Текст книги "Hothouse Flower"

Автор книги: Becca Ritchie

Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

< 20 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

Ryke stands four stairs above me, wearing a leather bike jacket and dark jeans. “I flew in after you called me. I just fucking got here.” He scrutinizes me from head to toe, a long once-over with stone-hard eyes that heats my body, snuffing out the cold. He looks real. “When I got off the elevator on your floor, I saw you going into the stairwell. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Relief tries to surface. He’s here. For me? “I’m not scared,” I tell him.

“You look petrified,” he says flatly. I watch his eyes dance over my features again, his chest falling and rising in a deep rhythm. He bridges the gap between us, descending the four stairs. He still has height on me, staring down to meet my eyes.

“I’m not anymore,” I say softly.

He nods a few times, processing this, and then he asks, “Were you going to meet up with that weird fucking guy?” His eyes darken.

I sense a hint of jealousy. Or maybe he’s just trying to protect me from Ian. Not jealous at all. “Didn’t you hear? He was a very uncomfortable pillow.”

“I thought I was your fucking pillow.”

I stiffen. “You didn’t want to be my pillow, remember? In fact, you told me to find a replacement.”

“How’s that going for you?” he asks roughly. I can feel him tapping into his asshole side pretty fast.

“Amazing,” I say. “Sleep has never been better.”

“Must be why you have dark circles under your eyes.”

“You caught me,” I say with a shrug. “I haven’t found a decent pillow replacement, but I’m still on the hunt, per your request.”

With a deep inhale, his muscles flex, and anger shrouds his gaze.

I add, “You replaced me too.” A lump rises in my throat “It looked like you enjoyed going down on her.” He stares unflinchingly, that rage brewing. When he doesn’t reply, I just shrug and add more, “Which is good, you know. You’re dating other people, I’m dating other people—”

And then his lips meet mine, kissing me with abrupt, forceful passion that explodes my chest. A breathless moan leaves me before I can catch it.

Our bodies connect like they’ve been dying for this affection for years. He hikes both of my legs around his waist, pinning me to the wall, to this place, to him. His tongue effortlessly slides into my mouth, wrestling with mine in the most natural way possible. My fingers slide into his thick, soft hair, gripping and exploring in ways I’ve only dreamed of.

He breaks away once, his hand above my head as his whole body weight melds against me. He says in a low masculine voice, “You don’t need to replace me. You can have me, sweetheart.”

I pant for air. “Say that again.”

His lips brush my ear, hot breath warming me. “How about I just fucking kiss you?” He finds my mouth again, and we attack like we’re thirsty for each other. I drink him in with every kiss, my body curving towards his chest and his hardening against mine.

I cross my ankles around his waist, dying in this heat, in this insane pleasure. I don’t stop to think about what all of this means. I just focus on the feelings, some I’ve never even met before.

He breaks away again, this time to suck on my neck, his lips soft but the pressure hard and aggressive like him. My next moan sounds like a piercing cry. The spot between my legs has found his cock, only the fabric of our clothes separating us. The more he sucks, trailing a line to my breasts, the more my back arches, bucking against him. And in turn, his crotch drives a little harder into me.

I barely notice that he’s untied my hair, the band around his wrist. The long blonde strands stick out wildly. The intensity between us stirs our need, and I thrust forward while he grips my ass, lifting me off the wall. He suddenly spins me around, and my back digs into the stair railing.

He kisses me again. I cry out as he hoists me higher, my bottom resting on the railing now. I sense the forty-foot drop behind me in the stairwell, the danger present, the risk quickening my heart.

He holds me securely, his arms firmly on my hips. And then he grinds forward, his dick right up against the spot that begins to ache and pulse. I have never been so wrapped up in a single person, in a single moment.

Ryke Meadows has invigorated my body and soul.

He is more than just my pillow.

My wolf.

My bodyguard.

He’s my everything.

Every time our lips meet, it’s like a new burst of energy between us. Our hands find new tantalizing places, mine slipping below his jeans, resting on the top of his toned ass. He skims my bare, sensitive skin along my ribs. His incredibly high stamina surpasses mine, and he has to stop kissing to let me catch my breath.

He runs his finger over my tingly lip. “Every theory you’ve ever fucking had about men, I’m going to prove wrong,” he tells me.

My chest collapses. I may pass out from this moment. I truly thought it would never come. “I had a theory that not kissing is sexier than kissing.” I was so stupid. I could do this forever with Ryke.

