Bossy Daddy (Yes, Daddy Book 2)

by Lena Little

  I splash some water on my face and then run my hands through my hair, trying to make myself look presentable.

  I squirt a glob of toothpaste onto my toothbrush and then brush furiously enough to age my gums about five years in five seconds.

  Grabbing my bag I’m out the door and trying to flag down a taxi…to no avail.

  I’d flirted with danger before and Silas proved he’d stand his ground. Part of me thought about testing him again, but at this point it didn’t seem right. Although another spanking seemed right, in the absolute wrong kind of way.

  Being late today would just be irresponsible, especially after SteeleSharp’s generosity. I still, for the life of me, couldn’t find out why he named his company SteeleSharp and not just Sharp as Steele, if that’s the vibe he was going for.

  I finally manage to flag a cab and tell him I’ll pay extra if he can get me to the office by five till, which will allow me enough time to navigate the elevators and arrive on time.

  The clock is ticking and as I watch the meter on the cab increase, my blood pressure goes along with it, I can feel my purse getting lighter.

  “Donuts. Donuts. Donuts!” I yell.

  “You wanna make a stop, lady?” the man asks.

  “No, I just don’t want to curse.”

  “First time I’ve heard that outta a kid these days.”

  “I’m not a kid.”

  “Coulda fooled me.”

  “How much longer?” I ask, my foot tapping against the floorboard.

  “It’s right…here,” he says, turning the corner. Before he can come to a complete stop I’m stuffing the money in his front shirt pocket and yelling, “Keep the change,” even though there’s not nearly enough to qualify for a tip.

  I just need to get to the office in record time before Silas offers me any more ‘tips’ on how I need to conduct myself.

  I blow through the front door and slide my way to the elevator.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” I mumble under my breath.

  “You know that’s the service elevator,” someone says as they step into one of the passenger elevators.

  I dart inside just as the doors are about to close, much to the chagrin of the other passengers.

  My foot keeps tapping with each stop of the elevator as we slowly make our way to the top.

  Once the last passenger is off the elevator shoots up to the top and I’m out the door before the ding has even sounded.

  “Ms. Jones,” Silas says. “Good morning.”

  “Hi,” I say, not having enough breath to get out a proper greeting more than a single syllable.

  I look at the clock on the wall, which reads 7:59.

  “On your way to your desk?” Silas inquires, with a smirk.

  “Yes, I’m on time. I mean, I’ll be on time.”

  I breathe in deep and prepare to sprint over to my desk, not caring if I look like a crazy lady with my hair on fire.

  I do exactly that and the second my buns make contact with the chair, one of the many synchronized clocks in the office strikes 8:00 o’clock exactly.

  I breathe out a sigh of relief and not ten seconds later Silas is standing over the top of me. “These are for you,” he says, dropping a neatly typed piece of paper on my desk and casually strolls back toward his office.

  He moves so calmly, so self-assured and with that smirk on his face that I was sure he was the devil, yet he breathed life into me.

  I pick up the paper and can’t help but notice it’s heavy card-stock and the paper isn't a professional white color or even off-white. It’s…light pink.

  Across the top it reads, “Daddy’s Rules for His Little Girl”

  What the…?

  #1.) Daddy knows best. Trust and respect daddy. Always.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  # 2.) Work starts at 8:00. You will have your butt in your chair by that time or else it will get spanked.

  I already knew this one, but now it was actually in writing, although not exactly the kind of writing you’d find in the HR guidebook.

  # 3.) No belittling yourself. No: “I’m not good enough.” “I’m not pretty enough.” “I’m not talented enough.” Nothing of this nature. Saying things like this will not be tolerated. If Daddy catches others belittling you they will be dealt with, swiftly and definitively.

  I shrug my shoulders. This ‘rule’ is kind of…nice.

  #4.) Do not go in the Art Basel Prep room. All other rooms you are welcome to enter and work in.

  Art Basel is amazing, but those artists are out of my league, so I wouldn’t be intruding on their space anytime soon. Easy.

  #5.) Daddy can add new rules whenever he wants.

  Rule #5 erased any kind thoughts I was starting to have about him right out of my mind. It was that standard catch-all rule that anyone in a position of power always loved to include in any kind of Terms and Conditions.

  A part of me is furious that he dropped this off at my desk so nonchalantly. He may be the owner of the company, but I’m sure a judge somewhere wouldn’t find this very up-to-date with current workplace policies and procedures.

  But that furious part is suppressed by the curious part. The part that wants to know how he’ll hold his ground if he’s tested.

  Will three spanks become more spanks, or will they become…something else?

  And more importantly…will I like it?

  5

  Silas

  That evening

  I throw the car in park and toss the keys to the valet, who drops his cigarette like it’s a ticking time bomb and runs to the driver’s side like he’s been training for the Olympics.

  Scarlett waits patiently in the passenger side until I make my way to her, unbuckle her seat belt and help her out of the bucket seat in a way so the photographers outside the restaurant can’t sneak any unsavory photos up her skirt.

