Page 52 of King of Temptation

Yes, Daddy. The words trembled on her lips, but she held them back. As she’d told Boone in no uncertain terms, Brody O’Rourke was not her Daddy.

He wasn’t her anything.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she accepted the phone he held out for her, watching as he turned and headed for the curved staircase that led up to the next floor. Once he was out of sight, she steeled herself for the confrontation with her father and punched in his number.

“Hello? Marigold? Is that you?”

The panic in her father’s voice had tears welling in her eyes. “Yeah, Dad. It’s me.”

“Oh, god. Where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m… safe.” Despite their heroic rescue, she wasn’t sure her father could handle knowing she was holed up with one of the O’Rourkes just then. “And no, I’m not hurt.”

Other than the cut on my neck from where some psycho tried to slice my throat open.

Pressing her lips together against a whimper, she listened to her father’s hitching breaths.

“Good. That’s… good.”

Silence stretched between them, more strained than she could ever remember, raking over her already raw nerves.

“I’m sorry.” The words slipped out of her on a whisper before she even registered the desire to say them.

Her father sighed, the sound so weary it had the guilty rock in her stomach growing even heavier. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have said the things I said to you last night. When I found out you’d been taken, all I could think about was how those were the last words I’d ever said to you. And I don’t know how I would have lived with myself if that had been true.”

She let the tears come then, let them slip silently down her cheeks. “You were right to be angry. I… God, I fucked this up so badly, Dad, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“We’ll figure it out. Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

Her gaze flicked to the stairs. Even if she could have given him the address, she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Brody when he was so… shattered.

“I’m, ah, gonna stay here tonight.”

Another silence fell, even more strained than before. “Where, exactly, is ‘here’?”

“With… a friend.”

“Marigold.”

God, she hated this. Hated feeling so fucking torn between the man who had raised her and the man she was pretty sure she was falling in love with.

If she wasn’t there already.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, suddenly so tired she could barely stand up straight. “I know you hate this and I know you don’t trust them. But they didn’t cause any of this. I did. So if you want to be pissed at someone, be pissed at me. Leave Brody and his family out of this.”

“None of this would have happened to you if they hadn’t started a goddamn war, Marigold.”

“I know you believe that.” And she was too goddamned tired to try and convince him otherwise just then. “Look, I’ve got to go. It’s been a long night and I just want some sleep. I’ll check in again as soon as I get a new phone. Bye, Dad.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, she ended the call, then stared down at the device in her hand. It was still unlocked, meaning she had access to what was likely a treasure trove of information on Brody and his family.

But he’d trusted her not to violate his privacy. Enough that he’d actually left her alone with the phone when he could have easily waited and hovered over her while she’d talked to her father. And the thought of abusing that trust made her stomach ache so much she immediately hit the button to put the device to sleep.

Using what little energy she had left, she dragged herself up the stairs, following the sound of running water toward Brody’s bedroom.

She’d meant to just leave his phone on the dresser and go crawl into the guest bed he’d mentioned. But the sound of the shower drew her like the proverbial moth to a flame and before she knew it, she was standing in his bathroom, watching him.