What the hell?
“Ah!” squealed Chastity. “We did it!”
“Well done,” said Bee. “I hate to ask this of you, but can you have copy and graphics for the Mills Winery campaign done by the end of the week? I really want to show Mr. Rhodes that he’s making the right choice.”
We agreed. Then Madison rushed over to me. She brushed her hand against where I hit my head. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t know you had so much game,” said Chastity. “Pretending to hurt yourself so that Tanner would get all worried about you. Clever.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing. I was hiding. He’s my stalker.”
Chastity shook her head. “Say what now? You can’t just get dibs on Tanner by claiming that he’s your stalker.”
“No, really. He is.”
“But you said your stalker wore colorful suits and had a man bun. Tanner only wears black suits. And I don’t even know if his hair is long enough to put up in a bun.”
“It’s definitely him.”
“And I thought you said his name was Ryder Storm?”
I knew what was going on here. Duh. “That’s his Society name. Kind of like how I’m Raven Black. He must want anonymity in the Society because he’s so well known. It’s him. It has to be him. It has to be. Why else would he have spared me from doing part of the presentation?”
“Uh…because I had already done such a kickass job?” suggested Chastity.
“Or maybe he felt bad for you because you just hit your head,” added Madison.
No. No!It had to be him. Otherwise…Oh God.Why did I have to go and whisper that thing about last night and snuggling? And had I winked at him? Saucily? Why did I keep acting so saucy recently? I was out of control. Now Tanner’s look of utter confusion was seared in my brain. It was so clear that he had no idea what I was saying. Despite that, though…I still kind of thought it was him. Just like I knew my stalker had been stalking me. I had a sixth sense about these things.
Oh!“Maybe he didn’t recognize me with my red hair. I was wearing a black wig last night.”
“Well,” said Chastity. “We need to sort this out immediately. Because if it is your stalker, that means you have dibs on him. But if he’s not, then we’ll have to find a different way to settle it.”
“And how do we figure it out?” I asked.
Chastity gave me a mischievous grin. “We stalk your stalker. Just like you’ve been doing for the past several months.”
I pressed my lips together.He’sstalkingme. But the particulars didn’t really matter right now. I needed dibs on Tanner Rhodes. So if I had to stoop to his stalking levels, so be it. Besides, I already knew a ton about him from my observations while I watched him stalk me. And he’d told me a lot about himself last night too. This was going to be so freaking easy.Move over, Chastity. He’s mine. Time to get my stalk on.
Stalker Problems - Chapter 23 - Two Rude Surprises
Wednesday – April 12, 2023
We went straight from work back to my apartment to stalk my stalker. I didn’t even bother to change out of Chastity’s slutty clothes before plopping onto the couch with my laptop. I couldn’t wait another second to learn everything about my stalker.
I started by googling Tanner Rhodes.
The first result was a Wikipedia article.Fancy.I clicked on it. There was no picture and only one sentence:
“Tanner Rhodes is an American billionaire businessman from New York City.”
I read it again.Billionaire. With a B.I couldn’t even imagine that much money. Chastity had said he was a billionaire, but I didn’t realize she meant he was for-realsies a billionaire. I thought she was just throwing out the highest number she could think of and had forgotten the word bajillion.
Just to confirm, I went back and clicked on the second link, Tanner’s profile on Forbes:
#413 Tanner Rhodes
