Chapter Fourteen
BEFORE HE BARGED OUT OF the suite, leaving Daisy in a state of disarray, he sharply mumbled, “Meet me at noon in the lobby.”
Daisy didn’t move from her position next to the couch for almost an hour.
She only moved when housekeeping knocked, prompting her to lock the latch on the door.
She ran herself a scalding shower and sat on the tiled floor until the water eventually ran cold.
After she dressed, she just stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, trying to reconcile what she had done in the last eighteen years to deserve this type of punishment.
The mirror reflected a sad, hollow girl who had aged ten years in the last day.
While it wasn’t a pretty picture, Daisy still stared.
Willing with all her heart for Jameson to come rushing back into the hotel room, begging for her forgiveness.
She would have understood his fear. She would have forgiven almost anything if he had just been a little hopeful, even for a second, that something existed because they loved each other.
But the door stayed shut.
She almost couldn’t believe it when the clock struck noon and she was whisked through the hotel lobby by the band’s security guard. Jameson sat slouched in the back of a black SUV, his bloodshot eyes barely lifting when she slid onto the bench seat beside him.
The ride to the clinic was cloaked in silence.
Awkward, suffocating silence. Every mile pressed heavier on Daisy’s chest. She almost prayed for a flat tire, for a crash, for anything that would delay what she was about to do.
But fate gave her no reprieve, and soon they pulled into the lot of a women’s clinic in an obscure part of LA.
Neither moved.
For a full minute, they sat frozen until Jameson reached for the door handle.
“Stop,” Daisy blurted.
He halted and turned toward her. She flicked her eyes to his red ones and in a devastated voice said, “I don’t want you to come inside with me.”
He argued. “But, Daisy…”
“I said no!” Her voice cracked, then softened, mindful of the driver. “Let me make one choice of my own today.”
Before he could argue again, she shoved open the door and stepped out, her legs carrying her toward the entrance on sheer will. She knew the moment she walked back out, nothing in her life would ever be the same.
The woman at the front desk looked up from behind her reading glasses, hair pinned in a tidy gray bun. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked gently.
“Yes,” Daisy muttered.
“Name, honey?”
“Um… Daisy Daniels.”
The woman cupped her ear. “Speak up, sweetheart. My hearing ain’t what it used to be.”
Daisy almost smiled at the woman’s self-deprecation, but today there was no room for smiles. “Daisy Daniels,” she repeated flatly.
After filling out the forms with shaking hands, she was escorted to provide a urine sample, then bloodwork. Each step made it more real. When the nurse confirmed her pregnancy aloud, something inside Daisy cracked.
She had always imagined this moment differently: tears of joy, Jameson wrapping her in his arms, both of them giddy at the thought of becoming parents.
But this wasn’t her fantasy. This was the real world. And it could be cruel.
As she lay on the exam table, her mind spun with unthinkable decisions and harsh realities. Daisy tried not to run her hands over her stomach while she waited for a technician to come in, but she couldn’t help herself. It was as if they had a mind of their own.
They roamed over her stomach as if drawn by instinct, in disbelief that a tiny spec of life was inside of her.
Life, she thought.
Was that what it was?
She couldn’t let herself believe it, not now. Belief would make it all unbearable.
The door opened, and a technician introduced herself. “Hi, Daisy, I’m Helen. I’ll be doing your sonogram today.”
Already in a paper gown, Daisy lay back as Helen prepared the machine. “Would you like the sound on or off?”
Her heart twisted. She wanted to say yes, but her lips formed the word “Off.”
Helen nodded, and the probe pressed cold against her skin. Daisy stared at the ceiling, refusing to look at the monitor. She knew the instant she saw it, the flicker of a heartbeat, the curve of a shadow, she would never be able to let go.
It was the same with her art. The same with music. The same with Jameson.
But now she had to let go.
The sun was merciless when she walked back out into the parking lot, her cheeks streaked with tears. The black SUV waited where she’d left it, but Daisy turned the other way. She couldn’t face him. Not now. Not when his mere presence felt impossible.
“Daisy!” His voice carried from behind her, ragged.
She walked faster.
“Stop!”
She didn’t. Not until his footsteps caught up, pounding hard against the sidewalk.
“What are you doing? Are you okay?”
She turned on him, hollow-eyed. The question was so absurd it nearly ripped a scream from her throat. Instead, she said, firm and cold, “Leave me alone.”
“Daisy, you need to get in the car.”
Her eyes filled, but she would be damned if she let them fall. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
“Daisy…” He reached for her hand.
She ripped it away like his touch burned. “I said leave me the hell alone!”