“I know,” he says. “And now?” His eyes fall to my lips.

I smile bright. “Just fucking kiss me.”

And he does, a grin lifting his lips. But the embrace turns just as sensual, just as intoxicating as the last. His hand rises up my shorts, underneath my panties, landing on my ass. He squeezes and I cry into his shoulder.

I dig into him and clench his hair harder, and then I kiss the corner of his mouth, denying him my lips for a second. He tries to go forward to kiss me fully, and I resist, drawing back an inch. He stares at my mouth, his lips parted as he watches me with a lustful gaze. When I close the gap between us, my tongue runs against his, and his muscles harden. A groan catches in his throat.

He’s heated every ice cold crevice. Nothing about being with him is uncomfortable.

It feels right.

I toy with him again. And I lean back, subconsciously thinking a wall will brace me. There’s nothing. Air rushes out of me as I fall backwards, but Ryke supports me with his hands on my bottom. He lets me hang upside down, the blood rushing to my head.

These electric sensations heighten by ten more notches. I laugh, and he lifts me back up. My hair drapes messily in my face like I forcefully came to a stop on a roller coaster.

My voice reverberates off the cavernous stairwell. “I have a theory that skipping foreplay makes sex better, remember that?”

We’ve crossed one boundary, and I know we’re both the type of people to never slow down, to run around the bases at high speed. I want that with him. To freakin’ make a home run like we’re track stars on a baseball field.

He kisses my cheek, which almost restarts us all over again, but we restrain ourselves from attacking full force. “Not now,” he says. His eyes flicker to my canvas watch.

“I’m not tired,” I tell him. “If anything, I’m…” I can’t even say it.

“Wet?” He takes his hand off my ass and slips it down the front of my shorts. Holy shit. His fingers don’t go beneath my panties. He cups my heat, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re not nearly soaked enough for me, sweetheart.”

Ahh. I breathe heavily and I wrap my arms around his neck. Take me there. Right when I think he’s going to brush my panties to the side and slip his fingers into me, he retracts his hand from my shorts.

“Why stop?” I frown. “Is it because we’re in a stairwell?”

His hard gaze soaks in all of me. “Calloway, I’d fuck you in every corner of every hallway and then do it over again for good measure.”

My jaw unhinges.

“And I’d be more likely to fuck you in a stairwell than on a bed.”

“Why?”

He combs his fingers through my hair and holds the back of my head. “It’s more fucking fun.” He kisses me strongly again, my whole body pulling towards him. My hips roll into his pelvis. He turns his head from me and grips my waist hard. “Fuck,” he groans. His eyes fall to the way we’re pressed together, his cock rubbing along a throbbing place of mine.

“How big are you?” I ask with heavy breath. I can feel him through his jeans. I know he’s big. I know he’s hard. I know he’s everything that I want.

“You’re not finding out today.”

I stick out my bottom lip.

“Don’t flash those green doe eyes at me.”

“They don’t melt your heart of stone?” I banter.

“Stone can’t fucking melt,” he retorts. “It just grows hot.”

“Are you hot now?”

His brows rise. “What do you think?”

I smile again. “So…” And then my lips slowly downturn as I realize something. He never answered me about his “girlfriend”—not really. “Are you going back to that girl when we return to Philly?” Is this some Paris hookup while we’re both away from our families?

He glares. “Fuck no.”

“Would you be upset if I dated the model from the other night again?”

His reaction says it all. He sets me on my feet with firm hands, and he clenches the railing on either side of me. Anger laces his dark eyes. “Do you want to date the other model?” His words sound stilted like he tried pretty hard not to swear.

“Wow, you managed to say that without cursing.”

“You’re killing me.”

I poke his chest with my finger. “You crushed my heart when you told me to go sleep with another guy.”

“I didn’t fucking—” He growls in frustration and runs his hand through his hair. I love, love when he does that, even when he’s upset. It lights my core on fire. “I never wanted you to screw someone else! For fuck’s sake, it broke my heart telling you to even pursue another guy.” He glances at his jacket pocket and groans with more irritation. He takes out his vibrating phone and ignores the call, putting it back. “Look at me,” he says.

My eyes meet his. He cages me back against the railing. “I can’t watch you flirt with another fucking guy.”

