I picked up his phone anyway.
I told myself I was just going to look at the name. Just the contact’s name, nothing else, which would clear the whole thing up immediately and that would be the end of it. I swiped up on the screen. I realized then that it required his face, which I did not have, so it didn’t open, which meant I was now holding his locked phone having accomplished absolutely nothing except the invasion of his privacy.
“What are you doing?”
I startled so hard the phone slipped. I caught it against my knee and looked up to find Jaxon standing in the doorway, watching me with an expression that was very, very still.
I opened my mouth.
“I saw a message come in,” I said, which was true. “I was just?—”
“You were going through my phone,” he said.
“I wasn’t, it’s locked, I couldn’t even?—”
“Keri.”
I stopped.
He walked to the nightstand and placed his phone face down on it with a quiet deliberation that made my stomach drop three floors. He looked at me for a long moment with that a sort of measuring expression that wasn’t angry, but not exactly pleased either.
“You want to tell me what you thought you saw?” he said.
“A message from someone called M,” I said, deciding that honesty was now my only viable strategy. “It said something about dinner on Tuesday and that she didn’t know yet, and… and I—” I stopped. Pressed my lips together. “I reacted.”
“You reacted,” he repeated.
“I know it was stupid.”
“What you know and what you did are apparently two separate things,” he said. “Give me my phone.”
I handed it to him. He unlocked it, turned it around, and showed me the full message thread.
The contact wasMargaux. I knew that was his restaurant manager. The message read:Dinner Tuesday confirmed, she doesn’t know yet. We’ve got the private room reserved, the chef is planning the tasting menu. It’s going to be perfect for her birthday.
I looked at it for a moment.
Then I looked up at him.
My stomach clenched terribly.
“You were planning a birthday dinner,” I said. “For me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And I picked up your phone.”
“Yes.”
“Because I thought?—”
“I know what you thought,” he said. His voice was even. “And I understand why you might have, for approximately one second, before your common sense should have overridden it.” He took the phone back and set it down. “It didn’t.”
“No,” I said quietly.
He stood and walked to the large mahogany wardrobe on the far side of the room. He opened the lower drawer and when he turned around, he had the paddle in his hand.
Daddy’s Little Girl.
