Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
“And you’ve never seen this guy before, Devi? Not an old drinking friend of your father’s or anything?”
Why was he asking her that?
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“Pretty sure they’re all from Chicago,” Hayes said.
“And how did you know that Devi was in trouble?” Jerry asked.
“Noticed she’d been gone a while. I went to check on her and the back door was open. That’s when I heard a scream and I yelled out to Mac and ran through the alley.”
He’d gone looking for her? Why would he do that?
Her head ached as Jerry asked a few more questions.
“Do you need anything else?” Hayes asked. “Devi is exhausted. She needs to go home.”
How did he know that?
Crap. Did she look that bad? She had to, right?
“No, that’s it for the moment.” Jerry stood and Hayes stood with him. Jerry stepped up to the door and then turned back to her. “I’ll go and check in with my officers. Devi, I’ll need you to come in and sign a statement. But we can do that tomorrow. Get some rest.”
That was kind of nice? At least he wasn’t making her feel like an idiot anymore.
When the door closed, she turned to Hayes, wanting to know if he was okay.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he snapped.
She reared back, not expecting him to sound so . . . angry. Her heart started racing as the door opened and Mac stepped in.
“Devi, you all right? I saw Jerry leave. I’ve shut the bar down. Gonna give you a ride home.”
That was really kind. The last thing she felt like doing tonight was catching the bus. She turned to Mac. “Thanks, Mac.”
“I’ll give her a ride home,” Hayes said abruptly.
Um. Nope. That wasn’t happening.
“No!” Whoa. She probably shouldn’t have said that so loudly. She stood up and the world spun.
“Careful,” Hayes snapped, reaching out a hand to steady her.
But she didn’t want him touching her.
Well, that wasn’t actually true. She absolutely wanted him touching her. Just not right now.
“I’m fine.” She stepped away and hit the back of the sofa, falling into it.
God. This was so irritating. She smacked her fists down onto the sofa. She hated being this clumsy. It was ridiculous.
She stood again, this time slower. She didn’t want to get dizzy again. “Mac, thanks for the offer to take me home. I accept.” She took off the shirt and attempted to hand it back to Hayes.
He ignored her, staring down at her with hard eyes.
Then he crossed his arms over his chest. “What you did tonight was stupid.”
“It’s my fault he attacked me?” Wow. She hadn’t thought he’d be like this.
“That’s not what I’m saying. You had no business going outside in the dark on your own into a fucking alleyway. You needed that garbage thrown out, you should have gotten someone else to do it!”
“There was no one else to do it! And I should be able to throw out a bag of garbage without being attacked!”
“Nobody is disputing that. But you were just accosted a few minutes earlier, you should have been more cautious. Don’t you understand that you could have been hurt?”
“And why would that matter to you?” She didn’t know why she was yelling. Why she felt so mad. It was just better than feeling scared and worried.
Everything he said made sense, even if she still felt like he had no right to tell her off. It was all that asshole’s fault. He was the one who should be getting yelled at.
“Now, we might need to all calm down,” Mac said.
Hayes turned to Mac. “And you, why the hell are your servers throwing out the garbage? They shouldn’t be going into that alley on their own.”
“Now, see here—” Mac started to say.
“You cannot get mad at Mac!” she told him. “This isn’t his fault. Andy is supposed to throw the garbage out. But he didn’t do it. And I should have left it, but I needed to do something. I didn’t want to stay still, then I might start thinking about what happened . . . and I just couldn’t do that. But it’s not Mac’s fault.”
Hayes just stared at them. Then he heaved out a breath. “Make sure this doesn’t happen again. It does and you’re going to find yourself with a hot ass.”
Then he stormed out of the room before she could say another word.
The nerve of the man! Bossing both of them around like that. And threatening to spank her! She didn’t think so.
In the back of her mind, she knew she was probably overreacting. That he was upset and she should understand that considering everything that had happened.
But she couldn’t let herself be reasonable.
She also couldn’t let herself think about how much she would like to be spanked by him.
8
Her anger was still riding her hard as Mac pulled up outside the trailer. Although her fatigue was making it hard to sustain her fury.