I shouldn’t bring it up again, but I do. “I watched you go down on another girl.” Pain wells inside me again, my stomach tightening at the image. “You kissed her knee. You looked at her like she was beautiful—”

He covers my mouth with his large hand. “Fucking stop.” He breathes heavily, a guy that runs marathons, a guy that scales mountains in minutes. “I never slept with her, but I can’t take back what you saw. I wish to God I fucking could.”

He never slept with her. This almost brings tears to my eyes. I see how much this moment is tearing him up, and the torture that I feel reflects equally in his rigid posture and cinched brows.

He keeps his hand over my mouth. “I’ve ignored a lot of bad shit in my life, but I don’t want to ignore this one good thing anymore. It’s too painful.” He stares at me deeply, my chest rising with something pure and warm. “I kissed you tonight because I want your lips to only touch mine. From now until forever. That’s the fucking truth.” He drops his hand.

My heart can’t stop slamming into my chest. From now until forever. I skim my hands down his arms. He doesn’t withdraw. He’s serious. He wants to be together, no more dating other people. “What about your brother?” I ask the million dollar question, the crux. “And my mom…my dad?” They’re the biggest roadblocks.

“It’s up to you,” he says. “We can tell them, or we can do this in private and wait until the age gap isn’t a big deal to them anymore.”

“When will that be?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe when you’re twenty.”

A year and a half. I think I can wait that long. If we tell everyone now, I see my mom tearing him away from me. I see too many headaches and more heartbreaks. I just want something good. Something right without anything abysmal attached. So I say, “I don’t want to tell anyone.”

He nods and looks relieved by my answer. I don’t think he was ready to confront his brother. He backs up a little, but as he watches me, he grimaces. It’s the same expression he had when I brought up Ian. “I’m going to spell it out for you,” he says, “because I’m still fucking worried you don’t understand what I want.”

I smile. “Okay.”

“We’re together,” he says pointblank. “I’m not going to be with anyone but you, even if no one else fucking knows that. We don’t date other people for show. They just think we’re single.”

I nod. “I like it.”

I hear his phone buzz. He takes out his cell again, annoyed. He ignores the second call. “We need to go upstairs to your room.”

I tilt my head with a playful smile. “How forward of you.”

“Cute,” he says. “But we’re not fucking. We’re meeting two people there.”

I frown. “What?”

“I didn’t fly alone.”

The bottom of my stomach drops and my eyes grow to saucers.

“You think I could leave Philly to check on you without worrying anyone else? They read the tabloids too.” They learned that I was thrown out of the Havindal collection.

“Who?” I ask. “Who came?”

He touches the small of my back and guides me up the stairs. “Surprise.”

I do like surprises.

But this one will be bad no matter what. Being alone with Ryke sounded like a hot, steamy vacation. Add in one of my sisters or his brother, and it turns awkward and uncomfortable…but definitely more dangerous.

Danger. That is alluring. And it’s what partially drew us together in the first place.

I realize, right now, that this is the beginning of something new.

< 21 >

RYKE MEADOWS

Lo raises his arms as we walk down the hallway towards him. “I called you ten times. What the hell were you doing?”

I point to Daisy beside me, a normal amount of distance between us even though I’d rather be back in the stairwell, with her wrapped in my arms. “I was trying to find this one. She wasn’t in her room.”

“I went for a vending machine run,” she says, masking the lie with a bright, overwhelmingly beautiful smile.

Lo relaxes some. He wears a backwards baseball cap, looking like a fucking ‘90s kid. But it’s partly to disguise himself from people, not that it’s doing a good job. He has striking features that bring attention, even among male models.

“So you came to check up on me?” Daisy asks with an even larger smile, bouncing on her feet as we stop by her hotel door. She looks to the other person next to my brother.

Two inches taller stands Connor Cobalt.

We’re the only ones who hopped on Connor’s company jet.

And it’s a new situation that none of us are used to—the three of us alone with Daisy. Usually it’s Lily, not the youngest, wildest Calloway with us.

“Yeah,” Lo says. “How are you doing?”

“Better.” She fits a strand of hair behind her ear.

Daisy looks fucking terrible. And I don’t say anything about it, but I think we all can tell that she hasn’t been sleeping. She’s really fucking pale, her body frailer, and all I want to do is hold her and tuck her into bed. I wear my concern outwardly, and I don’t give a shit if someone hounds me for it. I’m fucking concerned, and I’m going to stay that way.

