Page 28 of Ravaged For You

Maddie takes us all into the meeting room and promptly begins her presentation. She’s clearly worked hard at this thing. But I want her to know I don’t give a shit if she’s spent all night on it or not.

Halfway through her slides and her little speech, I raise my hand and stop her dead in her tracks.

“I’m tired of all this talk,” I say loudly.

“Oh, really?” Maddie asks. She blinks. Once. Twice. She’s clearly never come across anyone like me before. I really don’t give a shit about manners.

“I was up all night,” I continue with a smirk on my face. I’m loving her reaction. “So I’d rather be sleeping than listening to some boring-ass lecture…”

Maddie just stares at me. She takes her time to respond.

“We all know why you weren’t sleeping last night,” she says coldly and calmly. “And it’s my job to solve that problem, so why don’t you sit still like a good boy and listen for once in your life?”

There’s a moment of silence.

And then my bandmates are whooping and clapping. Cheering the mousey little publicist standing in front of us,

“Yes, Maddie!” Bishop yells.

I remain motionless. Seething.

She’s blushing. She didn’t want to go that far.

Well, it’s too late now, girl.

“She showed you up there,” Drake says, giving me an aggressive pat on the shoulder. Even Caspian is clapping, a small hint of a smile at the corners of his lips.

“Ha ha.” I try to shake her comments off with a sarcastic laugh, but even I have to admit she’s got me. The rest of Ravaged is clearly loving how some lowly publicist has the balls to take me down.

I spot Lucas smirking at my misfortune by the door. The sneaky fucker.

Even the fucking marketing boss, Winston, is carefully repressing a snicker with the palm of his hand.

These motherfuckers…

“You’re free to walk back outside to the waiting camera of the paparazzi if you’d like,” Maddie says. “But we’re trying to make a plan here for your band. Please let me finish.”

“You’re going to regret saying that bullshit,” I snarl back to her.

She looks frightened by that.

Good.

“Just let me do my job,” she squeaks in reply.

“Alright then,” I say to the girl. “Continue your wonderful plan.”

I feel my bandmates’ eyes on me. Those fuckers are going to pay for cheering on Maddie when we’re back in private. Oh, they certainly are going to pay…

“I’ve looked at all the focus group data comparing Ravaged with Tainted Lives. Everything Lucas sent over to my company. I have come to one conclusion as to why your band is slipping behind Tainted Lives,” Maddie says. “Do you want me to continue?”

That final question from the girl is delivered with a generous helping of snark and passive aggressiveness. Targeted straight at me.

“Please do,” Drake says with his charming grin. He knows what Maddie’s going to say next, and he’s lapping it up. We all know what she’s going to say next.

She glances at me and takes a deep breath.

“It’s you, Axel. Your… sleeping around. The most common negative factor coming from all the focus groups is that they want you to act like an adult. People don’t mind a rockstar enjoying life, but they think you’ve gone too far. Too cocky. Too loud about things in the press. People want you to reform your bad boy ways. Parents are viewing your band in a worse light than Tainted Lives because of that very reason.”