Page 33 of Until Daddy

“I wouldn’t go that far.” He laughed. She’d struck a nerve though.

As though sensing the subject was getting too hard to keep light, she asked about meeting his father.

“He wants Garrick and Jude to be there, too. Like I said, a business dinner. He wants to build a hotel here in the city, and he wants us to go in on it with him.”

“Don’t you already own like half the city?” she questioned, popping the last bit of sausage into her mouth.

“No, far from it. I just own little shares in a variety of businesses and clubs. I work with my father on real estate deals, but we’ve never done something like this before.”

“Hmm.” She nodded and picked up her plate. “You done?” She reached for his and he handed it to her.

He watched her take the plates to the sink and rinse them before putting them in the dishwasher. When she opened the door to the dishwasher, he noticed a few other plates with dried remnants of food.

“When’s the last time you ran that thing?” he asked, coming up behind her and pointing at a dish.

“If it’s not full, I don’t run it.” She shrugged, pushed the shelf back in and closed the door.

“That reminds me, the coffee maker was still on when I got here. It was burning.”

“Oh, crap.” She picked up the carafe and studied it. “It’s still okay.” She flashed him a smile and went about setting it in the sink and filling it with water.

“How many have you ruined doing that?” he asked, suddenly annoyed at how little she seemed to pay attention to minor things like food and her safety.

“Just two.” She winked and finished cleaning up the last of the pizza and putting the box in the fridge alongside a few other containers.

“Carissa, you’re a nurse. You have to know this isn’t a healthy way of living.”

She sighed, a heavyI-don’t-want to-talk-about-thissigh. “As a nurse, I understand it, but as a nurse who often works double shifts, or odd shifts and doesn’t have a lot of time to cook, I understand the necessity.”

“So, if we went over to Jade’s apartment, we’d find the same thing?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged as she told that lie.

“Where’s your computer?” he asked. It was time she started letting him take care of things for her, especially since she wasn’t doing them for herself.

“In my bedroom, why?”

He didn’t answer, just marched off down the hall, grabbed the laptop and brought it back to the kitchen and sat at the table. She stood behind him as he logged into his Peapod account. He’d used the grocery delivery service plenty of times. He had a cleaning service for his condo, but he didn’t have a cook, and he understood how hard it was to get to the grocery store some weeks.

“What are you doing?”

“Going grocery shopping,” he said and pointed to her chair. “I’m going to give you my login, and once a week, I’d better see you put in an order for groceries. Real food. Fruit, veggies, snacks.”

“Your account? I’ll open my own.” She tried to take the laptop from him but he brushed her hands away.

He turned in his chair, cupping her chin and lifting it until she looked at him. “Little girls obey their daddy, don’t they? They do what they are told, even if it’s not what they want. Right?”

“This is different.” She tried to pull away but his grip was too tight.

“No. It’s not. If left up to you, you’d be eating Raman noodles and take out every night. You’ll use my account. What do good girls do when their daddy tells them to do something?”

He watched her throat constrict when she swallowed. “They listen.”

“That’s right. And when Daddy is taking care of you, what do you do?”

She took a deep breath. It wasn’t easy for her, this Q&A, but it was necessary.

“I let you.”

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