Chapter Ten #2
He could suddenly see exactly how amped Daisy’s father was.
“Charlie, baby, I’ll call you back. No. I’m going to assume
Daisy wanted to give Nate some cover so she called in and told a whopper of a
story and it worked,” Ian was saying. “However, Nate’s trying to decide if he’s
going to kill Li. I know. I already offered him one of the twins. He seems
intent on Daisy.”
“Nate, what are you doing to my da?” Daisy was out on the
stairs leading from the privacy rooms down to the lounge, still dressed in the
sheet she’d taken from the bed. “I told you about his back.”
Nate stood, holding his hands up. “He put a gun to the back
of my head.”
“Yes, and I could have killed you if I wanted to. Well, if
I’d thought I could get away with it.” Liam sat up and groaned when he looked
over at his daughter. “Girl, where the hell are your clothes?”
Avery rushed over. “Liam, are you all right? Did you hurt
your back?”
Liam stopped looking angry long enough to reach for his
wife’s hand. “I’m fine, my darlin.” The frown was back when he looked at Daisy,
who’d made her way down the stairs and was joined by her friends. “I’m still
wondering where our daughter’s clothes got to. Did they run away from you,
girl?”
Daisy shrugged. “They’re kind of all over. Nate chased me
through the dungeon and then we ended up in this weird room with Elvis, I
think.”
Ian turned her way, his jaw dropping. “You slept in my
personal privacy room? And that is not Elvis. Li, you have ruined that girl.
Fucking Elvis. That is Axl Rose, you infant.”
“Who?” Daisy asked, her eyes wide.
Axl Rose. That’s who the dude was. Now he remembered. “Babe,
I think he was like a singer in the olden days.”
“Don’t matter who he was. The fact is this man is taking
advantage of my daughter.” Liam managed to get off the floor. “And where the
hell are your clothes, Nathan? Do you think you’re in the bloody Garden of
Eden? You are supposed to be a bodyguard not some gigolo.”
“Is that an old-time singer, too?” Daisy asked.
It was good to know she wasn’t up on all the ways a man
could be called a sex worker. He was going to ignore it. He definitely wasn’t
going to tell Liam he would fulfill his daughter’s sexual needs for absolutely
no money at all.
“Well, I thought someone might be trying to kill us so I
locked Daisy in and came out to save us,” Nate explained with a long sigh.
“Then I realized it was just the old guard trying to test the new.”
“Old guard, my arse,” Liam began and put a hand to his lower
back.
“Li, are you okay?” Avery stared at her husband. “I told you
this was a bad idea. Nate, I’m sorry. He wanted to make sure you were taking
the job seriously. I told him you were.”
“I was right. Look at him. He’s not even dressed,” Liam
complained. “And I easily got him.”
Alex frowned. “I told you where he was because I thought it
would be funny to watch him take Ian down. You had no idea where he was, and I
only did because he let me go. What the hell, man? Nate, you did a good job. I
thought we would catch you sleeping. The alarm didn’t go off.”
“The uncles made us run through really fast. They were
yelling like we were in the Army,” Brianna complained.
Liam shook his head. “Well, young lady, you were taking your
sweet time.”
“She was trying to bring her friend some coffee.” It was
obvious Avery was not happy.
Damn. This would set Daisy back.
“There’s coffee?” Daisy came running in. Not running,
exactly. She looked like a princess skipping through some meadow. Except she
had crazy sex hair. “Please tell me you got…”
Brianna held out a covered cup. “White mocha nonfat with
extra foam. And I got Nate a regular old coffee because I didn’t know how he
took it. There’s also a flat white if you prefer, and I brought a bunch of ham
and cheese croissants because I figured the big guy could eat. I asked Mrs.
Ward to give us whatever she thought her husband would eat. It was a lot.” She
gave him a smile. “Hi. You look way different than when you were fifteen, and I
kind of thought you were hot then.”
“Bri,” Devi said.
Daisy waved her off. “No, it’s okay. He’s a work of art.
Look all you like. I can share.”
Nate raised a brow.
Daisy blushed. “Not like that. You’re pretty and stuff. I
don’t want you to dim your glow because I might get jealous. We’re not going to
be like that. Now I told you not to hurt Da. He’s delicate.”
“I’m not delicate.” Liam closed his eyes. “Except when it
comes to this. For the sake of all the heavens, girl, put some clothes on.”
“She is perfectly covered for a young woman who had her
sleep horribly interrupted,” Avery argued.
“Well, she needs to get dressed because we’re finding
another bodyguard. One who doesn’t take advantage of her,” Liam shot back.
“That room is sacred,” Ian said with a shake of his head.
“It is a temple to my marriage.”
“Then you should have locked it up.” Nate didn’t see the
problem.
