Page 41 of Her Bossy Daddy

“I had to break a few rules.”

“No, you didn’t. Milly acted inappropriately but two wrongs do not make a right. You dismissed something important, and in turn you disrespected me.”

“I give a damn about your career. How does throwing it all away make any sense?”

“Jesus!” Liam released my chin and threw his hands up in the air. “Is that what you think? You think I’d let some woman destroy my career? I’ve contacted a lawyer, it’s being handled.”

“You don’t need a lawyer anymore. The company will take care of it.”

“It’s not so simple, love. There is still a lot of paperwork and such. My lawyer is already on her way up here.” Liam shook his head. “After all of this is said and done, you’re going to tell Milly what you did.”

“I will not. She reported you to human resources because her little sidekick got fired. Isn’t that obvious to you?”

“I didn’t have a bloody thing to do with the woman getting fired. Rebecca dug her own hole. I met with her multiple times about her work performance and the like. Milly reported me for some other crazy reason.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re distracting me from the point.”

“Which is what exactly? I stood up for you and fought for you. How can you be pissed at me?”

“I’m pissed because once again you didn’t listen to me. The lawyers will meet with both sides, and then everything will be scrutinized. Milly can’t give examples and details because there aren’t any. You approached Milly without my blessing and spouted off lies to her. It doesn’t trump the outcome.”

“So, now what? Are you planning on sticking me in a corner for hours until I’ve learned my lesson?”

“Have I ever done such a thing to you?”

“No.” I narrowed my eyes at him. Once again he missed my entire point. I flexed around the rules in order to help him.

“I would never do anything that could cause harm to you, right?”

We stared at each other for several long, silent, uncomfortable moments.

“I don’t think you would ever do something like that, but you’re not listening.” Folding my arms across my chest, I realized what he had asked of me still wasn’t done.

“No, you aren’t listening, love. Give me your tablet and then go to bed. We aren’t going to come to an understanding like this. After all this time you’re still asking why after I’ve given you an order. When I was across an ocean, you never pushed back but now that I’m here, you’ve been doing it constantly.”

“You never took things away from me.” I racked my brain trying to recall if he ever did it before. He cocked an eyebrow. Oh. Privileges were removed in the past but not objects.

“Mailing your tablet to Ireland wasn’t cost-worthy but I’d take away happy hour, send you to bed early, assign more tasks or give you lines, right?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Yet you’d never question me then.”

“No, Sir.”

“Why not?”

“We were always in contact. You knew when I was pushing against a rule or pressing you for attention. Usually the more serious punishments came from me not feeling noticed.” I bit down into my lip. “Lately I haven’t been pushing at all. No, I’ve just blatantly refused. I acted like I knew better than you, or that’s what my actions showed.”

“Right. Do you think doing things behind my back builds our relationship?”

“Well, no, but—” I stopped myself before actively lighting the mess I’d made on fire. “Listen, you’ve never given me the chance to fix anything.”

“You had better listen to your tone, love.” He rubbed a spot on his throat. “I told you to let all this go with Milly, but you could have asked about other things that might have led to a better outcome. I believe the main reason for our communication breakdown is your refusal to open up.”

“You didn’t want to talk about the harassment thing. And I haven’t been ready to talk to you about everything else.” I wasn’t ready to concede but Liam was right again.

“That’s not quite true, Lacey. I hadn’t come up with a plan of attack yet when you first brought it up. More than once I told you not to get involved.”

“Whatever.” I thrust my tablet at him, but I didn’t do anything wrong other than bending his rules. The talk with Milly wasn’t professional by any stretch of the imagination but it needed to happen all the same so I had answers. “So, what happens now?”

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