Daddy’s Orders (Silver Fox Daddies)
Chapter 22

Goddamn, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.

Emily stood before me with an expression of bewilderment on her face. She had on not a drop of makeup, but with a face like hers that didn’t matter one bit. I’d always preferred the natural look, anyway. She wore a pair of pink sleeping shorts and a tight T-shirt that hugged her braless breasts. My cock stiffened, and I wanted nothing more in that moment than to bend her over the bed and fill her full.

“My father?” The worry on her face was intense. It didn’t take a genius to see that the mere mention of her father had put her into a tizzy. “Please don’t tell me he’s here on the island. I don’t know if I can handle seeing him in person.”

I shook my head. “Nope. If you decide to talk to him, it’ll be on Zoom.”

“Zoom? What’s that?”

I chuckled at the reminder of how sheltered she was.

“Never mind,” she said. “When does he want to talk?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

She pursed her lips, bouncing her leg up and down as she thought the matter over. Emily folded her arms under her breasts, pushing them up in a way that made it nearly impossible not to stare.

“Can I have a moment?” she asked. “Like, in the bathroom. I need to shower and I haven’t even brushed my teeth.”

“Sure. Take your time.”

“It’ll only be a minute,” she said. “Just need to think this over. You can wait here if you want.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Emily flashed me an uneasy smile before rushing into the bathroom and shutting the door. Seconds later, the noise of rushing shower water sounded.

I stepped out onto the balcony, spotting Emily’s barely-touched breakfast. A carafe of coffee was there with an empty mug. I poured myself a cup as I leaned onto the railing and watched the surf come in, the conversation I’d had with Charles only a few moments ago still fresh in my mind.

“You’ve got three seconds to tell me what the fuck happened, Charles.”

I’d been in my office, the call coming through my computer. He’d called me with the video turned off—I was almost certain that he didn’t want me to see him sweat. Being the coward that he was he probably didn’t want to make eye contact, either.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck happened!”

I chuckled. “You think I’m going to buy that? If you’re going to try to sell me a load of bullshit, at least try to put a creative spin on it.”

“There’s no creative spin to put on it because I’m telling you the truth, boring as it might be. I have no fucking idea who those men were, and why they were trying to get to my little girl.”

“So, let me get this straight—Marta connived her way onto my island working with a team of men whose identities you have no clue of.”

“That’s what happened. Listen, I’m just as shocked as you are. Marta’s been working with me for years, longer than Emily’s even been alive. She was the last person I figured would stab me in the back like this.”

“And you had no clue she had ulterior motives when she told you she wanted to come to the island?”

“Why would I? She’d told me she wanted to be with Emily, to make the transition a little easier to handle. Seemed perfectly fuckin’ reasonable to me.”

I wanted to chew him out, to keep telling him that he was full of shit, maybe even threaten him a little, until he finally gave up the act and told me what was really happening. However, strange as it might’ve seemed, part of me actually believed him. He’d called me, and I’d been able to detect the fear in his voice from the first word he’d uttered. Either he was a hell of an actor on top of being a total scumbag, or Charles was telling me the truth.

“Why the hell would I do this?” he asked, as if sensing my conflict. “The whole point of this arrangement was to smooth things over with you, to prove to you that you can trust me. Why would I jeopardize that?”

Another good point. Did it make sense that he’d put his daughter at risk in that way?

“Ah ha!” he said. “See? I can tell by your silence that you’re thinking it over. You know I’m right!”

“Don’t tell me what I am or am not thinking, Charles. Even if, and I mean if, you’re not the one responsible for this, the fact of the matter is that a woman under your employ put the lives of me and my staff, not to mention Emily, at risk. One of the first rules of running any sort of organization is that ultimate responsibility lies with the person on top. In the case of my company, it’s me. In the case of your household staff, it’s you.”

“I get it, I do, I really do. And trust me when I say that I’m going to replace Marta and get to the bottom of what happened.”

“I take it that means you haven’t heard from her yet.”

“Nope. Dropped off the face of the fuckin’ earth. But I’ve got ways of tracking people down.”

“For your sake, I hope you do.”

