Chapter 50
50
S lam!
Something smashed into them! The car went spinning and flipped. She screamed. She couldn’t breathe. Pain enveloped her and she tried to open her eyes.
Ethan!
Daddy!
She had to find him.
Opening her eyes, it wasn’t Ethan she saw but Samantha.
“You bitch! This is all your fault! This is all your fault!” The other woman wrapped her hands around Cate’s neck and squeezed.
Cate choked.
“Baby, wake up! It’s a dream!”
She was shifted, shaken back and forth. “Cate!”
Samantha morphed into Kevin. “You’re a liability, Cate! You’re ruining Rhodes’ life.”
“Cate! You’re having a nightmare! Wake up! Wake up, right now, baby girl. Or Daddy will not be happy.”
Daddy!
Ethan!
Oh, she loved him. She wanted to stay with him forever. Why couldn’t she?
“Baby, please stop crying. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. Wake up, you’re killing me.”
She didn’t want to kill him. She loved Ethan.
“Wake up.”
Slowly, her eyes opened, and she stared up into Ethan’s worried face. She was on his lap. Her favorite place to be. “Daddy.”
“Fuck, my baby. Yes, it’s me. Daddy.”
“She’s awake. Thank God.”
Turning her head, she saw Rhodes standing there in just his pajama pants. “Rhoddy!”
Rhodes smiled at her. “Hey, honey. You doing okay?”
“My throat hurts.” She swallowed heavily.
“Your throat hurts?” Ethan asked urgently. “Maybe you’re getting ill. We need the first aid kit. Do you have a thermometer in it?”
“She’s probably just got a sore throat because she was yelling,” Rhodes replied.
“I wasn’t yelling,” she exclaimed. “Was I?”
Ethan put his hand over her forehead. “I don’t know. She feels hot to me.”
Rhodes placed his hand over her head. “She’s probably just warm because she had so many blankets on her. I think she’s fine. Do you feel okay, honey?”
“Nope.”
“See?” Ethan said.
“I needs ice cream for my sore throat.”
Rhodes shot Ethan a look that she couldn’t decipher. Not that she wanted to. What she really wanted was ice cream!
Ethan shook his head. Ice cream? Again?
She was going to rot her teeth. He didn’t understand how she didn’t get a stomachache from eating ice cream this late at night.
This was the second night in a row that she’d had night terrors so bad she woke up the entire house. Her screams of terror were haunting. Last night, he hadn’t been able to go back to sleep afterward. He’d taken her to see her therapist today, but she’d come out of the appointment shaken and pale. Logically, he knew that therapy could shake things up. Rattle your emotions.
Illogically, he’d wanted to go in and shake the therapist for upsetting her.
He wasn’t sure he’d gotten any sleep tonight, either, before she’d started thrashing around in the bed, screaming.
But the worst part was when she started choking. He ran his hand over her head, surprised to see that he was trembling.
Jesus. He’d been in the Special Forces. He’d been a bodyguard for years. And yet, nothing had prepared him for the terror on his girl’s face when she was stuck in a nightmare.
Reaching over, he grabbed a sippy cup of water. The sippy cup was another purchase he’d made for her.
Yesterday, she’d thrown herself into her work. Ethan had realized that she was trying to forget what happened with Kevin and Samantha.
But he’d ended up making her take a nap after her therapy appointment because she’d been so exhausted. He’d let her suck on his cock until she’d fallen asleep.
“Drink up, baby. See if that helps your throat without the ice cream.”
She glared at him.
Oh, she was so naughty sometimes. That reminded him that he still owed her a spanking for Sunday evening.
After learning that she’d once cut her wrist, he’d felt the overwhelming urge not to let her out of his sight. It was hard not to plant himself in her office and just watch her.
“I don’t want water, Daddy.” She wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. Ice cream.”
“No ice cream until you drink some water,” he said sternly.
“Mean.” She pouted, then turned to Rhodes. “Rhoddy? Ice cream?”
Oh. She was going to get herself into big trouble.
“Baby, you can’t get told no by Daddy, then go ask your brother,” Ethan told her.
“Why not?” she asked. “Rhoddy gives me whatever I want. Ooh, maybe I should just ask him in the first place? Okie-dokie.”
“No, you don’t go ask him in the first place,” he replied sternly. “You only ask me. And if I tell you no, then that’s it.”
Her lower lip trembled, and she sniffled. “You’re telling me no?”
Dear. Lord.
How? How did this happen?
“Baby,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.”
Sniffle. Sniffle.
“You can have the ice cream. I’ll get it for you,” Rhodes told her, glaring at him.
Ethan gave him a hard look back. Rhodes should know better than to interfere.
“You spoil her.”
“She’s my sister. If she wants ice cream, then she gets ice cream.”
“And she’s my Little,” Ethan replied. “My baby. You should know better than this.”
“Fuck.” Rhodes crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, if you just give her the ice cream there won’t be a problem.”
“Please, Daddy. I will be a good girl.”
Damn it.
He was going to kill Rhodes later. Interfering bastard.
But he found himself caving when he stared down at his girl. She deserved some damn ice cream after everything she’d been through.
“You can have some ice cream. But I want you to drink what’s in your sippy cup first.”
She sighed. “All right. If I have to.”