The curse stunned him into silence.
“I hate you,” Daisy spat.
The words landed like a knife. His face twisted—not in anger, but fear.
Fear of losing her… fear he already had.
After today, Daisy would only be seen as a liability to the band.
And she wouldn’t be so na?ve to think he’d choose her over them.
At this point in their lives, that outcome was not plausible.
“I really do. I hate you. Now leave me alone.”
This time, he obeyed. The SUV pulled away, and when it was out of sight, she finally succumbed to her grief and let it all spill over.
Not completely comfortable with walking the unknown streets of Los Angeles, Daisy stopped at the first decent hotel she came across, booked a room, and collapsed under the shower spray.
She scrubbed at her skin until it was raw, but the filth clung.
Wrapped in a towel, she cried herself into a dreamless sleep.
When she woke before dawn, panic hit first, then the sick realization of why she was there. Her phone was dead and her body felt equally so.
But her mind, clearer now than yesterday, settled on one truth: she couldn’t keep living like this. Something had to change.
Dressed in yesterday’s clothes, she had the front desk call her a car and rode back to the band’s hotel.
As she stepped into the lobby, nerves clawed at her.
She wanted to believe Jameson had spent the night sick with worry, searching for her, aching the way she ached.
She wanted to believe he still cared enough.
But when the elevator doors opened to his floor, her hope shattered.
The hallway was littered with bottles and clothing. A man with neon sunglasses lay unconscious by the wall. The suite door hung ajar, the mess spilling out like week-old trash.
Did Jameson have a party?
The thought made her sick. While she was curled up in a frail mess last night, he was here, hosting an after-party.
Inside, the destruction was worse: liquor bottles everywhere, the room heavy with weed, the coffee table dusted in white residue. Bodies sprawled across the floor and women draped over bandmates like discarded clothes.
Her stomach churned.
And then she saw the bedroom door. His door.
Be strong, she told herself and pushed it open.
At first, she saw Jameson. He was sleeping peacefully with his head nuzzled into a pillow. Daisy almost smiled at the innocent look on his face. But that was before she saw the second sight. It left her feeling only one way.
Shocked.
Pure, unadulterated shock.
It was a woman. A woman she despised, pressed against Jameson’s bare back. And she was quite clearly naked.
Daisy stilled, taking in the image before her, one that she’d never be able to wash from her mind. While she stared, her dreams of their forever came crashing down. Had he really done the unspeakable, the unforgivable?
In that moment, she could actually feel her heart break.
The lifestyle, the music, the love, it had broken her.
She was nothing more than a shell; hollow and empty.
Averting her eyes from the incriminating scene, she rushed into the closet and grabbed her small travel bag. She didn’t care about all her possessions still on the tour bus. As far as she was concerned, they were now tainted, property of Luxor Records, just like everything else on this tour.
After gathering her items, Daisy rushed out of the closet, taking one last look at the sight that she’d never do away with.
She watched as Jameson’s eyes cracked open, grinning at the arm cuddling his abdomen.
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he looked across the room directly at Daisy.
His face contorted in perplexity and it took him all but two seconds to realize that the naked body hard-pressed against him was not the one he thought was there.
Jameson hastily sat up from the bed and stared down at the naked blonde woman to his right.
Harley.
“Shit,” he whispered to no one in particular and swung his eyes back to Daisy. Her face was stone cold as she stared at a passed-out Harley.
Jameson was frenzied to explain, but when he jumped out from under the covers, no explanations were needed. He was stark naked as well.
Daisy gasped in pain, like someone had stabbed her directly in the stomach. He was quick to cover himself.
“Daisy…” he pleaded. But his pleading did nothing to stop her from rushing out the door.
Daisy held on to the wall as she hurried to the elevators.
She had to leave.
The pain was almost unbearable.
“Daisy!” His voice rang from a distance.
She almost stopped but then remembered that he was the reason for her current state and continued along, pressing the elevator button hard.
“Daisy!” he said again, touching her shoulder.
His touch was like fire. She whipped around and smacked him diagonally in the face.
His head hung low with shame. “Daisy, please let me explain.”
“I never want to see you again,” she cut him off, trembling.
“Darlin’—”
“Don’t call me that. You don’t ever get to call me that again.”
He sobbed, frantic. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t know, I just—”
“I’m done,” Daisy said, voice firm despite the tears brimming. “Do not call me. Do not ask about me. Do not even think about me. This. Is. Over!”
The elevator doors slid open.
She stepped inside, her head bowed in defeat, her heart splintered into pieces.
“So over,” she whispered, as the doors closed on him forever.