He sighed. “I want to talk to her. I want to talk to my daughter.”

“Funny thing about that. Emily hasn’t once mentioned any desire to speak to you.”

Charles snorted. “Little brat, little ungrateful brat. It doesn’t matter what she wants. I want to talk to my daughter and make sure she’s OK.”

“She’s a guest on my island at the moment, and I’m not into making my guests do anything they don’t want to do.”

“Please, Stone, I just want to talk to her.”

“I’m going to hang up now. Then I’m going to go talk to Emily and tell her that you want to speak to her. If she wants to speak to you, I’ll call you on this line. Understand?”

With that, I’d ended the call.

I took a long, slow sip of my coffee, my eyes still on the water. The bathroom door opened behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to watch as Emily strode into the bedroom, her hair slicked back and a towel wrapped around her body just above her breasts.

She didn’t give me a single look as she got dressed, pulling on a pair of light blue panties and stripping her towel off, exposing her beautiful breasts for a moment as she put on a white bra. As much as I was enjoying the view, I decided to give her a bit of privacy as she finished getting dressed.

“Hey.” A few moments later, she stepped out onto the balcony. Her hair was still slicked back, highlighting her stunning face. She wore a simple dress, white with a baby-blue floral pattern. Though all I could think about were the bra and panties she had on underneath.

“You think about it?”

She nodded. “I did. First, I want to know what the hell he wanted.”

“According to him, he wanted to make sure you were alright.”

She let out a loud, but humorless laugh. “Not a chance in hell he gives a shit about that. Well, aside from caring in the way someone would about property they were worried might’ve been damaged. I kind of wish you’d told him to go fuck himself.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s an expression I don’t think I’ve heard you use.”

Emily formed a sheepish grin, as if she were in trouble.

“Something about him brings it out of me, I guess.” She cleared her throat and went on. “Really, there’s no way he cares if I’m alright. Never cared a day in his life. I’ve always been more like… like a prop to him, something he has to maintain. He’s never let me have friends, never let me experience the world. Instead, he’s always treated me more like a prisoner or one of those harem women.”

She let out another dry laugh, this one somehow even more mirthless than the last.

“You know, the other day Marianne was listening to music, something I’d never heard before. I asked who it was, and she was shocked I didn’t already know. She said it was someone named Taylor Swift.”

“One of Marianne’s favorites. Not my cup of tea.”

Emily’s eyes flashed. “See! Even you knew who she was. So, I go on Wikipedia and it turns out she’s one of the most famous singers in the world. And I’d never heard of her.”

Her face turned a deeper shade of red as her anger grew.

“My dad’s a liar and a bastard, a real piece of shit.” Her words dripped with venom. “Did I ever tell you about the two times I tried to rebel against him?”

“No.”

She let out an amused snort. “Tried to sneak out once when I was fifteen. Just wanted to see what the world was like outside of my prison of a house or whatever boarding school he’d shipped me off to. Anyway, he caught me, took away my books, my journals, and even Marta. I was a kid, so I of course tried again a few months later. That time, he took all of that away again, and hit me.”

Now it was my turn to feel anger. Just the thought of that prick laying his hands on Emily was enough to make me want to jump on my private plane and kick his ass in person. The conversation wasn’t about me, however. I set my anger aside and focused on her.

She kept her eyes on the ocean, a single tear trickling down her face.

“You don’t have to talk to him.” I wiped the tear away with my thumb, gently turning her toward me. “And when I say that I mean you don’t have to talk to him ever again.”

Her eyes widened as it dawned on her what I was saying.

“You don’t mean that. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it.”

Emily pursed her lips and nodded. “Thank you. I mean that. Thank you for making me feel safe.”

The anger subsided for a moment, replaced by the sentiment that I’d actually done the right thing back when I’d accepted Charles’s barbaric proposal. Emily hugged me tightly, and I returned the hug, wrapping her in my arms and holding her close.

After a few moments, she stepped back.

“You know, I think I actually do want to talk to him.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t meant it.” She offered a small smile and a wink as she echoed my words back to me. “You can listen in, if you want.”

I shook my head. “This is between you and your father. Come with me.”