Daddy Issues Read online

  “What are you do­ing?” He soun­ded ir­rit­ated.

  “There’s no booster in my seat so I can’t sit there,” I ex­plained, snug­gling back against his lap. “So I thought I’d sit with you, Papa. You don’t mind, do you?”

  I pressed my panty-clad bot­tom against his crotch, rub­bing sug­gest­ively and was pleased to feel some­thing hot and hard pok­ing me. So my part­ner wasn’t quite as im­mune to my charms as he wanted to pre­tend. Good.

  But Salt wouldn’t stand for my im­pudence for long.

  “That is enough, mishka,” he growled, al­most push­ing me out of his lap. “I am sure they will bring booster if we ask.” He looked at Berkley, one eye­brow raised.

  “Oh yes, cer­tainly!” The dir­ector looked mean­ing­fully at one of the ser­vants who rushed to get the booster seat for me. I sat on it with poor grace, sulk­ing with my arms crossed over my chest, for all the world like a spoiled teen­ager. The thing was—I was only halfway act­ing. I really was pissed at Salt for ig­nor­ing me when I was mak­ing my­self vul­ner­able by wear­ing this ri­dicu­lously re­veal­ing out­fit. It wasn’t hard to act like I was angry with him be­cause I was.

  My sulky at­ti­tude wasn’t missed by Dir­ector Berkley.

  “My, my, Mr. Saltanov,” he re­marked when the ser­vant sat a full break­fast plate down in front of me and I shoved it away without tak­ing a bite. “It seems to me that your Baby­girl is in dire need of some dis­cip­line. Maybe you should take her to task.”

  “Mishka is fine.” Salt was per­us­ing the morn­ing pa­per now, still poin­tedly not look­ing at me. “Be­sides, she is prob­ably still sore from pun­ish­ment she got last night. I am cer­tain she does not want any more.” On these last words, he turned his head and gave me a cold stare—a clear warn­ing that I had bet­ter get my act to­gether.

  His un­spoken mes­sage only pissed me off more.

  “Whatever,” I snapped. “I’m not hungry any­way.”

  I pushed back from the table and got up.

  “Mishka!” Salt glowered at me. “You have not been ex­cused from table. You have not eaten a bite of your break­fast.”

  “I said I’m not hungry.”

  Turn­ing, I flounced away from the table with no very clear idea of where I was go­ing. But I hadn’t got­ten more than a few steps out­side the din­ing room when Salt came after me and grabbed me by the arm.

  “What do you think you are do­ing, mishka?” he de­man­ded in a low voice. “Try­ing to cause a scene? Mak­ing trouble?”

  “I’m try­ing to do my job,” I hissed back. “But it’s hard when my part­ner is be­ing an as­shole.”

  “How am I do­ing this?” Salt de­man­ded. “By not giv­ing you what you want? By not no­ti­cing your body in these clothes?” His pale blue gaze raked over me and I felt more na­ked than I had the night be­fore when I’d dropped my towel for him.

  “It’s not easy be­ing dressed like this,” I poin­ted out in a low voice. “The least you could do is ac­know­ledge that.”

  “It is also not easy to see you dressed like this and keep my thoughts on the case,” Salt growled, frown­ing. “I told you this be­fore we came here. I asked you to dress in other cloth­ing—not this.”

  “The other cloth­ing was get­ting us nowhere,” I snapped. “No, scratch that—it was get­ting me into a men­tal and emo­tional mess. I couldn’t take it any­more—couldn’t take feel­ing like that. So I’m sorry if you don’t like the way I’m dressed but I tried it your way and it didn’t work.”

  Salt threw up his hands in ap­par­ent ex­as­per­a­tion.

  “Fine. Do as you please. I sup­pose I have no say in the mat­ter.”

  “No, you don’t.” I glared at him and then took a deep breath, try­ing to re­gain con­trol. Fight­ing wouldn’t get us any closer to solv­ing this case and get­ting home. “Any­way, I think we should split up,” I said, straight­en­ing my blouse. “This dis­agree­ment is a good ex­cuse and we can cover more ground sep­ar­ately than to­gether.”

