Page 29 of Daddy's Accidental Babies

“I have to go…but this isn’t over.” Dad’s hard glare returned to his face as he turned toward the door.

There was too much pounding behind my eyes to conjure up some sort of response to that, so I let him walk out.

He left without another word. The door clicked shut behind him, and the emptiness settled in its place.

When he was gone, I stood alone in the conference room. The hum of the air vent was the only sound. My hands felt sweaty, and my breathing came too shallow. I needed a second—maybe five. I stepped into the hallway, and once I was sure no one else was watching, I slipped into the nearest restroom to cry.

The mirror above the sink caught me in full glare. My hair was windblown from the breeze outside, my lipstick worn off,and my eyes rimmed with fatigue. I looked tired, exposed, and deeply rattled.

Behind me, a stall door creaked open and I inwardly winced that the privacy I so desperately craved had vanished. Marla stepped out, smoothing her blouse and reaching for the sink to wash her hands.

“Hey,” she said, offering a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She flicked her hair back and leaned over the sink, scrubbing the soap into her palms. Marla was a lower-level analyst on my team whom I didn’t interact with much, but she was important. I couldn’t just brush her off.

“Hey,” I echoed, keeping my tone neutral. I washed my hands even though they weren’t dirty, because I had to do something other than stare at myself or I’d break down in front of her.

She dried her hands and tossed the paper towel, then pulled a tube of bright pink lip gloss from her pocket. Then she leaned toward the mirror, perfecting her Cupid’s bow with precision.

“I saw the blog post,” I said, reaching for a paper towel. “Not exactly how I wanted to make my debut.” Forcing a chuckle, I watched her reflection. She was in charge of analyzing the data that our teams collected from the social media push, to sort it and organize it into something that Vanessa and I could use.

Marla glanced at me through the mirror, her lip gloss wand pausing midair. “Gossip travels fast in this office. You learn that pretty quickly.” Her tone was light, but it was clear she wasn’t just making small talk. And I was confused by the comment too. What gossip? And who couldn’t handle it?

I paused. “Is there something I should know?” I turned slightly toward her, not bothering to hide my suspicion. If people were talking about me and Dominic because of the PR stunt, I had to put an end to it. And if they were talking about us because I slipped up and someone heard what we were really doing behind closed doors, we had a problem.

Marla smirked, her eyes flicking to mine. “Only that some people aren’t cut out for this kind of attention, honey.” She dropped the comment like a blade, then went back to slathering her pouty lips in a thick coating of gloss.

The air between us cooled by several degrees as I stared at her, wondering how to even respond. I had no idea what sort of attention she was referring to. Had she seen my father walk in here and lecture me? Was she hearing something at the water cooler I didn’t know about? I opened my mouth to ask, but she winked.

Then she capped her lip gloss and walked out, her heels clicking with finality. I stood still, my heart thudding. My hands were still damp from the sink as I dug into my pocket and pulled out my phone, hoping for something mundane—an update from Justine, a calendar alert, anything to get my mind off of it.

Instead, I saw a new message from Dad and I swiped it open to read it.

Dad: 3:22 PM:I’m trying really hard to not lose my patience with this whole thing, but I just don’t know how to protect you, Savannah. I’m meeting with Dominic. Please don’t make me have to make a fool of myself.

My thumb hovered over the screen as I read the message again. I didn’t know if he meant it, or if it was just one of those things he said when he felt powerless. Either way, it left a tight feeling in my chest. I had no idea what he planned to say to Dominic—and that uncertainty made everything worse.

14

DOMINIC

Steam hissed softly from the espresso machine in the kitchen, the scent of dark roast drifting across the open floor plan of the penthouse. Evening light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, making it unnecessary for me to have the lights on yet.

I sat at my desk near the fireplace, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a stack of merger documents fanned out across the surface. My suit jacket hung over the back of the chair where I hung it when I walked in and sat down here, and I hadn’t moved since.

It wasn’t late, but I had been working too long—and I was in no mood for any more drama or problems. I had gotten four more texts from David reminding me how upset he was, and they left no room for misinterpretation. He’d seen the PR push, and I knew he was appalled by the images of me with his daughter. Something he never had to say to make very clear to me.

I leaned back and rubbed a hand over my face, then scrolled back to the top of the file on my computer screen. Something wasn’t right. The budget breakdown for the Milan campaign was clean on the surface. Polished formatting, no typos, columntotals aligned. But when I cross-referenced the metadata against our secure export logs, the time stamp didn’t match. This file had been opened externally—by someone outside Raven & Rhodes.

I double-checked the routing path. The access flag originated internally—same subnet as the marketing floor—but someone had tried to mask the download, which meant it wasn’t an accident.

I took a slow breath through my nose, forcing myself to stay focused. Then I flagged the file and dropped it into a secure drive. The moment it landed, I picked up my phone and hit Graham’s direct line.

He answered on the second ring, his voice sleep-rough, like he was having a late afternoon nap, or went to bed too early. “Knight?”

“Get the tech team in,” I said, not bothering with a greeting. I rolled back from the desk and stood, crossing to the bar cart but ignoring the temptation to pour a drink. Instead, I reached for a mint and squeezed it out of the plastic wrapper. “There’s a file leak, accessed from inside the system. The logs trace it to the same subnet as the third floor. I want a full sweep of every after-hours login, and I want it done tonight.”

There was a beat of silence as Graham processed. Then papers rustled on his end, and I heard him grumbling his distaste for my sudden interruption. “Christ, okay. Do you have the file?”

“Flagged and quarantined,” I said. “Looks like someone spoofed an export protocol, buried the trail just deep enough to avoid a standard audit. But not deep enough to hide from my eyes.” The mint melted on my tongue as I crossed back to my desk and sat down. If someone was seriously leaking internal financial reports to shareholders or the media, it wasn’t justKnight Holdings and the merger that would suffer. Raven & Rhodes had a real problem.

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