Page 162 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

“It does.” I trickle my fingers up her arm and tickle the base of her throat. “I have something that will suit this beautiful throat. You haven’t asked me about it since I mentioned it. Are you sure you even want it?”

She swats my shoulder. “Oppa,” she whisper-hisses.

“Maybe you’re still interested in it.”

“I’zveryinterested in it.”

“Well, then, maybe I’ll show it to you tonight when we go home.”

“Show it menow.”

“I can’t, my demanding bumble. I don’t have it with me.”

“Bet you’z got a picture.”

“Maybe I do,” I admit.

“Show’z me!”

I grin and twirl her. “After the song’s over.”

She growls her tiny growl at me, lost in the music. I know I’m grinning at her like an idiot—and not at all like a friend—but I love playing with her so much I can’t help it.

thirty-two

We danceuntil the end of the painfully slow and boring song, piece, whatever music like this is called. It doesn’t matter, because I’m dancing with my bumble. My baby girl. The woman I want to collar, and have dancing around my kitchen every morning, her bottom warm from my hand.

As the piece finally ends and I steer Cynnie towards the edge of the dance floor so I can take out my phone, a man steps forward.

“There she is,” he says. “Mylittlefiancée. You don’t mind if I cut in?”

I turn to look at him. A few inches shorter than me. Deep brown hair slicked back from a smooth face. A suit that cost about ten times what mine did, tailored to give him broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Those weird shoes with the long toes that make him look like he has a size eleven instead of a size nine. I’ve never understood the appeal of those, but then, I’m not compensating for what’s in my pants with what’s on my feet.

“Think you have the wrong girl, buddy,” I say.

Then I glance at Cynnie.

She’s gone chalk-white, except for two red spots burning on her cheeks.

I start to reach out to her but stop. I’m not sure who this man is, but at a party filled with her friends and business associates, I don’t want to step wrong and embarrass her in front of any of them. I fall back on my oldest skill. I wait, and let the awkward pause lengthen.

“Kade,” Cynnie says after a furtive glance at me. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“I thought it would be a nice surprise. I’ve been gone so much this year, with opening the branch in Malaysia, that I’ve barely seen you. Did Jun tell you we’re already profitable after only three months?” He smiles: wide, hearty, and somehow, fake. “Most successful launch in company history. Now that it’s launched, I can come home and pay attention to everything I’ve been neglecting. You saved me a dance, right?”

His eyes glitter and he holds out a hand.

With another glance at me, Cynnie takes his hand and lets him lead her out to the dance floor.

Leaving me standing there.

I have the presence of mind to close my damn mouth, so I’m not staring after them like a complete fucktard. But everything else is scattered, whirling through my head. He called her his fiancée and she didn’t correct him. He emphasizedlittlelike he knows what she is. Has she had a long-distance daddy all this time? A long-distance daddy she’sengagedto?

As my thoughts are tumbling and my stomach’s turning and I’m utterly torn between storming onto the dance floor and tearing her out of this pointy-shoed asshole’s arms and just storming the fuck out, Jun walks up beside me. He offers me a flute of champagne.

“I see Kade found Cynnie,” he observes, following them around the dance floor with his eyes. “That’s probably your cue to leave.”

Fuck him. I haven’t liked him since longbeforeI met him. Meeting him has not improved the situation.