Page 65 of Break Me, Daddy

“Oh. Um, okay. Night, then, I guess.”

“Night, Frankie.”

Frankie. Not baby or little siren or even Francesca. She usually loved her nickname, mostly because it drove Delphine crazy, but now it just made her want to cry.

And since she didn’t want to give him yet another reason to worry about her, she swallowed the tears and turned to make her way upstairs. But the moment she stepped into the bedroom they’d been sharing since her first night there, it felt wrong.

He’d asked her for space. Asked her to keep things platonic until she figured her shit out. And while he hadn’ttoldher he didn’t want her sleeping in his bed, how was that keeping things platonic? It had to make things difficult for him, to have her in his space so much when they weren’t actually fucking.

This, at least, was something she could do. A positive, proactive action that might ease some of his suffering. Moving around the room, she gathered up all her clothes and carried them down the hall to the guest room. It took multiple trips, including one final one to the bathroom for all her toiletries, but she managed it.

Standing in the middle of the sparsely decorated room, she looked around, trying to dredge up a sense of pride in herself for doing the right thing. But all she managed to conjure were pangs of loneliness and grief at the thought of spending her nights alone. Shoving those feelings to the side, she changed into a fresh pair of pajamas, ones that didn’t smell like her Daddy, and climbed into bed.

Alone.

Holden

It was wellafter midnight before he finally forced himself to shut the computer down for the night. He’d added a guard for the back entrance of the club, as well as rotations inside the club during peak hours. His teams were already stretched thin, too thin for him to have someone inside constantly the way he would like, but he’d just take on the shifts he didn’t have coverage for since he spent most of his free time there, anyway.

Or he had before he’d gotten that fateful call from his babygirl. But he didn’t think she’d mind spending time with her friends at the club, and if she didn’t want to come with him some nights, that was okay, too. He was supposed to be giving her space, letting her make her own choices about their relationship.

As much as it grated.

He’d also sent Cordelia an email with a proposed time for their meeting tomorrow afternoon to discuss private security for her and Ivy. Instinct told him he’d have a fight on his hands since he planned on suggesting they both take a leave of absence from the club until everything got worked out. It was a compromise, as far as he was concerned, since his initial thought had been to move them both to a safe house until the threat was neutralized.

But Cordelia wouldn’t see it as a compromise, and he would need his wits about him if he had any hope of talking her into doing what was necessary to keep herself and Ivy safe. Which was why he was shutting everything down now and getting at least five solid hours of sleep so he could be refreshed and ready to do battle with the fearsome Domme tomorrow.

Bleary-eyed, he climbed up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with Frankie. Even if they weren’t sleeping together in the carnal sense, he still loved falling asleep and waking up with her in his arms. Or, as the case often was in the mornings, waking up flat on his back with her sprawled across him.

But when he stripped down and climbed into bed, reaching for her, his hands found only cold mattress.

Where the hell was she?

Catapulting himself out of bed, he snatched up his phone to check the house security for the past few hours. There was no record of any doors or windows opening, which meant she was in the house somewhere.

Downstairs, maybe. Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep she’d go watch tv until she got sleepy. More than once she’d fallen asleep on the couch and he’d had to carry her up the stairs to his room. He should have checked there just to be sure before heading upstairs.

But she wasn’t there. Or in the kitchen. Or in any of the other rooms downstairs, so he headed back up, worry starting to wend its way around his chest as he double checked his bedroom and the attached bathroom.

He finally found her sprawled face-down in one of the guest bedrooms, her covers tangled around her legs, letting him know she wasn’t sleeping peacefully. What the hell was she doing in another room?

A quick, silent check of the drawers and the closets had his stomach sinking to his knees. She’d moved all of her things out of his room.

Because she wanted even more space? Because she was moving on already? Because she’d realized she didn’t really love him after all and she was just staying with him because she needed his discipline?

If the latter was true, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep going like this. Being her platonic Daddy for a brief period of time was one thing. But being her Daddy, only to lose her to someone else in the end?

He wasn’t sure he’d survive that outcome.

For the first time, he found himself truly contemplating the possibility that Frankie might not choose him. When he’d originally told her he wanted to pause their romantic relationship, it had always been with the assumption that she would be his in the end. It had honestly never been a possibility in his mind that he could lose her.

Fighting back the rising waves of panic in his chest, he turned and left the room, pulling the door mostly shut behind him before returning to his cold, empty bed and trying to sleep.

Alone.

Chapter24

Frankie

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