He handed her the cup and she started drinking from it as he stood with her in his arms.
“You can go to bed, man,” he said to Rhodes.
The other man looked even more tired than Ethan felt.
“Yeah. Not that I can sleep.”
“Samantha is still calling you?” Ethan asked.
“I’ve blocked her number. Kevin is trying to grovel back into my good graces. I’m meeting with my lawyer about the contract I have with him. I don’t know how that’s going to go.”
Ethan grabbed a blanket, wrapping it around Cate before he carried her into the kitchen. He set her down on her stool. She was still sucking on the sippy cup. For someone who didn’t want to drink any water, she certainly seemed thirsty. Rhodes sat beside her, wrapping his arm around her back before he kissed the top of her head.
“I won’t have either of them hurt Cate again, though. So they can both fuck off.”
Ethan completely agreed. He pulled out the ice cream and put a scoop in a bowl for Cate. She drew the sippy cup away from her mouth.
“More, Daddy!”
“Excuse me?” he asked sternly.
She looked cute in her ladybug pajamas. He’d braided her hair before bed, but it was a mess now from all the tossing and turning she’d done. Fuck, he hated these night terrors.
“Please, Daddy.”
“One more spoonful. Keep drinking.”
Ethan put another small scoop into the bowl. Cate frowned but kept drinking.
“I’ve got Brody looking into both of them further,” Ethan confessed to Rhodes.
“What? Why?”
“Because they hurt my girl and they have to pay,” Ethan replied darkly. “So I’m going to find something to make their lives miserable.”
“Huh. I didn’t think you had that in you. You always seem so calm and in control.”
“Nobody hurts Cate.”
“Hopefully, the cops track down the asshole who tried to run you off the road,” Rhodes said. “And if he’s the stalker, then that would solve most of our problems.”
Ethan grunted. He’d gotten a call from the cops late yesterday afternoon to let him know they had identified the driver of the car that had tried to run them off the road. They’d managed to get a good image from a traffic camera when he’d run a red light.
He had a record and an outstanding warrant for assault. Unfortunately, he was still out there.
“Finished!” Cate crowed, slamming the sippy cup down. “I am such a good girl.”
Ethan and Rhodes both grinned at her.
“The very best,” Ethan told her, loving the way she giggled. Leaning over the counter, he tickled under her neck.
“Daddy, no! I will need to pee!”
God, he wished she could be this happy and carefree all the time. He decided that was going to be his aim in life. To take away all of her stress. To worry about everything so that she didn’t have to. So she could just live. She deserved that after all of the shit she’d been through.
“Here you are. Eat your ice cream and then it’s back to bed.”
She hummed happily, then looked around. “Daddy!”
“What is it?”
“You forgot Lady’s ice cream!”
“Lady doesn’t need any ice cream. It’s not good for ladybugs.”
She gasped. It was such a dramatic gasp that she started to fall backward, and Rhodes had to grab her.
“Daddy! How dare you! Ladybugs can have ice cream. Lady always has ice cream! Tell him, Rhoddy!”
“It is true,” Rhodes agreed with a sly grin. “Lady always has ice cream as well.”
“Where is she?” Cate asked. “I’ve lost Lady! I’m a terrible Lady owner!”
“It’s all right, I’ll get her,” Ethan soothed her. “And get her some ice cream.”
“Got you wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she?” Rhodes teased him as he returned with Lady.
Cate took her with a small smile as Ethan shook his head at Rhodes. “Like you can talk.” He turned to Cate. “What do you say?”
“Lady needs her ice cream, Daddy.”
“No. That’s not what you say. You need to use your manners.”
“Oh! Thank you, Daddy.”
“That’s better. Good girl.” He gave Lady a small bowl of ice cream. “There you are, Lady. What do you say?”
“Daddy! Lady can’t talk. She’s a stuffed toy.” Cate shook her head incredulously before leaning against Rhodes. “Do you think Daddy is okay?”
“I’m not sure,” Rhodes replied. “Has he ever been okay?”
“It’s debatable.”
“What is this? Pick On Daddy Day?” he asked her.
She smiled up at him.
“I’ve been thinking,” Rhodes said as Cate started feeding herself and Lady.
“Yeah?”
“I think that you and Cate should go to my vacation home at Big Bear Lake.”
Ethan frowned. “A vacation home?”
“It has a security system. Not as good as what you guys put in here, but there is one. And if Cate gets away from here, she’s not likely to be a target. I would have sent her away earlier, but I didn’t want her going away with a stranger. I knew she wouldn’t cope. But now you can go with her and take care of her. I think she needs to get away from here. It might help with her night terrors.”
Getting Cate away from here might help. Although he knew she would worry about Rhodes.
“She needs a break from thinking about all of this. Her work should be okay with it as long as she doesn’t have any meetings she can’t get out of. Only a few people know about it. Me, Cate, my housekeeper, and lawyer. I keep it as a place to escape to when I need to get away for some peace and quiet.”
Ethan nodded. “Good idea.” Cate would surely be safer. “All right, Butch will stay here with Seth to help guard you.”
Rhodes nodded. “Yeah. That will work. Why don’t you talk to Cate in the morning about it, but there’s no reason you couldn’t head off tomorrow provided Cate can sort her work out.”
Ethan turned back to Cate. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”