The man in the white mask disappears behind the service door, but the other one doesn’t. Instead of walking down the stairs and leaving, he turns on his heels and walks straight to where Sloane and I are standing.
He just stands there, his smart eyes peering at us from behind the mask. I stare back at him, realizing that these eyes are very, very familiar… And that gigantic cock…
Sloane and I turn to the man in the mask, but he doesn’t say a word. He just looks at us, grabs his mask and pulls it off slowly.
My heart almost explodes.
It’s Drake.
Sloane
Motherfucker.
I was ready to fucking crush him the moment the mask came off. Lucky for him, Austin stepped onto the stage before I could do anything about it.
"I guess you guys have a lot to talk about," Austin says, clapping his hands. The lights on the stage go off and darkness swallows us.
I still can’t believe Drake fucking pulled this off. After his little stunt with the banks, playing around with both my company and Natalie’s, he still has the fucking balls to come here behind a mask and fuck Natalie? Un-fucking-believable. He better have a fucking explanation, or else I think I’ll have to put my fists to use.
"What the fuck?" I growl, coming up to him with my hands already balled into fists.
"Not here," Austin tells us, stepping between Drake and I, his voice soft but leaving no room for doubt: he won’t tolerate a fight on Python’s stage. Out of respect for him, I take one step back, but I never take my eyes off of Drake.
"Follow me," Austin continues, handing Natalie a towel. We get inside our clothes as fast as we can, and then follow after Austin as he walks off of the stage through the service door at the back. We take Natalie to a private bathroom and we allow her to shower; then we follow after him as he leads us through a maze of hallways and, finally, upstairs onto a balcony overlooking the stage.
"Step inside," he tells us, opening two massive oak doors that lead the way onto a sumptuous office. His office. "Now, we’re going to wait here for Natalie, and then the three of you are going to solve this."
"Thank you, Austin," Drake says, offering Austin his hand; he shakes it, and offers my stepdad a little smile. I should've this seen coming; Austin helped Drake get onto the stage.
"Austin’s a friend of mine, Sloane, you know that," Drake tells me as he sees all the rage washing over my face. "He knows about our, uh, situation ... And he let me know that you and Natalie were coming to Python the moment you called him about the stage."
"How could you…?" I ask him, rage coursing through my veins. I fucking doubt I’ll be able to restrain myself. I’m spoiling for a fight right now.
"Calm down, Sloane. I came here because I want to explain exactly what happened."
"I’m dying to hear your version then," I hear Natalie say, and I turn my head toward the door. She’s leaning against the doorway, wearing a clean tight fitting dress, her blonde hair still wet from the shower.
"Try not to kill yourselves, will ya?" Austin tells us, and then marches out of the office, closing the double doors behind him. Natalie walks toward the middle of the office and, standing by my side, she stares Drake down.
"Let’s sit," he says, a serious expression on his face, and then sinks into one of the leather couches in the center of the office.
"I don’t wanna fucking sit. I wanna hear an apology," I growl, my fingernails digging into the palm of my hands.
"Then I apologize," he says with a weak smile, looking from me to Natalie. Fuck, it pains me to fucking admit it, but he sounds sincere. Still, fuck it; an apology doesn’t solve a fucking thing.
"You betrayed us," Natalie whispers, her tone of voice weak. This entire situation hurts her, and that makes me even more fucking angry. "You betrayed me."
"No, I didn’t. I protected you," he says, talking slowly but with a kind of resolute certainty. Seriously, if he starts spitting out that bullshit Linda said, about how Dirty Lil’ Angels isn’t a reputable company for Natalie, I’m going to fucking knock his lights out.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Linda knows, Sloane. She knows about us," he tells me, and I feel a block of ice landing in my stomach. Fuck. "She threatened me that she’d go public, and you know what that would do to us… If this made headlines out of the blue, all of our companies would take a massive hit. Stock would go down, our boards would come after blood, and there’d be no way for Natalie to secure her financing." His words hang in the air like a bad omen, and I finally relent and sit on the couch in front of him, letting it all sink in.
"Jesus fuck," I whisper.
"Yeah…" he continues, "I had to act fast. But I’m sorry, I really am," he says, apologizing to both Natalie and I.
She’s still standing in the middle of the office, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Now it’s her hands that are balled into tight fists.