Page 6 of Daddy's Little Sunshine

He’d let her have that one. Let her think she was winning. It would make his defeating her all the sweeter.

Feeling surprisingly good considering the day’s events, he jogged down the stairs and out the front door. The December wind sliced through him the second he stepped outside, andhe shoved his hands in his pockets in defense against the cold. Somebody needed to figure out what the fuck was up with this weather and fix it, pronto.

He turned and headed down the street in the direction of her apartment, his long strides eating up the sidewalk. The upside of the sudden change in weather was most of the city seemed content to stay inside where it was warm and toasty.

It took him twenty minutes to reach her building. There was a code on the front door, one she’d neglected to mention. If he had to stand outside much longer, he’d take it out on her ass when he got back home. The thought of her over his knee again entertained him while he waited for someone to come open the door.

Luckily for her, a short man in an ill-fitting suit came hurrying up to the door less than a minute later. He gave Donovan a nod and a polite smile before punching the code in the door. Donovan slipped in behind the man, who scurried off toward the elevator without so much as glancing back. Donovan snorted and shook his head. So much for security. His little girl had no business living in a place like this.

Whoa.He paused at the bottom of the stairs. Where the hell had that come from? She wasn’t his little girl. A thorn in his side, that’s what she was. Shaking off the unease at the direction his thoughts had taken, he took the stairs up to the third floor two at a time.

Stopping in front of the door for 3B, he casually glanced around to see if anyone was coming. Satisfied he wouldn’t be caught, he pulled a couple of small tools from his wallet and went to work on her lock. He’d gotten into the habit of keeping said tools on his person as a teen, and he’d never outgrown it. The door swung open in a ridiculously short amount of time and Donovan just shook his head, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him.

The apartment was like her – bright and colorful with a little dash of elegance. He had no doubt she’d be more comfortable here than at his place, but he couldn’t risk it. If Rose Corp knew enough about her to attempt a kidnapping, they most likely knew where she lived.

Shrugging off the twinge of guilt at her circumstances, he moved to the bedroom. The fact that the bed was perfectly made didn’t surprise him, but the ruffled bedspread did. He’d expected something more along the lines of her living room furniture with its sleek lines and bold colors. But here, in her inner sanctum, pastel colors and soft, fluffy pillows ruled the day.

And was that a teddy bear? He walked over to the bed and picked up the strange stuffed creature. It took a moment for him to process what it was, and he barked out a laugh when he realized he was holding a stuffed platypus.

Platypus in hand, he went to the closet, relieved to find neat rows of clothing. At least he wouldn’t have to paw through her things. A quick search of the closet turned up a duffel bag, and he threw a few pairs of jeans and various tops in the bag. God only knew what the fucking weather was going to be like over the next few weeks, so she’d need a little bit of everything.

He was just about to zip up the bag when he remembered underwear. Shit. Now he really did feel like a perv. “Suck it up, Carter. Girl needs clothes. She asked you to do this, remember?” Steeling himself, he pulled open the top drawer of the antique white dresser. “Jackpot,” he muttered to himself. Without taking time to check what he was grabbing, he stuffed half the contents into the bag.

She’d asked for something else. What was it? Right, girl stuff. The bathroom was just outside the bedroom, so he shoved the platypus into the bag and carried it to the bathroom. He walked straight into chaos. His heart skidded to a stop when he surveyedthe mess. Fuck. Maybe some of the Rose Corp goons had already been here.

The longer he studied the mess, the more he realized nobody had been here but Lainey. Bottles of various shapes and sizes were scattered across the counter. Should he grab those? What the hell did they do? Surely, she didn’t need all that.

But since he had no clue what he was looking at, it was all or nothing. Fuck. He opened the duffel and swept the contents of the countertop inside. Then he opened the cabinet below and shook his head again at the mess. There was, thank God, a box toward the front labeled “tampons” so he grabbed the box and stuffed it into the bag with the rest.

He was two steps from the front door when the handle began to turn. Shit. Had he forgotten to lock the door? He didn’t have time to dwell on it, so he backtracked to the bathroom and quietly closed the door.

“She ain’t here, man. I told you, we’ve been watching this place all morning. Saw her leave, but she never came back.”

Donovan closed his eyes and bit back a groan. This was the last goddamned thing he needed. He pressed his ear to the bathroom door to try and make out the rest of the conversation.

“Well, she didn’t make it to work, either. And the collection team is MIA. Let’s see if we can figure out where she might have gone.”

The sound of glass breaking made Donovan wince. On top of everything, her home was being destroyed by the people who wanted her dead. The crashing sounds coming from the living room solidified his decision to keep her at his place.

The minutes ticked by with him locked in the bathroom while the thugs ransacked the place. It felt like hours before the noise stopped and Thug One spoke again.

“Ain’t nothin’ here, man. Let’s go.”

“No, we should check the bedroom, too.”

Donovan held his breath as they passed the bathroom. He had no doubt he could take them, but his shoulder was still healing from the fight in the alley, and he had no desire to take on two jacked up thugs for the second time this morning.

When the crashing started in the bedroom, he slipped out of the bathroom and down the hall, freezing when his foot pressed against a creaky floorboard.

The noise in the bedroom stopped, and Donovan held his breath.

“You hear that?” Thug One asked.

“Hear what?”

There was a long pause, and Donovan imagined a man who looked like The Ugly Mugs from earlier standing in the middle of Lainey’s pretty bedroom, head cocked and listening for a phantom sound.

“Never mind. Must be nothing.”

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