Page 7 of Daddies’ Dark Desires (Forbidden Fantasies #19)

HARPER

G od. Finally! I actually have some serious work to do. It’s been a week, and we’re officially past the point of studying our onboarding materials and learning the computer systems. Although Sunny got the hang of the systems before anyone else.

Innocent and sweet, the moment her fingers touch those computer keys, she completely transforms into some tech genius. I love that side of her. She loves that the other interns come to her for advice and help. Especially the tall, lanky one with the thick glasses.

She’s swooned at me several times about how he likes to put his hand on the back of her chair and lean over her shoulder. How he smells like the woods outside her house and that he’s got very nice forearms.

That girl is crushing hard.

I might be having a similar problem. A bigger problem. Because it’s not the interns that have caught my attention. It’s not even any of the guys in the bullpen.

It’s Grant, Trent, and Oliver.

They hover. Minimally engage. But they’re attentive in a way that used to make me nervous.

Now, it’s filling my journal up with fantasies.

The only way to distract myself is to throw myself completely into the files on my desk. I have a stack of at least twenty to peruse today, to generate profiles based off a mix of new and old information and to help assess a current threat to one of the firm’s clients.

I haven’t found anything helpful necessarily. I mean eliminating suspected threats is something, but it’s not the same as discovering something useful to stop whoever it is that’s causing problems.

At least they’re letting me use my brain. If I had to read another pointless memo about security protocols, I would have gone crazy. Shrieking, banshee, crazy. I don’t think poor Lenny would be able to handle that.

Grant, however, might. He’s my supervisor’s supervisor, and I know I’ve sent Miles to him more than once due to my attitude and legacy status.

I’m halfway through the stack they gave me this morning, and my desk is a complete mess.

The new file I grab sends a slip of paper to the floor between my mini cubicle and Sunny’s.

I get being an intern and having limited space, but it’s so easy to get crowded in here.

I might have to buy some moveable shelving to keep organized.

It might just save my sanity. And make me more mobile.

Miles also isn’t a fan of my tendency to wander. He won’t be able to stop me once I have my own cart.

I bend to grab the fallen paper, but Tony, the other analyst intern, picks it up and hands it over.

It’s thicker than I thought. Photo paper.

Turning it over, I sit up, nearly toppling the contents of the folder in my hand.

It’s a picture of my dad. He’s in profile, a phone to his ear, short-cropped hair half gray. Dad wore his favorite field jacket—heavy enough to be warm but light enough not to slow him down. A deep navy blue that helped him blend into a crowd.

The background is blurry. Taken with a telephoto lens.

I swear my heart has stopped. The ache in my chest, the stab of fear and longing, it pricks the back of my eyes with tears.

Tony clears his throat, hand hovering like he wants to brace me for a fall. “Hey. You okay? You’ve gone a little pale. Need a snack? A drink?”

Blinking a few times, I shake my head and wave him off with a small smile. “No. No, I’m fine. I can wait until lunch. Thank you.”

Tony lingers like he doesn’t believe me. I’m acting strange. But who could blame me? I’m never subdued or polite.

Tamping down my sass has never been a strong suit of mine. So, I shoo him away harder. “Go on. Back to work. Don’t hover.”

That finally cracks the worry lining his features, and he scoots off to his own mini cubicle.

Sucking in a slow breath, I tuck the picture between my keyboard and monitor and turn back to the file in my hand. Why was my dad’s picture in this file? What does it mean?

The words swim in my vision, and I slowly lift my gaze back to the picture of my father.

I miss his face. Miss seeing it every day. Miss making him laugh and call me a little monster. Miss reminding him that he made me this way.

After another few minutes and another sigh, I get a hold of my focus and point myself back at the file in my hand. Time to learn everything I can from this file. I dig through every line, and it’s obvious that I shouldn’t have this in my stack.

It’s not going to stop me.

But now that I’m looking, there’s so little in here. Like incoherently little. At least half of the file is redacted, and they’re photocopies, so there’s not much I can do to get ahold of what’s been blacked out with what I have in my hands.

However, I can glean a few things. Like that this marked out person and his organization is part of what got my father killed.

Connected to the cartel listed among the scrawling blanks. The same cartel I swear I remember hearing somewhere around the same time Dad died. Where did I hear the name though? The news? Mom? His friends—my new bosses—at the funeral?

Fuck, I can’t remember that. And it’s important.

I close my eyes and slow my breaths, counting them. One, two, three, four. In. One, two, three, four. Out.

My body calms, and so does my mind. But when I go digging for memories from that time, for those few months after burying my father.

Fuck, it’s still a blur. No matter how I pick and prod for the exact moment I heard of that fucking cartel, it doesn’t come.

It’s too washed with grief and heartache and anger.

Everything’s distorted.

Remnants of those emotions are left behind when I open my eyes again. I latch onto the anger. It’s the easiest of them all to deal with. To channel into figuring things out.

To find who killed my dad and a way to make them pay for it.

I stand and stretch, taking a cursory look around the office. The move earns a few looks, but I brush it off as I normally would, throwing winks.

The exasperation on Mile’s face has me smiling my simpering bratty smile, and I earn the faintest pink on his cheeks.

When I sit, I give it to the count of fifteen before I use my phone to snap some pictures of the redacted papers for reference. I’ll go snooping for the original copies on my own.

When people aren’t watching me.

Lunch is an easy distraction. Sunny is entertaining as always, and the other interns have made a habit of crowding around. Usually, I eat it up.

Because let’s be honest, I love an audience. Most of the time.

But this time I give excuses, and they hold back comments as they return their focus to Sunny.

Returning to our floor and my cramped, little desk, I dive back into my work, determined to finish my work early to steal a chance at snooping around. I have a new fire under my ass. More than the excitement of finally being able to do something.

With forty-five minutes to spare, I slip out. Passing everyone is easy. One, they know I have the tendency to move around when I feel too cooped up. Which is often. And two, I’m not looking around to see if anyone is watching me. No giving off red flags that I’m doing anything wrong.

Complete confidence.

It works every time. People don’t question someone who’s on a mission.

It doesn’t take me long to find the file room and even less time to find my way inside. Yeah, I’m not supposed to be here, but you know what? I have a good enough excuse. New to the job. Ignorant.

And I’m on a mission. No one has to know what that is exactly. I’ll just look like an independent overachiever. No one here would deny my intense drive to do shit myself. Even if it breaks rules that are silly.

I leaf through twelve boxes around where I suspect my stack came from, but I don’t have much luck.

Everything goes back exactly as I found it because I’m not sloppy. In anything I do.

Well…almost anything. Some things are meant to be sloppy.

“What are you in here looking for?” Grant’s low, deep tenor vibrates inside of me. Everything flips on as he looms behind my back, and his proximity drenches me with heat.

Of course, it has to be Grant.

One peek over my shoulder shows his no nonsense expression. Calm. All business.