Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,154
handling.
After ten minutes of talking, he grabs a remote to the screen on the wall behind him.
“We prepared a visual presentation to further illustrate the delicate steps that will need to be taken in order to successfully complete the merger with as few problems as possible.”
Tanner clicks a button to begin the presentation, but another scene comes alive instead, the noise muted, but the naked, writhing bodies making it clear this isn’t the presentation he’d intended.
“Uh...”
His voice trails off as Sawyer laughs from the other side of the table. “Oh, shit. Taylor uploaded the wrong file.”
Steven chuckles and leans back in his seat. “While I appreciate the entertainment, I’m not sure tits and ass will help us much in the merger.”
Tanner angrily turns the television off before turning our direction. Behind him, it flicks back on, the porn as raunchy as ever, the sound bar appearing on the left of the screen as the volume increases.
I’m biting the inside of my cheek so hard that I taste blood. Tears threaten to leak from my eyes.
“Son of a bitch,” Tanner snaps. “Sorry about this, Steven.” He hits the remote again, but as soon the screen darkens it comes to life again.
The entire room busts out in laughter, Tanner’s brows tugging together as Steven’s voice lifts above ours. “Is that a donkey? What kind of sick shit are you guys into?”
It’s the last straw, Tanner’s eyes clenching shut before popping open again with burning rage.
“Fuck this day! I’m done!”
Tanner tosses the remote down on the table so hard the plastic cracks before marching out of the conference room with all of us laughing at his back.
I grin at Steven. “Thanks for playing along. You’re a good sport.”
Smiling back at me, he answers, “It was worth it to see the look on his face.”
Taylor waves the universal remote he coded to the television to fuck with Tanner. “How did he not figure out I have this?”
We’re still laughing when a crash sounds from down the hall, Tanner’s pissed off voice bellowing, “Who fucked with my chair? Goddamn it! Where the fuck is Ivy?”
Shoving to my feet, I run down the hall to see Tanner angrily snatching his bag from the table in his office, his chair in pieces on the floor. His eyes snap up to me.
“I’m leaving. And you can tell your little girlfriend that she’s on my shitlist. She seriously needs to watch her back.”
He knocks his shoulder against mine on his way to the elevator, the door dinging open before he steps in, turns around and levels a death glare on me.
“I mean it, Gabe. Today is not the day for her shit!”
The doors close and I watch the red numbers climb down to the underground garage as Ivy steps up next to me.
“Did he actually believe the paternity papers were real?”
Laughing, I wipe a tear from my cheek.
“Yes. He didn’t even bother to look at the last page where I signed my name as an attorney for Dewey, Cheatum and Howe. I even listed the phone number as 555-867-5309.”
Ivy cracks up and tangles her fingers with mine. “I paid Alice. She already took off.”
“Her acting skills were impeccable. Hiring her so we could pretend Lacey quit was a good call.”
I’ve never had more fun pranking a person in my life. And with Ivy helping me, it’s never been easier.
We really do make an excellent team. And I was an idiot for taking eighteen years to figure it out.
“Did you fill his car with feathers?”
“All the way to the top,” she says. “I had to open his sunroof to pack the last ones in.”
We both fall silent as the elevator reaches the garage, the numbers stopping for several minutes.
“What do you think he’ll do when he figures out you did all this?”
Chuckling at that, I turn and plant a chaste kiss on her lips. “He’ll learn that payback is a bitch and not to fuck with us again.”
The numbers start moving again, the elevator making its fast ascent back up to our floor.
“That’s our cue. Time to get out of here.”
Both of us head in the direction of a set of stairs that lead down to the floor below us. From there, we’ll take another elevator to escape the office before Tanner can wring our necks.
As we pass the conference room, Ivy peeks her head in.
“Ezra, you have somewhere to be, remember? Get moving.”
He nods his head at that, and I tug her along. Slamming my hand on the handle