Page 42 of Baby Daddy SEAL

Chapter fifteen

ALISON

Idecidedtoworkfrom home for the rest of the day. I needed to be able to focus on what I was doing; if I tried to work in the office, I was going to end up obsessing about Grummond looking over my shoulder—or worse yet, about Brian and the way I had left things with him.

What an asshole.

I believed that he had changed. I had thought he was ready to acknowledge that I wasn’t his enemy.

I can’t believe I thought we were going to get along. I should have known not to trust him. Of course, he’d never believe that one of the sainted SEALs could have done anything wrong, even when I was holding the proof in my hands. It had to bemewho was being unethical. I was the liar, the fabricator of evidence, and Jack was just a poor innocent lamb who my feminine trickery had suckered in.

It was unbearable. Wasn’t Brian the one who had seducedme?

Or was he?

Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure who had started that.

But that didn’t matter. I wasn’t the one who was accusinghimof sleeping around to get ahead, was I? I could easily have told him that he’d only fucked me to try to manipulate my investigation—hell, there was a part of me that wondered if that was true. But I hadn’t said that to him because I wasn’t a total bitch. He was the jerk, not me.

It was so hard to focus on my report with these thoughts running through my head, and I knew I needed this report to be really good. It was obvious that Brian was going to try to dispute my findings, and I had to make sure they were absolutely airtight so that he wouldn’t get away with it.

But I had to admit, I was relieved when the phone rang. I thought about sending it to voicemail, but I needed the break. I picked it up.

Immediately, my stomach plummeted. It was my father.

Apart from Brian and Grummond, he was probably the last person in the world I’d have wanted to talk to right now. Writing this report was hard enough.

But it would be worse if he found out I’d been sending his calls to voicemail right before I’d filed. With a sigh, I picked up the phone. “Dad?”

“Hey, Allie.” My father’s warm voice filled my ear, and I felt a sharp pang of guilt. He had no idea. “Have you spoken to Brian today?”

“Have I—what?” That was a surprising question. “Why would I have talked to Brian?” I hedged. Of course, I had spoken to him, but why was Dad callingmelooking for Brian?”

“Well, I know you’re investigating him.” Dad laughed as if my investigating Brian was some punch line. It reminded me of the indulgent way he’d treated me as a kid when I’d said something childishly outlandish, like that I was planning to move to Antarctica and study penguins. “Just wondered if that investigation had taken you in his direction today.”

“It’s a serious investigation, Dad.”

“Hey, I know it is.”

“Well, what are you laughing at, then?”

“I’m not laughingatanything, Al. Don’t get upset. I guess it’s just the idea of you investigating Brian.”

“Right. Why is that funny?”

“Oh, it isn’t really. I suppose I still think of you as a little kid.”

“I’m not,” I muttered, even though I knew protesting to a parent that you were all grown up now was one of the world’s weakest arguments for maturity.

“I know that. Don’t worry, Allie. You’ve got to give your old dad time to get used to things.”

I sighed. He was going to have to get used to things in a hurry. “Dad, speaking of Brian—”

“I’m sure he’s fine; I’m just a little worried about him.”

“What?” I frowned. “Why would you be worried about him?”

“Well, he isn’t answering his phone,” Dad explained. “And that isn’t normal. The two of us go out to dinner regularly, you know. We were supposed to go out tonight. I texted him to find out whether we were still on, and he said that we would have to reschedule. That was all—no explanation, nothing about when we would reschedule—and when I tried to call him, he didn’t answer. I haven’t been able to reach him all day. Do you know what’s going on with him? I’m guessing you saw him more recently than I did—do you have any idea what his problem might be?”

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