Page 32 of Ravaged For You

“I’m so jealous of you. They’re the biggest story on the news today and you’re having a private meeting with them…”

I think back on Axel storming out of the room. How it made my heart crumble. I was such an idiot to talk back to him, but he pushed me to the edge with his constant insults about my presentation. That one act of snapping back at him has probably cost me my job. “I don’t think you’ll want to trade places with me, Marie.”

“After today, Ravaged would be difficult clients,” she remarks. “That sex tape is not good.”

“Yep, certainly not good.”

We bid farewell and I carry on walking past reception and out into the LA sunshine.

I’m going to walk a couple of blocks. Clear my head. Maybe get that coffee, sit down, and think about how I’m going to move back home. Think about what I’m going to say to my mother when I walk through the front door of my childhood home having failed at trying to escape.

But I don’t even make it more than twenty yards down the sidewalk when a mysterious black car dramatically pulls up alongside me, the engine roaring.

I jump back in surprise as one of the vehicle’s tinted windows winds down.

It’s Lucas. Alone in the backseat.

I am at a loss for words.

“What are you doing…”

“Get in,” he commands me coolly. “We have to talk.”

16

MADDIE

“If you’re going to kidnap me, then at least buy me a coffee.”

Lucas sighs and orders his driver to take us to the nearest Starbucks drive-thru. In the short drive over, we sit uncomfortably together in the back of the car, silent. I fidget with my hands in my lap, nervous.

Why does Lucas want to talk to me?

I just knew I shouldn’t have messed with Axel back in that meeting room, and now I’m somehow embroiled in Ravaged’s problems. What did Mom always tell me as a kid? Don’t go into strangers’ cars? Stranger danger is the least of my problems now.

I take the coffee from the driver and hold it between my hands, hoping that by gripping onto something it doesn’t make me look so on edge.

“Don’t worry,” I say to Lucas. “I’m not going to spill it all over you.”

That makes the man laugh. It’s good to see his serious face light up for a brief moment. “I like you, Maddie,” he replies. “You’ve got spirit.”

“So, what do you want to talk to me about? Why have you kidnapped me?”

Lucas orders the driver to pull over by the side of the road on a quiet street a few blocks away from work.

“Just here.”

“This feels very much like a scene in a Mafia movie,” I remark. I’m just trying to fill the awkward dead air. “Am I going to be whacked or something?”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Lucas replies. “I don’t have the stomach for violence. I am here to make you an offer you can’t refuse, though.”

“Good pun.”

“Thanks.”

“So?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow. “What’s this offer, then?”

“I’ve got a job for you.”