Daddy Issues Read online

  “It’s all right,” I whispered, rub­bing my cheek against his. “It’s all right now.”

  He didn’t ac­tu­ally cry but his eyes did leak a little. It was the most emo­tion I’d ever seen from him and it tore at my heart to know he was in so much pain.

  How was it that we had worked to­gether for three years and I had never had any idea of this be­fore? Maybe be­cause I didn’t much like to talk about my own past, my part­ner had been re­luct­ant to dis­cuss his as well. Or maybe it had taken a place like the In­sti­tute where you were forced to dive back into the deep, dark well of child­hood memor­ies to bring this ugly, hurt­ful truth out into the light.

  We clung to­gether for a long mo­ment and then Salt slowly re­leased me.

  “For­give me,” he said gruffly, swip­ing at his eyes. “This is…un­manly dis­play.”

  “Maybe in Rus­sia it is,” I said. “But you’re not there any­more. You’re here—with me.”

  “Yes.” He gave me one of his rare side­ways smiles—the barest lift­ing of one corner of his mouth. “We are here to­gether. For this I am glad.”

  “Me too,” I said. “God, we’re both really screwed up, aren’t we? Stevens was right about the is­sues and this place isn’t help­ing them any.”

  “He was right,” Salt ac­know­ledged softly. “Still, I am not sorry that we came here.”

  For a mo­ment I looked into his eyes and it oc­curred to me that we were close—close enough to kiss as we had in Dr. Lucy’s of­fice. It also oc­curred to me that I wanted to kiss him—which scared me to death.

  “Andi…Mishka,” Salt whispered and brushed his knuckles gently over my cheek.

  “Salt,” I mur­mured. I wanted badly to lean to­wards him—to let it hap­pen. But that would ruin everything. We were get­ting in too deep again—for­get­ting the real reason we were here and let­ting emo­tion cloud our judg­ment.

  I sat back a little, though I kept my hand on his arm.

  “I think we need a plan of ac­tion,” I said, try­ing to make my voice sound nor­mal.

  Salt frowned. “I thought we had plan. You will mis­be­have and I will spank you.”

  “And…you’re okay with that? Be­cause I thought you weren’t be­fore.”

  “I was re­luct­ant, as I told you,” he mur­mured. “But as you say, we are just play act­ing. Everything we have to do here is only for show.”

  I felt a rush of re­lief. “Right! Of course.” I nod­ded. “So no mat­ter what hap­pens to­night, we need to re­mem­ber that. It’s only for show.”

  “Ex­actly,” Salt rumbled.

  “Good,” I said. “Then we’ve got our plan. We just have to stick to it and do…do what has to be done.”

  But some­how I couldn’t meet his eyes as I said it. Just for show—everything here was just for show, I told my­self.

  Then why did I have such a hard time mak­ing my­self be­lieve it?

  Chapter Eight

  “I hope you had a pro­duct­ive ses­sion with Dr. Ne­w­house today?” Dir­ector Berkley raised his salt and pep­per eye­brows at us in­quir­ingly.

  “Yes. Most pro­duct­ive.” Salt nod­ded firmly. We were seated across the table from Berkley and Mandy again—Salt was in a nor­mal chair and I was perched on the stu­pid booster seat.

  Mandy, who was dir­ectly op­pos­ite me, was be­hav­ing her­self for once. She was barely pick­ing at her din­ner but she had thirstily drained her glass of pink fruit punch and asked for more.

  My­self, I still couldn’t stand the stuff. I had taken a few sips to be po­lite but I was mostly drink­ing Salt’s wa­ter while he had wine. The din­ner was some kind of pork chop with wild mush­room sauce and peas but I was barely pay­ing any at­ten­tion to eat­ing. I was too anxious and nervous about what I was about to do to have much ap­pet­ite. I knew I had to cause a huge scene—but how, ex­actly? What should I do to make Salt pre­tend to spank me?

