CHISELED (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (4 page)

Chapter Eight

ADDISON

I pressed down on
the button in the elevator too hard and a pain crept into my fingers. I had
paid a kid out front twenty bucks to distract the security guard on the first
floor so that I could creep into the elevator without being noticed. I watched
the floors creeping further and further up, my anger climbing with the
elevation.

It had taken me a
few hours to put it together but I had eventually. The last place I had that
glove was at the coffee shop when hot shot Braden Nash had been hitting on me.
Then, suddenly, a half hour after he left it was nowhere to be found. Did he
really think I was too stupid to put two and two together? He probably thought
I was too mesmerized by his sexiness to think twice about anything else going
around me.

Typical.

Well the smooth
talker had been stupid enough to leave his REAL business card behind and one
Internet search of his name told me right where his place of business was. I
almost couldn’t believe I didn’t know who he was sooner; he was notorious in
our town for being a rich playboy. There had been some tragedy years ago that
involved his father being murdered right in front of him.

It almost made me
feel bad for him but still, it didn’t give him the right to go around stealing
things that didn’t belong to him. He knew nothing about the night I had, which
meant he had no idea how dangerous I was.

Or maybe he did
know about my night and that was the problem. He did own one of the biggest
entertainment channels in the world. They were known for their fast pace
journalism and hard-hitting stories. They even had their own magazine. He
clearly had stolen the glove in an attempt to break the story wide open.

Probably after I
had emailed his channel trying to get them to talk to me.

But this was my
story.

And he wasn’t even
trying to use me in it.

Not that I cared
about the recognition, I didn’t want the attention, but I did want the man who
had saved me to get the fame he deserved. I wanted him to know how thankful I
was for him, how I couldn’t stop thinking about him since the night before.

The truth was that
he had saved me in more ways than one. He had saved me last night physically
and all day today emotionally. Having him to concentrate on was taking my mind
off of everything else I had been through last night and the fact that my
mother was blowing up my phone every second picking me apart. I had thought she
would calm down after the hospital but so far she hadn’t let up.

I jumped off a few
floors below and took the stairs the rest of the way up. I wasn’t sure why I
did this but it seemed less noticeable to emerge from a stairwell then the main
elevator. It paid off when I emerged into a small hallway seconds later. I
peered out the door at the main secretary and rolled my eyes. This was hardly
safe.

I started down the
hallway, looking into various office doors but the man of the hour was nowhere
in sight. Probably held up in some fancy office somewhere, couldn’t be bothered
with slumming it down here with them common folk who do his job for him.

The office was
packed but surprisingly no one stopped me. I said a thankful prayer that I had
gone home and changed into a dressier outfit before coming up here. I figured I
wouldn’t get past the lobby if I started going crazy in my sweats and t-shirt.

I was just about
to give up and head to the other side of the building when an arm tugged on the
sleeve of my suit and pulled me a few steps backwards. I jumped forward and let
out a large scream, causing a bunch of people in the office to turn and look at
me.

The blonde man
standing in front of me looked startled. He cleared his throat and straightened
his tie, almost like he was uncomfortable wearing it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean
to startle you, Ms. Young.”

Ms. Young?

A girl who sat a
few desks away from us looked me up and down suspiciously. Ugh, why didn’t she
try being attacked in her sleep and then see how she felt the next day? I
thought I was allowed to be a little jumpy.

The mysterious
blonde man cleared his throat loudly. “Ms. Young, we’ve been waiting for you.
Please, follow me this ways.” He held his hands out and gestured toward the
back of him.

Shit, now what the
hell was I going to do? He clearly thought I was someone else. If I corrected
him I would have to explain what I was really doing here and then I would
probably get thrown out of here before I had a chance to find Braden.

“I’m sorry,” I
whispered, trying to regain my composure. “I must have gotten turned around.” I
smoothed out my suit confidently, not because it’s something I would normally
do but because I think it’s something a businesswoman would do. I tried to
smile but it must have come out as more of a grimace because soon he took a
step forward and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Look,” he said,
sounding reassuring. “I always get nervous before a big presentation, too, but
this is nothing to be worried about. You know all about this story, you’ve been
prepping it for months.”

A story?
Presentation? What presentation? Panic filled my body.

Before I had a
chance to respond the mystery blonde in his suit was pushing me off down the
hallway toward a big black door at the end of the hall. It was pretty clear
even from a distance away that whatever was in that room was important.

“I think I just
need to use the bathroom before we start,” I said in an act of desperation but
the man made no signs of letting up.

“No time for that
now! Everyone’s already waiting!”

He was much
stronger than me and glided my body toward the room like I was as light as a
feather. What was I supposed to do? I could start kicking and screaming but he
would wonder why the hell I was flipping out on him.

Fuck, I was going
to have to go inside of the room.

I told myself that
it would be fine. Braden Nash wouldn’t miss a presentation for his own company.
As soon as I walked in he would figure out I wasn’t who I said I was and then
he would have to deal with me, he would have to give me back what he had taken
from me.

But when we
entered the huge conference room, Braden Nash was nowhere to be found. The rest
of the room was packed full. Various faces sat along the long dark table in the
center of the room and dozens of more people stood behind them, various
notepads and folders in their hands.

And every single pair
of eyes in that room
were
locked on me.

“Ah,” a random man
at the end of the table with a nicely trimmed beard said. “I see you’ve found
our mystery guest, after all, Troy.” He sounded annoyed and it occurred to me
that they must have been waiting a long time for someone who wasn’t even me.

“I sure did.” The
mystery blonde man who delivered me here spoke. “She just got a little lost,
that’s all. But she’s here now and ready to go, isn’t that right, Joan?” He
looked at me expectantly.