  “And where do you wish to go?” he de­man­ded, plainly still pissed.

  I shrugged. “Any­where we haven’t been yet. We’re still look­ing for the lab where the Please is be­ing made and the hid­den video view­ing room, right? If we find that room, I bet we’ll find a whole ass-load of evid­ence.”

  “True.” Salt looked some­what mol­li­fied. “I will take cor­ridor where Dr. Lucy’s of­fice is loc­ated. Is too long to have only one door—some­thing may be hid­den there.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll look around the swim­ming pool and spa area. We can meet back at the din­ing room for lunch.”

  “Very well.” Salt nod­ded shortly and I could tell he was still mad at me. Well, fine—I wasn’t his num­ber one fan at the mo­ment either.

  Without an­other word, we par­ted ways.

  Little did I know that next time I saw my part­ner I was go­ing to be in some of the worst trouble of my life.

  Chapter Twelve

  I wandered around the pool and spa area for a little while, still fum­ing. Part of me wanted to go an apo­lo­gize and make up with Salt but part of me—the Little part—was still too angry to do any­thing of the sort. So I tried to con­cen­trate on my in­vest­ig­a­tion.

  The pool was huge and set un­der a series of arches that screamed “Greco-Ro­man wanna-be” al­most as loudly as the na­ked marble statues every­where. The spa had mas­sage tables with lots of dif­fer­ent oils and creams to choose from. There was also a bored-look­ing at­tend­ant on hand provid­ing spe­cial mas­sage tools like heated lo­tions and vi­brat­ors of all shapes and sizes. After es­tab­lish­ing that I didn’t want any­thing, how­ever, he went back to the game he was play­ing on his cell phone.

  I went on with my visual in­spec­tion, do­ing my best to play an in­no­cent Baby­girl, just ex­plor­ing. Be­sides the mas­sage tables, oil, and vi­brat­ors, I saw all kinds of pleas­ure equip­ment, in­clud­ing some­thing that looked like anal beads in the glass case at the front of the spa—at least I thought that was what they were. They were big and round and linked to­gether on a string. I shuttered to think of some­thing like that go­ing up in­side me but then, I didn’t want any­thing in that area, un­like most of the girls in this place.

  Nobody was swim­ming in the pool or get­ting mas­saged in the spa this time of day—all the Dad­dies and Baby­girls were prob­ably still at break­fast talk­ing about the scene I had caused. Or maybe caus­ing scenes of their own. Think­ing of that made me real­ize, I hadn’t seen Mandy at the din­ing table. I wondered if she was sleep­ing in.

  As if my thoughts had summoned her, I sud­denly saw the blonde girl com­ing from a small, re­cessed door at the far end of the swim­ming pool. I hadn’t even thought to look there yet, as­sum­ing it prob­ably just held pool equip­ment. But there was some­thing about the sneaky, al­most furt­ive way that she looked around as she slipped out of the small door that piqued my in­terest.

  I hid around the far end of the spa watch­ing as she left the swim­ming and spa area. Then, mak­ing sure that the at­tend­ant was still im­mersed in his game, I walked cas­u­ally to the other end of the swim­ming pool. I made sure no one was watch­ing and then slipped into the small door and closed it quietly after me.

  I found my­self in a small, dark room stuffed with pool equip­ment and smelling strongly of chlor­ine. I was just about to as­sume that there was noth­ing else to see when a small sliver of light caught my eye—there was an­other door at the end of the crowded room.

  There were stacks of tubing, floats, and in­ner tubes in the way. Be­ing care­ful not to knock any­thing over, I threaded my way through the piles of equip­ment un­til I got to the other door. The light was com­ing from un­der it—just a tiny sliver that I wouldn’t have no­ticed at all if the room hadn’t been so dim.

  I put my hand on the knob. Slowly and ever so care­f