I stare at him, saying nothing, and he just shrugs. “Play your part, and soon enough this will be over,” he tells me, and then he turns to face the crowd once more.
“Now, we’ve prepared a little surprise for you… Who’s ready for that?” he asks, and you can already guess what the crowd replied. A loud ‘yeah’ erupts on the mouths of everyone looking up at the stage, and Grady calls upon Logan again.
Getting up from the chair he was still sitting on, Logan joins Grady and I. Our eyes lock and he offers me a sad smile. I don’t want to, but my lips react before I can think of what I’m doing and I smile back at him.
Closing the distance between him and I, he leans toward me and whispers a few words into my ear, one of his hands resting on my waist.
“It’ll be okay. I promise, Lana.”
I know I shouldn’t but… I believe him.
31
Logan
It’s show time.
The spotlight is on me, and Grady hands me his mic. Taking it from his hands, I then walk to the edge of the stage.
“Is everyone ready for this?” I shout, my voice echoing through the cavernous main room of the convention. The crowd shouts a loud YEAH in unison, and I let my eyes wander over the thousands of people waiting for me to start playing the video trailer. I let all the eyeballs down there devour my fucking naked muscles for a few seconds more, and then I turn back.
Alright, it’s time to burn down the whole fucking house.
I walk to the other end of the stage and I meet Lana’s eyes again, and I feel that fucking sadness well up inside of me once again. Anders is by her side and; while his face is stone cold, the lines in Lana’s tell me a story of sadness, disappointment, and heartbreak. And that … fuck, that’s hard.
But like I just told you: it’s show time. And the show I’ve prepared for tonight is going to bring the whole house down. Allowing a fucking glorious smile to shine on my face, I turn my back to the crowd and step behind the mixing table where a laptop is set up. I place my finger over the touchpad, and let the cursor hover over the video trailer, and then, sure that no one is watching what I’m doing, I take an USB pen out of my pocket and slide it into one of the laptop sockets.
Opening it, I then press play on the sole video file I’ve stored inside the pen.
Everyone has turned to look at the projection behind me, but I don’t bother with it; the file I’ve chosen for this presentation is an audio one. Yeah, as you can guess, I didn’t exactly play the file with the video trailer.
I lean back against the table and prepare for fucking Armageddon to start.
“I now have proof that you engaged in sexual intercourse with the wife of one of the most powerful men in the industry,” Grady's voice explodes through the speakers, and I turn my gaze toward him so that I can enjoy the look of pure surprise and desperation on his face. Serves you right, motherfucker. “And now,” the tape continues, “if you want to keep on working in this industry … you better do as I say, Logan.”
I hear the crowd muttering as the audio file continues playing, and I grin as I watch Grady run toward me, his hands desperately reaching for the laptop. Unfortunately for him, he’s much weaker than me (you know, all these fucking muscles aren’t just for show), and all I have to do is stand up and press one hand against his chest to keep him out of reach.
“Not a fucking chance, asshole. Everyone’s going to hear every word of it,” I tell him to his face, still unable to wipe that grin off my face. This is my moment of triumph, and I deserve to enjoy it with a fucking grin on my face.
You see, when I went to Abby with the manus
cript, she was already aware of everything that was going on. She’s a smart woman, no fucking doubt about it. Remember the woman with whom Grady fucking blackmailed me? Carla, the wife of the Romance Guild CEO? Yeah, she really wasn’t the wife of that guy.
“That woman that Grady refers to, is right there!” I say, pointing to fake-Carla - whose real name is Jennifer. The crowd turns to face her and she gives a shy wave.
She was actually a fucking Naughty Angel working for Abby. Call it corporate counter-espionage, if you will. She played Grady, pretending she was the wife of an important guy, and then all she had to do was allow him to hang a noose around his neck.
Back when Grady burst into the room where I was fucking her, she pretended to leave, but left a small recording device tucked inside one of the cardboard boxes in the storage room where we were. The moment she saw Grady and I leave, she retrieved it and went straight to Abby.
Now, you probably have a few questions. Like, why didn’t Abby fucking stop all this from happening? Why did she let everything unfold like this? I know these questions are on your mind because I had them as well. And I voiced them to Abby. And her answer was a ruthless one—as badly as she wanted to sign Lana and buy her manuscript, she needed to take Grady out first.
He had been trying to destroy Naughty Angel Publishing ever since Twelve Inches rocked the industry and, like a lioness defending her cubs, Abby fucking prepared for battle. Really, I gotta give it to her; she played everyone like a fucking mastermind, pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Too bad she didn’t fucking tell me till I knocked on her door. Gave her the manuscript. She took one look at it and looked at me, with that perfect body of hers.
“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” she asked with a smile. “Wanna come inside?”
That’s when Aidan and Abby explained the whole thing. How I had to go along with it. Couldn’t tell anyone.