Page 7 of Dagger

“It most certainly is, just an interesting detail she didn’t mention.” Her eyes watched me, lips pursed, not in disapproval, but in thought. “Dani’s been having some trouble,” she began in a soft voice full of sympathy.

“What kind of trouble?” I asked and slid my palms down my thighs.

“She’s not making trouble,” she rushed to assure me. “But some girls have been bullying her and she’s… well, she’s been having panic attacks.”

No.The word beat against my chest, wild and fast. She wasn’t anything like her mother. She couldn’t be. “There’s nothing wrong with Dani,” I said in a low, threatening voice. “And whatever is happening is none of your damn business.”

The little wisp of a woman wasn’t at all scared. She leaned forward and narrowed her gaze. “Dani is my student and that makes her my business, and if you can’t be bothered to address it, then I will.”

Her fire, her passion shocked me. Everything from her voice to her appearance was just so damn quiet, but right now she was ready to walk through fire for my kid. And dammit, that was one hell of a turn-on.Not now, I told my dick. I needed to be focused on the fact that my little girl might actually be fucked in the head just like her mother. I couldn’t even think about it. I couldn’t lose Dani.

I wouldn’t.

I found my voice. “There isn’t a damn thing wrong with Dani.”

“Of course there isn’t,” she said firmly. “But somethingisbothering her, and if we don’t help her figure out how to handle it, somethingwillbe wrong with her.” She stood, shaking her head. “You can’t just ignore this and hope it goes away, Mr. Kane.”

My cock woke up again at that husky voice speaking so formally, and I tried to ignore it. “She seems fine to me.”

Something flashed over Sinclair’s face.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m not sure it’s my place to say this, Mr. Kane. But your daughter said something and…” she paused.

I waited her out, but she was having trouble meeting my gaze. I guess I looked intimidating to a lot of people. “What did she say?” I asked impatiently.

“Dani says you avoid her. She thinks you don’t even like her.”

Her words hit me like a one-two knockout punch. I was stunned, not just that my quiet-as-a-mouse daughter said that, but that she shared her feelings with a virtual stranger. I kept my distance out of self-preservation, but I loved Dani more than anything. How could she think otherwise? It hurt to think that she thought I didn’t care.

“Fuck.”

Sinclair threw me a gentle smile, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft. “Often, it’s our instinct to ignore something and hope it goes away. But in the long run it’s not healthy. Now you can see why it’s up to us, the adults in her life, to help her handle her emotions.”

Handle her emotions.What the fuck did that even mean? I didn’t want my kid growing up some freak or worse, one of those little shits who constantly talked in therapy speak. “Handle themhow?”

It killed me to ask the question, but if my kid thought I didn’t like her, I’d done a horrible fucking job of being her dad.

Chapter 5

Sinclair

Maurice Kane was a total smoke show. When Dani told me her father was an artist, I imagined some lanky guy with paint-splattered clothes or charcoal-smudged fingertips. I figured he’d be slightly shy and unassuming, not this larger-than-life man decked out in leather and denim, ink covering his arms and hands, even his throat. I was wholly unprepared for a man who was so… much. He was big and broad and gorgeous, with his shoulder-length dark hair and sky-blue eyes that were so damn intense I pressed my knees together under the desk to stop the humiliating pulsing between my thighs.

It was bad enough that he was a gorgeous single father raising a sweet little girl on his own, but add in that vulnerable look in his eyes asking me what he could do to help her and that threatened to unravel me completely.

I recognized the initial wary tone he took. It wasn’t the tone of a father who didn’t care about his kid. It was the voice of a man who was scared. I let out a heavy sigh, my heart aching with the desire to help them both. “Dani confided in me that she sometimes wonders if she’s crazy like everyone says her mother was.” This wasn’t an easy conversation to have, made more difficult by the gruff man who was in denial.

His jaw clenched tight. His nostrils flared. All while his gaze remained fixed on my face, so intense I was sure he was about to erupt at me again. “She said that?”

I nodded silently. She’d shared so much with me, and I was reluctant to reveal it all to this man because I didn’t want to betray her confidence. I only wanted to help.

“What else did she say?”

I shook my head. “Is that something you worry about? That Dani might suffer from whatever mental illness affected her mother?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to, the flash of darkness in his blue eyes told me I hit a little too close to home.

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