“Right…” My brother says, not believing her at all as he scrutinizes her features.

I asked Lo to come along. I’ve been so fucking worried about his state of mind that it’d be just as hard leaving him as it was leaving Daisy.

But the tension builds in the room because we all know his feelings about my friendship with her. Now that Daisy and I have moved beyond that title, the lie weighs heavy on my chest.

Lies.

I’m used to being wound tight by them, and the guilt will come later. It always does.

“Bad news,” Lo says, turning to me. “Connor fucked up.”

I let out a short laugh. “I never thought I’d hear those magic fucking words.”

“So much of what you just said, I hate,” Connor tells me causally, as though he doesn’t really care, but I see that he does when his lips twitch.

Magic—Connor fucking hates magic.

He also hates being wrong. “What’d you do?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Connor says. “Which is why I didn’t fuck up.”

“He forgot to book a hotel room,” Lo explains. “And with the Rugby World Cup happening in Paris this weekend, plus Fashion Week, there’s nothing here or close by available.”

Fuck. “How’d you forget to do something?” I ask Connor, cringing the moment I give him that much credit. But honestly, he has a photographic memory. He has charts and alerts and fucking notes everywhere to remind him of things too.

“Not that it’s any of your business—I’m having a fight with my wife,” he says. “My mind was somewhere else.” He’s still fighting with her?

“Is she okay?” Daisy asks, pulling her phone out of her pocket to text Rose.

“She’s how she normally is,” Connor says vaguely.

“Bitchy,” Lo clarifies. “High-strung, obsessive compulsive.” He smiles. “God, I’m so glad she didn’t come.”

Connor’s eyebrow arches. “I’m starting to be thankful too. Truthfully, I’m not in the mood to handle two five-year-olds.” He pauses. “And in case you didn’t catch that, I was referring to her and you.”

Lo laughs, not taking the insult to heart. See—that shit is fucking annoying. If I said that to Lo, he’d give me the cold shoulder. But for Connor, he can say whatever he wants in this mellow, chill way and get any reprieve from my brother.

It irritates me so much that I turn to Daisy and hold out my hand. “Your key card.” She takes it out of her pocket and passes it to me. I unlock the door, hearing their conversation continue without me really in it.

Daisy asks, “She’s not texting me back. Should I call her?”

“No,” Connor says as I walk into Daisy’s room. They follow close behind.

She has a chair propped underneath the handle of her bathroom door. I set it back on four legs before any of the guys notice and ask questions.

“I’m worried though,” Daisy says. “She usually answers me within the second.”

“Don’t take offense to this,” he begins. “You’re younger than Rose by seven years, and while I don’t take that much stock in ages, she still feels weak if you console her. In Rose’s mind, that’s her job.”

“But you can console her?” Daisy asks.

“I’m her husband, her equal.”

I can sense Daisy reading into that last word. Her shoulders fall at the idea of not being equal to her sister, at being less somehow.

“Hey,” I nod to Daisy and shake my head at her. “Don’t overanalyze what he’s fucking saying.”

She barely looks at me. Then she asks Connor, “If it’s her job to console me, why isn’t she here?”

This shadowed anger passes through his features. “She’s challenging me.” Connor stuffs his hands in his black slacks. “She wants me to figure out whatever’s been upsetting her, and she’ll do anything to beat me.”

“I thought she said that she had meetings all week,” Lo says with a frown.

 “Maybe she does.” Connor stuffs his hands in his black slacks. “But Rose would drop any meeting for her sisters. She should be here. She would be here otherwise. But she wants to win, and winning means putting an ocean between us.”  Their relationship is so fucking weird.

“What do you think she’s hiding?” Lo asks.

“If I knew, the game would be over and she’d be here,” Connor says easily.

“Maybe I can get it out of her,” Daisy offers.

“Unlikely,” Connor says. “Lily is probably the only one who knows.” Even though Connor is being honest—that Daisy isn’t the sister Rose would turn to for anything—it still hurts her. She tucks her hair behind her ear again and then disappears into the bathroom.

Connor notices her quick exit.

I take a step towards him and lower my voice. “I swear to fucking God, you need to work on your tact around Daisy.”

“First off, don’t swear to God around me. He’s not listening when I’m in the room. And secondly, I thought she could handle it. I’m misreading a lot of things today. I admit that.” He clenches his teeth, something he rarely does.

