Page 22 of Ravaged For You

“You can’t screw this up, Maddie,” Winston continues in a near whisper so that no one else in the office can hear. “Remember what I told you earlier? The bosses upstairs want me to make some cuts…”

Like I didn’t know that. Like I haven’t been both a mixture of extremely terrified and fluttering nervous since he told me that this was my last chance at keeping my job.

“I’m going to start on it straight away.”

“Good,” Winston replies.

I make my way to my desk and let out a very long and needed exhale of my entire lungs.

How am I ever going to make this report when it seems like the band was mocking me the entire time, especially Axel? Oh, boy, he was out to get me in that meeting room. I feel kinda proud that I finally stood up to him at the end there and stared him back down after his shitty remarks about me not being cool or whatever. He certainly didn’t say anything from that point on. Just stared back at me with those pretty green eyes of his until it was time for him to leave.

He was so infuriating, slouching back in the chair like that and shooting insults in my direction. So cocky. He thought he was so clever, ripping into me like that. And, yeah, he can be like that. He’s a multi-millionaire celebrity and I really am some geek low on the corporate ladder who works with numbers all day. Technically, I’m not worth the heel on the bottom of his very expensive boot.

But how am I even going to do this crazy report? It seems completely hopeless even attempting to design a marketing plan for the biggest band on the planet.

You know what? I might as well pack up everything, including my job and my condo, and just move back to Wisconsin to live with my mother. There’s no way I can do this. Look at me, I’ve failed…

Hang on. You can do this, Maddie. You are good at your job.

“Excuse me, can you tell me what the fuck just happened?”

Marie appears at the side of my desk, her eyes wild. Does she not know that I can’t explain what just happened either?

“Um. Easy. Just the most famous band in the world popped by to say hello and to make sure my job is on the line if I don’t do the impossible and come up with a marketing solution for them by tomorrow afternoon. That’s what has just happened.”

“But you actually got to meet Ravaged.” Marie can barely contain her giddiness. She claps her hands together. I’m very much not in the same mood as her.

“Well, more like spill my tea all over them…”

“I saw that,” she says. “But then he took his shirt off and, well, yum.”

“I would say Axel Stoll is a lot ruder in person than yum,” I reply flatly. “He’s just an entitled brat who feels like he can do whatever he wants to people.”

“A very gorgeous brat, you’ve got to admit.”

“Sure, he’s got it in the looks department, but it doesn’t matter though.”

“You are so lucky to have met them and actually chatted with them. It’s so Sagittarius of you. See, I knew star signs are real. You’re living up to yours right now.”

“This wasn’t luck,” I say.

“I saw those sparks flying between the two of you…”

My jaw drops. “Sparks?”

“Come on, you didn’t see it? There was something between you two.”

“Not in a million years, Marie.”

“You really don’t like each other.”

“It doesn’t matter, none of it does. There are no sparks between Axel Stoll and me. I’m going to lose my job. Simple as that.”

“Unless you write up an excellent report to show them, right?”

“Yep. The most impossible task. Due in just twenty-four hours.” I sigh. “Thank you, Winston. That isn’t very lucky, so I’m not exactly living up to my star sign.”

“You know what? I’m so envious that you got to meet them, Maddie.”