Page 68 of Hendrix

“No, I wouldn’t,” I argued. “I would’ve come to you and asked if you wanted to stay and work, not stay and fuck. Sara initially worked here as a bartender. Her job role only changed because she asked for it. What does that tell you?”

Daisy glared at me reproachfully.

I leaned toward her. “And now you’re out.”

Her face blanked.

“You’re gonna get escorted to your room, you’re gonna get dressed and pack your shit, then you’re gonna publicly apologize to my woman before you turn your ass around and get the fuck gone.”

“You think?” she sassed.

I held her eyes. “Believe me, I know. If you don’t, the consequences will be worse for you.” Standing to my full height, I walked over to Colt, ordering, “Tell her.”

His stare fell on her face, and his lip curled. “Checked you out, Daisy, and honestly, there wasn’t much to find. You’re in the system but you lay low. You gotta bank account, and your credit rating’s okay, not amazing, but not bad. Father unknown, mother passed, no family to speak of. Everything about your life is nondescript, but at least you have a life.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“I can make every trace of you disappear,” he told her, his tone dripping with ice. “You wouldn’t be able to get a job, an apartment, a passport, or even a driver’s license. I’d wipe you clean; it would be like Daisy Wells was never alive. I can take your entire existence away.”

Her eyes swung to me accusingly. “You’d do that to me?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “But only as a last resort. Do as I say and leave quietly and with dignity, and we’ll allow you to get the fuck outta here and start again somewhere else. I’ll even give you severance pay to help set you up in an apartment. All you gotta do is leave town quietly and don’t come back.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispered, her eyes wounded. “You wouldn’t do that to me after everything we had.”

“We had sex, Daisy,” I stated. “Nothing more.”

“I gave you what you needed,” she reasoned. “I made you happy.”

“Yeah, by letting me pretend you were Anna, but I got the real thing back now. Don’t need a poor imitation.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean that. I know you felt something for me.”

My stare flicked over her face, studying her defiant expression. She was so convinced I wouldn’t hurt her, and I wondered why.

Something pinged in my brain, and warning bells began to chime.

Daisy believed with everything she had that I had feelings for her, and I had no idea how she got it past me.

On the surface, she came across as being pretty astute. We had fun together in and out of bed. We laughed and bantered, not as a daily occurrence, but we had a friendship of sorts.

But in that moment, all I saw in the back of her eyes was delusion, and delusional people were dangerous. Even more so in Daisy’s case because with her life the way it was, she didn’t have much to lose.

And that didn’t bode well for anyone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ANNA

“Istill don’t think you should fly so soon,” Freya murmured, her eyes following Tristan across the room as he moved toward my bag. “You’ve just had quite the scare, Anna. At least give yourself a few days of breathing space before you get on a plane.”

I squeezed her arm from my place beside her on the bed. “I can’t stay here with that woman after what she did.”

“Hendrix will deal with it,” she insisted.

“No he won’t,” I argued softly. “He didn’t believe his lady friend’s intentions were bad when I told him about that damned bread. He won’t do shit.”

Freya’s head cocked to the side, her eyebrows pulling together. “You don’t have much faith in Hendrix, do you?”

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