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“Why didn’t you answer the phone?” His clipped demand made me cringe. I’d lived my whole life in the club and could hold my own against anyone there. Normally I wasn’t the shrinking violet type. I had fire when I needed to, but these last few weeks had thrown me. I was dejected, uncertain, off-balance, and more than a little scared.
“I-I just got to the hotel. I left my phone in the bathroom.” Not a lie.
There was a beat of silence before he continued. “Sorry I snapped. I was, uh, concerned when you didn’t answer. You good?”
“Yep.” Thankfully, he couldn’t see me cringe, because I most definitely was not good. Physically, I was OK. Mentally? Not so much.
“Seems we’ve had that exchange before, huh?” When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’m about three hours out, honey. Data gave me the hotel information and I’ve got a digital key, so don’t be alarmed when I let myself in.”
“Please don’t call me honey.” I couldn’t make myself put any force behind my words. Mainly because, even though he was still several hours away and not right in front of me, he still intimidated me. Those feelings were more a state of mind for me because, until that night six weeks ago, I had rarely interacted with Cyclone. He was there, but off-limits. Same as I was off-limits to him, unspoken though it was. He had been a prospect, then a patched member of Bones. I was the daughter of an officer in Bones, not a club girl. Even though he was also family of an officer, he was so much older than me we’d never had a reason to interact.
“Yeah.” He sounded tired. Or maybe resigned? “Sorry. I’m trying to be gentle and not too overbearing. Data and Zora thought I might frighten you if I didn’t tone down my personality a bit.”
When he didn’t say anything more, I plucked up my courage and pushed him a little. “I’d like to take a bath and I need to see if I can get some stuff delivered. I don’t have any clean clothes.”
“Why not?” That bossy, demanding tone was back. This was definitely the vice president of a powerful MC I was talking to now. Not the man who was trying not to frighten me.
“My suitcase is in the trunk of my car and the car is impounded.”
He grunted. “Get in touch with Zora. She’ll take care of it.”
“OK.” I wouldn’t be getting anyone else to do that stuff for me, but it wouldn’t do any good telling him that. The path of least resistance was to tell him I’d be a good little girl and do what he said, then do whatever the fuck I wanted.
Again, there was a silence. I could all but see him narrowing his eyes at me. “I’ll tell Zora to call you. She’ll probably be able to anticipate what you need, but I don’t want her to miss anything. We won’t be heading back tonight, obviously. So I want you to have everything you’ll need.” Yeah. He knew what I was about.
“I can take care of it. You’re driving. If you don’t concentrate, you’ll end up in the same position I’m in.” That came out more annoyed than I thought I was capable of with Cyclone. The man was seriously pushing all my buttons and I hated he could get to me this easily. “I know you think I’m not capable of taking care of myself but I am. I don’t need Zora to buy things for me with club money. I have a job and money of my own.”
“Huh. You can push back. Who knew?” Did he sound… amused? Was he trying to push me over the edge?
“Am I some kind of entertainment for you? Is this all a big-ass joke?” Now my temper was spiking.
“Not at all, Willa. Like I told you before. You and I have things to discuss, and we need to be equals to do it. For whatever reason, you don’t see yourself as my equal right now. It’s my job to get you there.”
Yeah, my temper was redlining. “Bastard,” I muttered.
“Unquestionably. So hold on to all the emotions you’ve got running around inside you until I get there. Then we’ll have it out. As equals.”
“I’m taking a bath, then I’m going to lie down. As I’m sure you realize, I’ve not had the best of days.”
“Good. I’ll text you when I get there so you’re not startled when I walk in on you.”
I ended the call without saying goodbye because I simply couldn’t say another word to the asshole without completely losing my shit. If I lost my shit, I knew I’d cry, and I wasn’t going to do that. Not in front of him. As close to tears as I’d been before his call, now I was good and pissed. Why? Beat the fuck outta me. He hadn’t said anything overt, but his attitude was so fucking smug! He was manipulating me into getting what he wanted. In this case, he wanted a certain emotional response. Anger over intimidation. What pissed me off was, it had worked. Even worse? He was right. In order to deal with him and this whole fucked-up situation, I needed to see us as equals. And I didn’t.
“Ugh!” I yelled, not caring if anyone heard me. Surely to God the walls in a two-room suite would be thick enough to muffle the sound. I picked up the tiny complimentary bar of soap and threw it against the door. It wasn’t much, but the emotional explosion helped me center myself and gain back a bit more of my backbone. After several weeks of self-pity and generally being down in the dumps, it kind of felt good. Just add it to the list of things that aggravated me about Cyclone.
While I was in the bath, I pulled up an app on my phone for a local store that delivered and started shopping for basic essentials. A change of clothes from top to bottom, toiletries, and some snacks. OK, lots of snacks. I had a four-pound tub of peanut butter and a forty-eight-ounce jar of grape jelly in the cart and my mouth was simply to God watering. And a half a gallon of milk. And a case of Coke Zero. And a big-ass barrel of fucking cheese balls.
Fuck.
I was about to place my order when my mom’s name popped up on my phone screen to FaceTime. No way I was touching that. So I declined, then shot off a text.
Me: In the bathtub. What’s up?
Mom: Zora said you needed some clothes and stuff for an overnight stay. She said to put them in your cart and she’d take it from there.
Mom: Everything OK?
How to answer that?
