Page 37 of Dash

“You know him?” her father asks as his brows draw together. “From school?”

She shakes her head. “I saw him, Daddy. At the party.”

“You what? What party?” He looks over at me, and I shift in my seat under his black gaze. Here it goes! I can see the second that his face goes from confusion to livid that he has put two and two together. “Erik’s party? You were at his party that night?”

“Yes, sir,” she answers keeping her shoulders back and head high.

“What were you doing there?”

“I went with Jackie.”

“I don’t give a shit who you went with. I wanna know what you were doing there in the first place!” he demands.

“I had just broke up with Rodger and wanted to go have some fun. Jackie told me about it, so we went. I had no idea that you had hired Dash earlier that day.” She rambles.

“Why would that matter to me?” he asks placing his hands on his hips.

“I…we…” She starts to fumble over her words again. And I realize what a pussy I’ve been.

I rub my sweaty hands on my pants and then stand. “Tabatha is the woman that I was with the night of my party,” I announce, and she spins around to stare at me wide-eyed. What was I supposed to say? This is why we came here in the first place. I mean, I was going to leave out the part where I slept with his drunk daughter before I even knew who she was.

“What?” he barks, making her jump. “You were with him that night? With him how?” he shouts.

Okay. So maybe I should have worded it differently. I place my hands in front of me as if I’m about to beg for my life. “I swear it’s not what it sounds like.”

“Really?” he snaps, looking over at me. “Then what the hell is it? Sounds like you used my daughter to me.”

“No, Daddy, it wasn’t like that.”

His head spins to face her. “And what in the hell were you thinking? You work for me. Do you know what this will look like when it gets out? ‘Cause it will get out.”

“What?” I question, looking at her. “You work for your father?”

“I didn’t think it was that important,” she mumbles.

He drops to his seat with a heavy sigh. For the first time since I met him, he runs his head through his silver hair messing up the perfect strands. “This is going to be big news when the media finds out.”

“Why? I’m nobody,” she says softly.

“Nobody?” he asks, shocked that she could have said that. “You’re my daughter who is sleeping with an employee. Who has a girlfriend. They will eat it up.”

“They’re not together,” she says as she starts to sniff.

“Oh?” He turns to face me once again. “Is that what you told her?”

“It’s the truth,” I say. “We haven’t been together for some time.”

He hangs his head as if this couldn’t get any worse. And at that exact second, his phone rings. Reaching over, he picks it up. “Hello?” he asks and I turn to her.

Reaching out, I turn her to face me. “Hey,” I coo, wiping the single tear off her cheek with my thumb. “It’s okay. We will work through it,” I assure her, but she shrugs as if she doesn’t believe that is a possibility.

I take a step away from her and look back at Mr. Knight as he hangs up the phone. “Tabatha, leave,” he orders, not even bothering to look over at her.

“But Daddy…”

“Leave!” he roars, and she spins around and runs out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

“We have a new problem,” he growls pointing at the couch for me to sit my ass down.

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