Find me? A shiver ripples under my skin. “I’ll call them after you leave.” I reach for my coffee again, the warm mug almost too hot against my chilled skin. “You know, this is the first time I’ve had a legitimate death threat since I was seventeen. It’s been seven years. Not a bad streak of luck.”
Tristan shakes his head at me. “Daphne Fox, whether you want to own up to it or not, your entire life has been a streak of luck. Trust me, it hasn’t run out because someone threatened you.”
It’s too early for this. His words don’t penetrate. They skirt over the edges of my under-caffeinated brain. There might have been an insult there. Or maybe some words of wisdom. Either way, I need my coffee, and I need Secret Service detail. Today.
But for how long? I hate having a security detail with me when I travel. How much worse would it be with them in my damn house? God, why can’t I live a normal, hidden life? I didn’t get a say in my parents’ careers. I didn’t ask to be thrust into the spotlight so young. I didn’t ask for the attention or the stalking or to be set up like a target for Dad’s re-election.
“What if they don’t find who did this?”
“I promise, Daphne.Iwill find out.”
And I’ll make them pay.His unspoken words hover in the air, and maybe I’m imagining them. Wishful thinking. A man who doesn’t half-ass a plan but follows through. Goes above and beyond.
Yeah, right. Like those men even exist.
A jiggle of the front door’s knob has me frozen to the floor in panic.
“Daphne?” Mom’s voice pierces through the air like a foghorn. “Can you open the door, please?”
My doorbell chimes three times in a row.
“Well, if I wasn’t already awake,” I murmur. “You need to hide.”
“Where?”
“The basement.” Mom might find an excuse to go upstairs and snoop, but she’d never dirty her Jimmy Choos to explore my basement.
Grabbing Tristan’s arm, I drag him over toward the basement door and shove him inside.
“Stay quiet.”
He nods, and I shut the door, leaving him alone in the dark.
The doorbell rings again.
“I’m coming!” Rushing over to the front door, I open it, trying to block my mom from entering, but the second I lean against the doorway, she barges right past me, her shoulder banging into mine. The bitch would have been one hell of a linebacker.
“Took you long enough.”
“Nice to see you too, Mother.”
Hawkeye whines. I’m half expecting my puppy to cowerin a corner to escape Cruella de Vil, but instead, Hawkeye is scratching at the basement door.
“Hawkeye, stop.”
But I haven’t taught him that command yet. He can sit and sometimes stay, but that’s the extent of our training.
Mom shakes her head in disapproval as I scoop Hawkeye up from the floor and hold him, like he’s a fuzzy shield to protect me from my mother.
“You got a dog?” Her voice drips in disapproval, dampening my already sour mood thanks to her unannounced visit.
“Yes, this is Hawkeye. Your fur grandchild.”
Mom scowls as I walk Hawkeye over to the back door and open it, depositing him onto the patio and quickly shutting it before he can launch back inside.
“I’d prefer a human grandchild.”
Well, we can’t always get what we want, Mother.