Shit.

The man with the
beard tapped his fingers up and down on the table impatiently. “Then, why don’t
we go ahead and get started?” His eye shot toward the front of the room where
various posters and a huge movie screen was set up.

Shit, shit, shit.

Troy gestured
forward and took a seat at the end of the table.

I glanced around
the room again; hoping that I somehow missed Braden among the many faces but I
knew it was a waste of time. If he had been there he would have said something
by now, he would have shown his handsome face and singled me out, knowing very
well I wasn’t supposed to be there.

I sighed in defeat
and headed toward the front of the table. Maybe I could just read off the props
in place and no one would know the difference. It’s was so damn silent in the
room that I would be able to hear a pin drop.

I glanced at one
of the posters and rolled my eyes. The story seemed to be about Clark
Washington, he was the owner of various sports teams and businesses around the
world. I narrowed my eyes at the cover story. Everyone knew Clark Washington
was a grade A asshole and pervert. There was always some poor girl coming
forward about sexual assault cases involving Mr. Washington but somehow they
never seemed to make it to trial. The girl was either paid off or nowhere to be
found. Still, money bought you power and every news outlet in the world was
always printing stories that made him sound like one of the best guys in the
world and from the looks of it this piece was going to be no different.

“Is something
wrong?” The bearded man asked, crossing his legs over one another and letting
out a huge sigh. He made a big show of lifting his sleeve up and looking at his
watch.

What a jerk.

Made sense Braden
Nash would employ a bunch of people just like him.

“No, no.” I
glanced around the room and bit my lip. “It’s just, shouldn’t I wait for Mr.
Nash before I begin?” I knew it was the wrong thing to say immediately. The
entire atmosphere in the room seemed to shift.

The bearded man
titled his head to the side and looked me up and down like I was a piece of
trash that drifted in from the dumpster in the back of the building. He
narrowed his eyes at me and no one else in the room seemed to be able to look
at him or me, their eyes suddenly fascinated with something on the floor.

He shifted his
eyes to Troy for a split second, who seemed suddenly fascinated by his own
hands, before standing up and crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you have
any idea who I am, Ms. Young?”

Something in his
tone told me that I should have known exactly who he was. I bit my lip, I was
growing more anxious by the second. This whole thing was getting way too
complicated, where the hell was Braden? He seemed like too much of a control
freak to let anything go on without his approval.

Everyone was still
shifting around uncomfortably a few seconds later when the door to the
conference room swung open and Braden walked in, like he could somehow read my
thoughts.

Braden walked over
to the chair at the head of the long table and started flipping through the papers
in front of him like he wasn’t aware of everyone else’s eyes in the room on
him. “Sorry I’m late everyone. I had some business to attend to.” And it could
have been my imagination but I could of swore that Troy smirked when he said
this.

Braden crossed his
large hands over one another and leaned forward in his chair. “Okay, you may
begin.” Then he looked up and spotted me. Me… I stood at the front of the room,
looking exactly like the imposter I was. Surprise crossed over his face.

The bearded man sat
down before Braden had a chance to notice him standing up in the first place. I
guess he wasn’t as important as he thought when the real boss was in the room.
“It’s fine, Mr. Nash, Ms. Young was late herself. She was just about to begin
her presentation.”

He smirked at me
like I should be embarrassed that he had told on me.

Braden looked at
me and did the last thing I expected. He smirked. “Is that so? Well, Ms. Young,
please begin. I’m just dying to hear what you have to say.” He leaned back in
his chair, a twinkle in his eyes, as he looked my body up and down.

A flash of his
arms covering the upper half of my body at the coffee shop flashed through my
mind and an instant blush shot up and down my body. I tore myself away from him
before I overheated.

Everyone was
staring at me again.

Crap, I should
have known he would play along with this bullshit.

I turned my
attention back to the boards in front of me and tried to form a sentence. I can
practically see the satisfaction burning off Mr. Nash out of the corner of my
eye. He loved the fact that I was uncomfortable as much as I hated it.

God, he was such
an entitled prick.

I didn’t say
anything and someone in the room cleared their throat.

This was
ridiculous. Why wasn’t Braden throwing me out? Or saying something to me so I
could call him out on what a dick he was. The last 24 hours had been some of
the worse in my life and things were just getting worse. What else did I have
to lose at this point?

“I think this
story is bullshit,” I said loudly, crossing my hands over my chest and locking
my eyes right on Braden. A few gasps emerged from the room but if Mr. Nash was
surprised he didn’t give me the satisfaction of showing me twice in a
five-minute span. Instead, his smirk just grew stronger.

“I mean you guys
run one of the largest entertainment networks in the entire world and you’re
still feeding the public this crap about what a great man Mr. Washington is
just like every other news source in the world. Why don’t you try printing
something about all the woman he sexually assaulted in the past ten years or
the effect it’s had on their families?” I looked directly at the bearded man.
“Or are the top dogs too scared to piss off Mr. Washington by telling the
truth?”

The man’s mouth
hung open. “What the hell is going on here?” He glanced at Troy, looking for
answers. “This isn’t what we discussed. This isn’t the story that she’s here to
pitch.”

Troy looked so
helpless that I actually felt a little sorry for him. “I don’t… I don’t…” He
started shuffling around the papers that were on the table in front of him
frantically. “I don’t know. Her office said she was coming to pitch a story on
the millions of dollars Mr. Washington just donated to the hurricane relief
in…”

I laughed loudly,
cutting Troy off. “I guess it’s okay to assault woman as long as you’re going
to donate a bunch of money to charity. Make sure you print that in your story,
it’s a great message to send to the world.”

“Okay,” bearded
man snapped, throwing his fist down on the table. “Enough.”