The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) 📕

me. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s all fine. I’ll get the locks on our cabins changed today. You don’t need to be scared. You weren’t the target.”

She wraps me in a death grip. “You were.”

“Uh-huh. It happens in my line of work.”

“Bad people search your room?”

“Yup, that’s why I keep everything in the safe. They didn’t get anything and they didn’t plant any bugs, which means they’re not very sophisticated. It was just someone spooked by my investigation.”

Scared people can be just as dangerous as truly violent criminals, but I don’t tell her that. I don’t need to frighten her any further.

“You were right all along, weren’t you? It is someone inside, I mean, a cruise person?”

“Staff? I think so.” Or Dan Reyes being more paranoid than I took him for. “It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m not scared for me,” she insists, although I suspect she is, at least a little. “I’m scared for you.”

“I promise you, Emmy, I’m safe and careful. This is what I do. Do you believe me?”

She nods. “Your job is dangerous, though, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes,” I admit. “I try very hard to minimize the danger, and I never, ever want it to wash over onto my bottom. I’m sorry it did today. It won’t happen again.”

She rubs her face into my neck. “It’s okay, Daddy.”

Is it? I’m not at all sure. “Baby, I know you wouldn’t lie to me about what’s between us, but—”

She pulls back and looks up into my eyes. “I wouldn’t lie to you at all. I know how you feel about it. Beyond you punishing me, I saw how much you were hurt because Miranda lied to you. I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I promise you, I’m not like her.”

“Aw, sweetheart.” I hug her tightly. “I know that.”

I do. Mir’s betrayal may have turned me inside out, but I’m clear on this. Emily is not Mir. Emily’s heart is pure platinum. Mir’s was tarnished long before I met her, and all my work with her didn’t polish it up.

“Do you trust me a little?” Emily asks, looking up at me.

How am I supposed to maintain any distance, any objectivity as her Dom, when she turns those soulful eyes on me? She turns me to fucking mush with just a look.

“I trust you a whole lot. And I know you’re nothing like Miranda. I feel bad that my job bled over onto you and scared you, that’s all, and I want to know that you’re really okay. With it and with us.”

“I’m really okay, Daddy, and I trust you to take care of it, and of me. Can I worry about you a little, though?”

I kiss her forehead. “A very little.”

She nestles into me. “Itty-bitty little.”

Such a sweetheart. “Emmy, I want you to go back to sleep now. You need to recover from yesterday. I want you to have a nice long lie-in while I sort out the security on our rooms. When you wake up, we’ll have a play before brunch. I have a paddle with your name on it.”

She giggles, which I take to mean that she’s happy with the idea of a pre-brunch paddling.

“Good girl.” I ease her back into the pillows and pull the covers up over her. “Sleep now.”

“Daddy, if I can’t have you, can I have my stuffie?”

I squint at her. I can tell she’s quoting a movie, but it takes me a moment to place it. “Big Easy?”

Another giggle. Fuck, she’s killing me.

“That better be PG, you little monkey. Where is he?”

“On your bed, Daddy.”

“I’ll get your bunny. Suck your thumb until I bring him.”

She gives me a shy smile as she puts her thumb in her mouth. I have no idea why seeing her suck her thumb turns me on as much as it does, but I’m not going to argue with my balls. I retrieve her bunny, and while she’s settling, I take the desk chair and wedge it under her door handle. Then I return to the bed and give her a kiss on her forehead. She watches me with heavy-lidded eyes. “You’re safe. Nothing to be afraid of now. Sleep, baby.”

“Yeth, Daddy,” she says around her thumb, curled up sweet and soft with her bunny.

I give her a final kiss and leave her to sleep.

After I pull on sweats, I text Niall, not wanting to call and risk waking him at this hour. But he shoots me a text straight back.

Two ticks.

While I wait for him, I take my laptop out of the safe, download the CCTV files that have arrived, and write three emails. The first is to Ed Isaak, letting him know that my cabin has been searched but everything confidential was locked away, and asking him to pull the CCTV footage for the hall camera outside my cabin. The second is to Colin Ainsworth-Porter, responding to his message and putting him on notice that I have reason to believe I’m the father of his wife’s baby and that I’m reporting his threat to the British authorities. The third is to Eileen Samuels, a constable with the Greater Manchester police, who was helpful on a job two years ago. I attach Colin’s email and ask whether the threat is actionable. I don’t know if she’ll be able to tell me anything, but she went out of her way for me once. Maybe she’ll be helpful again.

I’m just sliding my laptop into the safe when Niall knocks on the door.

I greet him with a handshake. “Cheers for this.”

“Anytime. What’s the problem?”

I offer him a bottle of water and, while he drinks, explain in the broadest terms that my cabin’s been searched, possibly while Emily and I were next door, and why.

I wait for the questions, but all Niall asks is, “What do yeh need from me?”

Good man.

“Emily’s asleep in her cabin. I don’t want to leave her alone while I do what I need to do.”

Niall nods. “Want meh in here or in there?”

“In here.