The President's Daughter (Liam Payne) Book 6

Chapter 9

 Elodie's POV

I’m awoken at 6 in the morning as one of the staff comes in to take my suitcase out to my ride.

“You have to get up Miss Nicholeson,” he says with a frown seeing me still in bed. “Just laying around isn’t going to keep you from going.” I let out a groan, throwing my pillow over my head until he leaves. Eventually though, some huge dude comes in and literally pulls me out of bed.

“Hey let me go,” I complain, trying to squirm out of his grasp as he literally tosses me over a shoulder and carries me out.

“Thanks Paul,” I hear my dad say as the massive man sets me down. Damn military men. I couldn’t believe my dad had one of them here to escort me to that stupid place.

“We run on a tight schedule. I figured she’d better get used to it if she’ll be with us,” he says simply.

“What?” a group of surprised voices arises and I look over towards the door to see the entire band standing there.

“What?” I repeat as I start grasping what’s going on here.

“Dad, what does he mean I’ll have to get used to their schedule?”

“I asked Paul to do me a favor and take you with them. Obviously sending you off to other schools hasn’t worked, so I thought we’d try something different.

“So you’re sending me on tour with a bus full of boys…” I say slowly, hardly believing what I’m hearing.

“You wish,” he says with a chuckle. “You’ll be staying in one of the other buses with the styling team. You’ll finish out the school year with the other band, doing your work on the bus. And hopefully, you’ll learn some manners from them all.” It’s everything I can do not to start grinning. He thinks this was a punishment? Sending me off on a cross-country adventure with minimal supervision? I knew how bands were. I’d hooked up with enough of them at clubs after their shows to know they liked to party.

“Are you serious? This isn’t just some ploy to get me to go quietly and in a couple hours I’m going to find myself in front of barbed wire fences is it?” I ask, not quite believing this.

“The only way you’ll end up facing barbed wire fences is if Paul decides he’s tired of dealing with you, so I expect you to be on your best behavior,” he warns.

“Wait hang on, is she seriously going with us?” Liam asks, stepping forward and I shoot him a glare. He better not mess this up for me.

“Is there a problem?” Paul asks, looking over at the boys.

“I uhh no. But what about the fans? Is bringing her along really going to be good for the band? She’s got a reputation you know…” he says, not meeting my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Last night he’d been so nice and now he was stabbing me in the back? Typical.

“This is the best thing for both of us. It’ll be much more smooth traveling and we’ll be getting a couple extra guards.” Paul replies, avoiding answering the question directly. Great, it was nice to know what they all think of me.

“Look, if you don’t want me a long just say it,” I snap at the group of boys who were looking amongst themselves. They’re quiet for another moment before Cheekbones finally speaks up.

“It’s fine with me,” he says with a shrug. The other’s all mumble agreements and I look over at Cheekbones, silently thanking him. I couldn’t actually say it aloud, but he seems to understand that as he holds my gaze.

“Well if that’s sorted, we really need to go,” Paul says. “We’ll leave you to your goodbyes.” With that, he begins herding the boys out the door to where their buses were idling. I turn to face my dad, crossing my arms over my chest. Just because I wasn’t going to military camp, didn’t mean he wasn’t shipping me off. It didn’t mean we were suddenly going to get along and act like some storybook family.