Page 138 of Daddy's Trust
Addie groaned. That was terrible. Because they were drooling after him? Was that what he meant?
“No? You don’t like that one?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“All right, I’ll work on it,” he told her.
“You could always ask this invisible group of admirers what they’d like to be called.”
“Oh, no, I don’t interact with them. That would be weird,” he said.
She giggled at the same time that she rolled her eyes.
“Are you rolling your eyes at me, baby girl?” He booped her on the nose. “Now, that’s not allowed. No rolling your eyes at Daddy.”
Ooh, warmth filled her as he called himself Daddy again. Damn, she liked when he did that. And she wished that she was brave enough to call him Daddy.
“Sorry,” she wrote.
“Sorry, what?” he said firmly.
She swallowed as she stared at him. Was he saying what she thought he was? Did he want her to call him that?
“What do you call me, baby girl?” he said. “How do you address Daddy?”
Could she do it? Why not?
He wanted her to do it, and she wanted to say it. Well, not say it, since she couldn’t talk.
Hmm.
“Sorry, Daddy,” she typed.
It was a bit weird to say it, especially through the phone. The look on his face, though, erased most of her unease. He looked so pleased, so happy, and she liked that she could do that. She didn’t want this to feel all one-sided, as though he was doing everything for her.
“That’s Daddy’s good girl,” he told her.
She preened under the praise. She was his good girl.
“I hate that you experienced that growing up, baby girl. Are your mother and father still alive?”
She shook her head. “My mother died a few years ago. A heart attack. As for my father, well, he disappeared. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fathered a few more children, but Dotty’s never been able to find them. We think he left the country entirely.”
Cash nodded. “You’re better off without him.”
“What about your family?” she asked.
“My father died when we were young,” he said. “Aidan looked after us a lot after that because my mother had to work so much.Unfortunately, she died while I was . . . in hiding, I guess you’d say.”
She frowned slightly. What did he mean by ‘in hiding’?
“When I was younger, I hung out with the wrong kind of people, and I saw something that I wasn’t supposed to. Ralen and I both went on the run because we were worried that we would be killed, or that our families would be.”
Wow, that was not what she’d expected him to say.
“We went and lived with Ralen’s family in Mexico. We worked there for his cousin. We still work for him, but we moved here to keep watch over his stepsister, Bonnie.”
Oh, that made so much sense now.
