She snorts and covers her face with her hands. “Yes, I have daddy issues. Daddy’s just given me a list of rules I have to follow and some of them sound really tough.”
“I’m serious, Adrienne.” I want her to be clear in her own mind what we are to each other, considering what a poor relationship she has with her own father. I can too easily imagining her fretting about it without telling me.
She considers for a moment. “No, I don’t think I have issues. I think even if I had a perfect relationship with both my parents I would still like the things that I like. Drawing, pastels, pretty things. You.” Her voice drops to a whisper. Then she grimaces. “But maybe I wouldn’t be such a brat, or so angry. Does that make sense?”
I kiss her nose. “Very much, babygirl. Thank you for telling me.”
Late in the afternoon Adrienne is doing her homework at the dining room table and I’m on my laptop when her phone rings. She looks at the screen. “I think that’s the prison’s number—must be Dad.”
She answers it before I can say anything. A moment later I hear Mr. Westley shouting down the line. Confusion flickers across her face. “Dad? I can’t understand you. Will you stop shouting?”
My hand itches to snatch the phone from her. I wait, pressure inside my chest mounting. Finally, Adrienne holds out the phone out like it might explode. “He wants to talk to you.”
I put the phone to my ear. “Mr. Westley.”
He lets rip at the top of his voice. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Vanderbroeck? I put you in charge of my daughter, I leave her in your care—”
The rest of what he says is lost as I take the phone away from my ear. When he pauses for breath I say, “Mr. Westley. I will discuss this with you at a normal volume. Please stop shouting.”
But Mr. Westley keeps raving. “I couldn’t understand what the hell you were on about when I saw your email, but my lawyer could read between the lines: you’re fucking her.”
I recognize the ravings of an impotent man. Mr. Westley is used to his freedom and being in control, but now he’s had a shock and has no recourse to action. Probably he wants to take a baseball bat to my head and the fact that he can’t has made him incandescent with rage. I know this must be hard for him, and that he has a right to be angry, but I’m reeling that he can speak about his own daughter in this way.
“I have feelings for Miss Westley that go beyond what is usual for—”
“My god,” he roars. “You are fucking her. I didn’t actually believe it but you are.”
“Do not speak about Adrienne like that. I have nothing but respect for your daughter and I have her best interests at heart.”
Mr. Westley scoffs at this and begins another tirade, this time about my unprofessionalism and what he really thinks my taking care of her actually means. I look at Adrienne, who’s tense and pale. Mr. Westley doesn’t seem to have considered that he’s upset his daughter by calling and bawling her out like this. But then it clicks—he’s not actually concerned for his daughter. This is about him.
I turn and stalk through the kitchen to the French doors. My breath fogs the cold glass as I stare out onto the silent winter garden, and when I speak my voice cracks across his like a whip. “Is it your daughter you’re concerned about, or are you feeling guilty that you’ve screwed everything up and lost control over your own life?”
Mr. Westley goes silent, like he can’t believe I’ve spoken to him like that, and then he snorts like a bull. “You are so fucking fired, Vanderbroeck. Get out of my house.”
I give a hollow laugh. “Make me.”
And I hang up.
Dieter looks like he wants to commit murder when he comes back into the lounge. He holds my phone out to me, his hand clenched around it so tightly that it’s an effort for him to let it go.
“I’m sorry about that,” he says, seething. “I told him to talk to me if he had any questions.”
I frown and tuck the phone into my pocket. “Talk to you about what?” I didn’t understand a word that my father said when I picked up the phone, and I caught just a few of Dieter’s. They seemed to be talking about me, but... And then I understand.
“You told him about us? What we were doing?” That we are sleeping together is a cringeworthy enough thing for my father to know. Not that I’m ashamed of Dieter—my father knowing that I am sleeping with anyone makes me feel icky. That he might know about the other stuff,
too, the spanking and the daddy business, makes my skin creep with horror.
Dieter levels his gray gaze at me. “I told him in an email this morning that I could no longer accept payment for my services, but that I would continue to be your bodyguard. I was vague about the reasons but it seems he figured them out. Or rather, his lawyer did.”
My mouth forms a little “o” of realization. Dieter doesn’t want to be paid while he’s my dom. That’s understandable. Sex is complicated enough without money muddying things. I’m touched that he felt strongly enough about it to act so quickly, but perhaps he should have warned me.
“I could have told you that Dad would hit the roof once he learned about us,” I say.
Dieter grimaces. “Yes. I expected him to. But I thought he’d call me, not you. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
I shrug it off. It’s no worse than I’ve come to expect from him. It’s almost funny that my father thought he could ring us up from prison and tell us what we could and couldn’t do. He should know by now that he can’t just scream for a bit and have everything turn out the way he wants it to.