“And from what the twins have told me, we suitably honored
your marriage, Uncle Ian,” Daisy said with a sparkle in her eyes. She’d secured
the sheet, and it honestly looked like any number of formal gowns he’d seen. It
draped over her gorgeous body. Of course most of those gowns wouldn’t smell
like sex.
Damn, he wanted her again, and they were standing in a room
full of her relatives. His brain was all Daisy all the time.
“The twins have told us many tales,” Devi said, her nose
wrinkling. “Like whenever they hear that old band playing, they know their
parents are going at it. It’s horrifying.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve got two words for you, niece.
Taylor Swift.”
Devi gasped. “No. That’s just because Dad likes her. It’s
not…ewww. It ruins so much music for me.”
“Ian, everyone’s used the jukebox room,” Alex pointed out.
“I’m not getting another bodyguard.” Daisy got in the middle
of her parents. “Nate did a great job. He made me hide, and then I thought it
might help him if I called Aunt Charlotte and told her Uncle Ian was about to
get sniped. I knew Uncle Ian would be here because he is always in the middle
of drama. I was going to call the cops. Bringing in the authorities would have
caused more chaos, but Aunt Charlotte begged me to give her a couple of
minutes. And then I went to check and I saw that Da was being an asshole.”
“Daisy, language,” her father admonished.
Daisy shrugged. “Well, you’re already mad at me for having a
sex life. I don’t have to pretend to be some perfect princess so you’ll still
love me. I can be me. I can be honest. Nate did an excellent job.”
There was one problem with what she was saying. He
appreciated the support, but she’d disobeyed. “Which you shouldn’t have seen
because you are supposed to be locked in the bathroom waiting for me to give
you the all clear.”
“Well, I couldn’t hear anything. I think those rooms are
like noise canceling or something,” Daisy complained. “We should get whatever
it is at The Hideout. Sometimes the privacy rooms get real loud, if you know
what I mean. Also, do you think we could ask the board to get a room with a
jukebox? Because it’s the exact right height.”
Ian put a hand to his heart. “Not my jukebox.”
Alex snorted.
“Right height?” Her father had gone pale. “You shouldn’t
have been in dat room at all. You were supposed to stay in the apartment, which
has two bedrooms.”
“I mean, if you think about it, he can probably protect her
better if they stay in the same room,” Brianna offered. “A lot of my mom’s
books fall into the only one bed trope.”
“I assure you there are plenty of beds in this place, and
this ain’t one of Serena’s romance novels,” Liam shot back.
“I don’t know. Let’s see. Childhood friends take one look at
each other after a decade apart and fall madly in love,” Avery began. “Sounds
like a romance to me.”
Liam wasn’t finished. “How about this scenario? Asshole
can’t handle the military and comes to America to find an easier life and takes
one look at an innocent girl and sees a meal ticket.”
Ian groaned and looked to his best friend. “We can’t save
him. You want to break into the Scotch? It’s going to be a long day. The twins
finally dug Zach out of the rubble and they’re on their way back, so I have to
sit in on them complaining all afternoon. Have you ever listened to a whiny
captain yell about how a bomb exploded and he got caught for days in the
inevitable landslide it caused? It’s a lot, man. And it’s not like Lou didn’t
invent an extremely long straw to keep the fucker hydrated. Kids are soft these
days.”
Alex slapped Ian’s shoulder. “Yeah, Scotch sounds like a
good idea. I’ve never been so happy Coop is mostly transportation.”
“Your boy was the smart one,” Ian agreed.
“Meal ticket?” Daisy asked, her voice going low.
“Oh, shit,” Devi said under her breath. “Dais, you should
think about this. You’re kind of half naked in front of your parents, and you
have that look in your eyes.”
Brianna shook her head. “There’s no stopping her now. We
should go with the uncles.”
“This is going to get bad,” Devi whispered. “Daisy is super
sweet until she gets angry and then… Well, it’s bad. But she never does this
around her parents.”
Avery sighed. “No, she never does this around her father. I
assure you I’ve seen my daughter get really angry. It’s odd. Almost like she
got it from somewhere. From like DNA or something. I wonder from who.”
Daisy’s eyes had narrowed. “Nathan, I’m going to need you to
hold my coffee. Maybe you should go pour some Bailey’s in it. Or whiskey. I’m
feeling like whiskey this morning.” Her accent changed, and she sounded as
Irish as her father. “Táim chun labhairt le m'athair.”
Devi held Bri’s hand and started to back away. “She’s gone
Irish.”
Nate took her coffee. “Daisy, it’s okay. I told you I don’t
care what he thinks about me.”
Daisy ignored him. “What meal ticket do you think I am, Da? Minigh
seo dom.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you, iníon,”