Page 23 of Daddy’s Fortitude

“Oh, shit. I’m going to be late to my job!”

She closed the door. She didn’t care about what he was doing right now. If she was late to her job, she’d probably get fired.

“Your job? You’re going to a job now? Haven’t you got time off to deal with Charlie’s death?” he asked.

“I’ve got time off from my day job, not my night job,” she said, rushing past him toward her bedroom. “I’ve got to move.”

That alarm was telling her that it was time to leave the house to get to work on time. So she really had to hustle, or she was going to be in trouble.

She quickly got into her uniform, put on some deodorant, placed Kevin in his cage, and redid her hair. By that time, she was running about fifteen minutes late.

Which meant she was going to have to run rather than walk.

After slipping on her comfortable sneakers and grabbing her backpack, she walked out of the bedroom to find Ammo was still in the living room, staring down at the mail that she hadn’t collected off the coffee table.

Great. She’d kind of been hoping that he’d have left. Also, she couldn’t believe that she still hadn’t tidied up all of that mail.

Ammo glanced up at her, his gaze narrowing in on her chest.

What was it? She glanced down at herself. The T-shirt she had to wear as part of her uniform was tight and had a deep V.

She usually wore a push-up, padded bra in order to fill out the shirt. This bra was getting a bit worn, though, and the padding was starting to wear thin.

Unfortunately, a new bra wasn’t exactly in her budget, though. So it would just have to do.

She bounced up and down slowly to make sure there was still some support there. Yeah, the girls jiggled nicely. That should hopefully get her some tips.

“What are you doing?” Ammo asked. His voice sounded slightly off. He wasn’t getting sick, was he? Maybe she should offer to make him a hot lemon drink.

No, no, she couldn’t. She was running late. And, anyway, he wasn’t her problem to take care of. Right now, she had to focus on putting herself first. It wasn’t something that came easily to her. Her grandmother had always taught her to put her husband before herself, his needs, his desires.

Which was part of the reason why she’d ended up in this mess, because she hadn’t told Charlie “no” enough. Because she’d always given him whatever he wanted.

And Charlie had just taken and taken and taken.

Until there had been very little left.

“Just checking that my bra is going to keep the girls in place.”

She really didn’t need a nip slip tonight.

Aimee shuddered as she remembered the night that had actually happened. Thankfully, only one table of guys had seen. Not that the rumors hadn’t done the rounds afterwards.

She’d been called ‘Nip Slip Aimee’ for months after that.

Humiliating.

With the number of times that she’d been embarrassed and humiliated, you’d think she’d get a thicker skin. Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened yet.

“Dear Lord,” he muttered. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to go to work right now?”

“Is it a good idea? No. Is it necessary? Yes. Now, I’ve really got to go. I’m going to have to run to get there on time.”

“Why wouldn’t you take your car?”

Shoot, this was embarrassing to have to explain. “Because I don’t have a car.”

“You don’t have a car? What about Charlie? Didn’t he have a car?”