  Offering her my arm, I lead us to the entrance, where two members of the staff are holding the doors open for us like we’re royalty. It’s exactly the kind of entrance my little one deserves.

  “How was your day?” I ask, as soon we are seated at a special table no more than a minute later.

  “Extremely productive. I can’t believe I worked straight through lunch until seven p.m. I was…in a different headspace after this morning and I have to admit that today I produced some of my best work in years. Maybe ever.”

  I know. I was watching her, not in a stalker kind of way but to make sure my list of rules didn’t throw her off kilter. Does she need guidance and discipline? Absolutely. But if my hand is too heavy it could push her into a shell that she might not want to crawl out of for quite some time. Finding the right balance so my princess can grow and become the queen of the Miami art scene that she’s destined to be is everything to me. I need to be there to guide her and make sure her needs always come first, even if she doesn’t always understand my techniques.

  Thankfully, I was getting a better grip on hers.

  After I dropped off the rules I had one of our senior project managers show her around a little more, letting her know all areas of the floor were open for her to create in. Of course I picked a female to give her the tour. No way was another man coming close to what’s mine.

  After the tour I noticed she didn’t settle in at her desk and I went off looking for her, finding her in the kids playroom that our employees use when they can’t find a sitter for the day.

  Part of me was surprised, yet that surprise quickly turned to admiration as I watched her there on her hands and knees, bent over underneath a slide that couldn’t have been more than three feet high as she worked on a design with rapt attention, her tongue out as she did her thing all day long, in her own quirky way.

  And as I was about to see, apparently that wasn’t limited to just the office.

  “Do you know if they have any…coloring books here?”

  “Let me check, angel.”

  I motion for our waiter, and he quickly makes his way to
my side, where I discreetly make my request. Not a minute later he’s unwrapping a brand new sixty-four pack of crayons and a coloring book.

  Scarlett’s eyes light up and she swings her feet back and forth, and it’s only then that I realize her feet don’t actually touch the ground.

  “Do you need another seat?”

  She shakes her head no, undaunted by conversation, crossing her legs and practically becoming one with the chair.

  Seconds later she’s coloring a tiger pink and an elephant green, and I do everything I can to suppress a smile.

  Without taking her eyes off her coloring book she reaches for her water glass with bonded hands, taking it with the heels of her palms and bringing it to her lips to drink before sitting it back in place, as she goes right back to coloring.

  My initial impression that she needs a paternal figure is right, or so it seems. But now there’s a burning question in the back of my mind, one that hit me when I first saw her and one that I saw again today, standing out in her work.

  I need to make sure my hunch is right, but I also don’t want to jar her out of her mental space, especially here in public. I’ve worked with a lot of artists and know how shattering it can be to pull them out of a headspace they’re in when they’re not ready. It’s best to let this happen on her terms, not mine.

  “Sweetheart.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “What brought you to Miami?”

  “It has palm trees and pretty colored buildings and it’s warm.”

  I pause, bringing a finger to my temple.

  “Were there any other reasons?”

  “Yes, one more.”

  “Can you tell Daddy what the other reason is, angel?”

  “To find out what happened to my daddy, Daddy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I lean in closer trying to control my anticipation but my suddenly bouncy toe under the table is doing its best to give me away.

  “My mommy and my daddy used to live in Miami, but my daddy went crazy and my mommy left before I knew him.”

  “And now you’re trying to find him?”

  “Mommy said he died, but I’m not sure if mommy’s telling the truth or not. I think mommy hates his guts so she just told me that so I’d quit talking about him.”

  “Where’s your mommy now?”

  “She’s an angel.”

  I was getting in over my head way too fast, and I wasn’t qualified to go down this route, nor was it ethical to ask her questions like these when she was in this state. Maybe she wouldn’t want to share this kind of information if she was the feisty Scarlett I knew, and not the little girl that was sitting next to me.

  “I don’t know my daddy. His name isn’t on my birth certificate so all I know is that he used to live here and mommy says he’s dead. But I don’t trust her. Mommy liked to fib sometimes, especially about daddy.”

  “Okay, princess,” I say, needing to end this as I watched her draw a tiara around the elephant’s head before she busts out in giggles. “That’s enough. We can talk about something else.”

  “Good because talking about mommy makes me tired. I had to make all the decisions for both of us before she took too many of her bedtime pills and didn’t wake up.”

  Way too much information, but I was having a hard time getting her to stop talking while managing my rage. How could a parent do that, especially when they’d been blessed with such a little angel?

  She was my beauty, and I was to be her beast, but this was no Disney flick. This was real. This was as intricate as one of Lena Little’s books on Amazon, a resource I’d picked up last night as I tried to better understand the dynamic that was happening between us.

  As I watch her color it suddenly hits me that her art was a way to have the childhood she missed out on before. Anything at anytime and anyplace was her canvas. The ingredients to a masterpiece wasn’t the paint or the brushes or the pencils or the tools of whatever medium she chose to express herself in. The tool was her little space. And when she was in her little space she had fire in her eyes, passion in her soul, and love in her heart.