“If you need to go home, go home,” I tell Connor.

Lo crosses his arms. “But Lily is there with Rose, so whatever she’s going through, you know her sister will take care of her.”

Lily had to stay back because she has class at Princeton, the only one of us that’s still in college.

And I can tell Lo wants Connor to be here for the duration of the trip. We’re starting our drive to California after this. If Connor bails now, he won’t be coming with us.

“If you go back home,” I say, “Rose isn’t going to tell you regardless.”

Connor nods. “It’s better if I’m here. We’d tear each other apart if we were together right now.”

After a couple minutes of setting down our bags and getting a look around the hotel room, Daisy slips out of the bathroom in pajama shorts and a tank top, her hair still in a high bun. She doesn’t appear upset anymore. While my brother bends down to his bag, digging through a pocket, she approaches me with a coy smile that lifts the corner of her lips.

I remember those soft pink lips on mine, my tongue in her mouth. It seems like a fucking dream. My eyes flicker to my brother, still searching through his bag.

I run a hand through my hair, suppressing that image. While I stand in the middle of the room, she comes close. I watch her carefully as she stops only an inch away. I look down at her.

She whispers softly, “Did you bring my birth control?”

Her eyes flit to my brother for a second, but his back is turned to us. I try not to worry about him right now.

“You willing to gain five fucking pounds by taking it now?” I ask her in the same hushed voice.

She nods, and her breath shallows. She’s not wearing a bra—she rarely does—but her nipples harden, visible with the form-fitting top. I struggle to stop thinking about taking it in my mouth, my tongue at work. I know we just had our first kiss, but I want to do so many things to her, with her. One of the reasons why I’m glad we’re not telling anyone—it forces us to go slow.

I would have fucked her in the stairwell if Connor and Lo weren’t here right now.

And then I’d fuck her again on the bed.

But this heightens everything. Drawing it out will make our first time even better. And I want it to be so fucking amazing.

I glance from her breasts to her eyes. She registers the signal and crosses her arms over her chest, her face heating already. “This almost never happens to me,” she says under her breath.

“Stop imagining me fucking you,” I breathe, “and maybe it won’t.” I brush a flyaway hair out of her face.

She smiles like I guessed her thoughts correctly. “That doesn’t sound fun.” She glances at my brother again who stands up with his toiletry kit. “Birth control?” she asks.

“Front pocket of my bag.” I take a couple steps away from her, and I flip through a room service menu on the end table.

My brother leaves the bathroom door open while he brushes his teeth, and Daisy unzips my duffel bag. Connor watches her, glancing from his laptop screen to Daisy kneeling on the ground.

Before he asks questions, she says, “Who’s sleeping in the bed?”

“You,” he tells her.

“That’s stupid. Ryke and Lo can share the bed, and I’ll take the chair tonight.”

“No,” I say at the same time as my brother, who shouts from the bathroom.

“I don’t want to waste the whole bed.”

Connor adds, “Ryke can share the bed with you. Problem solved.” He types with speed, his eyes not leaving his computer screen. “What talents I have.”

Lo peeks through the doorway, his toothbrush in his mouth. “Did you smoke a bowl on the plane? Because you’ve got to be goddamn high to put her in bed with my brother while we’re in the room.”

“I didn’t say anything about sex.” He stops typing. “I don’t want to watch that any more than you do.”

Daisy’s cheeks redden. Fucking fantastic. I forgot she saw his porn tape. I shut the menu. That’s not particularly something I want to imagine.

I run my hand through my hair. “I’m going to sleep on the floor. It’s not a big deal.”

“Of course. You probably feel at home lower to the ground,” Connor says with a growing smile.

Lo won’t stick up for me where Connor is concerned. If someone else said that to me, maybe. But I’m just supposed to take Connor’s shit because he’s Connor. “Fuck off,” I tell him, not even wanting to waste time on a good retort.

This just makes Connor gloat more.

Lo retreats to the bathroom, turning on the faucet.

I watch Daisy. She keeps her hands within the fucking duffel pocket, and the only time it comes out is to pop a pill in her mouth. She quickly zips it back and stands up.

Connor catches her, and he stares between us in suspicion. “What’d you just take?” he asks her, his voice quiet, which means he’s at least nice enough not to alert my brother.

