Cross My Tigress Face the Wrath (Stella)

If Xander's in a bad mood, he might just wring the guy's neck!

Yvonne sucked in a sharp breath. "Are you still at the hospital?"

"What for?"

"If you are, you better get someone to check if the neurologist is still around."

66

"I swear, there's something seriously wrong with your brain."

No one with a shred of common sense could say something like that.

Dan growled through gritted teeth, "Yvonne!"

"Oh, what, you gonna yell for your daddy now? Go get your head checked, seriously—you might need a stay in the psych ward at this rate."

With a brain like that, something's gotta be seriously off.

Yvonne hung up without another word.

She turned to Idris beside her. "Did my brother have you look into this guy?"

Ronald always found out about things before she did, so he must've had Idris check.

Idris nodded. "Yeah."

"So, is his amnesia for real?"

Yvonne really couldn't buy the whole "Dan lost his memory" story.

Idris hesitated, then finally said, "Mr. Murray's amnesia is genuine. After he left Ferrowland, there was a stretch of about six months where nobody knew where he was."noveldrama

"He went missing for half a year?”

Idris nodded again. "Yeah. We've never been able to pin down where he was during those six months."

They'd guessed Montreal at some point, but that turned out not to be true. Nobody actually knew where Dan had gone.

One thing was for sure: the way he'd showed up in Yvonne's life back then wasn't as simple as it seemed.

Yvonne stared at him, mulling it over. "What about his death?"

Missing for six months... There had to be something shady going on. So what about when he "died"? Was it real or not?

Idris replied, "From what we've discovered, Mr. Murray took a drug that made him appear dead. Whether he took it himself or someone forced it on him, we can't say."

Yvonne's jaw dropped.

A fake-death drug? Seriously?

She wanted to throttle someone.

"Oh, come on-obviously he took it on purpose. No one's gonna force-feed a full-

grown man something like that unless he wants to play along."

What a piece of work. Guy was clearly a wolf in sheep's clothing.

So, he cozied up to her with an agenda from the very start?

Unbelievable.

"Manipulative jerk!" Yvonne spat. "Lied right to my face."

Idris almost choked at her string of insults, his eyes lighting up in surprise.

"That's... creative," he managed, coughing.

But Yvonne was too furious to notice. The more she ranted about Dan, the angrier she got. “How did I not see through his act? He was smoother than any snake-oil salesman. I mean, really-me, Yvonne, tricked by a two-faced charmer!"

She was practically fuming.

Idris just listened quietly as she threw out words like "jerk," "snake," "charmer." Honestly, if you don't have your act together as a guy, you might just get roasted so hard you forget what gender you are.

Just then, Stella came out from inside and caught Yvonne mid-rant about Dan.

These days, if Yvonne wasn't venting about Xander, she was cussing out Dan. As far as she was concerned, both men were absolute dogs.

Seeing Stella, Yvonne finally calmed down a bit. "Why are you out here alone? Where's my brother?"

"He's talking privately with Mr. Norton," Stella replied, all polite and proper.

Yvonne rolled her eyes. "Well, if they're talking business, let's find somewhere to sit down and chill. No sense standing out here." She grabbed Stella's hand and marched off, ready to blow off steam somewhere a little more comfortable.