  “Are you afraid of spoiling me?” she asks, and I’m glad we’re off the topic of her childhood, or lack thereof, and back to the present.

  But what I’m not happy about is the seemingly nosy guests at the table a good fifteen feet from ours.

  I requested, and was given, the V.I.P. table, but although it’s apart from the rest of the guests, it’s in the same room.

  “As you’ve seen, I’m quite capable of handling spoiled little girls,” I reply, keeping my attention on who’s important.

  She giggles at my reply.

  “Yes, Daddy. Yes, you are.”

  “That’s it,” a man at the table I was just noticing says as he throws his napkin down on his plate and abruptly stands, his chair tumbling over backwards. “This is sick,” he says looking right at me.

  “What’s? Sick,” I snarl, my nostrils flaring as I bare my teeth.

  “Daddy and little girl? What’s wrong with you two? You should be in jail for that pedo b.s.” He turns back to his table. “Let’s get outta here, baby,” he says to his female companion.

  “Stop right there,” I command, recognizing this guy from TV. I’ve seen him playing professional football before, and he’s about to see my wrath.

  I move toward his table, locking my eyes on his as I prepare to teach this idiot a lesson.

  “You call your woman baby but it’s sick when I call mine little girl. I think that’s what scientists call failed logic, and if you fail to get outta my face in the next ten seconds this Daddy is gonna give you a spanking for acting all ornery in public, little boy,” I say, loud enough so some of the other tables who were eyeing us up strangely can here. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise to the entire restaurant.

  “That’s it old man,” he says turning toward me.

  I crack my neck and roll up my sleeves and as he takes another step I push my sleeves farther up my arms, glad that he’s the aggressor so when he winds up on the street on his face I’m not gonna get hauled out of here for aggravated assault. Not that it would have bothered me, but no way I’m leaving Scarlett here in her current little state.

  He charges at me just like a football player would as if he’s trying to move a blocker, but this block head doesn’t realize all the force he’s created can easily work against him, as I wrap him up in a headlock and pivot on the ball of my foot, turning him toward the exit.

  But then I pause, squeezing tighter as he struggles, but without oxygen going to his pea sized brain that’s not going to last long.

  I maneuver him back so he’s facing my table.

  “You see that woman? My woman.”

  “Let me go,” he gurgles, his face turning redder by the second.

  “I don’t want you looking at her, thinking about her, or whispering about her, or us, ever again. As far as you’re concerned she doesn’t exist. And if you even think of challenging what I’m telling you, ordering you, you won’t exist. At all.”

  He grunts as I cut off his air supply a bit more, but making sure not to allow him the privilege of blacking out before he apologizes to Scarlett.

  “Now apologize.”

  He mumbles something incoherent, so I loosen up my grip, but fortunately for him he’s wise enough not to take the opportunity to try a counter-maneuver.

  “Say. You’re. Sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” he spits out.

  “Like you mean it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says louder, and I pivot, leading him to the front exit with my arm still wrapped tightly around his neck.

  Once there I toss him in front for everyone to see and wipe my hands, heading back into the restaurant to sounds of him coughing and choking.

  He’ll be alright. If anything he got off lucky.

  By the time I’m back at our table the other table has already cleared out, most likely being ushered out the back by the staff.
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br />   And my suspicions are confirmed seconds later.

  “Thank you,” my waiter says. “That guy’s a royal pain in the ass and he never tips more than rounding up to the nearest dollar, thinking it’s our privilege to serve a ‘celebrity.’”

  “Oh, he’ll be a celebrity all right. Once those pictures hit the Internet in about five minutes his teammates will never let him live it down.”

  “We can call the police and have him arrested if you’d like,” the waiter offers.

  “Won't’ be necessary. The damage to his ego should be more than enough.” I pause. “Now if you’ll please excuse me.”

  The waiter makes himself disappear and I lean in close to Scarlett. “You okay, little artist?”

  She squeezes her lips into a small line and nods her head, but I’m not buying it. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Remember you have to always be honest with Daddy. It’s a rule and even if it wasn’t, Daddy will find out.” I take a breath, letting that thought settle in. “Now, do you want to tell Daddy what’s wrong?”

  “Am I embarrassing?”

  Anger rushes through me and now I wish I really did strangle that guy until he passed out. “Nothing we do together will ever embarrass me. What we have is new, but I already know it’s perfect. You belong to me, little angel. Maybe other people won’t understand, but then again many people don’t understand a lot of things? Art, us, why you like sparkly hair clips so much…”

  A smile appears out of nowhere quickly followed by her arms wrapping around my neck. I pull her onto my lap and give her a kiss on the forehead.

  “Can we go home, Daddy?”

  “Waiter? Check, please.”

  6

  Scarlett

  “You don’t have to walk me to my door,” I say, but Silas completely ignores me.

  He lifts me from the car as if I weigh nothing more than a body pillow and gently sets me down on my feet before escorting me toward the front steps.