me, and he knows it.
I take a long breath.
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get that money, Sloan. So you can stop playing this game.” His words become venom as they leave his lips.
I stand and look at him as I hit send one last time on my phone.
This time his phone doesn’t buzz, and he notices.
This time it went to Jax, and I hit play on the message so he can hear the first few seconds of this conversation we just had as I walk towards the door and open it.
There is no way in hell, I’m giving him one more second to act.
Once the door is open I hit pause so the audio cuts off before anyone else can hear it.
“Mango Bay has a single party consent law for recording, Tanner. I bet the lawyer won’t take kindly to you admitting you’re trying to steal my money.
” I smile at him one last time. “I want the contract my lawyer wrote up to be signed in an hour. It’s in your inbox. She sent it right before I came here.”
I don’t wait for him to respond. I walk across the lobby to the elevator and get satisfaction from the frantic look in his eyes as he watches me from his doorway.
The doors close just after Nelly goes running into his office with a tissue, and I’m positive he’ll have his signature to me within the next 30 minutes.