Page 40 of Her Bossy Daddy

Chapter Ten

Lacey

Liam stormed into the living room like a hurricane and I dropped the tablet I’d been holding. A large pit formed in my stomach and froze. “Why are you so upset?”

“What did you say to Milly exactly?”

“What did I what?” I’d been wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, reading a new release from one of my favorite authors, when the back door opened and in thundered tropical storm Liam. His eyes held something close to anger.

“I asked you,” he jabbed his fingers through his hair, “no, I told you not to involve yourself with the shit storm going on at work. Now I’ve got a reevaluation meeting with human resources. Milly came in this afternoon and confessed to them.”

“Liam—”

“No, love. I’m talking. Do you know what she told them?”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sure she claimed to be an awful bitch who didn’t mean to ruin your life.” I jumped to my feet and the blanket slipped away. “Focus on the positive.”

“The positive? Oh, Lacey, you’re stretching it.” He blew out a breath. “Milly sent me a multiple page email on my personal account. She apologized to my fiancée who left me. Do you know anything about that?”

“You think I influenced this? I didn’t have anything to do with her craziness. Besides, you don’t even have a fiancée. Unless you’ve kept more secrets that I don’t know about.”

“Tread carefully, love. Your right eye is twitching.”

Shit. That’s how he always knew when I lied. I looked down at my feet, and contemplated on my next choice of words. “I may have bent some truths. You should have told me about dinner.”

“Driving Milly home, followed by a professional dinner falls under the scope of my job. Sometimes managers have to interact with people they don’t get along with. It wasn’t personal and I’ve already said as much.”

“What else did she say?”

“The exact words aren’t that important. You called me from work this afternoon all shaken up from a conversation you had with Milly, right?”

“Are we going to play the question game again?”

“Lacey Charlotte.”

I wasn’t in a little space, but the use of my middle name cut through the bullshit. “Yes, I called you. Yes, I spoke with her. I had your best interests in mind.”

“Did you now? Milly wrote how she is guilt-ridden over our company’s decision to ship me back to Ireland and hopes they will reconsider their stance. Tell me what else you said to her.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with this. Milly finally told the truth.”

“This is far, far away from the truth.”

“How can you be angry with me when Milly is the one who accused you of sexual harassment?”

“I’m angry because you didn’t listen. You took it upon yourself to invent some ridiculous story. You can get into a lot of trouble if she tells our human resources department everything you did.”

“It’s not ridiculous if they send you back to Ireland!” I screamed up at him, as the facade I’d been holding cracked and broke. “Our relationship won’t survive that.” Huge wet tears poured down my cheeks. I was furious for crying like this instead of talking to him about it and I dropped my head down to my chest.

“Living here is temporary at the moment. A few years at best, unless some other things fall into place.” Liam grabbed my chin and tilted it up. “You and I? We’ve got something. We’ve got something real, and I won’t let anyone threaten what we have. Not even you.”

“Fine, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, you did. You deliberately approached Milly, after I told you to mind yourself. I appreciate where your heart was, but I make the rules, love. You’re expected to follow them. We agreed on that together.”

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