Daddy PI: Book 1 of the Daddy PI Casefiles Frost, J (acx book reading txt) 📖

and I promise we’ll work through it. I’m crazy about you.” I give her a hard squeeze to remind myself of the certainty of her. “I felt like you’d kicked me in the balls when you said you were going to fly home.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she breathes. “I just didn’t want to, um, inflict myself on you if you’d had enough of me. But I won’t do it again. I’m crazy about you, too. So, so crazy, and I’d do anything not to hurt you, because I know you’re hurting already and I’m sorry you have to deal with me as well as Miranda and everything else. I’ll try to be a better subbie.”

“You are a wonderful subbie. Just give me your little self, baby doll. That’s all I need.”

“Yes, Daddy.” She buries herself in my chest and I hug her, rock her gently, until she falls asleep with her cheek pressed over my heart.

* * *

My alarm wakes me as morning light, the soft pink of Emily’s blushes, edges around the curtains. I tap off my phone before it wakes my little girl and spend a minute watching her sleep.

I feel so fucking close to her. The secrets, hurts, truths we’re sharing are beyond intimate. They’re painful. Humiliating. Soul-wrenching. I haven’t been this exposed since I was a kid. But Emily’s so giving, and allows herself to be so vulnerable, that it feels dishonest to give her anything other than complete openness in return.

And I’m so proud of her. Such bravery in such a little package. She could have pulled back. I’d have given her time to regroup after the soaping debacle, if she’d needed it. Instead, she opened up and gave me everything. My doll baby.

The timing sucks. If I’d met Emily three months ago, our relationship would be solid now. I’d know where her landmines are. I’d have mastered the daddy thing. We’d have complete trust and I wouldn’t have to worry about how the clusterfuck with Miranda might undermine us. For a second, I’m tempted to just walk away from any responsibility I might have there. But that’s not me. I had unprotected sex with Miranda, knowing what the consequences might be. I’m not going to run away from those consequences just because Miranda screwed me.

I kiss Emily’s forehead and tuck the covers around her before I rise. Her bedroom’s chilly. What is it with the air conditioning on this bloody boat? I toss on a bathrobe, retrieve my laptop from the room safe, plug in a pair of earphones, and settle at Emily’s desk to watch the rest of the CCTV footage.

Three-quarters of an hour later, I’m finally at the end. Black left his cabin again on Saturday night, probably to hit the pig roast. He returned alone a little after twenty-two hundred and stayed in his cabin until nine on Sunday morning when he left wearing shorts and a towel. No sign of the pill bottle, but it could have been rolled-up in the towel. He was gone for over two hours, which might just have been a long swim, but his duck-walk when he returned tells a different story. He had room service for lunch and then disembarked with the rest of the passengers at fifteen hundred. I’ve rolled the footage of his final departure back and forth several times. He was steady on his feet, showered, shaved, and dressed in khakis and a white polo shirt.

Absolutely no sign that he’d collapse and die just a few hours later.

I fire off an email to Ed Isaak with my thoughts on the CCTV footage as well as the questions I’ve compiled for him and his tech people. Grabbing one of Emily’s pens, and grinning to myself at the glittery purple ink, I make a few more notes before sticking them inside my laptop. I pop everything back in the room safe. After looking at my bare wrist, damn, still getting used to that, I check my phone. Just after oh seven hundred. The time change messed me up for a few days, but I’m almost back to a normal schedule. I’ve got time for a run before I wake Emily for breakfast. I jot her a note and leave it on the pillow, then head into my cabin to change into running gear.

No sign of anyone having been in my cabin but I text Niall anyway. He knocks on the door ten minutes later, and, when I open it, I’m surprised to see not just Niall but also his partner, Shaan.

“If it’s ah’right, Shaan’ll stay here to keep an eye on yer gurl and I’ll run with yeh.”

They both look red-eyed and rumpled. I’m reminded that not everyone had an early night of Star Wars, giggles and pillow-talk.

I offer my hand to Shaan and he shakes with more strength than I expect, given that he’s several inches shorter, and several inches wider around the middle, than I am. But I suppose he must have some serious hidden reserves to keep up with Niall.

We head up to the Lido deck, and after stretching for a few minutes, join the parade of other morning exercise nuts on the track marked around the deck. Niall snorts when a pair of twenty-somethings in full sprint and matching Lycra lap us, but by unspoken agreement, we keep an easy pace.

Both of us are breathing smoothly enough to talk while we run, but we don’t, and I like the quiet companionship we’ve fallen into.

Three miles and we drop into a walk to cool down with no more than an exchange of nods. The cruise line has water stations at either end of the deck and we stop at one to pick up water bottles. Niall drifts to the starboard rail, looking out over the water. We’re close to Cabo now and the sea-lanes are getting busy.

“How’s yer gurl?” he asks.

“Better.” He left before the soaping disaster, but he’s an experienced enough Dom to know that a melt-down was