Page 102 of Bound By My Father's Best Friend

Did Evelyn knock some sense into him yesterday?

“It would’ve made us as a company look bad if anyone found out about that,” I hummed. “Just don’t do anything like that again. And if you plan to, do it somewhere that isn’t our office. You scared the fucking hell out of Heather.”

“How’s she doing?” Jacob asked. “Good, I hope.”

“She’s good,” I said. “You’ll see her tonight, right?”

“Yes.”

“And … if you don’t mind me asking, what’re you going to talk to her about?”

“I asked her to dinner to apologize,” Jacob said. “Nothing more.”

I pressed my lips together and narrowed my eyes at him, waiting for him to break, waiting for him to stumble all over his words, which would tell me that this was all a lie and that he planned to do more than just that over dinner.

But his expression stayed neutral.

“I don’t care if she’s your daughter anymore,” I warned, feeling more protective over her than any other woman—or any other submissive—I had ever had. “If you hurt her, it’s not going to go over well between us.”

“I’m not going to hurt her,” Jacob said. Then, a couple of quiet moments passed, and his expression softened to a smile. “You love her, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I stood. “And I will do what I can to protect her. Even from her own father.”

CHAPTERSIXTY-THREE

HEATHER

I satin an upscale Italian restaurant in the heart of Pittsburgh across from Dad and twisted my fork around the pasta on my plate. My stomach had been in knots since I had sat down because I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t think I needed to say anything.

While I completely understood that no father wanted to see their daughter sucking off his business partner, I had apologized multiple times and felt terrible about it. There was nothing else for me to say to him.

“So”—Dad cleared his throat—“how was your Christmas?”

“Good,” I whispered.

Another long pause fell over the table, and Dad shifted uncomfortably.

“How was yours?” I asked, my heart stinging from the anticipation of him telling me how wonderful life was with Evelyn. And I mean, I was beyond happy for him, but I … I just wished that he would apologize to me too.

Dad grabbed his glass of whiskey and sipped. “Terrible.”

After snapping my gaze up to him, I widened my eyes. “Terrible?”

“Spending time with Evelyn was great,” Dad clarified. “But I … I missed you.”

My lips quivered, and I dropped my gaze back down to my food so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. I didn’t want to show him how much he’d hurt me because he was hurt too. And talking about our feelings together was never really our thing.

“I missed you too,” I whispered so softly that I almost didn’t hear myself.

“You did?” he asked in disbelief.

Gaze flickering back up to him, I nodded. “Yes.”

He stared back at me with a plethora of emotions crossing his face, and then he finally settled on a frown and sad, desperate eyes. “I’m sorry that I didn’t call you or make an effort to see you yesterday. I … I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how I failed you.”

“You didn’t fail me,” I said. “Maybe pressured me a lot, but you didn’t fail me.”

“But, Heather …”

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