  “I’m glad that speak­ing with Dr. Ne­w­house helped,” Berkley said to Salt. Be­cause I’m afraid I have some mat­ters of grave im­port­ance to dis­cuss with you.”

  “Which is what?” Salt frowned at him and I felt my stom­ach clench with ten­sion. Was Berkley on to us? Had Dr. Ne­w­house told him she sus­pec­ted us of be­ing fakes?

  “You may not know this, but we mon­itor each of our guest suites for…er, safety reas­ons,” Berkley said, lean­ing across the table and keep­ing his voice low.

  “So you are watch­ing us in the pri­vacy of our rooms?” Salt did a pretty good job of look­ing out­raged. “I can­not be­lieve—”

  “Please, Mr. Saltanov, as I said we only watch to en­sure the safety of our guests. And the fact that we do so is plainly stated in the con­tract you signed be­fore we agreed to have you here at the In­sti­tute,” Berkley said sternly. “Leg­ally, we are do­ing noth­ing wrong.”

  Salt sat back and crossed his arms over his broad chest.

  “I still do not like,” he growled.

  “Well, you don’t have to like it but I’m afraid that while we were mon­it­or­ing you and your little mishka last night, we picked up both a safety vi­ol­a­tion and a breech of the con­tract which you signed.”

  My heart star­ted beat­ing triple time. Here we go… I was cer­tain that they must have heard Salt and me dis­cuss­ing the case—the cam­eras must have mi­cro­phones on them after all. Berkley was about to tell us our cover was blown and our case would be his­tory.

  I was so wor­ried and tense that the dir­ector’s next words al­most failed to re­gister with me.

  “Your Baby­girl was seen tak­ing a shower by her­self,” he said.

  “What?” Salt looked at him blankly and I felt my heart rate be­gin to slow a little.

  “I said that mishka was in the bath­room alone in the shower stall,” Berkley re­peated.

  “I do not see the prob­lem.” Salt shook his head. “Other than the fact that you were look­ing at my mishka without her clothes which I do not like.” He glared.

  “Baby­girls can­not be al­lowed to take baths or showers un­at­ten­ded,” Berkley said sternly, ig­nor­ing Salt’s ac­cus­a­tion. “It’s dan­ger­ous. Our rules ex­pressly state that Baby­girls are not to bathe them­selves—they must be given a bath by their Daddy each night be­fore bed­time.”

  “I…un­der­stand.” Salt and I ex­changed a quick glance and I felt my cheeks get­ting hot. Was Berkley say­ing what I thought he was say­ing? Was he really de­mand­ing that Salt give me a bath every night we were here?

  Old per­vert prob­ably just wants to watch on the damn mon­it­ors, I thought sourly. Prob­ably has a bath fet­ish or some­thing weird like that.

  But then Berkley made it even worse.

  “So that was the rule vi­ol­a­tion. But the con­tract breech is even more im­port­ant. It clearly states, in the con­tract that you signed, that all Baby­girls are to be clean shaven…” He cleared his throat. “Down be­low.”

  This time I couldn’t keep quiet.

  “Ex­cuse me? Are you telling me I have to shave my…” I cleared my throat. “That I have to shave, Dir­ector Berkley?”

  He frowned at be­ing spoken to so im­per­tin­ently by a Little but he did an­swer me.

  “Most cer­tainly not, young lady,” he said sternly. “Every­one knows it isn’t safe for Littles to play with razors. Your Daddy will shave you nice and clean.” He turned to Salt. “I’ll see that you have all the ne­ces­sary equip­ment in your suite to­night. Just see that the mat­ter is taken care of without fur­ther ado or I’m afraid we can­not con­tinue host­ing you here at the In­sti­tute.”

  “What?” I ex­ploded. “You’re say­ing that in or­der to stay here—”

  “Enough, mishka!” Salt banged one big fist on the table, mak­ing the sil­ver­ware jump and jangle. “You must learn not to speak so to adults—to Bigs,” he rumbled men­acingly.

  “But he’s be­ing an