His Nanny Mate (Moana and Edrick Morgan) novel Chapter 79

Chapter 79: The Anonymous Donor

Edrick

As soon as I saw the picture on the tabloid, I knew that I had to have it taken down as soon as possible. I immediately felt my heart sink and, without another word to Selina or Moana, I called the tabloid straight away. This specific tabloid had been known to cause trouble in the past, so it was needless to say that I already knew the CEO somewhat well.

When I called his office, however, he didn’t sound too keen on selling me the image.

“I don’t know…” he said into the phone. “Tell you what; let’s talk about this in person, and maybe we can make a deal.”

I frowned. Why couldn’t he just speak over the phone, just like he always did? Either way, I had to get that image taken down; if my father saw that picture, and it was very possible that he already did, it would cause an uproar. So, I did what the CEO asked and immediately drove over to his office.

When I arrived, he was waiting for me in his dinky little corner office. It was honestly laughable to me that I had to meet a weasel like this in person.

“You can take your mask off,” he said, leaning back in his chair as I entered his office. I closed the door behind me and warily slid my mask down once I was certain that I wouldn’t be seen.

“So… You wanna pay me off, huh?” he said with a condescending chuckle. “You know, that’s a very valuable image I’ve got. You’re gonna have to offer more than the first person did.”

I felt my eyes widened. “Someone else paid for it already? Who?”

He shrugged. “That’s confidential, unfortunately,” he said. “They paid me a pretty penny to keep it on the website, if you’d believe that. How much are you willing to pay me to take it down?”

I was flabbergasted by this situation. Who would seriously pay this tabloid to keep that photograph public? I couldn’t imagine anyone who would be willing to pay so much money for something like that.

“Fine,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “How much did they pay you?”

The CEO grinned. “A hundred thousand.”

My jaw practically hit the floor. I stood, shaking my head and folded my arms. “You’re bluffing,” I said angrily. “No one would pay a hundred thousand to keep that photo up.”

However, the CEO merely shrugged. He then pointed to a check that was sitting on his desk; when I leaned over to look at it, I saw that it was made out to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars. The beneficiary seemed to use only their initials: K.M.

I frowned, holding the check up to the light. It looked legitimate.

“Time is ticking,” the CEO said as he tapped his wristwatch. “Do you want the picture to stay up or not?”