Page 44 of Pink Poison

“So obedient,” he groans, stirring the nausea trapped in my stomach. “Keep that attitude for me. I’ll pick you up at noon sharp.” The call disconnects just as quickly as it happened, leaving me with a sense of dread.

“What the hell was that?” Teegan shudders as her hands cup over her forearms.

Standing from the chair, I quickly jerk my head towards the door. We need to leave before I puke, or worse, one of his little creeps reports back my less than stellar reaction to his call. “Thatwas Creed Hill.”

“He sounds dangerous, Stevie,” she whispers. “I don’t think you should be seeing him.”

“Trust me, Tee.” I sigh, walking towards the exit. “If I could say no, I would.”

If Atticus Lennon wasn't such a limp shrimp dick, I wouldn't even be in this situation to begin with. I came here to settle my own score, not help him fix his bad business decisions or whatever the hell he got himself into.

“Just be careful, okay?” she pleads.

Looping our arms together, we walk out of the restaurant without being accosted about the check. Instead, we're sent off with eerie, bright smiles that make the acid in my stomach creep up my throat, and a request to come back soon.

Yeah, no fucking thanks.

Walking out of the elevator, we turn the corner toward my hotel room while Teegan drones on about the new girls at Mo’s until her steps falter. “Is that from him?” She points at the elaborately decorated pink gift box sitting outside of the door.

“Looks like something he’d send given the last twogifts,” I admit while continuing to my door. With a bored sigh, I pick up the box, surprised by the weight. “Seems like he decided to double up from the last one, too.”

“Stevie,” she hisses, “did you leave your door open?”

Looking up from the package, I see my door is ajar.Huh.I could’ve sworn I closed that when I left.My feet stumble over each other as Teegan steals my key card and pushes me aside before barging into my room like a womanpossessed. Biting back a smile, I walk in behind her as she flips on every light while making the most noise possible.

“I must have left it open," I muse.

“Are you missing anything?” she shouts from the bathroom, swishing around the shower curtain.

I take in the mess that both Tee and I made when she woke me up and picked out my outfit for the day. Everythingseemslike it's how we left it. “Doesn’t look like it.”

She laughs. “Okay, well at least we know you don’t have a secret stalker. Not unless you countCreed Hill.”

“No,” I snort. “I don’t count Creed Hill. He has access to me through Atticus; there is absolutely nothing secret about that.”

What I don’t tell her is that it doesn't matter if he's secretly stalking me or publicly doing it. Either way, it's unnerving to the point that I'm wary of him—of what he'll do if he doesn't continue to get his way.

Setting the gift on my unmade bed, I pull the silky, silver ribbon from the lid and lift it. Rose gold chains, bangles, and a stunning pair of chandelier pink quartz earrings sit on top of neatly folded dark pink, knit, backless minidress. Carefully, I slip the dress out from underneath the stupidly expensive accessories and hold the fabric out.

My eyes widen as light pours through the obnoxiously sheer fabric, showing me exactly how see through it is. “Jesus,” Teegan chokes. “That’s practically lingerie itself.”

Turning, I'm met with the immeasurable shock and awe that warps my best friend's features. “Hazard of the job, right?”

The joke falls flat between us as her sparkling, green eyes soften at the reminder that this is for a job, a job that I shouldn't even be doing. We both know that I love dancing. What started as a necessity for survival quickly became a freedom from the pressures of reality. On stage, I am untouchable.Unbreakable. But this, escorting—or whatever the hell Lennon wants to call it, means that Iamtouchable.

It means that I'm breakable.

“You don’t have to do this,” she says with a confidence that I don't share. “We can figure something out.”

Absolutely not. There is nowein this scenario. I refuse to bring her into this any more than she already is. Teegan Lorraine is the closest thing I have to family, right next to Mo. If something happened to either of them, I wouldneverbe able to forgive myself.

“I’ll be alright, Tee.” I force a smile. “It’s just a job, right?”

I don’t miss the way her lips pull in tightly or the trace of worry in her gentle, green eyes before she pulls herself back together. I wish I hadn't seen it, maybe then I wouldn’t feel as paranoid as I do right now.

So much for it being just a job.

Chapter fifteen

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