Betsy moved back to sit on the sofa and tried to concentrate on her coloring book as Ink spoke into the phone but it was a lost cause once she’d heard him say her boys’ names.
She needed them back. Needed to know they were safe. First thing she was gonna do was hug them tight. Then they were grounded for the next fifty years.
He ended the call.
“Daddy?” she whispered, all the fun from before draining away.
He managed a smile for her. But it was clearly forced. “Still nothing, brown eyes. I can’t understand how they’ve disappeared.”
“You don’t think…I mean…they have to be all right, right?”
Ink walked over and sat beside her on the small sofa, pulling her onto his lap. “They’re fine. They’re teenage boys. They probably just haven’t thought about how they’re worrying you.”
“What if Forrest gets to them?”
“You know I have someone watching his house. He hasn’t been there in days. Apparently, he flew to Seattle soon after our chat. If they turn up, my guy will see them. I’ve got people actively searching for them. We’ll find them.”
He was doing all that he could to help find them. She nodded.
The phone on his desk rang before she could answer and he sighed. “Shit, I need to get onto the temp agency. Stone threatened to castrate me if I put him on the front desk again and at the moment, that leaves me with Brody or myself.”
“I could do it,” she offered before thinking it through. She felt him stiffen beneath her. “Or not. I probably wouldn’t be any good at it. I don’t have any experience. Actually, better that I don’t do it. I’d just mess it up.”
“Do you need a spanking?” he asked.
What kind of question was that? “No!”
“Because I’m thinking you must, considering the shit that just came out of your mouth,” he said calmly.
“Ink!”
“Nope.”
“Nope?” she asked.
“Not listening to it. Every bad word about yourself from now on, is earning you ten spanks. Starting now.”
He turned her before she even realized what was going on and laid her over his left thigh. Her legs were trapped between his. She was wearing a pair of yoga pants today, which would provide exactly zero protection from his hand. And probably why he didn’t bother to pull them down.
Or maybe that was because they were in the office.
“You can’t spank me here!” she protested, trying to shove herself off his lap.
He simply grabbed hold of her hands and pinned them to the small of her back.
“Why not?”
“Someone could come in!”
“They won’t come in without knocking first. I warned them. Now if you don’t want to get spanked, brown eyes, you know what to do, don’t you?”
“Don’t talk bad about myself.”
“That’s right. I have been thinking that you need a few more rules.”
Smack! Smack!
“We have enough rules!” she protested.