Page 48 of Mark
“You kind of owe her.”
“I’m pretty sure I paid her back. With interest,” he growls.
“Please?” Sunday pleads, and I know she doesn’t fully understand what she’s begging for.
“If you don’t, I’m going to tell Aiden you lost the light of his life on a boat, in the middle of nowhere,” Hayden threatens.
“I didn’t lose—”
Hayden holds her hands up. “Do not insult me by lying. It’s your choice. I mean, he looks pretty mellow right now, but…”
“Oh my god, you don’t need to,” I assure him.
Hayden gives me the same look she gave her cousin. Cunning. Calculating. Mischievous. “Then I’ll go tell Aiden you kidnapped her, shall I?”
My eyes widen. “I didn’t kidnap her,” I hiss quietly. “You can’t go throwing that about. Someone might believe you.”
“I’d give up,” Mark warns, sounding resigned. “Let me know when and where, and I’ll escort you to the damn wedding.”
Hayden claps her hands together as she gets to her feet. “And my work here is done,” she announces before scooping Sunday up. “Come on, kid, let’s go annoy your dad.”
“I did good?” Sunday asks as they walk away, and I eye the woman with a new perspective.
“Has she always been so…”
“Devious? Sly? Manipulative?”
“Yes to all three,” I reply.
He scrubs a hand over his jaw. “Yes. Yes, she has.”
Well fuck!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mark
My uncle Max is arguing with Hayden and Liam about who gets to escort Maya—Freya’s nan—to the show happening tonight.
I tune them out, my gaze narrowed on the woman who has purposely tried to worm her way into my life in one way or another since I first met her. A woman who has the wool pulled over everyone’s eyes but mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if she left that suitcase on the path on purpose. Or if she lured my niece away in the hope I would go and talk to her.
That has to be it. It has to be.
Yet no one else believes me when I tell them she’s obsessed with me. None of them seem to care that she might one day kill me. It could end up that if she can’t have me, no one will. You hear stories like that all the time.
A slap on my sunburnt arm pulls me from my thoughts and I glare up at my sister. “Ow, sis, that hurt.”
“Why are you glaring at Freya?” Faith questions.
I narrow my eyes. “Since when are you on a first name basis with her?” I grit out.
“Since the plane,” she admits, not in the least bit sorry. “I don’t get why you act like…”
“Like Aiden,” Beau finishes.
Faith takes his hand, grinning. “Yeah, you act like Aiden around her. I’ve never seen you so knocked off guard before.”
“I do not act like Aiden around her,” I argue.