Page 65 of Pay the Price

Daisy hated me, but she hated me because I was an asshole. If I got close, if I let her see me, she’d know the truth: I was exactly what her father had thought I was when we were growing up: a parentless loser with absolutely nothing to offer a girl like Daisy Hammond.

Then she’d hate the real me, the one I kept hidden from everyone, and I wasn’t sure I could live with that.

The car stopped outside of the house and Otis opened the back door before the driver could get there.

Wolf shifted, trying to figure out how to get Daisy out of the car without waking her, but she was draped across him, making it impossible for him to get the leverage he needed to step out of the car.

“I got her,” I said.

I slid out of the car, then bent down to lift Daisy off Wolf’s lap.

She startled. “What…?” she mumbled.

“It’s me,” I said. “I’ve got you.”

She looked up at me, a flash of confusion passing over her violet eyes in the moment before she settled into my arms witha sigh. She wrapped her arms around my neck and her eyes fluttered closed.

Otis walked ahead, punching the code into the electronic lock on the front door, something he’d insisted on when Daisy agreed to move home even though she hated the way it looked on the old house.

Locks could be picked. Digital keypads couldn’t.

The door swung open and I headed up the stairs.

I took my time. Maybe this was the only way I could be close to Daisy without all the bullshit between us. She wasn’t thinking about what I’d done to Blake, about how she should have known it was true because her dad had always told her we were losers.

And I wasn’t thinking about Blake either. I wasn’t thinking about her dad and how he’d been right about us but there was no changing it. I wasn’t thinking about how perfect and good Daisy was — too perfect, too good for me. I wasn’t even thinking about fucking her, an exercise in torture because I knew I couldn’t, that if I did, she’d own the last piece of myself that I’d hidden away from her, the piece I hid behind when I was being an asshole and making her miserable.

Daisy was asleep, having sweet dreams (I hoped), and I was trying to memorize the way she felt in my arms, the smell of her hair and her soft breath warming my neck.

I was trying to memorize it because Daisy wasn’t meant for me.

Wolf and Otis maybe. They were good even if they didn’t know it, even though they’d done bad things.

But I was rotten to the core. I felt my own rot, seeping from the center of my soul like black mold. Pretty soon, it would be all that was left, and it would start eating everything around it.

I’d need to be gone by then, before it could hurt Daisy. She was the purest thing I’d ever come close to having, and a thrumof murderous rage rolled through me when I remembered that her dad had threatened to send her to Oak Hill.

I’d gone ballistic when I’d found out, had been determined to kill him right then. I’d made it all the way to my bike before Daisy ran outside and begged me to stop.

She was cooling river water on the flames of my ever-present rage and she didn’t even know it.

I reached Daisy’s room and set her on the bed. She’d taken off her shoes in the limo (I’d seen Wolf carrying them with her bag) and I maneuvered her around the duvet cover so I could pull it up. I would have liked to take off her clothes so she could sleep more comfortably, but I didn’t want to wake her, and the truth was, I didn’t trust myself alone with Daisy naked.

It had been hard enough not to join in at the Velvet Rope. Not taking her in the privacy of her room, when she was sleepy and compliant (she would be compliant, I knew she would be), would be next to impossible.

She shifted under the covers and opened her eyes. “It’s you.”

She said it like she’d been expecting me. Like she’d been waiting for me.

“It’s me.” My voice was hoarse because suddenly I had something stuck in my throat.

She reached out a hand, laid it against my face. “I see you.”

And now, I couldn’t swallow around the thing clogging my throat.

She dropped her hand and her eyes drifted closed as she settled back into sleep.

I sat there for a long time, her words echoing in my mind as I looked down at her angelic face.

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