“Is that how you see it? The need to be careful? My need to protect you? That you’re weak to allow me to protect you?”
“To foist your candidates for a son-in-law on me? To tie me up with so many strings of guilt and love that half the time I didn’t know what living was?” she countered.
He grimaced at her questions.
“I made you a list of the cost of groceries, utilities, and boarding for your little boys during the past seven years.” She nodded to the paper he held in his hand. “I realize it’s pretty extensive and may require a few weeks to sort through, but the final amount is really rather low for the trouble I was forced to put up with. I’d appreciate being reimbursed.”
“Take it out of the interest that’s acquired on the account your mother and I set up for you,” he suggested.
“Sorry, Dad, that money’s being saved for a reason. It’s the nest egg I’m saving for any children I might one day have myself. Just cut me a check when you have time and send it to me.”
His eyes glittered with irritation then. “Why now? You’ve never said anything before.”
“Because you always deposited far more than I required. I don’t want more than you owe me, Dad. That’s what you’ve never understood. I want your respect. Your trust. Not your charity.”
“So you thought you’d earn my trust by traipsing through strip joints, bars, and dark alleys after that nonsensical research you harp about? I have yet to see a book, Emily Paige. All I do is hear about it.”
She breathed in carefully. She wasn’t going to argue with him. “Dad, cut the crap, and while you’re at it, just go ahead and cut my check so I can deposit it when I return home.”
A frown furrowed his wide forehead. “What crap?”
“The crap where you deliberately start a fight, I get upset and storm out of the office. You know, the crap where you ensure you win whatever fight we’re engaged in.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at him in determination. “It’s not happening this time.”
“Because you’re sleeping with Krieger? Tell me, are you at least going to marry him?” he snarled.
Her brow lifted. “Marriage hasn’t been discussed. Why are you so upset? Isn’t that the reason you keep sending your top picks to play bodyguard? Hoping one of them will end up in my bed?”
“With a wedding ring would have been nice,” he growle
d. “I should have known when he demanded to be added to your rescue team what the hell was going on. At least tell me he’s wearing a condom? The last thing I need is to see you knocked up and dead like the last girl he fell in love with.”
Knocked up and dead!
Emily stared back at her father for long, frozen moments, feeling something chill in her soul.
“What are you talking about?”
“He didn’t tell you about his first wife and child?” he asked her then, something undefined flashing in his eyes, something almost akin to regret.
“I never knew—” she whispered past numb lips.
“Then ask him about it,” he snapped. “And make sure you know what you’re doing—”
“Don’t you dare lecture me about him.” Emily felt her hand raise, her finger pointing back at her father imperiously, as rage began to seethe inside her. “You’ve been sending men to my bed for years. I finally decided to accept one of them, and you have to try to destroy it?”
“Potential husbands, girl,” he snapped back. “They knew better than to step within so much as a foot of your bed without an engagement ring. I didn’t send Krieger to you as a potential husband, he was protection. He came with the team.”
“And he’s the one I chose, instead of you handpicking him?” She sneered. “For God’s sake, where the hell do you get your nerve?”
“The same place he got his.” His chin lifted proudly. “The Navy.”
Emily snorted rudely at that. “For some reason, I don’t think so. Cut my damned check now. You’ve dropped your little bomb and you can head to your precious Capitol Hill and make whatever trouble you decide to make today. But your interference with my life is finished. Do you understand me?”
“Like hell.” His voice lowered. “Tell me, Emily, do you think he’s going to give you free rein? That he’s going to let you have all this freedom you crave? He lost his wife and child when he was working as a snitch with the police in New Orleans. He wasn’t even eighteen. Do you think he doesn’t remember every moment of it? Every fucking detail of their deaths? You think I try to wrap you up in cotton and protect you? Just wait until he gets his ring on your finger and a baby by you. He’ll never give you a moment’s peace.”
In the past, the dangerous lowering of his voice had always indicated that the last measure of his patience had been exhausted. Emily had always walked lightly in response to it, not really understanding what that dangerous undertone meant, but not wanting to find out either.
Now, she really didn’t give a damn.