“Advil,” she lies too easily. “I have cramps.” She slides into the bed without another word. I can tell that Connor doesn’t believe her. If there’s anyone who can see through Daisy like me, it’s him. But he goes back to his work, not uncomfortable by anything she said. But my brother is. I watch him linger in the bathroom a little longer.

I find her Ambien in the end table drawer, and I dole out two pills and hand them to her. She glances at Connor, but he’s busying himself, no longer interested.

I pass her a water bottle, and she hesitantly accepts it. Her paranoid gaze flickers to the balcony door.

“I’ll lock up,” I whisper so Connor can’t hear. “But you have to fucking trust that no one is going to hide in the bathroom.” There’s nothing I can do about that door.

She nods. “Okay.” She sits up on her elbows, her gaze on my lips.

I can’t kiss her right now. Because I can already tell with us, a kiss won’t stop at one fucking kiss. It’ll last five minutes, and we can’t afford that with my brother here.

I surprise her by running my hand slowly from her hipbone to the side of her ribs to her breast—all above her thin tank top. My muscles tighten as she stiffens in arousal, especially as I skim my thumb over her hard nipple.

I’ve suppressed myself from doing something like this for so long. It’s a fucking one-eighty to even go this far. The adrenaline rush is dizzying my fucking head. I watch her slender body, on the bed, lighting up underneath my hand. It grips my cock, and stopping is harder than ever before.

But I imagine my brother.

Beating my face in.

It helps. Somewhat. But I also imagine her with another guy. And that stops me from thinking this is so wrong. Turn back now, Ryke.

I won’t ever turn back.

This is it for me. I want to make this fucking work as best I can.

Her mouth falls, a heavy breath escaping. And then she smiles so fucking bright.

I take my hand off her as soon as I sense my brother returning to the room. Daisy is so flushed that she turns into her pillow to collect herself.

I love watching her feel those sensations—especially after hearing how much she’s been denied them. I want to put her in a state of euphoria more than anything.

I leave her so I can secure the balcony door. The lock is pathetic, nothing more than a turn of a latch. No wonder she hasn’t been fucking sleeping. After that, I head to the entrance, locking the deadbolt and sliding the chain across. When I turn around, Connor’s eyes flicker up from the computer.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Sara is making waves again,” Connor says.

“My mom has already caused a fucking tsunami, so whatever waves she’s making, I don’t really want to hear about it.”

Connor flashes me his phone, not letting me ignore this. I grab the damn thing from his hand. The headline of an article reads: Tell-All Interview with Sara Hale Coming Soon on 60 Minutes.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say, glaring at the image of my mother, sitting with her legs crossed on a chair against a navy blue backdrop. I have my father’s dark hair, not hers. She’s been described as a Julia Roberts lookalike with golden-brown locks, her nose a little sharp. She’s originally from a poor town of New Jersey, a fighter, she used to call herself when she yelled at my dad on the phone.

“Do you know where I came from?” she would sneer. “If I got here from nothing, you think I can’t stay here and protect my son from you? I’m a fighter. I’m going to do everything I can to keep my head above water. If you don’t believe that, then think again, Jonathan. Think again!”

She’s a woman who can’t let go of a fucking grudge.

I examine the fine print of the article, detailing the interview to come.

Sara opens up about her marital problems with Jonathan Hale, her recent fallout with son, Ryke Meadows, and her plea to reconnect with Ryke. She also discusses the allegations regarding Loren Hale, and in a preview clip, she says, “Through the twelve years that I was with Jonathan, he was nothing but verbally and mentally abusive. The trauma my own son went through with his father…I won’t ever forgive Jonathan for what he’s done.”

“Don’t break my phone, please,” Connor says in a controlled voice. “That’s my lifeline to my wife.”

I’m gripping his cell so hard that I do almost crack the screen. I toss it back to him, my muscles on fire. “Now they think Jonathan traumatized me,” I say with the shake of my head. How can this be my life?

Connor slips his phone in his pocket. “The article could have spun one of her lines. It’s fragmented. Don’t get upset until you watch the interview.”

I shake my head. “Whatever.” I take a few trained breaths, and it returns to normal. But I’d love to go fucking hit something right now. I need the gym, to just pour my energy and this pressure somewhere healthy instead of keeping it in my chest.

I glance back at Daisy. She tries to force her drowsy eyes open, watching me from the bed, her head on the pillow.

“I wish people were nicer,” she says softly before yawning.

Me fucking too.